By Robert Wall and Andy Pasztor
Air accident investigators probing the downing of Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine published their first
definitive account of the accident--drawing from analysis of the
plane's onboard cockpit and data recorders and other external
sources--but coming to no new conclusions other than definitively
stating the plane was shot down.
Investigators said high-energy objects struck the Boeing 777 and
caused the plane to break apart midflight, consistent with the
now-widely held view the plane was brought down by a sophisticated
antiaircraft weapon, which would have detonated near the plane,
showering it with shrapnel at close range.
The preliminary accident report published Tuesday notes that
investigators found no technical faults and no sign the pilots sent
a distress call. What is still unknown--and what aircraft accident
investigators won't be able to clear up--is who fired the missile:
Russian backed militants operating in the area, as Ukraine alleges,
or Ukraine's own military, as Russia charges.
Separate from the air accident investigation, Dutch officials
also have opened a criminal investigation into the apparent
shootdown of Flight 17, which had 193 Dutch citizens aboard when it
went down. Dutch prosecutors are gathering evidence and hope to
file criminal charges about who fired the missile in Dutch courts.
Moreover, Dutch plaintiffs' lawyers separately plan to file civil
suits on behalf of the relatives of the 298 people killed once
further evidence is released.
Air accident investigators issued their report with almost no
access to the crash site, which is highly unusual for a crash on
land, and said they relied on photographs rather than recovered
wreckage in reaching their preliminary findings. Rebels in the
area--and heavy fighting--have kept most investigators away from
the site.
However, investigators did take possession of the plane's black
boxes and were able to analyze a host of external data, including
radio communication, radar and other flight data.
"The initial results of the investigation point towards an
external cause of the MH17 crash," said Tjibbe Joustra, chairman of
the Dutch Safety Board, which published the interim report on the
crash.
The 34-page report is the first official publication on the
cause of the incident. The Dutch group is leading the probe that
also involves representatives from the U.S., U.K. and International
Civil Aviation Organization.
There is no evidence of a technical fault, the report said. The
plane's pilots issued no distress call, according to investigators,
and their last communication with air-traffic controls, involving
routine acknowledgment of a route change, occurred about seven
seconds before the onboard recorders stopped working.
The Boeing 777 was brought down on July 17 while flying at
33,000 feet from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur killing all 298 people
onboard. The U.S. and Ukraine accuse Russian separatist rebels of
shooting down the plane with a sophisticated antiaircraft missile.
Russia denies its allies were involved.
The report says three other jetliners flew over the same general
airspace around the time Flight 17 went down, but those crews
weren't able to provide investigators with any relevant
information.
Details of air-traffic control transmissions reveal that
personnel at a Ukraine radar facility tried in vain for some 16
minutes to contact Flight 17. Russian controllers had expected the
plane to contact them via radio just as its crew stopped
communicating. Checking radar images, a Russian controller told a
Ukrainian counterpart: "It seems that its target started falling
apart." Then the Russian controller reiterated, "we see
nothing."
Oleg Storchevoi, deputy head of Rosaviatsia, Russia's air-safety
regulator, told state television Tuesday that investigators would
need to do more work to ascertain the cause of the crash and
complained that the probe had lost valuable time.
The report "is preliminary and is just the beginning of a long,
painstaking process," he said, adding that further investigation of
the crash site and wreckage, among other materials, would be vital.
"Without this information, it's impossible to talk even about
relatively preliminary conclusions about the cause of the
accident," Mr. Storchevoi said.
Separatist leaders reiterated Tuesday their denials of any
involvement in the crash, saying the report confirmed their claims
that the plane was downed by Kiev's forces in an effort to
discredit the rebels and their supporters in Russia.
However, reports by Russian state media that a Ukrainian combat
plane was in the area and could have shot down Flight 17 weren't
supported by the safety investigators, with radar data showing
there were only a few other airlines in the area at the time.
The downing escalated western efforts to impose sanctions on
Russia for its involvement in Ukraine. Russia has imposed
retaliatory sanctions and said it may bar western airlines for
using its airspace on heavily trafficked flights to Asia.
Accident investigators have said they would not seek to
establish culpability. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on
Saturday said intelligence reports on the downing of the plane are
"pretty conclusive."
The Dutch-led group said the jetliner was "pierced in numerous"
places. "The pattern of damage to the aircraft fuselage and the
cockpit is consistent with that which may be expected from a large
number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from
outside," the Dutch Safety Board said. The findings are consistent
with a missile strike. A missile warhead creates shrapnel to
destroy its target.
The objects that struck the plane are likely to have led to a
loss of structural integrity of the Boeing 777 and an in-flight
break up, the board said. "This also explains the abrupt end to the
data registration on the recorders, the simultaneous loss of
contact with air traffic control and the aircraft's disappearance
from radar," it said in the report.
Ukrainians have alleged that only a trained unit could operate
the kind of sophisticated missile system capable of shooting down
the jet and argue Russian soldiers must have provided training to
rebels. The Ukrainians claim that a three-vehicle convoy including
the missile system and related equipment left Ukraine across the
border to Russia shortly after the shoot down.
Investigators said they found remnants of the cockpit and front
section of the fuselage in the area closest to the last recorded
position of the jet, suggesting those portions may have been
severed from the rest of the plane.
Before it was hit, the jet was flying at cruise power and "all
indications regarding the operation of the engines were normal,"
according to the report.
The final report is due to be published within a year of the
accident, the Dutch Safety Board said, adding it expected more
evidence to become available.
An interim report is typically issued a month after a plane
crashes, but the Flight 17 report was delayed because investigators
were unable to reach the crash site amid fighting between Ukrainian
government troops and the pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine has said
Russian troops also are involved in the fighting, a charge Moscow
denies.
The crash report draws on information gleaned from the so called
black boxes, which record conversations in the cockpit and store
data on the aircraft's systems. Britain's Air Accident
Investigations Branch extracted the information from the units that
were damaged in the crash but still contained useful information.
The devices, that were in the hands of the rebels for days before
being turned over, weren't tampered with, the Dutch Safety Board
said.
There were no indications of aural alerts on the cockpit voice
recorder, the board said, and the flight data recorder also didn't
indicate anything was wrong with the plane. Both recording devices
cut off at the same time indicating power was cut
instantaneously.
The safety experts, who were recalled from Ukraine last month
amid problems reaching the crash site, also have been examining
video and photographic material for clues. Most of the analysis has
been conducted in The Hague.
Accident investigators said the final report would also explore
why Flight 17 was cleared to fly through airspace where days
earlier a military transport plane flying at lower altitude was
shot down. Ukraine had imposed a limited flight ban in the wake of
the downing of the military plane, though the Malaysia Airlines jet
traveled at an altitude declared safe and in airspace used by other
carriers.
The downing of Flight 17 has heightened concerns among airlines
about where they fly. Most airlines have stopped operating over
Syria and Iraq amid worries that clashes on the ground could
threaten flights.
Margaret Coker and Gregory L. White contributed to this
article.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com and Andy Pasztor at
andy.pasztor@wsj.com
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