MH17 Crash: Reports Confirm Malaysia Airlines Flight Was Shot Down

Preliminary reports from the Dutch Safety Board on the causes of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in eastern Ukraine in July with 298 people on board, confirmed it was downed by "high-energy objects" fired from the outside. Preliminary findings indicate that experts had not found indices of "technical malfunctions" and that the plane exploded in the air. "The final report will be released in the summer of 2015," the board spokeswoman, Sara Vernooij, told Efe. Reports also confirmed that the aircraft for flight MH17 was flying in "unrestricted airspace" when the tragic incident took place.

The Boeing 777-200 exploded in the air probably as a consequence of structural damage caused by "a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from the outside," according to the report. Additionally, "photographs of some of the wreckage showed that a number of pieces contained multiple holes and indentations," the report continued. Moreover, it added that, although experts have not been able to recover those pieces for forensic examination, "images taken of the wreckage indicate, the material around the holes was deformed in a manner consistent with being punctured by high-energy objects."



The Malaysian airliner took off from Amsterdam this past July 17 and was heading for Kuala Lumpur, carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members who all died in the tragic incident. The report from the Dutch Safety Board also confirmed that most of those killed, 193, were of Dutch nationality, and other passengers were from Malaysia (43), Australia (27), Indonesia (12), United Kingdom (10), Germany (4), Belgium (4), the Philippines (3), Canada (1) and New Zealand (1).