MH17 crash report due
Dutch air crash investigators have announced they will release next Tuesday a preliminary report into what brought down flight MH17 over east Ukraine, killing 298 passengers.
“The preliminary report will present factual information based on sources available to the Dutch Safety Board (OVV),” investigators said in a statement on Thursday.
The primary crash site which came close to houses.
The highly-anticipated first report will be released on the OVV’s website at 6pm AEST on Tuesday, but there will be “no press conference”, it said.
“In the months to come further investigation is needed before the final report is written,” added the OVV, which earlier said it hoped to have a final report “within a year”.
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The Netherlands is in charge of probing the crash of the Malaysia airlines Boeing 777, which exploded over strife-torn Ukraine on July 17, killing all on board, including 193 Dutch citizens and 38 Australian nationals and residents.
The West has blamed Russian-backed separatists for shooting down MH17, while Moscow blames Kiev.
Rescuers carry bodies of passengers on a stretcher from the crash site.
Air crash investigators returned to The Hague from Ukraine in early August without being able to visit the crash site due to the deteriorating security situation in the country’s volatile east.
Ukrainian air crash experts – who now form part of the OVV team – did however visit the scene shortly after the crash.
The aircraft’s black boxes were shipped to Farnborough in Britain to be examined by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.
The search for body parts, however, has been suspended since early August because of heavy fighting between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels in the area.
The OVV has already announced that its preliminary report will include not only the black box findings, but also information gathered from satellite and other images, and radar information.
In a question-and-answer section on its website, the OVV posed the question whether it would be publicly releasing the content from the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, which comprise the two black boxes.
The answer given by the board was: “Investigative materials and sources of information used by the OVV in its investigations are protected by law.
“Only information relevant to determining the cause of the MH17 crash will be included in the final report.
“The available investigative information will not be released publicly in their entirety, except for what is published in the final report.”