On
this date, 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777, crashes
near the border of Ukraine and Russia after being shot down. All 298 people on
board are killed.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17)[a]
was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down
on 17 July 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. Contact with
the Boeing
777-200ER airliner was lost about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and crashed near Torez in Donetsk
Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border. The crash
occurred during the Battle in Shakhtarsk Raion, part of the
ongoing war in Donbass, in an area controlled by the Donbass People's Militia.
According to American intelligence sources,
the plane was mistakenly shot down by pro-Russian insurgents using a Buk surface-to-air missile (SA-11) fired from
the territory which they controlled. Their judgement was based on sensors that
traced the path of the missile, analysis of fragment patterns in the wreckage,
voice print analysis of conversations in which separatist militants claimed
credit for the strike, as well as photos and other data from social media sites.
On 13 October 2015, the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) released a final report
on their investigation into the incident, concluding that the airliner was
downed by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air 9M38-series missile with 9N314M
warhead launched from Eastern Ukraine.
The Russian government blamed the Ukrainian
government for the incident, saying that Ukraine was responsible for the crash
because it happened in Ukrainian airspace. Immediately after the crash, a post
appeared on the VKontakte social media profile attributed to Russian
Colonel Igor
Girkin, leader of the Donbass separatists, claiming responsibility for
shooting down an AN-26 near Torez, but later the same day, the
separatists denied involvement, and the post was removed. In November 2014, UK
based investigative collective Bellingcat
said that Russian-backed separatists were in control of a Buk missile launcher
on 17 July and transported it from Donetsk to Snizhne. They
later claimed to have proven that the Buk identified near the crash site was
unlike any Ukrainian-used Buks and that it was elements of the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade
that shot down the plane after crossing into Ukraine. In May 2016, Bellingcat
said they had identified the launcher used as unit 332 based in Kursk, Russia. Their
analyses were largely based on examination of photos in social media and other
open-source information.
The Ukrainian government stated that the
missile was launched by "Russian professionals and coordinated from
Russia". In October 2014, the German Federal Intelligence Service
reportedly concluded that the plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatists
using a captured Ukrainian Buk system. Malaysia proposed a United Nations
resolution to set up an international tribunal to prosecute those suspected of
being behind the downing of the plane. The proposal gained a majority on the UN
Security Council (11 countries voting for it, 3 abstaining), but it was vetoed
by Russia. The crash is also the deadliest airliner shootdown
incident, as well as Malaysia
Airlines' deadliest incident and its second of the year, after the disappearance
of Flight 370 four months earlier.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
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