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15th October 2015
N e w s a d e m ic .co m ™
- British English edition
page
11
USA and opposition leaders in B e
larus said that this was the wrong
thing to do. Some people now think
that the EU is trying to get M r Lu
kashenko to change from working
with Russia to working with Euro
pean countries. □
F
in a l
MH17
report
The Dutch Safety Board is an or
ganisation in the Netherlands. Its
job is to investigate serious acci
dents that happen on land, sea or
in the air. On 13 th October, Dutch
Safety Board officials gave a pres
entation about what happened to
M alaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
They also released a report on the
crash. It contains the details o f the
organisation’s 15-month accident
investigation. The report concludes
that a Russian missile brought down
the passenger plane.
Room with the reconstructed aircraft used fo r the
M H 17 presentation (Dutch Safety Board)
Flight MH17 took off from
Schiphol Airport, in Amsterdam, the
capital o f the Netherlands, on 17th
July last year. It was flying to Kuala
Lumpur, M alaysia’s capital city. On
board were 283 passengers and 15
crew. Two-thirds o f the passengers
were from the Netherlands. The re
mainder came from Malaysia, Aus
tralia, Indonesia, the UK, Belgium,
Germany, and several othercountries.
Eighty children were on the plane.
W hen the plane was flying over
Ukraine it exploded. At that time,
the aircraft was above 9,750 metres
(32,000 feet). The burning wreck
age landed in fields not far from the
city o f Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
Everyone died.
Fighting had broken out in east
ern Ukraine before the incident. The
conflict is between Ukrainian gov
ernment forces and several armed
groups. These groups are known
as separatists, or rebels. They come
from two areas in eastern Ukraine
called Donetsk and Luhansk. The
rebel leaders want the Donetsk and
Luhansk regions to become self
governing. A ceasefire was arranged
eight months ago. Yet fighting has
continued in some areas. The Rus
sian government has been support
ing the rebel groups.
A few days before the passen
ger aircraft crashed, the separatists
shot down several Ukrainian air
force planes. Many people sus
pected that these planes were hit
by a Buk air defence surface-to-
air missile (SAM). These weapon
systems are made in Russia. SAMs
are designed to bring down military
planes that fly high in the sky. Soon
after MH17 crashed, many people
accused the Russian government of
giving these missiles to the rebels.
Russian officials insisted that this
was untrue. They said a Ukrainian
air force plane had probably shot
down the passenger plane.
The Dutch Safety Board invited
the relatives o f those who died in
the crash to the presentation. B e
hind the speakers was a reconstruc
tion o f the front o f the plane. Parts
o f the aircraft found at the crash site
in Ukraine were taken back to the
Netherlands. They were attached to
a steel frame.
There were many small holes in
the front o f the plane. These, the
investigators said, were caused by
small metal objects, or shrapnel,
travelling at very high speed. Buk
missiles are guided by radar. They
are designed to explode when close
to the target aircraft. The explod
ing missile creates a cloud o f high
speed shrapnel. The large amount
o f shrapnel means there is a greater
chance o f a plane’s wings and en
gines being hit. Buk missiles can
hit planes flying above 9,750 metres
(32,000 feet).
M alaysian Airlin e s pa sse ng e r plane, s im ila r to
the one that crashed in eastern U kraine
The company that makes Buk
missiles arranged a presentation in
Russia on the same day. It claimed
to have done tests that show the
plane was not hit by one o f its mod
ern missile systems. However, com
pany officials said that the plane
might have been brought down by
one o f its older versions. These, the
officials explained, were no longer
used in Russia. However, this ver
sion o f the Buk missile is still used
by Ukrainian government forces.
The Dutch officials said that the
plane was definitely hit by a Buk
missile. Yet, they could not find out
who fired it. They said that it must
have been launched within a 320
square kilometre (124 square mile)
area. At the time o f the crash, rebel
groups controlled all o f this area.
The Safety Board officials also
criticised aviation authorities in
Ukraine and several other countries.
These authorities decide if planes
can fly at high altitude over war
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