KIEV, Ukraine -- Dutch detectives have concluded that a Russian-made surface-to-air missile shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over war-racked eastern Ukraine last year.
Flight MH17 was flying at 33,000 feet over war-racked eastern Ukraine, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, when it was shot out of the sky on July 17, 2014. Passengers' bodies and debris from the plane fell over three villages outside of Donetsk, the regional capital.
While confirming what had been widely speculated -- the damage to the aircraft was consistent with a mid-air strike by an exploding Russian-made Buk SA-11 missile -- the report does not outrightly blame Russia for shooting down the jetliner.
The Dutch Safety Board, which led the 15-month international investigation into the disaster, presented its findings on Tuesday at the Gilze-Rijen air base in The Netherlands, where it showed a video reenactment of events and display a partially reconstructed flight MH17 made from debris gathered at the sprawling crash site in Ukraine.
Robby Oehlers, whose cousin Daisy was among those killed when the Boeing 777 was shot down, told the Associated Press it was "as quiet as a mouse" as Dutch Safety Board chairman Tjibbe Joustra explained the conclusions of the 15-month investigation to family.
According to the report, the Buk missile exploded some three feet away from the upper left side of the cockpit. About 800 fragments pierced the front of the plane, causing the cockpit and the business class section to separate. The rest of the plane disintegrated as it fell to earth.
Investigators examined whether any of the passengers may still have been alive after the missile struck the Boeing 777. One of flight MH17's passengers was found with an oxygen mask around his neck.
Relatives of victims will take some solace in knowing that the report concluded that all the passengers died or lost consciousness as soon as the missile hit the jet.
"It is likely that occupants were barely able to comprehend their situation. in the course of the crash, the occupants were exposed to extreme factors," reads the report.
Joustra said during Tuesday's presentation that the plane should never have been flying over an area where an armed conflict was taking place, adding that Ukraine should have closed its airspace to civil aviation.
"Nobody gave any thought to the risk," Joustra said. "Ukraine did not close its airspace. Ukraine's reason was there was not reason enough. We concluded there was sufficient reason to close airspace above that part of the country."
Who is to blame?
The report stops short of assigning blame, providing only partial answers to the grieving families of the 298 people, a majority of whom were Dutch, killed when the plane went down.
A criminal investigation by the Dutch prosecutor, in cooperation with investigators from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine, is due later this year or early next year. It is expected to answer the question of who is responsible for shooting down MH17.
Western governments and Kiev have accused Russian-backed separatists or Russian soldiers of shooting down the passenger jet after mistaking it for a Ukrainian military aircraft. Kiev has gone as far as to say the downing was a planned "terrorist act."
#MH17 was a planned terrorist act that occurred on Russian-militant-held territory – Vice PM Hennadiy Zubko— The Bankova (@TheBankova) October 13, 2015
Mounting evidence points to Russian involvement in the disaster. UK-based investigative outfit Bellingcat tracked a Buk missile system to Russia's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade. The missile launcher was part of a military convoy that left from Kursk, Russia and then crossed the Ukrainian border, traveling to Donetsk before making its way to the city of Snizhne.
Video footage shows it moving under its own power in the direction of field near the village of Chervonyi Zhovten, a few miles south of Snizhne. Bellingcat's findings point to the field as the location of the missile launch at 4:20 p.m. local time on July 17 that downed MH17.
Mashable's own investigation also points to this location as being the site of the launch.
The Russian version of events
Moscow has blamed Kiev for the downing and offered two of its own theories: that a Ukrainian fight jet shot down the airliner, or that a Buk missile found only in Ukraine's arsenal downed the jet after being fired from a government-held area. It went so far as to doctor satellite images in an attempt to point the finger at Kiev, according to Bellingcat research.
Almaz-Antey, the Russian state-controlled defense company that manufactures Buk missile systems, went further, exploding one of its missiles near a decommissioned Russian-made IL-86 plane to prove that one of its modern rockets is not responsible for downing the Malaysia airliner.
In a flashy press conference in Moscow ahead of the Dutch presentation, the company showed slides and videos in an attempt to try to convince the world that Russia didn't shoot down MH17. It's own investigation contradicted the conclusions from the Dutch probe.
Almaz-Antey focused primarily on the missile launch location, saying it was fired not from Snizhe, but a village further west that was under Ukrainian control at the time.
Journalists and situation maps from July 17, 2014, however, show the area was also under separatist control.
Russia's state-sponsored media unleashed a full-on "information offensive" ahead of the Dutch report in an attempt to muddy the waters.
RT, formerly, Russia Today, has spent significant time and resources going after Bellingcat and its founder, Eliot Higgins. The network has said the internationally recognized Higgins, who often analyzes open source data from his home office, is little more than a laid-off, unqualified "clerk" and a couch potato.
The Dutch Safety Board's full report is available here.
The board also released a video detailing its findings.
Some reporting by the Associated Press.