MH17 Updates:

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: Passengers 'Conscious' During Crash as One Wore Oxygen Mask International Business Times 9 October 2014

Preliminary Dutch report offers nothing new

9 September 2014

The first official report on the fatal 17 July 2014 crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the Ukraine-Russia border concludes what many already suspected: It was struck in mid-air by "high-energy objects from outside the aircraft."

But the preliminary report released by the Dutch Safety Board on Tuesday did not say that the plane was hit by a missile, and it did not point the finger at anyone.

The Dutch Safety Board's report will offer little consolation to the families of the victims. Dutch investigators have not been able to access the crash site. They have not been able to examine significant parts of the wreckage.

Their report is based on evidence from photographs; discussions with Ukrainian and Malaysian investigators who have accessed the site and on analysisi of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

The likely explanation of the crash near the village of Hrabove, which killed 298 people, remains that the plane was shot down by a Buk missile fired by rebel forces with or without Russian support.

The report says quite simply that "flight MH17 ... broke up in the air probably as the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside ... There are no indications that the MH17 crash was caused by a technical fault or by actions of the crew."

"The cockpit voice recorder, the flight data recorder and data from air traffic control all suggest that flight MH17 proceeded as normal until 13:20:03 (UTC), after which it ended abruptly. A full listening of the communications among the crew members in the cockpit recorded on the cockpit voice recorder revealed no signs of any technical faults or an emergency situation. Neither were any warning tones heard in the cockpit that might have pointed to technical problems. The flight data recorder registered no aircraft system warnings, and aircraft engine parameters were consistent with normal operation during the flight. The radio communications with Ukrainian air traffic control confirm that no emergency call was made by the cockpit crew. The final calls by Ukrainian air traffic control made between 13.20:00 and 13.22:02 (UTC) remained unanswered."

The CVR transcript is the saddest part of the report.

"The pattern of wreckage on the ground suggests that the aircraft split into pieces during flight (an in-flight break up). Based on the available maintenance history the airplane was airworthy when it took off from Amsterdam and there were no known technical problems. The aircraft was manned by a qualified and experienced crew."

"As yet it has not been possible to conduct a detailed study of the wreckage. However, the available images show that the pieces of wreckage were pierced in numerous places. The pattern of damage to the aircraft fuselage and the cockpit is consistent with that which may be expected from a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside. It’s likely that this damage resulted in a loss of structural integrity of the aircraft, leading to an in-flight break up. This also explains the abrupt end to the data registration on the recorders, the simultaneous loss of contact with air traffic control and the aircraft’s disappearance from radar."

The board's report is the first one coming out of the official investigation into the crash, and its cautious assessment is also due to the fact that the Dutch aviation investigators who made the report have yet to gain full access to the site where MH17 crashed to the ground, due to the ongoing conflict in the region.

The report, while not fully conclusive in establishing the cause of the crash, should but will not end some misleading, and in some cases offensive, conspiracy theories. The report is clear... there was no pilot error. No aircraft problems. No warnings. No issue with flight route.

Reality - 298 people were murdered. Probably not intentionally. Mistaken identity and a trigger happy, untrained, missile crew. But the families deserve to know what really happened. Someone or some group does know. If they had any respect for the bereaved the truth would be told.

The initial report is here:  Dutch Safety Board Preliminary Report on MH17 Crash

MH17: Netherlands wrestles with huge criminal case BBC

MH17 recovery chief: 'We have never experienced anything like this and we hope never to again' Daily Telegraph

Map of a Tragedy: How MH17 Came Apart Over Ukraine

Ukraine: MH17 Downed by ‘Massive Explosive Decompression’ Time

After Flight 17 Crash, Agony, Debris and Heartbreak in Ukraine Villages WSJ

One week on

24 July 2014

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 
#MH17 human remains just near the road. When will anybody return to finish the removal?

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 
#MH17 2/2 Maybe guards will come later.Who knows.

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 1 hr
#MH17 1/2 The place where so many died feels like it has been abandoned.

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 2 hrs
#MH17 at crash site. No guards. No workers. No cordon. Only a TV crew.

The sixth day and some dignity at last

23 June 2014

On twitter: As the first bodies arrive in Eindhoven - the Dutch, with class and dignity, really do understand how to show respect.

Netherlands mourns as bodies of MH17 plane crash victims are flown home

23 July 2014 The Guardian

As the first coffin was lowered from the planes on the runway, silence fell over Eindhoven military airport. The only sound came from a row of flags whipping in the wind at half mast.

Almost a week after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot from the skies above Ukraine, 40 bodies arrived on Wednesday in the Netherlands, the country that bore the heaviest toll in the crash.

King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, joined about 1,000 relatives and friends of the victims, who gathered at the airport for a ceremony receiving the two military transport planes.

A lone trumpeter played the Last Post as troops in dress uniform saluted then carried the wooden caskets to a row of hearses. They drove from the airport under military police escort to an army barracks in the central city of Hilversum where forensic experts were waiting to begin the painstaking task of identifying the remains.

Crowds gathered on bridges along the 65-mile route to throw flowers on to the convoy of 40 hearses.

The Dutch government had declared a day of national mourning – the first since the death of Queen Wilhelmina in 1962 – and at 4.07pm a minute's silence was requested across the country.

Two-hundred and ninety-eight passengers and crew were killed when the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpar was shot down last Thursdaya week today. The Dutch victims numbered 193. In a nation of just 16 million, few have been unaffected by the disaster.

"Holland is a small country. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who died in the crash," said Peter, who was waiting at Schipol airport. "It has completely changed how we look at the conflict in the Ukraine. Everybody talks about it: neighbours, colleagues, relatives."

Some have inevitably described the biggest aviation disaster in Dutch history as "Holland's 9/11" – a misleading term, not least because the Dutch passengers on flight MH17 are not thought to have been targeted deliberately.

And yet, relations between the Netherlands, home to the majority of the victims, and Russia, accused by some of aiding those who carried out the attack, have in recent days become increasingly fraught.

At Schiphol airport, where on the day after the crash there was still a sense of business carrying on as usual, the mood was now different.

The impromptu shrine outside terminal three, little more than a pile of flowers on Friday, had grown into a sea of bouquets, teddy bears and candles. A letter to one of the victims described him as a "kind, gentle and funny person". The card read: "Even in death he's still a better bloke than all of us."

A woman named Miranda said she had come to the airport specially to lay down flowers. She used to live in Asia, she said, and had a lot of friends who regularly flew with Malaysia Airlines. Something in her attitude, and that of friends, towards Russa, had altered over the last week, she said. "At first we were numb but now there are a lot of angry feelings coming up."

In a widely shared article, the writer Bas Heijne criticised his government's "overtly cautious, strangely muted" response to the disaster. The Dutch, Heijne argued, had always defined themselves somewhere on a scale of pragmatism and moralising, "the Dutch merchant and the Protestant preacher".

In recent years the merchant had gained the upper hand; wagging the finger at countries like Russia, many politicians and businessmen warned, only damaged the economy. So the government had done little to defend itself when Vladimir Putin accused the Netherlands of "promoting paedophilia" or when Dutch Greenpeace activists were arrested for getting too close to a Russian oil platform. "For too long," Heijne wrote, "the Dutch government has coddled the dictator in Moscow."

Other commentators accused Dutch leaders of letting commercial interests get in the way of diplomatic consequences. Last year Russia exported goods and services worth $70bn to the Netherlands. If one country could seriously hurt Putin with trade sanctions, said one analyst in the German newspaper Die Welt, it was the Netherlands.

Frustration with the delayed return of the air crash victims' bodies, and reports in the Dutch media that the crash site had been looted, have affected the country's mood. Where at first there had been calm and composure, there were now also flashes of anger.

Hans de Borst, whose 17-year-old daughter, Elsemiek, died in the crash, wrote an open letter to Putin and pro-Russia separatists, which he put on Facebook: "Aforementioned misters, I hope you're proud to have shot her, amongst other, young life and future. And that you will be able to look at yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning."

Politicians have adjusted their rhetoric accordingly. "All of the Netherlands feels their anger," said Rutte on Sunday, after meeting relatives. "All of the Netherlands feels their deep grief. All of the Netherlands is standing with the next of kin."

Frans Timmermans, the foreign minister, previously hesitant about calling for sanctions, adopted a notably firmer stance at a meeting of ministers in Brussels on Monday: "There is no Dutch blockade of further sanctions. The Netherlands wants the European Union [to make] a united, and also strong, clear, statement against the unrest in eastern Ukraine."

As if to symbolically underline Holland's newfound resolve, the row of flags at Eindhoven airport included a Ukrainian, but no Russian, flag, even though there were no Ukrainian nationals among the victims.

At Schiphol, the Hoogewoud family had stopped off to leave flowers after seeing off their youngest daughter, who was flying to Thailand.

Marloek, the older daughter, said a Spanish friend had sent her a Facebook message after the crash expressing hope that the Dutch government would press charges against the pro-Russian separatists. "But that's not people's first reaction here."

Her father, Ferdinand Hoogewoud, said: "How can we expect politicians in Russia or the Ukraine to take responsibility after two days, when it took the Netherlands two decades to own up to its role in Srebrenica?" Only a day before the MH17 crash a Dutch court had ruled that the government was liable for the deaths of about 300 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia.

"The crisis in the Ukraine used to feel very far away," observed Hoogewoud. "Now it's our problem too. We can't push it away."
 

The tragedy of MH17

23 July 2014

298 passengers and crew were on MH17; perhaps some 90 minutes into their flight; maybe it was lunchtime; suddenly their bodies are ripped apart by forces they will never have understood.

The BUK (SA-11)missile is designed to explode close to its target and shred the target with explosive shrapnel that penetrates the fuselage and anything inside.

There would have been a massive and immediate depressurization of the airliner as it was torn apart. The lucky ones will have died instantly from hypoxia; a lack of oxygen and freezing cold. Some may have fallen becoming quickly unconscious; others maybe were alive, massively confused and in unthinkable pain until they smashed into the ground some eighty seconds after the missile hit.

Their burned and shattered bodies turned fields of wildflowers and tall grasses into a scene of unimaginable horror.

Over 80 children were on this flight; their young lives taken away by a war they would not understand and by an act of careless violence.

The Malaysian flight was almost certainly not deliberately fired at. It was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mistaken identity on a deadly scale.

The grief of their families is hard to imagine. Death at its worst. Unexpected. Sudden. Brutal. Unexplained. Bodies in fragments. Lives that cannot be put back together.

At last some sanity is slowly being achieved. The black boxes are in Farnborough in the UK for examination. Those bodies that have been found are being flown with dignity to the Netherlands where dna will be used to identify the passengers and they can be returned to their families and their home countries.

Somewhere someone knows who launched the missile. Who gave the orders to fire? Who pressed the launch button? And someone has to be brought to account. In the fog of war do those responsible feel remorse?

That the Russians supplied the weapons is certain. That the Russians will have provided training is certain.

That Europe is so deeply embedded and dependent upon Russia (oil, gas, investment) is clear. Despite Putin's push to rebuild the Soviet Union Europe's response has been toothless. The crash indirectly results from that geopolitical weakness.

Europe will not act together to censure Russia. What could be done; hurt Putin's pride. Take away the 2018 World Cup. Withdraw support from FIFA until it makes that decision.

And in the meantime the word needs to work towards a global agreement that takes all surface-to-air missiles away from non-government militia/armies/defense forces.

MH17 crash: Challenges of forensic investigation

MH17: US intelligence says Russia 'created conditions' for plane disaster

Putin creates his own reality

Russian Television Under Spotlight After Malaysia Airlines Crash in Ukraine

Who did this?

22 July 2014 Sydney Morning Herald in part of a larger article "Time for Ukraine to divide"

There is also no mystery as to who is to blame for staining Ukraine with the murder of 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. There is no need for conspiracy theories.

Soon after the aircraft was shot down, a social network page of Igor Strelkov, "defence minister" of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic, posted this message:

"We just downed an An-26 near Torez.”

He would soon delete this post, but it was too late. The Ukrainska Pravda news site also posted an audio recording of intercepted field communications between Ukrainian separatists.

"We just downed a plane," a rebel identified as Bes (Demon), said.

A second recording, between two militants, was released and included the following exchange in Russian:

“How are things going there?”

“Well, we are 100 per cent sure that it was a civilian plane.”

“What plane is that?”

“I haven’t figured out yet. I haven’t got close to the main wreckage. Now I’m nearby the place where first bodies started falling...”

“Are there any weapons?

“Nothing at all. Civilian belongings, medical scraps, towels, toilet paper.

“Are there any documents?

“Yes. One belonging to a student from Indonesia.”

Before this exchange, a message has been posted on the official Twitter account of the Donetsk People's Republic which said: "@dnrpress: self-propelled Buk surface-to-air missile systems have been seized by the DNR from (Ukrainian) surface-to-air missile regiment A1402".

That tweet, too, was later deleted, but again too late.

Over the weekend the Ukrainian government said Buk missiles had been observed being secreted across the Russian border.

This was clearly a monumental mistake by a group of murderers who want the Russian-speaking Donetsk region to secede from Ukraine.

Let them secede.

Russian media is covering up Putin's complicity in the MH17 tragedy - The Guardian

Grief, anger and despair

21 July 2014

"Grief, anger and despair" are the theme of the message by the Dutch foreign minister, Frans Timmermans, who was visibly shaken as he delivered a moving statement to the UN.

"In the victims' final moments, did they lock hands with their loved ones? Did they hold their children close to their hearts? Did they look each other in the eyes one final time in a wordless goodbye. We will never know.

"The demise of almost 200 of my compatriots has left a hole in the heart of the Dutch nation. … We have one overriding objective: bring the victims' remains home."

"In the last couple of days we've received very disturbing reports of bodies being moved about, and looted for their possessions. Just for one minute, I'm not addressing you as representatives of your countries, but as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.

"Imagine … that you first get the news that your husband was killed, and then within two or three days you see images of some thug removing the wedding band from the hands. Just imagine that this could be your spouse. To my dying day I will not understand that it took so much time for the rescue workers to be allowed to [reach the site and work].

Referring to comments by other representatives of political accusations, Timmermans says "This is the political game that has been played with human remains, and it is despicable. Images of children toys being tossed around, luggage being opened, and passports, including passports of children, being shown on television."

"They are turning our grief into anger. … We demand access. We demand respectful treatment. We demand dignity for the victims.

"I call on anyone with influence, allow us to bring victims' remains home to their loved ones without any further delay. They deserve to be home.

"I pledge that the Netherlands will do its utmost to ensure that all remains will be identified and delivered home, wherever that home may be. Please, provide full cooperation so that justice can be served. We will not rest until all facts are known and justice is served."

It was a strong speech; emotional and unusually undiplomatic in its language. And therefore powerful. It is not often that the Netherlands has a front seat on the world stage. It looks like they are in good hands.

Progress on MH17

21 July 2014

After a day of claim and counterclaim progress has been made tonight in recovering the bodies and black box flight recorders from MH17.

For four days only journalists and military thugs appear to have unlimited access to the #MH17 crash site. The massive crash site was never secured and bodies and airplane parts have been tampered with. As the father of one of the #MH17 victims said "if 200 U.S. citizens were lying there like this, something would happen." And the

An international body should have instantly sent troops to the site to secure it, together with the equipment to collect the bodies and the evidence. Instead we have had four days of government politics and propaganda, with decomposing bodies, with grieving families and with their rage, while politicians bluster.

The priority should have been to defend the dignity of the dead and integrity of the investigation

There has been widespread international anger that the rebels have failed to allow proper access to the crash site to investigators, and suspicions that they have seized the black boxes and are attempting to destroy evidence.

But today it was the Ukrainian army that seemed intent on disrupting expert work on Monday, as they apparently launched an offensive against rebel positions close to Donetsk railway station, as well as in other towns across the region.

But by the end of the day there was a certain common sense being applied as the separatists made a deal with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to hand over the black boxes and victims' bodies.

Rebel leader Alexander Borodai and Razak agreed to transport the bodies by train to Kharkiv, where Ukrainian and Dutch recovery teams await.

Ron Paul Is Putin's New Best Friend

The Missile that will end the war

The Russian Public Has a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 New Republic

Bodies From Malaysia Airlines Flight Are Stuck in Ukraine, Held Hostage Over Distrust New York Times

Bodies Are Removed From MH17 Crash Site Under Rebel Watch Wall Street Journal

On the MH17 crash site

19 July 2014

Max Seddon is a foreign affairs reporter without portfolio @BuzzFeed. formerly of @AP moscow.

His comments from the MH17 crash site tell a desperate story. His article for Buzzfeed is here: "Chaos At Malaysia Airlines Crash Site Leaves Victims By The Roadside"

OSCE constantly remind reporters that they are monitors, not establishing guilt/cause over #MH17. Makes lack of real investigation so stark.

OSCE: "Some of the equipment seems to have been moved" from #MH17 site. No clue which rebels control the site. No idea where black boxes are.

The #MH17 passenger manifest. 298 dead. malaysiaairlines.com/content/dam/ma…

Some rebels seem as shocked as everyone else. "How could they let a plane fly over here?" said a man with a huge sniper rifle at checkpoint.

At one point several cameramen were filming behind a large piece of fuselage. Easily could have stepped on a body mangled in it. No cordon.

The most troubling thing about the #MH17 site is what isn't there: many personal effects and parts of the plane. One can only speculate.

A gunman named after one of the Seven Dwarves from Snow White blocking OSCE convoy. #MH17 investigation in a nutshell

At this stage, any talk of a credible #MH17 investigation is ridiculous. It'll be a small miracle if relatives get the bodies semi-intact.

Nobody doing much with the bodies. Ambulances carrying rebels to and from #MH17 site. Aid workers seemed to have been drinking overnight.

Counted 82 bodies at #MH17 site. Some in body bags by the side of the road. Others decomposing in the heat. Parts being shoveled into sacks.

No sign of black boxes. No sign of missile debris. No sign of aviation or military experts. No idea where the bodies are going. #MH17

I've counted at least 58 bodies lying around #MH17, plus dozens mangled together and charred. Nobody will say where they're going.

These guys are "experts" from local police. Not seen any hint of actual aviation experts here. #MH17 pic.twitter.com/cwRvV1N9IH

Basically, the OSCE are only allowed 30m further than they were yesterday. Grumpy won't let them onto the field where debris and bodies are.

Emergency services say they have removed 65 bodies from this part of the site. I count at least 21 others lying around, many in the open.

OSCE team arrives at #MH17 site. Rebels say they won't let them through and block off site. OSCE makes to leave, then rebels change minds.

One of the rebels casually threatens to kneecap reporters every five minutes. Another is wearing a beekeeping suit and reeks of alcohol.

Ukraine security council: Emergencies ministry has explored 18 of 25 square km at #MH17 crash site; 186 bodies found - @Reuters

Rebels have a thing for Disney nicknames. The end of the #MH17 crash site where we are is run by Grumpy. Baloo was on a military tribunal.

Rebels denying access to #MH17 crash site until "investigative brigade" finishes work. Won't say where the bodies are being taken.

DNR guys from "prosecutor's office" at #MH17 site have no idea about buffer zone, or who the prosecutor is. Rebels taking bodies to morgue.

Kiev, DNR have agreed on a 20km buffer zone around the #MH17 crash site so Ukraine can recover the festering bodies. slon.ru/fast/world/kie…

The longer #MH17 crash site remains a mess, OSCE say, the tougher the investigation will get. Shelling heard nearby, perimeter not secure.

OSCE have no idea who is controlling #MH17 crash site. Appears to be several small rebel groups with no leader. Fate of black boxes unknown.
via Twitter Web Client

OSCE on #MH17 crash site: bodies lying everywhere decomposed, some burnt, others mangled together. Nobody removing them for cold storage.
via Twitter Web Client

Dutch response becomes stronger

19 July 2014

The Dutch foreign minister said that the Netherlands was "angry, furious" by reports that bodies were being dragged around the crash site.

At a meeting with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, Frans Timmermans said: "We are already shocked by the news we got today of bodies being dragged around, of the site not being treated properly ... People are angry, furious."

He told the Ukrainian leader that the Netherlands wanted to know who was responsible for shooting down the plane on Thursday. "Once we have the proof, we will not stop before the people are brought to justice. Not just the people who pulled the trigger but also those who made it possible. I think the international community needs to step up its efforts in this respect."

About two thirds of the passengers killed were Dutch

Mr Putin and his murderous puppets

19 July 2014 The Melbourne Age (in a strong editorial)

Sometimes it is difficult to imagine why an insurgency on the other side of the world, waged by militants with intensely parochial ambitions, would have any bearing on our lives here in Australia. The brutal jousting that gains them, from one day to another, a few more kilometres of territory seems so far from our peaceable lives that to draw a connection seems futile. But the savage act that blasted a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet from the skies above eastern Ukraine has drawn us all a little closer to the hostilities in that region.

All 298 people aboard the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur died when it was shot down by what is believed to have been a Russian-made and Russian-supplied ground-to-air missile. Twenty-eight Australians were on board. Among the passengers were 108 medical researchers, healthcare workers and AIDs activists, who were en route to Melbourne for the 20th International AIDS Conference this weekend. Among them was the renowned HIV/AIDS researcher and former International AIDS Society president Joep Lange. In this random and reckless act of violence, the world has lost some wonderful and inspiring people.

In the days and weeks ahead, there will be much blame-laying. Some of that must go to Malaysia Airlines for flying a civilian aircraft over a war zone. In the past week alone, the Ukrainian government lost three aircraft, which it says were shot down either by Russian military aircraft or by ground-to-air missiles fired by Russian-supplied insurgents. The warnings could not have gone unnoticed. Malaysia Airlines is not the only airline to fly over Ukraine, but considering this has come four months after the unexplained loss of flight MH370, this disaster is cause for an independent and internationally scrutinised examination of everything that Malaysia Airlines is doing in terms of passenger safety and flight policy.

Yet, absolute blame for this latest tragedy should rest where it rightly belongs: on those who fired the missile and those who supplied it. What links those notions is Russia. It is early days, but this appears to have been a diabolical act of state-sponsored terrorism. The shooting down of a civilian aircraft may not have been intended, but reckless carnage of this order must be categorically condemned.

We do not detect such condemnation from Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who suggested this incident would not have happened if Ukraine was not addled by war. Well, yes, Mr Putin. Ukraine's eastern regions are infested with quasi-military units of insurgents, who take their cues from Russia and their weaponry from Russia. Their dangerous brand of hubris is fuelled by assurances that they remain in lock-step with Mr Putin's policies. As we said in April, Mr Putin is the puppeteer in all this, orchestrating the action from afar.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Australia will push the United Nations to establish an independent investigation into the causes of the crash. And in unusually strong language, he appeared to chastise Russia for its regional aggression: ''The bullying of small countries by big ones, the trampling of justice and decency in the pursuit of national aggrandisement, and reckless indifference to human life should have no place in our world.''

Whatever an investigation may find, The Age believes the international community cannot afford to be ambiguous in its response. The insurgents who have wreaked havoc inside Ukraine appear to have caused a catastrophic loss of life. They must be brought to justice. At the same time, Russia's territorial ambition must be curbed. Mr Putin may not have his fingerprints on the missiles, but he nevertheless remains culpable.

BBC's Fergal Keane at the MH17 crash site

19 July 2014

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 9 mins
#MH17 all bodies uncovered here. Unspeakable.

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 11 mins
#MH17 A cornfield, low clouds, birdsong, thunder in distance, a woman's body, a child's body.

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 16 mins
#MH17 the bodies splayed in the awful unnatural postures of violent death.

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 18 mins
#MH17 At crash site. Body parts strewn in field. Obscenity of war at its most graphic

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 1 hr
#MH17 So far separatist c/points less hassle than before.

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 1 hr
#MH17 Pravyi Sektor insignia on shoulder patches. Unfriendly and v thorough search.

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 1 hr
#MH17 last night passed thru c/point of Pravyi Sektor far right Ukranian nationalists an hr of west of Donetsk

Fergal Keane@fergalkeane47 1 hr
#MH17 On way to site.Back to the sullen c/points of E Ukraine

And in the Guardian this morning:

MH17 plane crash site: sunhats, sweets … and stakes marking body parts

19 July 2014

For miles around, you can see them, strips of white cotton attached to wooden stakes in the fields of eastern Ukraine. Each stake marks a victim from flight MH17, or at least a body part. There are a lot of stakes.

But then there is a lot of debris, a vast wash of metal, charred remnants, and the surreal paraphernalia of international long-haul travel, smeared over a ruined 15-square mile area. Handbags. Footwear. Passports amid the sunflowers.

You can tell some of the passengers had been on holiday. Scattered across the crash site was the unmistakable jetsam of vacation: sunhats and suntan lotion, summer clothing, duty free shopping, the occasional poolside novel. You could also tell that children were here from the unopened packets of Haribo sweets, the fistful of playing cards, a first-year drawing scrawled in a notebook, a small black-and-white stuffed monkey abandoned in the grass.

Some of the bodies are perfectly intact, some ruined beyond recognition, some partly disrobed by the G-force of falling to earth. One woman lies partly burned, a hand raised above her head, stripped of all but her undergarments.

It was not just the human passengers that died. An unlikely menagerie of dead pets lay strewn across the scene in the grass, bright blue and yellow macaws, a cockatoo, a random giant St Bernard dog curled peacefully where he fell.

The sticky Ukrainian summer will not be kind to the bodies. Warm sunshine gave way to rain and humidity on Friday. By late afternoon, the sharp tang of kerosene had been overpowered by something altogether more macabre: the cloying smell of death.

They're getting used to death here. This is a de facto war zone. Explosions rang out every few minutes as a reminder. And when the separatist rebels first saw the debris falling on Thursday afternoon, their initial thought was that they might be under attack from paratroopers.

"Initially I thought it was a paratrooper descending from the plane but then realized that there were people falling from the sky in the passenger seats," said one of the rebels Vladimir, 45, holding a Kalashnikov in his hands.

Rescue workers were overwhelmed by the scene. Volunteer miners combed the long grass for bodies; some of the first emergency workers on the scene bizarrely happened to be a unit trained in scuba diving search and rescue.

"This isn't our area of expertise," said Boris, 41, an experienced diver who drove his unit to the scene in a Soviet-era Gaz military vehicle. "We have no idea where anything is, we have a huge task ahead of us. We've not experienced anything like this, nothing on this scale."

The shooting down of Malaysian MH17

18 July 2014

Yesterday afternoon over war torn Eastern Ukraine Malaysian flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by a ground-to-air missile.

The flight was on a regular air route at 33,000 feet. The airliner was a Boeing 777. There were 283 passengers and 15 crew onboard. The flight would have been about 2 hours into its 12 hour flight; passengers would probably still be finishing lunch; watching movies and feeling safe and excited as many headed for holidays and others for a conference in Australia.

A group of international HIV/Aids experts flying to Melbourne were among those killed. Over half of the passengers were Dutch citizens.

There are no survivors with wreckage strewn over a large 4x6 mile site.

The USA has pointedly criticised Russian arming of rebels in Ukraine as the world demanded answers. Though the White House stopped short of directly blaming Russia for the plane’s destruction but linked its remarks on the disaster to the Kremlin’s support for separatists in Ukraine, urging Vladimir Putin’s government to stop inflaming the situation in the country and take "concrete steps" towards de-escalation.

Leaders from around the world reacted with shock and anger to the shooting down of the jet. The US said it had intelligence showing a surface-to-air missile was used

Hillary Clinton interviewed on US television said that "there should be outrage in european capitals."

Australia's foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said that if MH17 had been shot down it amounted to an "unspeakable crime" and a full international investigation must be allowed to take place.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Ukraine bore responsibility for the crash, but he did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down. "This tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in south-east Ukraine," he said, according to a Kremlin statement issued early on Friday. "And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy."

Which is of course nonsense as this whole crisis started with the annexation by Russia of the Crimean region of the Ukraine and further aggression in the Eastern Ukraine.

Air safety experts have criticised Malaysia Airlines for flying over Ukraine airspace but the company maintains that the flight path was deemed safe to travel by civil aviation authorities. The plane was traveling 1,000ft above the no-fly zone. Other airlines have said they either began avoiding the airspace above the troubled region several months ago, or have now joined Malaysia Airlines in diverting all aircraft away from it.

Singapore Air, Eva Air and Air India all had airplanes over Eastern Ukraine at the time of the crash.

Many airlines avoided Ukraine immediately after the crash, as the flight data map shows below, and Ukraine on Friday closed airspace over the east of the country.

If there is proof of Russian involvement then the world is moving into dangerous territory. Extended sanctions would be needed. Russia would have to be removed from future international gatherings such as the G20. But public anger would and should demand more. Removal of international events, such as the 2018 World Cup, from Russia should be demanded. World leaders need to lead and to be strong.

Anyone that have instructions to shoot the plane down and who fired the missile will need to be brought to justice.