MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, has handed over its materials on the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane crash to the investigative commission, headed by the Netherlands, the aviation authority’s press service said on Friday.
“The group of Russian experts, headed by Rosaviatsiya’s deputy director, Oleg Storchevoi, that is participating in the international commission on investigating the Boeing-777 Malaysia Airlines plane crash met with the head of the commission and handed over the requested information needed to conduct a full-scale and objective investigation. In particular, information from the regional air traffic control station in Rostov was handed over,” the statement says.
Earlier on Friday, the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed laws, ratifying agreements with the Netherlands and Australia, under which their international police missions are to be allowed to access the crash site of Boeing in Donetsk Region.
In late July, US President Barack Obama accused Russia of refusing to cooperate with the international investigation.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded to the accusations, saying that representatives from Russia joined the international investigation shortly after they were officially allowed to take part and that Russia was one of the first countries revealed the information it possessed about the MH17 crash.
“By the way, the United States has so far failed to present any facts, except baseless accusations and information from the social networks,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on July 30.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17. All 298 people on board, including 192 Dutch nationals, died in the crash.
The plane’s two black boxes were recovered by Ukrainian independence supporters from the crashed Boeing and given to Malaysian authorities on July 21. The black boxes were then sent to the United Kingdom for comprehensive analysis.
Kiev authorities and independence supporters have been blaming each other for the downing of the plane, with independence supporters insisting they lacked the technology to shoot down a target flying at an altitude of nearly 33,000 feet.
