WASHINGTON, September 9 (RIA Novosti), Liudmila Chernova - The preliminary report issued by the Dutch Safety Board on the MH17 crash is an “example of professionalism”, White House National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson Caitlin Hayden told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
“This is another example of the professionalism and hard work being done by the Dutch-led investigation team and of the international community’s efforts to bring to justice those responsible for the shoot down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 and the murder of 298 civilians,” Hayden said, adding that while the document meets the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) requirements for preliminary report, “a criminal investigation remains ongoing.”
Hayden has noted, that the facts, reviewed in the report show that the aircraft has been hit by a surface to air missile, causing it to break up in the air.
“There is no sign of any technical or operational faults or pilot error with the aircraft,” she added.
Earlier on Tuesday, the panel of investigators announced that the Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777, which crashed in eastern Ukraine in August, fell into pieces during flight after being hit by “a large number of high-energy objects.”
A number of international experts, questioned by the International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya, said that although it is yet unclear who fired at the plane, a third party was likely involved.
Flight MH17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on July 17 in the Donetsk region, killing all 298 people on board. The cause of the crash is still unclear. The Ukrainian government claims that independence supporters in the country’s eastern regions shot the plane down but it has not provided any evidence to support those claims. Local militia leaders insist that they do not have weapons capable of shooting the MH17 aircraft down.
