MOSCOW, September 9 (RIA Novosti) – The Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash report, published Tuesday by the Dutch Safety Board, is preliminary and marks the beginning of a long hard effort, Oleg Storchevoi, the deputy head of Rosaviatsiya (Russian Federal Air Transport Agency) said Tuesday.
“The report issued is a preliminary document. The investigation of the crash site and the wreckage, its position, should be an important part of this work. It vital to carefully examine all of the radar data, continue its analysis, conduct the autopsies… Without all this information it is impossible to talk about any preliminary conclusions regarding the causes of the crash,” Storchevoi said on Rossiya-24 television channel.
According to him, a lot of time has been wasted.
“Unfortunately, it is impossible not to acknowledge that a lot of time was wasted, and some data will be difficult to analyze. This concerns the study of the remains of the victims, it is also impossible to talk about the complete integrity of the wreckage,” Storchevoi explained.
Flight MH17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on July 17 in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
According to the Dutch Safety Board report issued on Tuesday, the plane broke into pieces mid-flight after being hit by “a large number of high-energy objects.”
“The initial results of the investigation point towards an external cause of the MH17 crash. More research will be necessary to determine the cause with greater precision. The Safety Board believes that additional evidence will become available for investigation in the period ahead,” Tjibbe Joustra, Chairman of the Dutch Safety Board said in a press release published on the organization’s official website Tuesday.
The experts aim to publish the final report within a year of the date of the crash.
