HRABOVO (Donetsk region), November 16 (Sputnik) — Dutch experts have arrived at the Malaysian MH17 flight crash site in eastern Ukraine, Sputnik correspondent reported from the scene Sunday.
Several experts from the Donetsk People's Republic's (DPR) emergencies, transport and internal affairs ministries have arrived in Hrabovo village, where the plane crashed, to join the Dutch team.
Earlier this week, DPR authorities and the Dutch experts agreed on a protocol for the collection of the wreckage of the Malaysian MH17 flight.
It is planned that on Sunday experts will gather all the large fragments. The wreckage will be shipped first to Kharkiv, and then to the Netherlands for further investigation.
On November 15, it was announced that the Dutch experts had reached an agreement with eastern Ukrainian militia, allowing experts to conduct more searches at the MH17 crash site.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near Hrabovo on July 17. All 298 people on board, including 283 passengers and 15 crew members, died in the crash.
According to a preliminary report issued by the Dutch Safety Board early in September, the plane most likely broke up in mid-air as a result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from the outside.
This investigation was conducted according to the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized agency of the United Nations. The only objective of this investigation is the prevention of similar accidents and incidents.
Kiev accused independence supporters in eastern Ukraine of shooting the plane down, but has not provided any evidence to back this claim. The local militia leaders have said that they did not have weapons capable of shooting down a plane flying at 32,000 feet.
