Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was a regularly scheduled flight that shuttled passengers from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur until that horrific trip last July 17th that left 253 passengers and 15 crew members dead near Torez in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. The plane crashed in a region of heavy fighting and in the weeks that followed both Russia and the Ukraine tried to blame each other, each saying that the other side likely fired a missile at the passenger plane that ultimately brought it careening into the ground. Today a new report was issued by the Dutch Safety Board stating that MH17 was likely brought down by a missile.
According to the new report, investigators believe that the Boeing 777 plunged from the sky with no warning due to the fact that the front of the plane was 'penetrated by several high energy objects outside the aircraft'. In other words, MH17 was hit by a missile as it flew over pro-Russian territory in the Ukraine, according to this report. Penetration marks on the outside of an aircraft can only be caused by something moving at a high rate of speed that makes direct impact. The Dutch are leading the full international investigation of the aviation disaster and a full, detailed report is expected to be released within a year of the crash date.
When MH17 first went down investigators weren't even allowed to get to the crash site and it took over a week for the rebels to even round up the bodies of the victims so that they could be sent home to their families. The international outrage at how things were handled was huge. What do you think will happen now that it has been pretty much confirmed that the 777 was brought down as an act of terrorism either by the Russians or the Ukrainian rebels? Will the families of the victims now rally for some kind of accountability? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
