#MH0017 TRAGEDY ... PRELIMINARY REPORT RELEASED BY DUTCH SAFETY BOARD:

#MH0017 TRAGEDY ... PRELIMINARY REPORT RELEASED BY DUTCH SAFETY BOARD:

The Malaysian Government would like to thank the Dutch Safety Board in particular and all other nations who have helped us during this challenging time.

The report which was just released by the Dutch Safety Board is preliminary and a comprehensive report will be issued in approximately one year.

Our Malaysian experts were part of the Dutch Safety Board investigation team in addition to experts from the Netherlands, Ukraine, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US with further assistance from experts of many other nations.

It is heartening to see the outpouring of support from the international community and it indeed reflects the brotherhood of our nations especially during times of distress.

MAS flight MH17 departed Amsterdam Airport Schipol in the Netherlands at 10.31 hrs on a scheduled passenger flight to KLIA.

The investigations confirmed that the MAS crew were appropriately qualified to conduct the flight and that the aircraft was in airworthy condition.

Based on the preliminary findings to date, no indications of any technical or operational issues were found with the aircraft or crew prior to the ending of the CVR and FDR recording at 13.20:03 hrs. 

The damage observed in the forward section of the aircraft appears to indicate that the aircraft was penetrated by a large number of high-energy objects from the outside the aircraft. It is likely that this damage resulted in a loss of structural integrity of the aircraft leading to an in-flight break up. 

At the time of the occurrence, the aircraft was flying in unrestricted airspace, under control of ATC, following the route and flying the altitude as cleared by ATC.

Based on radar information, we know there were three other commercial aircrafts in the same control area as flight MH17.

At 13.20 hrs, the closest aircraft to flight MH17 was just 30 kilometres away.

The last radio transmission made by the crew began at 13.19:56 hrs and ended at 13.19:59 hrs. 

No aural warnings or alerts of the aircraft system malfunctions were heard on the cockpit voice recording, which ended at 13.20:03 hrs. Crew communication gave no indication that there was anything abnormal with the flight.

The last transmission from the crew of MH17 was "ROMEO NOVEMBER DELTA, MALAYSIAN, one seven".

Dnipropetrovsk air traffic control centre made a radio transmission to flight MH17 which began at 13.20:00 hrs and ended at 13.20:05 hrs.

The crew did not respond to the repeated transmissions. 

No distress messages were received at any time by the air traffic control.

Data from the flight data recorder and the digital cockpit voice recorder both stopped at 13.20:03 hrs.

The crash site to this date is still an area of conflict.

source : utusan