MH17: Finally an Investigation.

At around lunchtime on Monday (21/7/14) authorities in Kiev finally relented and granted the International Civilian Aviation Organisation (ICAO) permission to conduct an investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. As soon at that permission was granted things began to move apace with the ICAO almost immediately moving to set up a command centre in the flight's country of origin - the Netherlands.

Within hours of the investigation being opened anti-Kiev rebels agreed to hand the aircraft's black boxes over this was completed that evening. Upon receiving the black boxes the Malaysia authorities confirmed that they were in good condition and no attempt had been made to tamper with them. We now wait to see what Malaysia intends to do with those black boxes because there are only half a dozen nations with the capacity to properly download the data and Malaysia is not one of them. This data will of course be vital to the investigation because it should help shed light on how MH17 came to be some 300 miles (480km) off course and whether the transponder that should have identified it as an civilian aircraft was working correctly.

The opening of an investigation also solved the problem of what to do with the bodies of the victims. Due to the explosive and often exploitative rhetoric this issue provoked I am rather forced to look at the gory details. It appears that MH17 completely broke apart mid-flight causing leaving the bodies to fall some 1km (0.621 miles). This caused all the bodies and the wreckage to spread out causing a debris field some 8 miles (13km) wide. A search of an area this size takes time meaning that it took the best part of 4 days to find all the bodies which for a task of this size is considered quick. To put it into perspective it took almost twice as long (7 days) to recover the victims of the Lockerbie crash.

Once the bodies had begun to be recovered they were placed in cold storage aboard to refrigerated train both to slow decomposition and to speed their removal to a command centre for the investigation. A Dutch forensic investigator on scene yesterday described the handling of the bodies as "good." Once Kiev granted permission for an investigation command centre to be set up the train containing the victims almost immediately began its journey to Kharkiv, Ukraine from where the bodies will be flown to the command centre in the Netherlands where they will be kept in cold storage for a period of anything up to a year while the investigation takes place.

Much later in the day the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) met to discuss a resolution that can be read here; http://www.scribd.com/doc/234691893/MH17-Draft-UN-Security-Council-Resolution

From the tone of the comments made by the representatives of the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia and the UK it struck me that the true purpose of this resolution was was to provoke confrontation with Russia by forcing it to veto in protest against language calling on those violating the international laws governing civilian air travel to be held to account.

The resolution of course passed unanimously suggesting that the people who authored it have not fully understood what they have said. The relevant aspect of international law - the Chicago Convention - obligates the nation that operates a crashed aircraft, the nation where the flight originated from and the nation where the crash occurred to request a ICAO investigation as soon as they suspect a crash was not the result of an accident. Neither the Netherlands nor Malaysia have fulfilled that obligation and Kiev waited four days before doing so. Although I don't want to pre-judge the investigation it seems likely that the report will focus heavily on this aspect and call for censure against the Netherlands, Malaysia and Kiev for obstructing the investigation.

11:00 on 22/7/14 (UK date).