MH17 Final Report: Prima Facie.

Today (13/10/15) the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) released it's final report into the the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine on July 17th 2014 (17/7/14). As always with this type of report the purpose is not to apportion blame but to determine the exact circumstances of the crash.

As with the European refugee crisis I think that my time is better spent dealing with the root cause of the problem rather then rushing around after each of its consequences. Therefore I have not read the 279 page report and it is unlikely that I ever will.

However the main finding of the report laid out in sections 4 & 5 is that despite there being 14 aircraft shot down in the area in the month prior to the crash of MH17, there being 28 Notice To Air Men (NOTAM) issued for the region and one formal letter of warning from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) the Ukrainian government in Kiev refused to declare the area a combat zone and shut down the air-space to civilian traffic.

This failure placed the Ukrainian government in Kiev in violation of it's obligation to "ensure the safety [...]of international civilian aviation" as laid out in the 1947 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation.

This failure created a situation whereby MH17 was struck by a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) fired from a BUK-style launcher. However the report was not able to determine if the specific missile was a 9M38M1 which is only available to the Kiev forces or the 9M314M which is only available to Russian forces. Both missiles use the same type of warhead.

The Kiev controlled Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Ukraine at the time operates with a clear chain of command running from the President down to front-line ATC operators. Within this structure there are named individuals who have specific responsibilities to ensure that the air-space is being operated in accordance with the Chicago Convention - essentially a duty of care to the civilian airline passengers.

As such it is clear that the next step of the Dutch criminal investigation which is running parallel to the DSB investigation is to arrest those named individuals on 298 counts of murder.

They can then be interviewed to determine whether their failure to close air-space over the crash site was the result of criminal negligence or the result of political pressure. Perhaps pressure intended to engineer just this type of tragedy.

Take a wild guess a which section of the report the western media are choosing to focus on though.


15:40 on 13/10/15 (UK date).