THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Oct. 12 (UPI) — The Dutch Safety Board is set to release its final report Tuesday on the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which went down a year ago near the Russia-Ukraine border.
The board has been investigating the crash of the Boeing 777 since the aircraft went down in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine in July 2014 and killed all 298 people on board.
According to sources close to the investigation, the Dutch report will conclude the plane crashed after being hit by a Buk missile from a rebel-held territory in Ukraine.
Three sources who helped draft the final report reportedly told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant of the board’s findings.
The flight was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it abruptly crashed on July 17, 2014. Nearly 200 of the people on board were Dutch citizens.
While the report might confirm that Flight 17 was downed by a missile — a theory investigators believed possible from the start — it does not conclude or speculate as to who is responsible for firing the missile.
Ukrainian officials and Western allies believe it was Russia-backed rebels who fired the missile, while Moscow believes Ukraine was responsible.
“Either way, the Buk was developed and produced in Russia. You can assume that those rebels can’t control a Buk-device themselves. I suspect they did with the help of former Russian soldiers,” two sources told De Volkskrant.
According to reports, the Dutch Safety Board will first disclose the report’s findings to relatives of the victims and then reporters at an air base in North Brabant, Netherlands at about 1 p.m. local time (7 a.m. EDT) Tuesday.
Investigators will also reportedly show parts of the plane’s wreckage during Tuesday’s announcement.
The crash of Flight 17 occurred about four months after another Malaysia Airlines 777, Flight 370, disappeared during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Debris from Flight 370 began washing onto the shore of the French island Réunion in the western Indian Ocean in July — nearly 17 months after the plane disappeared.
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