On this day, July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down near Hrabove, Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The shootdown killed all 298 occupants of the Malaysia Airlines plane<\/big><\/p>\n The 298 occupants of the plane, a Boeing 777-200ER, died in the downing:<\/strong> its 15 crew members and 283 passengers, mostly Dutch (193), Malaysians (43) and Australians (27). Among the deceased were also Indonesians (12), British (10), Belgians (4), Germans (4), Filipinos (3), a Canadian and a New Zealander. Eight of the passengers were under the age of 18. The shooting down occurred in an area occupied by pro-Russian Donbass separatists<\/strong>, who had launched an armed uprising with the support of Russia in April 2014. The separatist forces had already shot down Ukrainian aircraft before the downing of MH17<\/strong>, but at a lower height. to which commercial flights continued to pass through that area.<\/p>\n The international investigation pointed out that the plane was shot down by a Russian missile<\/big><\/p>\n Because most of the deceased were Dutch, the Ukrainian authorities delegated the investigation of what happened to the Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid (OVV, Dutch Security Board).<\/strong> The OVV led an international commission of inquiry in which investigators from seven countries participated: the Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Russia. The definitive report on the accident was published on October 13, 2015<\/a> (see PDF<\/a>), concluding that the plane was hit by a Russian 9M38-type missile, equipped with a 9N314M warhead, launched by a Buk surface-to-air missile system.<\/strong> You can see here the official video of the OVV (in English) explaining the conclusions of its investigation:<\/p>\n
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