Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17)[a] was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that crashed on 17 July 2014, presumed to have been shot down, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.[2] The Boeing 777-200ER airliner lost contact about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and crashed near Torez in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border,[3] over territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists.[4] The crash occurred during the Battle in Shakhtarsk Raion, part of the ongoing war in Donbass, in an area controlled by the Donbass People's Militia. According to US intelligence sources, intelligence assembled in the five days after the crash pointed overwhelmingly to pro-Russian separatists having shot down the plane using a Buk surface-to-air missile fired from the territory which they controlled. The Russian government however blamed the Ukrainian Government.[5] and the Russian defence minister has said that Ukraine "bears full, total responsibility" for the crash because it happened in Ukrainian airspace.[6] The Dutch Safety Board is now leading an investigation into the incident and issued a preliminary report on 9 September while a final accident report is expected within one year.[2]
The US sources stated that their judgement was based on sensors that traced the path of the missile, shrapnel patterns in the wreckage, voice print analysis of separatists' conversations in which they claimed credit for the strike, and photos and other data from social media sites all indicated that Russian-backed separatists had fired the missile.[5] Immediately after the crash, a post appeared on the VKontakte social media attributed to Igor Girkin, leader of the Donbass separatists, claiming responsibility for shooting down a military aircraft,[7][8][9] but after it became clear that a civilian aircraft had been shot down, the separatists denied any involvement. The Ukrainian government says the missile was launched by "Russian professionals and coordinated from Russia".[10][11] Malaysia said intelligence reports on the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were "pretty conclusive" and investigators believed the plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile from an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists.[12]
The crash of MH17 marks the fifth Boeing 777 hull loss, the third in just over a year.[13][14] With 298 deaths, MH17 is the deadliest air incident in Ukraine[15] and the deadliest airliner shootdown in history.[16] The crash was Malaysia Airlines' worst incident and its second of the year, after the disappearance of Flight 370 (9M-MRO) on 8 March, en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.[17]