MH17 'split into pieces during flight' when pierced by 'high-speed objects': Dutch report

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was likely struck by multiple "high-energy objects from outside the aircraft", causing it to break up over eastern Ukraine, a preliminary report into the deadly aviation disaster concluded yesterday.

The report by the Dutch Safety Board stopped short of saying the Boeing 777 was shot down by a missile, but its findings appear to point to that conclusion. It also did not say who might have been responsible.

The Boeing 777 suddenly fell out of the sky on July 17 over territory held by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.

"The damage observed in the forward section of the aircraft appears to indicate that the aircraft was penetrated by a large number of high-energy objects from outside the aircraft," the report said. "The pattern of wreckage on the ground suggests that the aircraft split into pieces during the flight."

Investigators so far have studied photos of the crash site, radar data and information gleaned from the downed jet's "black boxes" - its cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder. They all indicated that there was no technical fault that may have caused the plane to disintegrate.

The cockpit voice recorder "revealed no signs of any technical faults or an emergency situation," the board said. "Neither were any warning tones heard in the cockpit that might have pointed to technical problems."

A draft of the preliminary study was sent to representatives of Malaysia, Ukraine, Russia, the UK and US, with the report subsequently amended where appropriate in light of feedback, the board said.

The research team will now start working toward producing a definitive report to be published within one year of the crash.

Because of the ongoing conflict between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian forces, investigators from the board have not visited the fields where the jet's wreckage was found. That likely contributed to the board's cautious assessment of what happened.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak welcomed the report, saying that its key conclusion "leads to the strong suspicion that a surface-to-air missile brought MH17 down, but further investigative work is needed before we can be certain".

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott agreed. He said: "The findings are consistent with the government's statement that MH17 was shot down by a large surface-to-air missile."

Christopher Yates, an aviation safety specialist at Yates Consulting, said the report "is extremely consistent with damage from a missile for the simple reason there are penetration marks".

"It must have been moving at very high velocity to create the damage," he said. "It could only be a missile of the type that would reach the altitude that would have struck the aircraft, potentially a Buk missile."

Pro-Russian rebels deny having shot down the plane.

They maintained that line yesterday, with Alexander Zakharchenko, a top rebel commander in Donetsk, quoted by Russian newspaper Kommersant as saying: "We simply don't have the technology that would have allowed us to shoot down the Malaysian plane."

Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg, Associated Press