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MH17 black box data downloaded, no evidence of tampering

MH 17 crash — Dutch investigators into the shooting down over Ukraine of flight MH17 said they had downloaded data from the black box flight recorder and that it had not been tampered with.

Zee Media Bureau/Supriya Jha & Hemant Abhishek
  • Dutch investigators into the shooting down over Ukraine of flight MH17 said they had downloaded data from the black box flight recorder and that it had not been tampered with. "No evidence or indications of manipulation of the recorder was found," the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) said in a statement. "The data was successfully downloaded and the flight data recorder contained valid data of the flight," it said.
  • British investigators are examining the second black box from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 which was shot down over Ukraine, the transport ministry said. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) in Farnborough, southwest of London, is looking at the flight data recorder, which records information from instruments on the plane.
  • Backing earlier calls by Dutch PM Mark Rutte of deploying police at Ukraine crash site, Australian PM Tony Abbott today suggested that he couls desptach Australian cops at the MH17 crash site to ensure security as more remains are still said to be lying in the open there, said the reports.
  • "We are ready to deploy Australian police to Ukraine to help secure the site as part of an international team under United Nations authority," he said.
  • Denying Ukraine`s claims hat the missile that shot down MH17 was fired from Russia, Moscow on Thursday asked for proof to establish the claim, reports said. "In an attempt to mislead the public, to distract attention from the Malaysian Boeing 777 catastrophe, the fantasies of Kiev`s authorities deserve inclusion in the Red Book of military aphorisms," the Reuters quoted an anonymous source as saying. 
  • The Dutch safety board suggested that the rebels hadnot manipulated the black boxes saying, that there was no evidence of the CVR being tampered with. Also Read: Moscow denies missiles that hit Ukrainian fighter jets fired from Russia
  • The Dutch Safety Board says that valid data has already been retrieved from the MH17`s cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and it will be further analysed, reported the BBC.
  • The CVR was said to be damaged but its memory was intact, say the experts.
  • Britain`s Air Accidents Investigation Branch in Farnborough will start examining the flight data recorder from the downed jet MH17.
  • Calling the evidence provided by Ukrainian authorities as fake, a top leader of pro-Russian rebels has categorically denied having the Buk missiles that was said to be used in downing the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over the war zone in eastern Ukraine.
  • According to Western intelligence officials, a surface-to-air Buk missile was fired from eastern Ukraine (rebel-held territory) that brought the MH17 jet down.
  • Speaking in an interview to the BBC, Alexander Borodai, the Prime Minister of the self-declared Donetsk People`s Republic (DPR), said that the rebels did not possess any Russian-made Buk missile and that any evidence concluding he same was fake.
  • The rebels` leader also rejected the allegations of mistreatment and moving away of the remains of MH17 victims, saying that they had to move the bodies to keep them from decomposing further under high temperatures as the experts did not arrive. Mr Borodai said that the rebels were told by the international observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to leave the bodies to be collected by experts. "So we wait a day. We wait a second day. A third day. Come on! Not a single expert. Well, to leave the bodies there any longer, in 30 degree heat, it`s absurd. It`s simply inhuman. It`s a scene from a horror movie," he told the BBC.
  • Borodai`s comments come a day after another rebel leader from Luhansk, in an exclusive interview to the Reuters, admitted having a Buk missile, also adding that it could have been sent back later to remove proof of its presence. "I knew that a BUK came from Luhansk. At the time I was told that a BUK from Luhansk was coming under the flag of the Luhansk People’s Republic," Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion told the Reuters.
  • Earlier, the US established the genuineness of an evidence presented by Ukrainian authorities, in the form of intercepted phone calls and videos.
  • The evidences include telephone calls between the rebels and someone in Russia, intercepted by Ukraine and video of three Buk missiles travelling back to Russia just hours after the plane was shot down. The Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down on Thursday, July 17, killing all 298 people aboard. The passenger jet that was flying 10,000 meters above eastern Ukraine war zone, was reportedly shot by a surface-to-air Buk missile, that was given to the rebels by Russia, the US has said.  Four days after the plane was downed, rebels finally handed over the black boxes to Malaysian experts and allowed the bodies of the victims to be taken to the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the first bodies have reached Netherlands` Eindhoven from where they will be taken near the city of Hilversum for identification. As experts claim that more remains might be still lying at Ukraine crash site, two more planes carrying the coffins are to arrive in Eindhoven today. Also, the plane`s black boxes are being examined at the headquarters of the UK`s Air Accidents Investigation Branch in Farnborough.