The separatists, whose comrades were fighting just a few miles further down the track, could not warrant that DSB inspectors would be safe for any amount of time if they entered the site. Separatists had said they were happy for any investigators to arrive and work at the site, but they could not give them guarantees. Journalists, on the other hand, did not request any assurances for their safety and roamed the location at their own risk and were the first to deliver images to the DSB and to the public.
In the United Kingdom the flight recorders were being examined by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) at their headquarters in Farnborough, Hampshire. They had the responsibility for retrieving and downloading the crucial data, and then this would be sent to an international team of experts to be further analysed. The AAIB had been handed this task by authorities in the Netherlands because they were considered the best in their field.
The two recorders—the so-called ‘black boxes’, which are actually orange in colour to make them more visible and easier to find—were the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. If the information on them could be accessed, it would be possible to learn if the pilots had received any prior warning that something was wrong. In England the team of specialists were also tasked with the job of finding out if the boxes had been in any way tampered with.
Back in Ukraine, although they did not have access to the site, the DSB was not remaining idle. Their teams in Kiev, as well as in the Netherlands, were working around the clock analysing data from different sources—photos, videos and intercepted phone calls. In the Netherlands, forensic analysts had already received the first victims’ remains from the crash site. Their findings would be sent on to the DSB to help in their quest for the truth.
Western officials and experts were united in their belief that separatist forces, aided by the Russian military, were the perpetrators and that the plane had been targeted by a surface-to-air missile, most likely coming from a Buk. Russia responded to these accusations by pointing its finger at the West, claiming that Ukraine’s army may well have shot down the plane and that a Ukrainian military plane had been flying in close range of the downed aircraft just before it vanished from the radar screens. Moscow accused Ukraine’s government of being complicit in the passengers’ deaths, no matter how the disaster had occurred, because it had allowed civilian jetliners to fly through a war zone.
It was no secret that both the Russian and Ukrainian armies owned Buk missile systems and there was no disagreement that both countries’ professional military departments possessed Buk surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The contested question was whether separatist militia units also had access to these sophisticated weapons.
Although most Buk-M1 and Buk-M2 SAMs were thought to be under Ukrainian and Russian military control, reports from 29 June, coming from both sides of the conflict, indicated that Donetsk separatist paramilitaries had managed to capture a Buk-M2 unit from the Ukrainians when they tried to take over the airport at Donetsk. This capture had been immediately reported by sources on both sides of the conflict. The separatists had boasted about the steal, but Ukraine at the time did not appear impressed. It was an old Buk, they said, and, even if the separatists had actually gained access to a Buk, it wouldn’t be much use to them, because they would not know how to use it.
Ukraine later denied that separatists had seized a Buk from its forces; instead it alleged the separatists had received Buks from the Russian military. Of course, this narrative was denied by Moscow.
Military experts outside the war were unanimous that even if the insurgents possessed a missile launcher, this didn’t mean they were able to use it. At least not without help from a trained accomplice.
The Buk surface-to-air missile system was first developed in the early 1970s by the Soviet Union and then became part of the regular Russian defence arsenal. The Buk is a complicated air defence weapon designed to locate and engage targets by radar. While older versions were now no longer used by the Russians, having been replaced by a more sophisticated version, various types of the older Buk systems were still used by Ukraine as well as other former Soviet republics. The manufacturer of the Buk, Almaz-Antey, was quick to claim that the missile launcher that was thought to have brought down MH17 was a dated version of the Buk that was not used by Russia anymore and that this particular Buk launcher had been sold to the Ukrainian army some time ago.
Despite its age, the Buk is a highly effective battlefield weapon. It’s able to engage several targets at once and strike at a distance of up to twenty-five kilometres, putting the MH17, flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet, well within its reach. It’s also a highly complicated piece of equipment. A person off the street could no more step in and operate it than he could suddenly become an airline pilot. Trained officers needed at least six months’ training to learn the basics and it could take a couple of years to become an experienced professional. It needs a whole team, well prepared, to operate it and make it work effectively.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, told journalists that the missile required ‘very professional staff’ and ‘could not be operated by drunken gorillas’, suggesting that, if the Buk had been fired by the separatists, they must have had help from Russia.
A Buk system normally consists of six launch pads with four rockets each and a loading station with eight additional missiles. There is a command vehicle and a targeting radar post all mounted on their own tracked vehicles; this allows the system to move with other military forces and relocate quickly. Each missile on a Buk is 5.55 metres long, weighs 690 kilograms and carries a relatively large 70-kilogram warhead, which is triggered by a fuse. The warhead contains a cluster bomb that bursts into tiny metal fragments when it hits its target. Buk missiles are self-propelled warheads that can reach speeds of up to 850 metres per second. The chances of a missile hitting its target are 99 per cent.
The radar post is by far the most crucial element of the system. It provides information on how fast the target plane is travelling and, more importantly, what kind of plane it is. Without the radar serving as his eyes, the launching pad operator is virtually ‘blind’ and would have to guess what he is shooting at. The missile launcher pad does have its own radar, but it is inferior to that of the radar post and only allows the operator to see a moving dot on his screen; under those circumstances, he will know that it is an aircraft of some kind, but he will not be able to see what kind of aircraft he is targeting. If one shoots a Buk missile without the use of a radar post, it is totally random who dies and who doesn’t. The Buk system operator’s training is always based on a war situation and so, for the trainee, there are no civilian planes to take into account because, in a war, civilian airliners would normally be prohibited from flying over the area.
The separatists and Ukraine, however, were at war, fighting a bloody battle along the southern border with Russia. The separatists had conquered the eastern Donbas area up to the border with Russia. Along the country’s southern border the Ukrainian forces held a small strip of land that ran from separatist-held territory to Ukraine’s border with Russia. As the fighting intensified, the separatists tried to force a breach in the Ukrainian corridor from the town of Marinivka in separatist territory to the Russian border. This would leave part of Ukraine’s forces trapped behind enemy lines.