New Report Unveils Details On Flight MH17

05:09

October 13, 2015

Vice Prime Minister and chairman of the government commission to investigate the causes of the MH17 crash Hennadiy Zubko, right, speaks at a briefing for journalists in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015. Investigators said the Buk missile that downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 exploded less than a meter from the cockpit, killing the two pilots and the purser inside in an instant and breaking off the front of the plane. The tragedy that killed all 298 people aboard the plane on July 17, 2014, wouldn’t have happened if anyone had thought to close the airspace of eastern Ukraine to passenger planes as fighting raged below, the Dutch Safety Board said. (Sergei Chuzavkov/AP Photo)

New details are emerging today about the Malaysia Airlines flight shot down by a missile over Ukraine in July of 2014. The Dutch Safety Board concluded in its report that the tragedy could have been avoided if the airspace above eastern Ukraine had been closed to commercial aviation.

The documents also offer new details about the fate of the passengers and crew, as well as the origin of the missile, which investigators determined to be a Russian-made Buk. Meantime, Russian officials have released their own report, disputing several conclusions, including the location from which the missile was launched.

NPR correspondent Eleanor Beardsley is in Amsterdam where the Dutch report was released. She joins Here & Now host Robin Young with details on the ongoing investigation into the ill-fated flight.

Guest

Eleanor Beardsley, correspondent for NPR. She tweets @ElBeardsley.

This segment aired on October 13, 2015.