A Malaysian passenger jet blew up in mid-air over eastern Ukraine after being hit by numerous “high speed objects,” according to an interim report published on Tuesday into the disaster that claimed 298 lives.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 “broke up in the air probably as the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside,” said a highly anticipated report by the Dutch Safety Board.
The findings appear to back up claims that the Boeing 777, which crashed in July as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was hit by shrapnel from a missile. “There are no indications that the MH17 crash was caused by a technical fault or by actions of the crew,” the report said.
Kiev and the West have accused pro-Russian separatists of shooting down the plane with a surface-to-air BUK missile supplied by Moscow. But Russia blamed government forces for the attack.
