Black boxes delivered to British investigators

Probe could take weeks

LONDON, July 23, (AFP): The black boxes from the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that came down in eastern Ukraine have arrived in Britain for expert analysis, the government said Wednesday.

The recorders have been delivered to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch headquarters in Farnborough, southwest of London.

AAIB experts were set to go through the information from the cockpit voice recorder, which should give them hours of pilots’ conversations, as well as study the contents of the flight data recorder.

“We can confirm that the two black boxes from MH17 have been delivered by the Dutch Safety Board to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch at Farnborough for download,” a Department for Transport spokeswoman told AFP.

The passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur came down in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, 193 of them Dutch citizens.

US officials say the plane was mistakenly shot down by pro- to Kuala Lumpur were tourists, but at least six were AIDS experts on their way to a conference in Melbourne, Australia on the deadly disease.

Representatives of the many countries whose citizens died in the crash were present at the airfield, including the governor-general of Australia, Peter Cosgrove. Their flags lined the airfield at half-mast on a cloudless day.

Trains came to a stop for a minute as the country observed a minute’s silence. No planes took off or landed at Schiphol Airport, from which the Malaysian Airlines flight departed, for 13 minutes around the time the bodies land.

Asilent memorial rally was planned outside the royal palace in Amsterdam’s Dam square on Wednesday evening.

With so many of their countrymen dead, the Dutch have been taking a leading role in the international effort to recover and identify the bodies and investigate the cause of the crash.

Dutch authorities are leading the investigation, with extensive help from other countries. The plane’s black box flight recorders, handed over by the rebels’ leader, were flown from Ukraine on a Belgian military plane on Tuesday to Britain, where a Russian separatists in the region.

It is thought the AAIB will be able to send details of their findings to the Dutch authorities within 24 hours — giving experts in the Netherlands further information about the doomed Boeing 777 jet’s last moments.

Ukraine’s government said in a statement that the black boxes were transferred to Britain under the observation of the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The statement said that the vital data recorders were flown out of Kiev following an agreement between Malaysian, Dutch and Ukrainian officials and representatives from the ICAO.

“Under the protocol it was determined that the objects called ‘black boxes’ were presented to the Ukrainian side but the Ukrainian side did not get involved with them and these objects did not remain under Ukrainian control for even one minute,” the statement said.

The Dutch Safety Board (OVV), which is leading the investigation, said that analysis of the information on the black boxes could take “several weeks”. team of experts will examine them.

From Eindhoven, the bodies were to be driven in a convoy of hearses to a military barracks near the town of Hilversum, where forensics experts will begin the painstaking work of putting names to the remains.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said it was unclear how many bodies had been transported to Kharkiv and how may have been left behind at the crash site.

Rutte, thrust into an unaccustomed spotlight, said on Tuesday the disaster had fundamentally changed the way the Dutch view Russia, urging the European Union to unite behind a firm approach to force Moscow to cooperate with the probe.

He has spoken almost daily with U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other European leaders to coordinate the return of the bodies and discuss the investigation and the consequences.

British investigators began work on a pair of “black boxes” to retrieve data on the flight’s last minutes, while Dutch officials said they have taken charge of the stalled investigation of the airline disaster and pleaded for unhindered access to the wreckage.

“If I have to wait five months for identification, I can do it,” said Silene

“The black boxes will also be analysed for evidence of tampering,” it said in a statement.

The OVV investigation in Ukraine is coordinating teams from eight different countries, including Russia.

“The investigation in Ukraine is in full swing,” it said. “Despite investigators not having safe access to the crash site, work is being done in Kiev and the Netherlands to gather and analyse information from different sources.”

The AAIB is responsible for investigating civil aircraft accidents and serious incidents in Britain.

It also provides assistance and expertise to the “international air accident community” to help improve aviation safety worldwide.

“The fundamental purpose of investigating accidents is to determine the circumstances and causes of the accident with a view to the preservation of life and the avoidance of accidents in the future,” the branch says of its work.

“It is not to apportion blame or liability.”

It says it aims to conduct “thorough, independent, impartial and timely investigations”. Fredriksz-Hoogzand, whose son, Bryce, and his girlfriend Daisy Oehlers died in the crash. “Waiting while the bodies were in the field and in the train was a nightmare.”

Ukraine and Western nations are pressing the pro-Russian rebels who control the crash site to allow an unfettered investigation, something Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would use his influence to achieve. Though confident that a missile brought down the passenger jet, US officials say Russia’s role remains unclear.

While the insurgents deny having missiles capable of hitting a jetliner at cruising altitude, rebel leader Alexander Borodai has said that separatist fighters do have Strela-10M ground-to-air missiles which are capable of hitting targets up to an altitude of 3,500 meters (11,500 feet).

The Dutch Safety Board, which is leading an international team of 24 investigators, and said unhindered access to the crash site is critical.

Spokesman Tjibbe Joustra told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that around 25 investigators already are in Kiev analyzing information including photos, satellite images and radar information, but have not yet gained access to the crash site.