Page 9 - ATODAY
P. 9
WORLD NEWS 9
Wednesday 14 October
Dutch probe: Buk missile downed Malaysian jet in Ukraine
JOHN DAHLBURG tornado-like airflow surging
through the doomed jet as
MIKE CORDER it came apart was power-
ful enough to tear off peo-
Associated Press ple’s clothes and leave na-
ked corpses amid the fields
GILZE-RIJEN AIR BASE, of sunflowers.
The 15-month Dutch inves-
Netherlands (AP) — The tigation blamed a Soviet-
made surface-to-air Buk
missile shot skyward from missile for downing the
Amsterdam to Kuala Lum-
war-ravaged eastern pur flight, but it did not ex-
plicitly say who had fired
Ukraine. With deadly ac- it. It identified an area of
320 square kilometers (120
curacy more than six miles square miles) where it said
the launch must have
up, it detonated just in front taken place, and all of
the land was in the hands
of the Malaysia Airlines jet- of pro-Russian separatists
fighting Ukrainian forces
liner, sending hundreds of at the time of the disaster,
according to daily maps
jagged steel shards ripping of fighting released by the
Ukrainian National Security
through its aluminum skin Council.
The Dutch Safety Board
at up to 5,600 mph and also found that the trag-
edy wouldn’t have hap-
shearing the cockpit from pened if the airspace of
eastern Ukraine had been
the rest of the plane. totally closed to passenger
planes as fighting raged
The two pilots and purser in below.q
the cockpit died instantly,
and the Boeing 777 disin-
tegrated and fell to earth, Journalists take images of part of the reconstructed forward section of the fuselage after the
presentation of the Dutch Safety Board’s final report into what caused Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
killing the rest of the 298 to break up high over Eastern Ukraine last year, killing all 298 people on board, during a press
conference in Gilze-Rijen, central Netherlands, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
men, women and children
aboard Flight 17 on July
17, 2014, Dutch investiga-
tors said Tuesday in a long-
awaited report.
Some of the victims may
have been conscious
for 60 to 90 seconds, the
Dutch Safety Board said,
but they probably were
not fully aware of what was
happening in the oxygen-
starved, freezing chaos. The
AP: Protests over Spanish court
probe of Catalan secession poll
EMILIO MORENATTI were questioned over their
CIARAN GILES
Associated Press suspected roles in holding
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) —
Thousands of pro-Catalan the poll.
independence supporters
on Tuesday protested the Catalonia’s regional lead-
start of a Spanish court in-
vestigation into the region- er Artur Mas is also under
al government’s symbolic
referendum on secession investigation and is sched-
from Spain last year.
New Barcelona mayor uled to testify Thursday.
Ada Colau headed the
demonstration, reading a Spain’s Constitutional
statement backing Cata-
lonia’s demand for the Court suspended the Nov.
right to self-determination.
The rally came after a re- 9, 2014, referendum but
gional official and a former
regional deputy president Catalonia held it anyway,
calling it an informal effort.
Prosecutors accuse Mas
of grave disobedience,
abuse of public funds, pre-
varication, usurping pow-
ers and obstructing justice.
If tried and found guilty, he
could face disqualification
from office or up to one
year in jail.q
