Investigators Successfully Retrieve MH17 Black Box Data; Search Starts For Evidence Of Alleged Missile Attack

Jul 25, 2014 01:11 AM EDT

(Photo : Reuters/Stringer) People walk near the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 that crashed last Thursday, near Hrabove (Grabovo) in the Donetsk region July 23, 2014. A Dutch air force transport plane carrying the first 16 coffins with the remains of victims of the downed Malaysian airliner took off on Wednesday from an airport in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv for the Netherlands.

A week after the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was downed in east Ukraine, investigators has successfully retrived data from the plane's black box and hopes to find evidence that the passenger jet was shot down.

On Wednesday, investigators retrieved cockpit-voice recordings while the United Kingdom's Air Accidents Investigation Branch obtained the Boeing Co. 777's flight data on Thursday, according to the Dutch Safety Board that heads the investigation.

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The plane's flight data recorder was damaged, but the memory module remained intact with no signs of manipulation, according to the Dutch Group.

Authorities hope that the black box will obtain the evidence needed to confirm the missile strike.

Former Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) investigator Phil Giles said the black box might have picked up some sound coming from shrapnel's hitting the plane.

"With the power shutting down as the plane breaks up we may also get very little," Giles said. "But given the nature of the attack we should have enough evidence to reach conclusions anyway just from the major fragments, however contaminated the crash site."

Recent photographs of the remaining fuselage created speculations that the attack indeed came from a missile.

Reed Foster, manager of IHS Jane's military capabilities, said the punctures are relatively uniform in size consistent with a fragmentation warhead employed upon surface to air missile systems.

Such types of missile system can be detonated within a short distance but with great power as it launches thousands of flying shrapnels everywhere, said Doug Richardson who also work with IHS Janes.

The bodies of the victims are still being examined. The Dutch authorities are taking the lead on the investigation since almost 200 of the crash victims are from the Netherlands.

While local parties are still trying to find the remaining victims, the specialists from the Dutch National Forensic Team are already flying some bodies back to the Netherlands.

TagsMalaysian Airlines Flight MH17, MH17, Ukraine, Malaysian plane crash