Possible Missile Attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
July 28, 2014 |
| Report Number |
IN10115 |
| Report Type |
Insight |
| Authors |
Gertler, Jeremiah |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), a Boeing 777 bound from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed in eastern Ukraine. MH17's position was shown on live aircraft tracking websites using the airliner's automated dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) signal. Its final reported position was near the Russia-Ukraine border at an altitude of 33,000 feet. Initial reports from the crash scene indicated that the resulting debris field covered a large area. This is characteristic when an aircraft breaks up at high altitude (as opposed to diving into the ground or incidents on landing or takeoff, where the debris field is tightly confined around the point of impact). Inflight breakup can occur for a number of reasons, including metal fatigue (as in the case of two DeHavilland Comet jetliners in the 1950s); onboard explosions, whether caused by bombs or accidental combustion (such as TWA flight 800 in 1996); or external events like a missile attack (as was the case with Korean Air Lines 007 in 1983 and Iran Air 655 in 1988). Because spontaneous inflight breakup of an airliner is a rare event, the crash's proximity to an active conflict zone where military aircraft had recently been shot down led to speculation that MH17's breakup may have been the result of a surface-to-air missile. This was reinforced when, almost immediately, pictures appeared in social media purporting to show Russian-built Buk anti-aircraft missile launchers near the crash site.
