Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile from eastern Ukraine, the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) said in an investigation report published Tuesday.
"The weapon used was a warhead model 9N314M, a missile 9M38 series, as installed on the BUK surface-to-air missile system," DSB chairman Tjibbe Joustra said.
Three crew members of the flight were killed in the cockpit when the missile hit the Boeing 777, Joustra added.
"High-energy objects were also found in the bodies of the three crew members in the cockpit," he said, after the DSB concluded that the plane was hit by a 9N314M warhead, launched by a BUK surface-to-air missile system.
"The in-flight breakup of the aircraft near the Ukrainian/Russian border was caused by the detonation of a warhead close to the left front of the plane," Joustra said.
He deplored that Ukrainian authorities did not close the airspace. "Almost all operators were flying over that area, and why? Because nobody thought that civil aviation was at risk," Joustra told reporters.
Joustra said that on the day of the downing, 160 flights flew over the area.
Between July 14 and 17 last year, 61 operators from 32 countries routed their flights through the airspace over eastern Ukraine.
Russia has disputed the type of missile used.
Yan Novikov, CEO of Russian missile manufacturer Almaz-Antei, presented at a press conference results of two actual experiments done by specialists, which led to a conclusion that contradicts the DSB results.
Novikov said the missile was "for sure" fired from Zaroshchenskoye village in southeastern Ukraine controlled by Ukrainian military forces rather than by insurgents.
Mikhail Malyshevsky, adviser to the general designer of Almaz-Antei, said that all evidence pointed to the conclusion that the flight was downed by a guided air defense missile, probably a 9M38M1 missile of the BUK-M1 which "has not been produced in Russia since 1999."
However, Ukraine blamed Russia for shooting down the passenger plane.
"We are certain that this (operation) was conducted from territory that was only under the Russian fighters' control," said Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
"And there is also no doubt that drunk separatists do not know how to use these BUK systems," said the prime minister. "This means that these systems were operated only by trained Russian servicemen."
Malaysia vowed on Tuesday to seek the prosecution of the "trigger-happy criminals" who downed Flight MH17.
"As part of the (Joint Investigation Team), Malaysia remains single-minded in our pursuit of decisive action that will lead to prosecution of the trigger-happy criminals," Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said.
The plane crashed in Ukraine's conflict-torn eastern region on July 17, 2014 on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board.
The West has been claiming that pro-independence insurgents in eastern Ukraine shot down the aircraft.
