On 17 July 2014, a Boeing 777 carrying 298 passengers broke up mid-air over a conflict zone in Eastern Ukraine near the Russian border.
Thirty-eight Australians were among the casualties, with the majority Dutch nationals. There were no survivors.
An interim report by the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) found MH17 split into pieces above Eastern Ukraine after being hit by a large number of high energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from the outside.
The report’s key findings were that:
- the Boeing 777 was airworthy, with no technical malfunctions and had last been checked in April 2014
- the crash was not caused by technical fault or actions of the experienced crew
- crew did not transmit a distress call or report anything abnormal during the flight
- the aircraft's black boxes were not tampered with.
The commercial airliner, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, had been flying on an approved flight path at an approved altitude.
An international team of forensic experts and investigators encountered repeated difficulties in gaining access to the crash site.
At the time of writing, investigations were ongoing.