The field near Torez in rebel-held eastern Ukraine where Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 came down is set to be at the centre of one of the most politically loaded air crash investigations in recent history.
The challenges were outlined in the hours following the crash, when television footage showed people combing through the wreckage and Reuters reported on Friday morning that pro-Russia separatists had seized both the aircraft’s black box data recorders.
They planned to send them to Moscow – rather than Kiev, Ukraine’s capital – for investigation, they said, in blatant contravention of international rules on air crash investigations. Those rules require the country where the crash happened to lead the investigation, supported by air crash investigators from the country where the aircraft was made, in this case the US.