MH17 crash: Dutch experts say numerous objects hit plane

[reorg]

5. not sure about that

The report says

"UkSATSE provided the recording and a transcipt of the radio (RAD) and telephone communications regarding flight MH17."

But "According to information received from the NBAAI, recorded ATC surveillance information revealed that three other commercial airliners overflew the same restricted airspace as flight MH17 around the time of the occurrence."

So the investigators received the recording of the direct communications with MH17, but information about everything else is only indirectly obtained. The presence of fighter planes is neither being confirmed nor denied, the only thing mentioned in this respect is that "state aircraft" were authorized to fly below 260 thousand feet.

About the 30 min. recording from the cockpit voice recorder we only get the information:

"The recording also included crew communication which gave no indication that there was anything abnormal with the flight. ... A replay of the CVR did not identify any aircraft aural warnings or alerts of system malfunctions. Detailed analysis is ongoing."

Would observations by the crew about, say, military planes passing by, possibly be relevant? Would such observations be considered an indication that something was "abnormal with the flight"? We can't be sure, I guess, and have to wait until the final report comes out in a year or so.

The report also mentions that the investigators did not receive primary surveillance radar from Ukraine, only from the Russians. We know the latter show military airplanes, which cannot be confirmed by the data from Ukraine since they only provided "secondary surveillance radar (SSR/Mode S: "SSR determines information about the aircrafts's identification, positioin, altitude based on the the return of a signal sent from the ground station to which the aircraft replies.)".