Five Years Ago Today Flight MH17 Was Shot Down Over Eastern Ukraine Killing 298 People

An Emergencies Ministry member walks at a site of a Malaysia Airlines plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014. Reuters

Business Insider: It's been 5 years since MH17 was shot down, killing 298 people. Here's what happened, and why nobody has yet been held officially responsible

* Flight MH17 was shot out of the sky over Ukraine in July 17, 2014, five years ago Wednesday. The disaster killed 298 people.
* World leaders were immediately suspicious of Russia, and investigators concluded in 2018 that the plane was downed by a Russian military missile.
* The plane was flying over an area held by pro-Russian separatists that want to take the region out of Ukraine, but Russia has long denied any involvement in the attack and global tensions began to cool.
* It took almost five years for anyone to be identified as a suspect, and Russia condemned the international investigation when Russian former military officers were named.
* They will be put on trial, though they have not yet been apprehended.

On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a missile over Eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, and spawning a political battle that is yet to end.

The aircraft, a Boeing 777, was travelling between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, when it was shot out of the sky by a Russian-made missile over the Donetsk territory, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists that want to take the region out of Ukraine.

It took almost five years for anyone to be formally accused of the attack, and those suspects have not yet been apprehended.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: As someone who spent a few years working for ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization), I  still do not understand why there was no ban on civil aviation over the skies of eastern Ukraine during this time. To put it bluntly, ICAO and other aviation organizations did not do their job. As for the shot down itself, we will only know the complete story after the war that is still ongoing ends, and the politicians involved (Putin, Poroshenko, etc.) have disappeared from the scene.