The REAL Story of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17!

0:02 [Music] July 17th, 2014. A Malaysian Airlines Boing 77200 ER is cruising high above eastern Ukraine at 33,000 ft. This is a completely routine flight with the track name MH17, connecting Amsterdam's Skipole airport to Koala Lumpur in Malaysia. For the passengers on board, it's the middle of a longhaul journey with some settling in for a nap, others watching a movie, and the crew quietly managing the cabin service. But whilst everything seems normal on board, down below them, things on the ground is anything but. Eastern and southern Ukraine is a war zone where pro-Russian separatists are locked in a brutal conflict with the

0:48 Ukrainian national forces. Cities are being bombarded, aircraft are being shot down, but all of that is happening miles below the peaceful blue skies where damaged 17 is now flying. For the pilots in the cockpit, this is just another flight. They're at a safe altitude. They've been cleared to fly on their current track by air traffic control, and they therefore have no reason to think that they're in any kind of danger. But in just a few minutes, that will all change because unbeknownst to anyone on board, below them on the battlefield, a book surfaceto-air missile launcher is now scanning the skies. And the passengers and crew of MH17 has no idea that they're about to become part of one of the worst tragedies in modern

1:34 aviation history. Now, to truly understand what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, we need to go far beyond the cockpit and airline procedures of this particular airline. This is a story of war, misinformation, advanced weapons, as well as a tragic failure of command and control. So, this video is going to be a little bit different than my usual content. Normally I focus on not only explaining why and how something happened but also how the aviation world have learned from what happened and how we pilots can improve and there will be some of that here as well. But this is also a much bigger story, one that I have wanted to tell for a long time. And the reason I have chosen now to do so is because on the 12th of May 2025, just a

2:22 few weeks ago, the International Civil Aviation Organization, IAO, held a historic vote, which I'll get back to later. Anyway, I hope that you'll stick around with me as I explain why this almost unbelievable tragedy happened and what, if anything, we can learn from it. And for sensitive viewers out there, I want to send out a general warning because this story will at times be quite hard to watch. Back in early 2014, Ukraine found itself at the center of a political and military crisis that would soon spiral into chaos. It had all begun with the Euromaiden protest, which was a wave of massive demonstrations in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, demanding closer ties

3:08 with Europe and an end to widespread government corruption. These protests eventually forced the resignation of Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Victor Yanukovich, and that triggered a chain reaction that would soon destabilize the entire region. Just weeks after Yanukovich ouster Ukraine's neighbor Russia made its first move by claiming a need to protect Russianspeaking populations. Russian troops moved into Crimea, a strategic peninsula on the Black Sea and then rapidly took control there. In March of 2014, Russia then formally annexed Crimea in a move that was condemned by much of the world but celebrated in Moscow. But Crimea was just the

3:54 beginning. In the eastern regions of Ukraine, particularly Donetsk and Luhansk, groups of pro-Russian separatists now also seized the moment by declaring themselves the defenders of Russian culture and language. They now rose up against the Ukrainian government, taking over towns, cities, and government buildings. They called their new territories the Donet People's Republic, the DPR, and the Luhansk People's Republic LPR. But these were not just homegrown insurgencies. Now, from the very beginning, Russia played a direct and decisive role in supporting these separatists in the form of money, weapons, and most importantly, people. Russian citizens, including exsoldiers, and even active duty Russian

4:40 troops disguised as volunteers, crossed the border to fight alongside with the separatists. And many of the separatists themselves were trained and equipped in Russia before being sent back across the border to fight. And we're not talking just about small arms and basic supplies here either. Among the most significant forms of Russian support were also advanced weapon systems. Weapons with the power of dramatically alter the balance of power in the conflict. This included heavy artillery, armored vehicles, and most crucially, surfaceto-air missile systems, including something known as the book missile launcher, a weapon that could reach very high altitudes. Now, we'll discuss that particular system in a bit more detail later, but

5:25 for now, just know that partially because of this system, the actual threat faced by civilian aircraft over Eastern Europe at this particular time was very different from what was generally understood. So on July the 17th, 2014, MH17 was just one out of several civilian airliners cruising through this supposedly safe airspace. The flight being operated by a Boeing 77200 ER with registration 9MRD had departed Amsterdam Skipull airport at 13:31 local time and there were 298 people on board consisting of 283 passengers and 15 crew members. The passengers came from a wide range of countries with the largest group 193

6:12 being Dutch along with 43 Malaysians, 27 Australians, and the rest of the passengers coming from across Europe and Southeast Asia. The flight crew of MH17 comprised of four experienced pilots, all Malaysian nationals, operating under a two crew rotation system for this quite long flight. Captain Van Amran Van Hussein, aged 49, was in command and he had accumulated a total of 13,239 flight hours, including 7,989 hours on the Boeing trip 7. At the time that this flight was passing over eastern Ukraine, he was at the controls and was later planned to hand over the controls to the relief captain and go to take some rest. The active first officer

6:59 sitting next to him was 29-year-old Ahmad Hakeimi Hannapi. He was medium experienced with around 3,190 total flight hours, but only 227 hours on the trip 7, meaning that he had just started flying the type. The relief crew on the flight consisted of Captain Eugene Chu Jim Leong, aged 44, and relief first officer Muhammad Filos Abdul Raheem, aged 26. both quite experienced and they would likely have been resting at the time maybe in the business class cabin or in the crew relief area of the trip 7 situated above the business class cabin. Now, most of the passengers on board MH17 likely had no idea that they were flying over a war zone. But in fact,

7:44 below them, the separatists were fighting a fierce battle with the Ukrainian military with the Ukrainian air force providing constant air support to the government troops. And precisely because of that support, the separatist fighters were using anti-aircraft missiles to try and shoot down the Ukrainian military aircraft. So even though a false sense of calm and normality existed at 33,000 ft, all of the elements of a tragedy were actually already in place. A war on the ground, a still crowded sky above it, and a weapon with the power to reach extreme altitudes in the hands of the separatists, which the Western powers did not know about. Now, this topic was a very, very complex

8:30 thing to research partially because of all of the misinformation and contradicting international coverage of it. Like I mentioned in the beginning, I chose to cover this now due to a recent ruling from the International Civil Aviation Organization, Ikawa. But even that story was almost overwhelming. With over 300 articles covering it, my team and I needed a clearer, unbiased view to sort through everything. And that's when we turn to today's sponsor, Ground News. And you can follow along in that journey on ground.news/mpp. Right away, it's clear that about half the coverage comes from media conglomerates, whilst only around 14% are governmentowned. And what's really

9:18 interesting is how differently the right and left-wing outlets covered this same story. Look at this. The left-leaning Daily Mirror stated that Putin will never apologize for Malaysian Airlines MH17 plane crash disaster for two key reasons. Framing the issue in terms of Putin's personal refusal to take responsibility rather than a factual report about the UN findings. Meanwhile, right leaning the star goes with Anvar raises MH17 issue with Putin during Moscow visit, focusing more on diplomatic talks and downplaying direct blame. Now, ground news will show just how factual each source is and also lets you filter by the ones that you trust,

10:03 which is ideal for stories this complex. And there is now even a custom mentor feed for aviation if you want to check it out. So, if you are tired of sensationalist headlines in today's divided world, I highly recommend you to use this QR code or go to ground.news/mpp to give ground news a chance. My viewers are now getting a fantastic 40% discount for a limited time. That's only $5 per month, which I think is super. Thank you, Ground News. And let's get back to the story. So for Malaysian Airlines, it was following a very standard route that consisted of a set of direct airways across Europe, first passing over Germany, Poland, and then into Ukrainian

10:49 airspace before continuing southeast towards Koala Lumpur. But why would any airline, including Malaysian Airlines, choose to fly directly over a region embroiled in active conflict? Well, to answer that, we need to talk about how airlines generally choose their routes in the first place. Commercial airlines obviously don't just pick airways at random. No, they must carefully balance three critical factors when they do so. Safety, cost, and efficiency. The shortest route is almost always the most efficient, which means a lot less fuel burned, shorter crew duty times, and therefore overall lower costs. And in the highly competitive world of commercial aviation, these costs can make a huge difference, but obviously

11:36 only if that shorter route is deemed as completely safe. So that's why the route over eastern Ukraine, specifically along the L980 airway, was so popular. It was a direct efficient path between Europe and Southeast Asia, used by dozens of international carriers every single day. But how did the companies and crews decide that it was safe then? Especially during a raging conflict that everyone in the world knew about. Well, that's where international corporation and the NOTAM system notice to airmen comes in. You see, a NOTAM is a special bulletin issued by aviation authorities to provide information about potential hazards along a planned flight path or in an airport. Example, in this case,

12:24 the Ukrainian government had issued a notm restricting the airspace below 32,000 ft over the conflict zone, and that was primarily because of the threat posed by conventional groundbased weapons. But above 32,000 ft, the airspace was still considered safe. And that wasn't just a decision made by Ukraine. It was an international consensus. Aviation regulators, air traffic control organizations, and aviation safety authorities around the world had agreed that commercial flights at cruising altitude, meaning at 33,000 ft or above, were out of reach of any known weapons being used in this particular conflict. So, with MH17 cruising at 33,000 ft, just above the restricted zone, it was

13:09 supposed to be safe. The flight crew had even requested to climb to 34,000 ft in order to get an extra margin of safety, but that request was denied by Ukrainian air traffic controllers due to other traffic in the area. Now, you might wonder why they didn't want to climb even higher than that. But the fact is that a longhaul flight full of fuel and passengers often can't climb much higher than 34 to 35,000 ft initially. That's until it has burnt off enough fuel to lower the aircraft weight a bit in order to allow that climb. But in any case, what I want to get to here is that this chosen route wasn't a case of a single airline making a reckless decision. Now, Malaysian Airlines was just one out of many

13:54 carriers using this route, including major European airlines like Lufansza, Air France, and KLM. Everyone were following international guidelines who at that time still considered it to be completely safe. Even airlines from outside the region like Singapore Airlines continued to use this corridor. So on July the 16th, a day before MH17, a full 160 different flights had crossed through the same airspace. In any case, MH17 continued along its flight plan route with the flight crew monitoring their instruments, chatting to air traffic control, and following their routines with no indication of any danger. But below them, a much more powerful weapon system than the expected handheld missile launchers that the threat assessment had been based on was

14:41 now present. This weapon was a book surfaceto-air missile system. But how and why was it there? Well, like I said before, the conflict was not a case of entirely homegrown uprisings. Now, the separatists were receiving extensive support from Russia, who saw its own interests being favored by what the militias were doing. This support came, like I mentioned before, in many forms, funding, weapons, and even direct involvement by Russian military personnel presented as volunteers. Now, Ukraine's military trying to suppress the separatist rebellion was, like I mentioned, using its own air force, including Ukrainian fighter jets and military transport aircraft to

15:26 provide air support for ground troops and conduct strikes on separatist positions. And that air support was obviously a huge problem for the separatists, making those aircraft prime targets. Though among the most significant forms of Russian support were therefore advanced weapon systems like anti-aircraft missiles for example. During the early months of the conflict the separatists were only using smaller shoulder fired anti-aircraft weapons known as man pads mostly to take down low-flying helicopters or lowaltitude aircraft. But they had one critical limitation. They couldn't reach targets above a few thousand ft. As the conflict escalated, the Ukrainian Air Force therefore adapted and began

16:11 using higher altitude flights well beyond the reach of these man pads. And to counter this, the separatists needed something far more capable, which is where the Book missile system came in. The book, which NATO calls the GADFly, is a medium-range radarg guided surfaceto-air missile system developed by the Soviet Union, which has been continuously upgraded over the decades. It is a self-contained, highly mobile system, including a radar unit, command vehicle, and multiple launch vehicles, all mounted on tracked armored vehicles. These missiles are massive, 5 m long, and weighing 690 kilos. But most importantly, they are capable of reaching targets flying at altitudes as

16:58 high as 70,000 ft, far beyond the cruising altitude of any commercial airliner. And they are specifically designed to engage fastm moving targets like fighter jets, bombers, and even cruise missiles with a range of dozens of kilometers in every single direction. The version that was now sitting on the ground below MH17's flight path wasn't just some old Soviet relic. Now, this book system used by the separatists was a modernized version, the book M1, which was still in active use by the Russian military at the time. So, how did this advanced weapon end up in the hands of the separatists? Well, according to the Dutch Safety Board, this particular box system did

17:43 definitely not come from the Ukrainian military. Instead, it was brought into Ukraine directly from Russia. Civilian witnesses had seen a convoy of military vehicles, including a Boach launcher, crossing the Russian Ukrainian border in the days before the disaster. And investigative journalists, including a team from Bellingat, used open-source intelligence, photos, videos, and social media posts to track the exact route of this book system as it moved across eastern Ukraine. The images found were matched to specific locations, and the book launcher was identified as part of Russia's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade based in Kursk with satellite imagery, eyewitness accounts, and even intercepted communications confirming

18:30 the presence of the book in separatist held territory. But why would Russia provide such a powerful weapon to these separatists? Well, the answer was air superiority. Like I mentioned, Ukrainian military aircraft were a constant threat to separatist forces with fighters conducting ground attacks and transport aircraft delivering troops and supplies to Ukrainian positions. So the separatists needed a way to deny the Ukrainian air force access to their territory to create an air defense bubble over their positions. And the book was the perfect tool for that job. But the problem with such a powerful weapon is that it requires proper training, command, and control procedures to use it safely. It's a

19:17 sophisticated system designed to be operated by a trained disciplined crew under the direct command of a higher military authority. But in this case, the book was instead operated by a mixed crew of Russian and separatist fighters. Fighters who were neither properly trained nor adequately supervised for that task. On July the 17th, that book was then finally positioned near the town of Schnitzn, which was a separatist stronghold. It was made ready to engage any aircraft deemed hostile. But without a clear command structure, that could basically mean any aircraft. A few hours after its takeoff from Amsterdam, MH17 had leveled off at flight level 330 as it passed over the Ukrainian airspace. After crossing the city of Nipro Petrovski, the plan was to

20:05 climb to flight level 350 and the routing was reviewed and approved by air traffic control the entire time. As the flight approached the Nepov flight information region at 1553 local time, Ukrainian air traffic control known as Nepro control asked the crew if they were ready to begin their climb to flight level 350. At that moment there was also another aircraft nearby Singapore Airlines flight 351 flying on the same airway at the same altitude. So in order to maintain proper separation between the two one of the aircraft had to climb. The crew of MH17 requested to remain at flight level 330 which Nepro control approved and instead they instructed the Singapore Airlines flight to climb the flight 350 which satisfied the

20:51 separation. At 1600 local time, the crew of MH17 then requested a minor deviation about 20 degrees to the left of track in order to avoid some weather. This is something that we pilots do all the time. So the deviation was therefore approved without any issue. Shortly after that, the crew also asked to climb to flight 340. So a little bit higher than where they already were, but not quite as high as flight 350. Now, this request was denied by the controller since that flight level was already in use by another aircraft in the vicinity. So, MH17 just continued along at flight level 330. At time 1619, Nepro control noticed that the flight had deviated about 3.6 nautical miles off the center line of

21:38 the airway, likely as a result of that earlier weather deviation. So the controller now asked them if they could return back to the track, which the crew also agreed to do. Then 1 minute later, at time 1620 local time, Ukrainian controllers contacted their Russian counterparts in Rust On and requested permission to hand over MH17 as it near the boundary of Russian controlled airspace. That permission was granted. Though Nepro control then attempted to contact MH17 with the transfer instructions, but there was no reply. They tried again and again, still no reply. Neighbor control then called Rosavondon back to ask if they could see the

22:24 aircraft on their radar screens and the reply came quickly back. No, the target was now gone. As this was happening, military radars in the area started picking up what looked like several small aircraft descending, which horrifically turned out to be the debris from MH17 as it was now falling down towards the ground. And the radar screens also showed no other aircraft, civilian or military, within 30 to 60 km from that site. In the minutes and hours that followed, the world at large would begin to learn of the tragedy that had unfolded in the skies over Ukraine. But on the ground, among the shattered wreckage and scattered belongings, the first to see the horror were the local residents.

23:11 Now, they had not seen or heard the actual explosion, nor did they have any way of knowing what had happened. They only saw the terrible burning aftermath. And since they were residents of a war zone, they assumed that the wreckage was of military origin, but there was no weapons debris or military cargo. Instead, they started finding wind breakers, hand luggage, and personal effects. So, it soon became clear that this was actually not a military aircraft. This was a civilian airliner, and these were the remnants of innocent lives. The picture soon became obvious. A boring trip 7 lies scattered across the eastern Ukraine, but the cause would prove extremely difficult to determine.

23:57 Immediately, an investigation was launched led by the Dutch Safety Board, the DSB, with a separate but related criminal inquiry conducted by the joint investigation team, the GIT, including investigators from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, and Ukraine. Russia initially offered to help with the investigation as well, but was excluded from the GIT due to widespread concerns about their impartiality for reasons that will soon become clear. Now, this investigation began under some quite extraordinary circumstances. The crash site, a vast debris field in the middle of a war zone, was initially very difficult to access due to the pro-Russian separatists controlling the territory, severely limiting the movement of international observers.

24:45 Ukrainian emergency services and OCE monitors were initially completely blocked or given only restricted access and reports soon emerged of looting, tampering and even pieces of the aircraft being carried away by locals and separatist militia. In the days that followed, global outrage mounted, particularly in the Netherlands and Australia, where most of the victims have lived, and the United Nations Security Council tried to pass a resolution demanding full and unrestricted access to the crash site and calling for an independent international investigation, but that was vetoed by Russia. Once access to the wreckage had finally been secured, Ukrainian emergency services under international supervision began collecting debris from the vast

25:32 crash zone with the pieces then being transported to the Gil Rhen Air Force Base in the Netherlands. Once there, investigators undertook one of the most detailed and methodical aircraft reconstructions ever done in modern aviation history. Each piece of the wreckage was photographed in front of a green screen and then cataloged. Identification tags were attached, recording where the piece had been found and from what part of the aircraft it came from. And using this data, the team slowly began partially reconstructing the front fuselage and cockpit of the Boing 7. While the physical evidence was mounting, the DSB then conducted a methodical evaluation of all possible causes of the disaster.

26:18 They began by ruling out a technical malfunction. The flight data recorder had been found and it showed no abnormalities in the aircraft operation prior to the sudden end of the recording. The engine parameters were all completely normal and the cockpit voice recorder revealed no cockpit warnings, alerts or crew discussions suggesting any onboard problems. Next, they considered sabotage or a bomb on board. But there were no traces of explosive residue in the wreckage nor on the victim's remains. And apart from that, the damage pattern was entirely inconsistent with an internal detonation. Even the most improbable causes were considered, like that MH17 might have been struck by a meteorite or even

27:03 falling space debris. Statistically, these events are incredibly rare. One in 59,000 or 77,000 years for a meteor strike of this nature. But more importantly, there was absolutely no evidence of such debris in the area at the time that this happened. No, instead the reconstruction revealed a pattern of damage unlike anything caused by a mechanical failure or onboard explosion. The left side of the cockpit showed hundreds of small puncture marks consistent with high energy fragments impacting at extreme velocity. Strings were hung from each impact point and then traced backwards through space to determine the blast origin. And remarkably, all strings converged at one single point just ahead and to the left

27:50 of the cockpit. The only scenario that matched this physical evidence was therefore an external detonation that released hundreds of high velocity fragments into the cockpit. And not just any fragments. Investigators recovered fragments of a very specific design, bow tie, and cube- shaped shrapnel made from a very distinct metal composition. These fragments were found embedded in the cockpit walls, the pilot's bodies, as well as in the front part of the fuselage, and the DSB then started ruling out other military systems. Air-to-air cannon fire was dismissed because the damage did not match the uniform impact patterns associated with a cannon burst, and no bullet holes, tracer, or burn marks were present.

28:37 Air-to-air missiles were eliminated because those do not use bow tie-shaped shrapnel and radar data showed no military aircraft in the vicinity at the time. Other surfaceto-air missile systems such as the S200 or S300 were considered but dismissed due to the shrapnel that was found. And on top of that, three large fragments of the actual missile had been found and recovered from the debris field, including parts of the missile's tail section. And all of these three pieces were conclusively identified as belonging to the 9M38M1 missile, a variant used in the book surfaceto-air missile system. The warhead type was confirmed as a 9M314 Mike, which uniquely produces that bow tie-shaped shrapnel found in the

29:23 aircraft and conclusively only this book warhead match the methological composition and fragment shapes found in MH17. The joint investigation team working alongside the DSB also traced the missile launcher itself using open-source intelligence like the one I mentioned before. The investigative outlet Bellinkat along with national intelligence services identified the book launcher's path from Russia into Ukraine. And as I also mentioned before, it was found to belong to Russia's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade based in Kurk. Civilian videos and photographs conclusively placed this book system in separatist held territory on the day of the shootown and intercepted communications even revealed

30:08 conversations among separatist fighters discussing a successful hit on what they believed was a Ukrainian military aircraft. Now in a pattern that we today are sadly used to almost immediately after the shootown Russian state media launched a series of contradictory narratives. Some claiming that Ukrainian fighter jets had shot down the plane, others saying that a Ukrainian box system had been used. Russia's Ministry of Defense even released satellite images that they claimed showed Ukrainian launchers nearby. But analysts quickly determined that these images had been digitally altered. One photo pertained to show a book system in Keras Manu, a town under Ukrainian control. But meta data and

30:54 shadows in the image revealed that it had actually been taken in the separatist held city of Luhansk. Despite these efforts of misinformation, the body of evidence was soon completely overwhelming. The debris pattern, the missile fragments, the shrapnel in the cockpit, the reconstructions in the hangar, and the open-source intelligence trail all pointed to the same conclusion. MH17 had been destroyed by a 9M38M1 missile launched from a book system operated by Russianbacked separatists inside of eastern Ukraine. The Dutch Safety Board's approach, careful, systematic, and grounded in hard evidence, cut through the fog of war, propaganda, and conspiracy theories to lay bare what really happened on July

31:41 17th, 2014. And in doing so, they gave the world a clear answer to a horrifying question. Not just that MH17 was shot down, but exactly how, where, and by what. There was soon no mystery left, only the tragic certainty of what had actually happened. And this is it. At around 1610 local time, Captain Van Amran van Hussein and first officer Eugene Shu Jin Leong were monitoring their instruments and went about their duties as normal. Nothing would have looked out of the ordinary and the aircraft flight data recorder showed that the aircraft was maintaining a constant heading of 115° at an indicated air speed of 293 knots. On the ground below them in a farmer's

32:27 field near Schnitznney, a Bach missile system had now been put on high alert. The book crew's task was to provide air defense for separatist forces against Ukrainian military aircraft. And this was a system designed for a war zone meant to track, target, and destroy hostile aircraft with pinpoint accuracy. But of course, the situation in Eastern Ukraine at the time was anything but precise. Sometime around 1615, a radar contact then appeared on the book systems targeting screen. A dot, an aircraft high in the sky. But the radar didn't show what kind of aircraft it was. It didn't display the airline, the flight number, nor the fact that this was an

33:12 aircraft full of civilians. Just a blip on the screen requiring a decision. Now, there were procedures that the book crew was supposed to follow before firing. clear straightforward procedures designed to prevent exactly this kind of tragedy. First, they should try to verify the target's identity using identification friend or foe IFFF signals. MH17's transponder was fully active at the time, broadcasting its identity to any system capable of receiving it. Secondly, they should confirm with their higher command to confirm that the target was a legitimate military threat. This is the most basic level of military command and control. You just don't fire without authorization. If you're unsure and

33:59 you're not under direct threats, well then you should stand down. And then thirdly, they should have checked flight schedules. Commercial flight schedules are publicly available and the presence of a civilian airliner should therefore have been immediately obvious. MH17 would have been broadcasting its location, heading and altitude on ADSB, and a quick scan would have revealed its identity and benign intentions. But none of those procedures were being followed on that day. In the chaos of the battlefield, there was no clear command structure. So this book crew was operating in a kind of semi-independent capacity, effectively making their own decisions. So, no one told them what was

34:45 flying overhead. No one checked for IFFF signals. No one looked at flight schedules. And the crew, many of whom were poorly trained and inexperienced, didn't know enough to question their orders. In that confusion, a civilian airliner, indistinguishable from a military transport on the radar screen just became a target. The decision was made and the book crew pushed the button. The missile immediately roared to life, followed by a column of smoke and fire erupting from its launcher. Within seconds, the missile had accelerated to supersonic speed, climbing rapidly towards its target at over 2,000 mph. Now, that missile would have moved incredibly fast as it approached the nose of the aircraft. So, if the crew

35:31 saw it at all, they would have only seen it for maybe a few seconds. There was no time to react and no way for the massive jet to avoid the missile even if they knew that it was coming. Less than a minute after its launch, the missile therefore closed in on MH17. And it didn't have to hit the aircraft directly. You see, the book is equipped with a proximity fuse, a sensor that detects when the missile is near enough to the target to detonate and achieve maximum damage. And so it did. Just ahead and to the left of the cockpit, the missile exploded, sending a deadly cloud of shrapnel straight into the aircraft. Over 800 high energy objects, including those distinctive bow tie-shaped

36:16 fragments, tore through the fuselage, instantly destroying the nose and forward part of the aircraft. The pilots and the purser who was present in the cockpit at the time were immediately killed, struck by high-speed shrapnel, and a number of business class passengers were likely also killed in that same way. The force of the blast then shattered the forward section of the aircraft, creating a series of catastrophic structural failures, including breaking off the front of the fuselage, which was then sent tumbling down through the air. The wings and rear fuselage, now unstable and flying without any control or integrity, then also began to break away. Horizontal fractures formed alongside the passenger floor, causing the upper section to separate. The wing tips then sheared off and the aft fuselage with the tail twisted

37:03 eventually also broke away entirely. The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder both cut off exactly at time 1320 instead of 3 seconds just 1 second before the emergency locator transmitter activated. Now while it was difficult to determine conclusively a number of the oxygen generators on board were activated but this was likely a result of the in-flight breakup. The Dutch investigators did not believe any of the oxygen masks were actually used by the passengers. Instead, the decompression at 33,000 ft would have been effectively instantaneous, meaning that the passengers would have become unconscious within a few seconds. So, thankfully, the investigators do not believe that anyone would have suffered

37:50 or even been aware of what was happening to them. The main fuselage then continued its downward spiral, pieces scattering over several kilometers with the main part of the wreckage finally smashing into fields, roads, and even homes. It was obvious to those that watched the debris fall that there would be no survivors here. In its final report released in October of 2015, the Dutch Safety Board formally concluded that the aircraft had been downed by a book missile launched from separatist territory. The report did not assign criminal liability. So that task instead fell to the joint investigation team. And a few years after the catastrophe, the GIT would go on to charge four individuals

38:36 with responsibility for the attack based on evidence of their involvement in moving and operating the missile system. And then eventually in May of this year 2025, UN's International Civil Aviation Organization, IAO, publicly declared that Russia was responsible for the missile that brought down MH17. And while the political ramification of that statement continues to reverberate, this technical investigation stands as one of the most comprehensive and precise aviation inquiries ever conducted. Aviation is one of the safest forms of transportation. But when tragedy strikes, when a flight vanishes, crashes, or is shot down out of the sky, the consequences are swift, global, and irreversible.

39:22 The story of MH17 is not just a cautionary tale. It is a heartbreaking reminder of how even the most carefully managed system can be shattered by a single error or a single lie. One of the most painful lessons from this tragedy is that even internationally approved air corridors were proven not to always be safe. The airspace over eastern Ukraine had not been closed at cruising altitude because no one had previously demonstrated the capability nor the willingness to target the civilian aircraft at 33,000 ft. That confidence now proved tragically misplaced. And even though MH17's crew had followed every rule, their flight plan was the standard and that their altitude were consistent with all the guidance available at the time.

40:09 They ended up in this situation. In the years since the MH17 disaster, international aviation authorities have changed the way that they evaluate conflict zones. Airlines are now far more cautious when routting flights through or near areas of active conflicts. And several carriers have even established internal risk teams, hired geopolitical analysts, and began working more closely with intelligence agencies to get better realtime assessments of the threats. Eventually, the full-scale Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine in 2022 closed the airspace over the country permanently. But the MH17 case continues to resonate, not just because of what happened, but because of what it revealed. In the

40:55 hours and days after the crash, the Russian government released a flurry of contradictory claims. But against that stood the Dutch Safety Board and the Joint Investigation Team, who spent years patiently, rigorously, and transparently building their case based on facts and evidence. They ruled out every other possible cause. And in the end, they didn't just reach a conclusion, they demonstrated it piece by piece using that same hard evidence. That's what I love about accident investigations. In a world full of conspiracies and unfounded opinions and rumors, they stand out as pillars of unbiased facts and clarity, which is something that we should appreciate and protect.

41:41 Now, this was a very tough video to both research and make. It's nothing like the types of aviation incidents that we normally cover here on Mentor Pilot. And as a result, we had to tell this story in a slightly different way. Please consider subscribing to the channel if you found this video informative. And you can also support the work we do here on the channel and also see my next video before everyone else, possibly even today, by scanning this QR code or go to patreon.com/join/mentor pilot. Also, make sure to check out your special deal from our sponsor here in the description below. Have an absolutely fantastic day wherever you are, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.