AMSTERDAM: The Dutch government has released nearly 600 documents related to the July 17 crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash in eastern Ukraine.
Investigators made the documents available after local news outlets pressured the government with freedom of information requests, although documents containing private data of the 298 victims will remain classified, the Dutch NL Times reported.
The 575 documents are mainly emails from the National Crisis Core Team, which was established in the wake of the crash to travel to Ukraine and investigate what happened. The Dutch team led the investigation because 193 victims were from the Netherlands.
The investigation team was charged with recovering the remains of the victims and discovering what brought the aircraft down.
The Malaysia Airlines flight was brought down while on route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. While theories about how it crashed have been plentiful, the most viable is that pro-Russian rebels using a Russian-supplied BUK missile launcher shot it down.
Dutch experts concluded last month after an independent investigation that it was the probable cause of the crash, but the official probe is still ongoing.
The newly released documents contain little about how the crash happened. Those findings will be presented later this year, investigators said.
Most of the documents discuss how the team would communicate with the families of the victims, make condolence registers and carry out national commemorations. However, a number of emails left one potential clue: an oxygen mask that was discovered attached to the body of one passenger.
The emails called for forensic tests to discover whether the mask was used or not. If proved that the mask was used, it may give the investigation insight into what happened onboard before the aircraft came down, and potentially dispel other theories.
