Russia's Almaz-Antey arms company admitted MH17 could have been shot down due to operator error
Malaysia Airline’s Flight MH17 may have crashed due to an operator error of the Buk anti-aircraft. This was reported by the adviser to the chief designer of Russia's state-owned Almaz-Antey, Mikhail Malyshevsky.
According to him, the probability of a Buk missile system operator’s error cannot be ruled out.
“There may be a lot of different reasons for this. It could have happened due to poor crew training, or some wrong baseline data, possibly even some tragic mistakes. For example, a functioning combat missile was loaded instead of a training one. Though this is unlikely, it cannot be ruled out”, RIA Novosti reported Malyshevsky as saying.
The international team of investigators had previously issued a report stating that the Buk system rocket, which shot down the Malaysian Boeing 777, was sent from Russia.
The missile was launched from a location near the Ukrainian village of Pervomays’ke, which in July 2014 was under the control of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). After that, according to the report, the launcher was returned to Russia.
As previously reported, the MH17 aircraft went down on the 17th of July 2014. The airliner was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and was shot down in the Donbas area. All 298 passengers on board were killed.
The international investigative team was established in August 2014. No Russian representatives were included in the team.