Investigators in Ukraine Begin Long-Delayed Search of Plane Crash Site
Dutch and Australian police officers on Friday were finally able to fan out over the site where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed in Ukraine last month, to search for human remains overlooked by local emergency workers.
As wind rustled over the wheat and sunflower fields, the police officers observed a moment of silence in deference to the dead and then spread out, carrying maps, GPS devices, blue plastic buckets and rubber gloves.
It was the first day of work at the site for the Dutch-led crash investigation and recovery mission, 15 days after the airliner broke apart in midair. The United States says pro-Russian separatists shot the plane at its cruising altitude of about 33,000 feet with a Russian-supplied missile. The separatists and Russia deny this. The debris and bodies were scattered over 14 square miles, falling in three villages and fields in rebel-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine.About 100 police officers and European monitors reached the site on Friday; the Ukrainian government has authorized up to 700 foreign police officers to search for clues and bodies. “We will find them and bring them home,” Mr. Kuijs said.
A separatist commander who gave only his nickname — Voron, or the Raven — said the Ukrainian column had not directly attacked the debris site, but had passed on a road to the town of Shakhtyorsk that was involved in the battle to encircle Donetsk.
The fighting ignited a fire in a wheat field that burned over fuselage fragments, including one that was potentially relevant to the crash investigation because it had what appeared to be shrapnel holes. The field still smoldered on Friday.
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