The report was presented yesterday, October 13, 2015 at the Gilze-Rijen military base in the Netherlands.

The final report into the July 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 that crashed in Ukraine  killing 298 people on board, says the plane was hit with a Russian-made Buk missile. The Dutch Safety Board that conducted research on the cause of the disaster said the missile hit the front left of the plane causing other parts to break off, BBC reported. The West and Ukraine say Russian-backed rebels brought down the Boeing 777.

However, Russia blames Ukrainian forces. The Dutch Safety Board in the report does not say who fired the missile but says airspace over eastern Ukraine should have been closed. This is because, the board does not have the authority to apportion blame, under the rules governing international crash investigations. Among the people who died in the plane crash were 196 Dutch nationals and 10 Britons.

The plane that was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed at the height of the conflict between government troops and the pro-Russian separatists. According to the report, the three crew members in the cockpit were killed by the missile explosion instantly but it was unclear at which point the other occupants died.

Palpable evidence of the plane were exhibited through its parts the  safety board research members brought back from the rebel-held Donestsk region of Ukraien and reconstructed. Board President Djibbe Joustra said the impact pattern could not have been caused by a meteor, an air-to-air missile or an internal explosion.

He said a warhead had detonated above the left-hand side of the cockpit, causing structural damage to the front, which then broke off from the rest of the plane. Mr Joustra reportedly said there had been sufficient reason to close off Ukrainian airspace but Ukraine did not do that - and on the day of the crash, 160 flights flew over the area in question.