Australian MH17 crash victim 'had time to put oxygen mask on', says Dutch foreign minister

Australian Broadcasting Corporation ^ | 2014-10-10 | Barbara Miller

[DTA]

One of the victims of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash was found wearing an oxygen mask, raising the possibility that some passengers may have been conscious as the aircraft went down in eastern Ukraine.

Nearly 300 people died when the passenger jet crashed in July while flying over insurgent-held territory in eastern Ukraine.

"You know that somebody was discovered wearing an oxygen mask and had time to put it on," Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans said on a late night Dutch chat show.

The foreign minister suggested the passengers may have been conscious as the plane went down.

The passenger concerned is understood to be an Australian, but that has not been officially confirmed.

Dutch prosecutors have confirmed to the ABC that one passenger was found with a mask, with the strap around their neck.

"How and when the mask ended up around the victim's neck is unknown," the prosecutors stressed.

Twenty-seven of the passengers were carrying Australian passports, while another 11 were Australian residents travelling on foreign passports.

"The Dutch Forensics Institute examined the mask looking for fingerprints, saliva and DNA, but the probe has not revealed any result," Dutch prosecutors said in a letter to victims' families published online.

None of the other victims of the fatal crash that killed all 298 on board was wearing an oxygen mask, they added.

Prosecutors said the victim's family was informed at the time, but relatives of other victims were not.

Mr Timmermans said he now regretted his comments.

"The last thing I wanted to do was increase their pain," Mr Timmermans said in a press release.

"I should not have said it."

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 went down on July 17 while flying over insurgent-held territory in conflict-wracked eastern Ukraine.

The findings of an initial report by a Dutch-led team of air crash investigators appear to back up claims that the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile.

Kiev and the West have accused Moscow-backed separatists of shooting it down with a surface-to-air BUK missile supplied by Russia. Moscow denies the charge and has pointed the finger back at Kiev.

Forensics experts suspended their search for bodies due to clashes between Kiev and the pro-Russian rebels near the crash site north-east of Donetsk, but said they hoped to return once the fighting died down.

Efforts to retrieve victims' personal belongings and handing them back to relatives were also continuing.

Pages in Russian have been set up on both Facebook and the VKontakte social networking sites urging people to report the discovery of belongings or body parts from the crash.

[FreeReign]

i knew he was from different country...

I don't usually like to point out typos and grammatical mistakes. I too make a bunch of them when typing really fast.

That said, I noticed that you left out the determiner "a" in your sentence when you were introducing the noun phrase, "different country". Russian speakers of English do that a lot. Are you Russian?

Just asking.

[donozark]

The crash site/crime scene was so bastardized/contaminated that I seriously doubt we will ever know the precise truth. Simply because the mask was wrapped around him, does not mean he put it on.

Depressurization, impact with hard objects (even runways-hard landings), turbulence, etc. will cause oxygen masks to drop. I've witnessed it first hand. Not pleasant. Normally accompanied by loud screaming and yelling...

[1rudeboy]

Yes, a conservative site. How about a source for your claim? And please try to learn what a strawman argument is.

[1rudeboy]

My favorite one is still the Russian claim that a SU-25 can fly at 33,000 feet.

[DTA]

>>>>>Yes, a conservative site. How about a source for your claim? And please try to learn what a strawman argument is.>>>>

Person 1 (DTA) asserts proposition X - recording media FROM ATC was confiscated by the agents of Ukraine security service and hidden from the international investigators.

Person 2 (1rudeboy) argues against a false but superficially similar proposition Y, as if that were an argument against Person 1's position - as if DTA claimed Black boxes were confiscated. Black boxes (flight recorders) and ATC recordings are totally diffferent objects in different locations.

it seems to me that Your Nazi kameraden should find someone more proficient to defend their hapless position.

[1rudeboy]

Person 1 (DTA) asserts proposition X - recording media FROM ATC was confiscated by the agents of Ukraine security service and hidden from the international investigators.

Person 2 (1rudeboy) cites that the cockpit voice recorder is sitting in Farnsworth, UK.

Person 2 (DTA) asserts that there is a difference that matters for an unknown reason, and repeats his unsourced claim.

_____
Of course, while a criminal investigation is ongoing.

[1rudeboy]

Maybe the “Kiev air traffic control” tapes will show the SU-25 pilot asking the Boeing 777 to reduce its altitude so that he may shoot it down. In a transmission that doesn’t appear on the cockpit voice recorder. By magic.

[DTA]

There is a difference between the recordings made by CVR in the cockpit and recordings made at ATC ON THE GROUND.

ICAO stipulates what conditions must be met for ATC recordings (voce, data, radar) and how long recordings must be kept

ICAO Document describing it and giving recommendations.

CVR records sound of what is happening in the cockpit as well as voice communication with ATC. It can not record ATC communication with other aircraft on other frequency, nor radar feed in ATC.

ICAO requeres that ATC recordings are kept for at least two weeks if there is no crash and as long as needed if there is a crash. KIEV ATC recordings were not given to the international investigative team. It has nothing do do with intact Black boxes (orange box on the picture) given to Investigators in U.K.

[1rudeboy]

And you still haven't explained why a recording of conversations between civilian ATC's on the ground, but not with MH17 are significant in any way.

[MikeinMotley]

“That said, I noticed that you left out the determiner “a” in your sentence when you were introducing the noun phrase, “different country”. Russian speakers of English do that a lot. Are you Russian?”

sorry but i don’t pay much attention to grammar. just like when i txt i make it short and sweet and make up my own abbreviations, as for being Russian? nah far from it! born, raised, and still in south central Virginia! never been out of the country!

Freguards~

Mike

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Don't pull the straw man here, because as you say, this is Conservative site, not DU.

You are not a conservative. You are a bootlicking Putinist too lazy to research his own claims to discover that they are old and disproved. I'm so sick of the BS myself that I do not even have the energy anymore to correct your raving.