Dutch Safety Board investigators given few opportunities to visit the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash site in Ukraine are being pulled from the country, with the organization saying there is little more they can learn there.
The Safety Board said in a statement that the investigation would continue at The Hague, where probers will examine evidence collected at the scene where the jet crashed after it was struck by a surface to air missile last month, killing all 298 passengers and crew aboard.
“To date under [Ukrainian] supervision only a few investigators were able to briefly visit the crash site immediately after the plane crash. Since the Dutch Safety Board took the charge of the investigation no new opportunity has arisen for the team to visit the crash site,” the organization said. The team will analyze what evidence it was able to collect, like the jet’s black boxes and radar and air traffic control data. The Netherlands’ prime minister last week suspended the search for bodies because the situation in the contested region had become too dangerous. Most of those killed in the crash were Dutch.
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