First reactions to initial MH17 report

By Maxime Zech on September 9, 2014 - 13:06
MH17
The Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash site in Ukraine. Source: Twitter/ @mashable. (The Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash site in Ukraine. Source: Twitter/ @mashable)

After Tuesday's Dutch Safety Board release of a highly-anticipated preliminary report on its findings from the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 plane crash investigation, social media sites such as Twitter became overflowed with people expressing opinions on the initial conclusions.

With several news sources linking to the Dutch investigators' first findings, many tweeters seemed stunned that the only concrete conclusion points to the plane having disintegrated mid-air due to high-energy objects, despite eyewitness claims that Russian soldiers fired a BUK missile at the aircraft, journalists' claims that Russian separatists were seen with a BUK missile system in the area of the crash, claims for credit taken by a Russian separatist leader, and Russia's claims that Ukrainian jets were responsible for the passenger jet crash.

Many tweets point out that this was already widely believed to be the obvious cause of the plane's crash as early reports showed images of the plane's exterior broken up and distributed across the crash site, riddled with holes.

https://twitter.com/foreverutd/status/509268448933736448

There was a sense of exasperation in many tweets, as the report does not seem to satisfy the urge for more enlightening conclusions.

https://twitter.com/shaunhowe11/status/509267372252090368

With early theories on the culprits behind the crash already compiling sufficient evidence to lay the blame squarely on Russia, tweeters are disappointed that the report makes no effort to lay some evidence towards a guilty party.

The fact that it has taken this long to gather, what the public seems to think, information that those following the tragedy already knew is also causing anger. The Board points out that it will take up to a year to gather further information that will make it more clear where these 'high-speed objects' came from.

One Russian official, former Kremlin and government advisor Alexander Kekrassov, posted a tweet that makes it clear that he thinks the report is ridiculous, and out to make Russia look bad.

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