KUALA LUMPUR: THE Dutch Safety Board, which is leading the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 investigations, will release a preliminary report on the jetliner early next month.
However, spokesman Wim van der Weegen said the board had yet to decide on the date to publish the report.
“The Dutch Safety Board will publish the preliminary report in early September. The Malaysian authorities are being updated on the international investigation of the incident (regularly).”
On the analysis of the MH17 black boxes, van der Weegen said the results of the full analysis would be included in the final report which would be released next year.
“A full analysis of the recorders is part of the ongoing investigation which will result in a final report next year,” he told the New Straits Times, adding that only relevant information to the investigation would be included in the final report.
Van der Weegen said Dutch Safety Board investigators, however, had had no opportunity to visit the MH17 crash site because of security concerns.
“However, we still want to visit the crash site when possible and we will rely on the safety assessments made by the Dutch government for the decision (on when to go).”
Experts previously suspended the search for the remains of victims at the MH17 crash site because of the deteriorating security in eastern Ukraine.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said Malaysian investigators were waiting for security clearance from the Ukrainian government to re-enter the crash site to continue with their investigations.
Speaking at the police training centre in Jalan Semarak here yesterday, he said it was too risky for the investigation team to enter the crash site at the moment.
He said he and Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail were scheduled for two meetings during a four- or five-day trip to the Netherlands beginning Sunday.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency reported that Russia Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the country was only interested in finding the truth and it was not using the MH17 investigation for political purposes.
“I have no prejudice against who can deal with the issue. It is vital that our representatives be included in a corresponding group. It is important to understand what is happening with the investigation. We seek to establish the truth.
“It seems to us that Russia is mostly interested in it (the investigation). We hope we’ll be able to complete the investigation in cooperation with our Dutch and Malaysian partners with whom we maintained a substantive dialogue from the very beginning,” he said in an interview with International Affairs magazine posted on the foreign ministry’s website on Thursday.
The minister hoped that the investigators’ unique experiences in air tragedies would help in the investigation.
“That is why Russia insisted on corresponding provisions be included in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2166 that provides a legal foundation for such task.”
In George Town, the father of MH17 flight steward Sanjid Singh Sandhu said he wished for a quiet homecoming for his son’s remains on Tuesday.
“There has been too much attention. We just want to perform the final rites as quietly as possible.” Additional reporting by Balvin Kaur