Engineers from the Russian Almaz-Antey corporation, manufacturer of the Buk missile system, said at a press conference Tuesday that the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in Ukraine on July 17, 2014, was downed by a guided missile.The manufacturer's investigation and comparative analysis revealed the missile to most likely be a Buk-M1 missile, which is used by the Ukrainian military, and fired from the village of Zaroshenskoye, territory controlled by the Ukrainian military at the time.
"During the first stage of our investigation, the type of system was established. It was a Buk-M1 system [NATO reporting name SA-11], a 9М38-М1 rocket and a 9М314 warhead," head engineer Mikhail Malyshevsky said.
The Russian military uses Buk 9M37 missiles. The missile identified in the damage report was not produced in the Russian Federation since 1999, which is before Almaz-Antey was founded in 2002.
As of 2005, Ukraine had 991 Buk 9М38-М1 missiles, according to the report.
Almaz-Antey found the missiles to be 9M38-M1 missiles using comparative damage analysis of Buk missiles.
The report showed that the missile was fired from Ukrainian military-controlled territory. According to Almaz-Antey, the damage analysis shows that if the missile was fired from Snezhnoye, as Ukraine alleged, "the entire front end of the cabin would have been blown off."
Malyshev added that Almaz-Antey is willing to carry out a field test with independent experts to confirm the findings.
"We are willing to carry out a demolition of a 9M38M1 missile at a specified angle and aimed at the same model aircraft," Malyshev said.
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