MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti) – Malaysian investigators could spend less than two hours on the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash site in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday due to heavy fighting between the Ukraine Army and independence supporters in the area, said Inspector-General Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar quoted by New Straits Times Wednesday.
“Again, there were shelling heard at the crash site but not as tense as yesterday [Monday],” Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement.
Twelve Malaysian investigators left for the MH17 crash site at 7:30 a.m. local time (4:30 GMT) but had only one-and-a-half hours to carry our analysis due to security issues, according to the Malaysia's police chief.
On Saturday, the OSCE announced that a group of 70 international experts and eight monitors, as well as cadaver dogs, arrived at the crash site in eastern Ukraine. The team was later forced to suspend its work amid shelling.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17. All 298 people on board, including 85 children, died in the crash.
According to Ukrainian authorities, the plane was shot down by independence supporters, while the latter deny the allegations, saying they do not have the means to hit a target flying so high.