EINDHOVEN, Netherlands (AP) — Two military transport planes carrying 40 coffins bearing victims of the
downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 landed Wednesday in the southern city of Eindhoven, and pro-Russian
rebels shot down two fighter jets in Ukraine’s restive east as fighting flared in the region.
Six days after the Boeing 777 was shot down over the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, the first bodies
finally arrived in the Netherlands, the country that bore the heaviest toll in a crash that killed all
298 passengers and crew.
A Dutch Hercules C-130 that Dutch government spokesman Lodewijk Hekking said was carrying 16 coffins
touched down first, closely followed by an Australian C-17 Globemaster plane carrying 24 coffins.
Dutch officials said they have taken charge of the stalled investigation of the airline disaster and
pleaded for unhindered access to the wreckage.
British investigators began work on a pair of “black boxes” to retrieve information on the flight’s last
minutes. The Dutch Safety Board said in a statement that specialists found the plane’s voice recorder
was damaged but not manipulated, and its recordings were still intact. Investigators will study the
flight’s data recorder on Thursday.
The Dutch and Australian military transport planes departed Ukraine at midday and landed at Eindhoven Air
Base, where the flights were met by Dutch King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima, Prime Minister Mark Rutte
and other government officials. Hundreds of relatives were also there, Hekking said.
“If I have to wait five months for identification, I can do it,” said Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand, whose
son, Bryce, and his girlfriend Daisy Oehlers died in the crash. “Waiting while the bodies were in the
field and in the train was a nightmare.”
King Willem-Alexander clasped his wife’s hand as the couple grimly watched teams carry the coffins slowly
from the planes to a fleet of waiting hearses. Almost the only sound was of boots marching across the
ground and flags flapping in the wind.
From the airport, they were to be driven under military police escort to the central city of Hilversum
where forensic experts were waiting at a military barracks to carry out the painstaking task of
identifying the remains. Rutte says many bodies could be identified quickly and returned to their loved
ones, but some families may have to wait weeks for a positive identification.
The bodies arrived back in the Netherlands — which is home to 193 of the victims — on a day of national
mourning. Flags flew at half-staff on government buildings and family homes around this country of 17
million. Church bells rang out as the planes taxied to a standstill in Eindhoven.
Ukraine and Western nations are pressing the pro-Russian rebels who control the crash site to allow an
unfettered investigation, something Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would use his influence to
achieve. Though confident that a missile brought down the passenger jet, U.S. officials say Russia’s
role remains unclear.
Ukraine’s defense ministry said two fighter planes were shot down about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of
the site of the Malaysia Airlines wreckage. The separatist group Donetsk People’s Republic said in a
statement on its website that one of the pilots was killed and another was being sought by rebel
fighters.
While the insurgents deny having missiles capable of hitting a jetliner at cruising altitude, rebel
leader Alexander Borodai has said that separatist fighters do have Strela-10M ground-to-air missiles
which are capable of hitting targets up to an altitude of 3,500 meters (11,500 feet).
In fighting on the ground Wednesday, rebel leader Pavel Gubarev wrote on his Facebook page that his men
retreated Wednesday from the villages of Chervona Zorya and Kozhevnya, on the Russian border about 45
kilometers (30 miles) from the scene of the crash. Gubarev said 30 rebels had been injured.
The Dutch Safety Board, which is leading an international team of 24 investigators, said unhindered
access to the crash site was critical.
Spokesman Tjibbe Joustra told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that around 25 investigators
already are in Kiev analyzing information including photos, satellite images and radar information, but
have not yet gained access to the crash site.
“We haven’t yet gotten guarantees about security for our way of working. If we go we have to be able to
move freely,” he said. “We hope to be able to get to the site soon.”
Independent military analysts said Wednesday that the size, spread, shape and number of shrapnel impacts
visible in an AP photograph of a piece of the wreckage all point to a missile system like the SA-11 Buk.

U.S. analysts have also concluded that an SA-11 was the likely weapon.
Konrad Muzyka, Europe and CIS armed forces analyst at IHS Jane’s, said the high number of shrapnel holes
in the debris meant that only a fragmentary warhead like the SA-11 could have been used. “The Buk has a
70-kilogram (155-pound) warhead which explodes and sends shrapnel out,” he said. The fact the shrapnel
holes are folded inwards confirmed that the explosion came from outside the plane, he added.
Justin Bronk, military sciences research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, said “the size
of shrapnel holes is fairly broad, in keeping with what you would expect from a large missile like the
SA-11.”
The European Union on Tuesday imposed sanctions against more Russian individuals but refrained from
targeting entire sectors of the Russian economy while waiting for clearer evidence of Moscow’s role in
the disaster.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia was responsible for “creating the conditions”
that led to the crash, but they offered no evidence of direct Russian government involvement.
The officials, who briefed reporters Tuesday under ground rules that their names not be used, said the
plane was likely shot down by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists. They
cited intercepts, satellite photos and social media postings by separatists, some of which have been
authenticated by U.S. experts.
The intelligence officials were cautious in their assessment, noting that while the Russians have been
arming separatists in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. had no direct evidence that the missile used to shoot
down the passenger jet came from Russia.
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Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Jona Kallgren in Kharkiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.