BBC raises suspicions that MH17 was shot down by Ukrainian fighter jet

In a controversial documentary scheduled to air next May, the BBC raised the possibility that a Ukrainian fighter jet used a missile to shoot down MH17 in 2014.

MH17 plane reassembled from debris. Photo: Reuters

On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 exploded over eastern Ukraine while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members.

"There are eyewitness accounts of seeing another aircraft flying alongside MH17, close enough to cause a collision," the BBC said in a statement about the documentary, titled"The Conspiracy Files: Who Shot Down MH17"."Russia and Ukraine both blame each other for the incident but neither has been able to provide accurate radar data on that day."

BBCalso analyzed the possibility of the CIA's directing hand to blame Russia.Earlier this month, Ukrainian police arrested a man suspected of murdering the head of the forensic service.Oleksandr Ruvin. He was shot last year but survived. Authorities believe the shooting of Ruvin was linked to his role in the MH17 investigation.

"The families of the victims do not believe the official account and there is still a long way to go to bring justice to the victims. This programme pursues witnesses, and speaks to secret intelligence sources to try to separate truth from fiction," the BBC said in a statement.

Witnesses said they saw two Ukrainian fighter jets during the incident. "There were two tiny planes that looked like toys flying out. One flew straight, the other circled back to where it had come from," the witness said.Natasha Beroninasaid. She is with theAnother person was harvesting in the fields on the day MH17 crashed. She also heard the explosion.

German investigative journalist Billy Six said seven out of 100 witnesses told him about Ukrainian fighter jets appearing when MH17 went down. "Some even said they saw a missile coming from the Ukrainian plane. It was like a small line in the sky, through the clouds, then a big bang," he said.

Meanwhile, Russian media accused Ukrainian military pilot Captain Vladislav Voloshin of pressing the missile button that shot down MH17. The Russian newspaper cited a mechanic working at a Ukrainian air base in the south, saying that Voloshin's flight took place at the same time as MH17 crashed.

Sergey Sokolov, an independent Ukrainian investigator, also accused the CIA and the Dutch security service of collaborating to plant a bomb on MH17. The terrorist attack was staged to strengthen the West's position in the 2014 Ukraine crisis. Sokolov argued that the tragic MH17 crash was an excuse for Europeans to believe that Russia was a barbaric country, that Russia needed to be punished, and that it was necessary to have a NATO military presence in Ukraine.

The final report of the Dutch Safety Board released on October 13, 2015 concluded that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made BUK missile in an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. However, the report did not conclude which force fired the fateful missile.

The US, the West and the Ukrainian government believe that pro-Russian separatists shot down MH17 with a missile supplied by Russia. Moscow denies the accusations and accuses the Ukrainian army, which possesses many BUK missiles, of shooting down the plane and then blaming Russia.

According to VNE