In the whole of Ukraine, 1300 flights were registered on 17 July. It was a grim version of Russian roulette that blew the MH17 from the skies that day. Most passengers on board, as they drank their beverages and watched their movies, were likely totally unaware that their flight path would take them over a country engaged in a war. And if they had been aware, they would probably not have realised that the airspace was in any way dangerous.
There were huge concerns among family and friends about how the passengers had died. The one very important question the relatives and friends were asking themselves was had their loved ones suffered? That this might have been the case was probably the hardest knowledge to accept.
It was widely assumed that death, or at least unconsciousness, had come quickly for the 298 people aboard the Boeing 777 when it came apart in the oxygen-thin, icy cold air at 33,000 feet. At this altitude, the lack of oxygen would lead to unconsciousness within thirty seconds to a minute. Still, thirty seconds, or double that, was a long time.
It was also suggested that the sudden loss of cabin pressure could have led to serious internal injuries. Those not strapped into their seats would have suffered a higher chance of injury than those who were, as they could have been hit by flying luggage and parts of the plane. Passengers’ bodies very likely went into shock with the sudden extreme changes in temperature when the aircraft broke up. It’s possible that some passengers and crew were immediately sucked out of the crippled fuselage into the minus-57 degrees Celsius oxygen-deprived air. A number of those killed were found in their seats, their seatbelts buckled.
Based on past plane explosions, it probably would have taken one or two minutes for MH17 to descend from its cruising altitude of 33,000 feet to the earth. But most passengers died due to decompression, reduced oxygen levels, extreme cold, powerful airflow and flying objects. It cannot be ruled out that some occupants remained conscious during the sixty to ninety seconds before the plane crashed. None of those falling to the ground could have survived. It was almost certain that the victims would barely have been able to comprehend the situation in which they found themselves. No indications of any conscious actions, such as sending text messages, were later reported.
Chapter 16
Chaos
Much of the scene at the disaster area was still in chaos twenty-four hours after the plane was brought down. The aircraft had broken to pieces as if it had exploded in mid-air. Parts of the wreckage were scattered over an area of about fifty square kilometres, in close proximity to the villages of Hrabove, Rozsypne and Petropavlivka.
The cockpit of the plane had crashed in a field of sunflowers near Rozsypne. It appeared to have broken off from the rest of the plane. The luggage racks, cargo area and the cockpit roof had come down in the fields surrounding Petropavlivka, and the villagers soon realised that it was short of a miracle that none of them had been hurt or killed because much of the debris had also landed in the village itself. The hull of the plane, the tail, landing gear and motor all came down in Hrabove. Bodies of the victims rained down over different areas. Parts of the aircraft, including at least one engine, exploded near Hrabove when it hit the ground, leaving an area of blackened rubble once the fires were put out.
Abandoned shoes dotted the fields; boxes of tablets spilled out of a medical cabinet and lay in a patch of grass; empty suitcases and articles of clothing were strewn around. Some villagers started to collect items, putting them in plastic bags and storing them in their sheds for safekeeping, ignorant of the fact that they were contaminating a crime scene and that their actions would later be regarded as looting. During those first hours after the crash the quiet fields were suddenly transformed into a busy centre of interest; journalists, local residents and separatists wandered largely unimpeded through the ashes and charred wreckage.
Although the disaster had taken place on Ukrainian territory, the authorities in Kiev could not start a rescue mission. The separatists were not likely to give Ukrainian officials permission to enter the area and any Ukrainian representative entering the Donbas would most likely be arrested if he or she was not shot first. A handful of local emergency workers arrived on Thursday evening, rushing to the scene of the disaster a few hours after the news was announced.
Darkness was setting in and, with no victims alive at the scene, at first they seemed uncertain about what to do. But eventually they put up their tents and set up floodlights in the field; they decided they would search for bodies in the morning. Just being there was a tricky business, they soon realised, as the constant sound of mortar fire and shooting in the distance served as a reminder of the conflict raging.
The next day rebel fighters in combat fatigues arrived, ‘guarding’ the scene and patrolling the area with Kalashnikovs. As a few more local emergency workers arrived, the armed rebels watched the proceedings nervously. They were now aware that Kiev had accused the separatists of shooting down the plane, but they vehemently denied playing any part in the downing of the civilian aircraft.
When the rescue workers started combing the fields, they called for the separatists and villagers to help them search for the bodies that were strewn over a very large area. Separatists clearly controlled the site, but the belief was that they could help out while doing so. Asked to help search and to mark with a white cotton ribbon attached to a stick any spot where remains were found, the tough men entered the fields.
They came across burned rubble, travel guidebooks, twisted metal, brightly coloured suitcases and headphones. They also found many human remains, some of them small children. It left the battle-hardened fighters shocked. Fighting had scarred and torn the region apart, but this was the most unlikely and heartbreaking battlefield they had ever witnessed.
As more and more white-ribboned beacons fluttered in the fields, another problem presented itself. The rescue workers soon realised that the local morgue would never be able to hold all the bodies the men were finding. Weeks before, some fifty people had died during the battle of Donetsk airport and the morgue at that time had been unable to hold that number. Now the morgue would have to deal with hundreds of bodies.
Most of the remains in the fields, once they were found, were covered by plastic sheeting weighed down by stones. The thunderstorms that had struck the area the day before had now disappeared; the rain had stopped and the sun had come out again. It was the height of summer and, with temperatures likely to rise to thirty degrees Celsius, everyone knew that soon these remains would start to decompose.
As it became more obvious that the plane had not just crashed but had most certainly been shot out of the sky, world leaders and the media scrambled to identify the perpetrators. Ukrainian president Poroshenko appeared positively convinced that the pro-Russian rebels had targeted the plane, calling it an act of terrorism. People on the ground and on social media claimed that a Russian-made Buk missile launcher had been seen and also photographed in the area. The next morning the same Buk launcher was videotaped travelling through the town of Luhansk. In the footage the launcher was loaded onto the low-loader truck and now appeared to be missing one of its four missile rockets.
Russia insisted none of its military’s weapons had entered Ukraine. The Donetsk People’s Republic prime minister, Alexander Borodai, said the allegation that the separatists had been responsible for the crash had come from the Ukrainian military, but his men had no such sophisticated weaponry. He claimed he was concerned about the imminent decomposition of the bodies of the passengers and crew, but he highly distrusted Ukraine and did not want Ukrainian officials coming to the area and possibly tampering with the remains.