Russian Investigation Committee to hand over Almaz-Antei’s info on MH17 crash

MOSCOW, September 22 /TASS/. The Russian Investigation Committee will hand over Almaz-Antei’s radar data on the MH17 crash over southeastern Ukraine to the Netherlands, Investigation Committee Spokesman Vladimir Markin told TASS.

He clarified that in June 2016 the Russian Investigation Committee had sent a request to competent Russian agencies and structures, including the Almaz-Antei concern, to provide a number of materials, which, according to the Dutch side, could contribute to the MH17 investigation in response to an inquiry made by the National Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Netherlands.

"The Dutch side asked for, among other things, for the unprocessed preliminary radar images of the Ukrainian airspace in the Lugansk/Donetsk region in a period when the MH17 flight (Malaysian Boeing) crashed," Markin explained.

"The Almaz-Antei concern has received the necessary information on the crash from the main processors of the Rostov air route surveillance radar from one of its enterprises - the Lianozovo electro-mechanical plant. The Russian Investigation Committee, which received that information, is going to hand it over to the Dutch side soon," Markin said.

He added that the Russian Investigation Committee had already replied to a number of Dutch inquiries concerning the MH17 crash.

"The Russian Investigation Committee has been cooperating with international criminal investigators on this case since November 2014 and has already replied to a number of inquiries of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Netherlands on legal assistance. Dutch investigators have received considerable volumes of the information requested as well as other facts," Markin told TASS. 

Radar data on situation in area of MH17 crash

Russia’s concern Almaz-Antey has shared with Russia’s investigative authorities primary radar data showing the air traffic situation in the area of the MH17 disaster of July 17, 2014 for examination and subsequent handover to the Netherlands, the arms manufacturer said in a news release available on its website.

As follows from the publication, in July 2016, after an official query from the Investigative Committee the concern’s head office asked all affiliates to share all relevant information at their disposal. The electrical engineering plant AO NPO LEMZ was one of those asked to probe into its data archives.

"The plant’s specialists scrutinized all archive data kept in store for the purpose of monitoring the quality of air traffic control radars to come across information dated July 17, 2014 that may prove of interest to the investigators: namely, primary, unprocessed radar images of the airspace. Currently all primary radar information available from AO NPO LEMZ has been handed over to Russia’s authorities concerned for further examination and subsequent handover to the Dutch side," the Almaz-Antey news release runs.

The concern explained that the AO NPO LEMZ is the manufacturer that designed and produced the air route radar Utes-T and is responsible for its maintenance. At the end of July 2014 the manufacturer’s specialists replaced the data carriers of the Utes-T air route radar in Ust-Donetsk containing air traffic situation data.

"Up to this day the retrieved data carriers were kept in store at the plant exclusively for the purpose of further control of the radar’s performance," the news release runs.

Earlier, the federal air transport agency Rosaviatsiya said Russia had shared with the Netherlands all available primary radar data concerning the ill-fortunate flight MH17 - a video recording of the screen of Russia’s air traffic controller. Rosaviatsiya said that by doing so it did not breach a single standard of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on July 17 in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Region, some 60 km (over 37 miles) from the Russian border, in the zone of combat operations between the Donetsk self-defense forces and the Ukrainian army. All the passengers and crewmembers onboard the aircraft - 298 people - died. Most of the passengers - 196 people - were Dutch subjects.