MH17 air crash investigators download ‘valid’ information from black box recorder and say there is NO evidence of tampering

• Hampshire-based Air Accidents Investigation Branch now have black boxes
  
• Experts will study two hours of pilot conversations and flight data
  

By John Hall

Published: 05:58 EST, 23 July 2014 | Updated: 13:57 EST, 23 July 2014

Air crash investigators have been able to download 'valid' information from the flight MH17 black box cockpit voice recorder.

The Dutch Safety Board which is leading the investigation into the Malaysia Airlines tragedy said an international team of investigators, working in Hampshire, had conducted a thorough examination of the cockpit voice recorder (VCR) .

Scroll down for video

Information: The Air Accidents Investigation Branch said the black boxes (pictured) were delivered by Dutch safety authorities to the AAIB's headquarters at Farnborough in Hampshire

Statement: Paul Starbrook (right), spokesman for the Air Accident Investigation Branch (left) tells the assembled media that MH17's flight recorders have arrived safety in Hampshire

In a statement the board said: 'The CVR was damaged but the memory module was intact.

'Furthermore no evidence or indications of manipulation of the CVR was found.

'Following the examination, the CVR data was successfully downloaded and contained valid data from the flight.

'The downloaded data have to be further analysed and investigated.'

As the UK investigators poured over the black boxes, bodies from the crash site were arriving in Netherlands where the country's king and queen were taking part in a national day of mourning.

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima were in Eindhoven with relatives of the 298 people - including 10 Britons - killed in the disaster.

An unconfirmed number of bodies were released by the rebels yesterday and taken to the Ukrainian government-controlled city of Kharkiv by train.

Two military aircraft will fly some of them to Eindhoven this afternoon, where they will be met by the royals, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and relatives.

The Netherlands government said a minute's silence will be held before a motorcade takes them to the Korporaal van Oudheusden barracks, where the process of identifying them will begin.

Mr Rutte has warned that it could take 'weeks or even months' to identify all the victims.

Display: A pro-Russian separatist shows members of the media a black box recorder belonging to flight MH17, before its handover to Malaysian representatives in Donetsk. British experts will now carry out the analysis

The Dutch are leading the investigation into what happened to the Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight, at the request of the Ukrainian government.

A British team of police officers, led by the Metropolitan Police, will assist with victim identification in the Netherlands once bodies have arrived.

The EU has inched towards introducing economic sanctions against Vladimir Putin's Russian 'cronies' in response to the passenger jet's downing by what is believed to have been a surface-to-air missile fired by the separatists that the Kremlin backs.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels agreed 'concrete proposals' to draw up a list of the Russian president's associates who would be subject to punitive measures, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said. 

First bodies of MH17 victims leave Ukraine on transport plane

The first names will be considered at a meeting where ministers will also look at broader sanctions such as arms embargoes and access to capital and hi-tech goods.

Prime Minister David Cameron has openly criticised a "reluctance" on the part of some European nations to take stronger action against Moscow, saying it would be "unthinkable" in the UK to go ahead with a French deal to sell helicopter carriers to Russia.

But MPs have warned that Britain is itself continuing to export tens of millions of pounds worth of arms and other dual-use military equipment to Russia.

The Commons Committees on Arms Export Controls said that 251 export licences for the sale to Russia of controlled goods worth at least £132 million remained in force.

Coffins with the remains of a victim of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 are carried to a military plane during a ceremony at Kharkiv airport this morning. The bodies are now on their way to the Netherlands for identification

Despite a promise in March by the then foreign secretary William Hague to stop military sales to Russia which could be used against Ukraine, it said that just 31 licences had been revoked or suspended while Russia had been removed as a permitted destination on three others.

The Conservatives are also facing calls from Labour to hand back more than £900,000 of donations from what the Opposition said were people with links to the Russian government or 'who may be hit by the sorts of sanctions' sought by the PM.

The list includes £160,000 bid in an auction by the wife of a former minister in Mr Putin's government for a game of tennis with Mr Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Labour MP Sheila Gilmore said: "The Tories need to come clean about all their Russian links. There can be no impression of conflicts of interest or hypocrisy at such an important time."

A Conservative spokesman said: 'All donations to the Conservative Party are fully and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission and published on their website.'

Mr Johnson said that checks should be made on the bidder for the tennis match, and appeared to suggest it might not go ahead if her husband - Russian ex-finance minister Vladimir Chernukhin - turned out to be "an intimate or a crony" of Mr Putin's.

The mayor told Sky News: 'I think you have to do stuff that actually hits Putin and his government where it hurts.

'I know about this tennis match they volunteered me for with some geezer. It is very important full checks are carried out to make sure this is not someone who is an intimate or a crony.'
 

Comments (124)

Share what you think

• Newest
• Oldest
• Best rated
• Worst rated

 View all

The comments below have not been moderated.

 View all

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now