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‘NEVER FORGET’
Cop on scene of MH17 crash describes kids toys strewn among body parts 10yrs on from jet ‘being shot by Russian missile’
What used to be a sunflower field in a Ukrainian village, became a massive open air graveyard
A COP who was among the first at the MH17 crash site has described the sheer horror of what became one of the world's biggest crime scenes.
Today marks 10 years since the Malaysia Airlines flight was shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine - killing all 298 people on board.
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The Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer said kids toys were strewn among body parts as far as the eyes could see.
And what used to be a sunflower field in the village of Hrabove, some 50 miles east of Donetsk, became a massive open air graveyard.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was tragically shot down on July 17, 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine.
The Boeing 777-200ER had departed from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport and was en route to Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Read more on flight MH17
It was flying at an altitude of approximately 33,000 feet when it was struck by a surface-to-air missile, leading to the deaths of all 298 people on board, including 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
Investigations determined that the plane was hit by a Buk missile system, a Russian-made, medium-range surface-to-air missile.
As families of those on board were having their worst fears confirmed in the days after MH17 came down, unarmed AFP officers were deployed into an active conflict zone patrolled by Russia-backed separatists.
Their mission involved recovering the remains of the MH17 victims.
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They were met with a horrifying scene: bodies, personal possessions, and children's toys sprawled beside flaming debris, as far as the eye could see.
Now, exactly a decade later, AFP Commander Brian McDonald recalled the horrors he witnessed when trying to recover the 38 Australian victims.
The veteran police officer who led the AFP team in Ukraine, told the : "The crash site was huge. We knew we were going to have very limited time on the crash site. That became obvious early.
MH17 verdict- Three men sentenced to life for murdering 298 on Malaysia Airlines plane shot down by Russian-made missile
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"The ability to get resources into the crash site was going to be really difficult for us and the fact that we didn't have free access wherever we were because the reality soon hit us that the crash site was at the centre of the conflict.
"So everything just became extremely difficult and sensitive and required a lot of diplomatic communications just to allow us to move."
Nothing in McDonald's decades-long policing career could have prepared him for when he encountered the crash site.
He said: "Here is this dirty big plane wing just sitting sort of diagonally in this farm den. And it's just sitting there.
"You just don't forget something like that because it's just so out of place. How in the hell does that happen? I still remember to this day."
The cop continued: "The stark reality of seeing it was quite confronting and still to this day it's pretty emotional.
"There was fuselage, and I remember there's luggage, there's children's toys just strewn for probably more than a kilometre.
"You know you're there to do a job but it's one of those things that you just remember the sadness of what it was.
"I was walking through and at one point I picked up some paperwork which by coincidence it was the paperwork of one of the Australian families.
There was fuselage, and I remember there's luggage, there's children's toys just strewn for probably more than a kilometre
Brian McDonald
"And again that's near some kid stuff toys and luggage and other things and it just strikes you as just the horror the people on the plane must have gone through."
But despite the horrors witnessed by the AFP officers, it was imperative they kept the mission front of mind: recover the bodies and look for evidence.
"This was a ridiculously large crime scene," recalls detective sergeant Hilda Sirec.
"I couldn't put tape around this whole, almost-50-square-kilometre scene.
"I saw belongings everywhere I saw bone fragments and body pieces across the whole crime scene and it just made me realise what the last moments would have been like."
MC Donald added: "We were in a humanitarian mission to try and collect body parts or other human identification factors to be able to ensure that we could identify all the victims of the crash."
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UNRAVELLING THE TRUTH
As evidence began to be uncovered, the downing of MH17 was looking more like a criminal act and the crash site had just become one of the world’s biggest crime scenes.
The missile that hit flight MH17 was launched from an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The Dutch Safety Board conducted an extensive investigation and concluded that the missile had been fired from a region under the control of the separatists.
The Joint Investigation Team, which included representatives from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, and Ukraine, further confirmed these findings.
In November 2022, a Dutch court convicted three men in absentia for their role in the downing of MH17.
The men, linked to the separatists and the Russian military, were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The incident significantly increased tensions between Russia and Western countries, leading to calls for tougher sanctions against Russia and demands for justice for the victims.
Russia has consistently denied involvement, attributing the downing to Ukrainian forces, a claim widely disputed by the findings of international investigations.
One expert claimed that Vladimir Putin shot down the MH17 passenger plane in a revenge attack for the US shooting down the Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight.
Florence De Changy, who has been searching for the missing MH370 flight since it vanished in 2014, revealed that the doomed flight could be connected to the downing of the MH17 jet over Ukraine just four months later.
In her book, The Disappearing Act: The Impossible Case of MH370, She claims that Putin could have given the order to shoot down MH17 to get back at the US and cosy up to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
153 Chinese Citizens were killed when the MH370 flight crashed after Florence claims the US Air Forces shot the plane out of the sky in a bid to stop secret tech from getting to China.
She says a source revealed that Putin told Xi Jinping after the disappearance: "What happened is not acceptable. Leave it to me."
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HEARTBROKEN FAMILIES
In 2019, the parents of three children who died during the tragic Malaysian Airlines crash in 2014 admitted they "considered suicide" after they heard the news.
Otis, 8, Evie, 10, and Mo Maslin, 12, were on their way home to Perth, Australia, when they boarded the doomed MH17 flight with their grandfather Nick Norris, 68.
Anthony Maslin and Marite Norris told : “Where we were was hell."
“Where we are now is a different place, and what we feel we owe to the Australian public is to let you know how we got to where we are now.”
In a heartbreaking interview, the pair said they were leaning out the window of their Amsterdam apartment in the early hours of the morning after the crash.
They deliberated whether or not to jump together, but ultimately decided not to, because didn't want to inflict the pain they were feeling on anybody else.
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Another man, Piet Ploeg, lost his nephew, brother and sister-in-law in the disaster.
He said, his nephew's body "came back in 80 pieces".
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YOU'RE NOT ALONE
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide.
It doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society - from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It's the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes. And men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Yet, it's rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun has launched the You're Not Alone campaign. To remind anyone facing a tough time, grappling with mental illness or feeling like there's nowhere left to turn, that there is hope.
To mark World Suicide Prevention Day, over the course of this week, we will tell you the stories of brave survivors, relatives left behind, heroic Good Samaritans - and share tips from mental health experts.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let's all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others. You're Not Alone.
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