re: #361 Dr Lizardo

Investigators found that the cockpit and other components were sawn in half.

International monitors who have finally gained full access to the Malaysia Airlines crash site in eastern Ukraine said Tuesday the Boeing 777’s cockpit inexplicably had been sawed in half while under the control of Russian-backed separates.

The monitors said they are not sure why the major piece of evidence from the downed plane was tampered with.

Flight 17, carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members, crashed Thursday after being hit by what U.S. officials suspect was a surface-to-air missile launched from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

The separatists and Russia have denied shooting down the plane, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The cockpit was found in a section of the crash site that had been immediately cordoned off during the first two days after the plane went down. Witnesses tell USA TODAY that this was also the area where the first bodies were removed.

The cockpit apparently was cut in half with diesel-powered saws.

“The rear part of the aircraft, one of the biggest intact pieces, has definitely been hacked into,” said Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the group of international monitors from the Organize for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Missing remains (otherwise known as promising X and delivering far fewer than that on this train shipment). That would still leave quite a few remains that have yet to be recovered from the crash site. It also doesn’t address where/how they were found, all of which plays into the reconstruction of the crash and events leading up.

The remains could potentially show signs of different forms of trauma - blunt force from the crash on impact, or that some died when the missile warhead shredded the plane, etc. But because this was all done haphazardly, those kinds of details may not be available.