Russia produce radar data which 'proves' military aircraft was flying close to MH17 when it was shot down above Ukraine
- Data from air traffic controllers claims to show mystery planes near MH17
- Image is said to show objects remaining in the area 20 minutes after crash
- Leaked to a Moscow newspaper as 'proof' some 119 days after the disaster
- But expert says it does not necessarily mean objects are Ukrainian planes
Russia today produced 'evidence' that it claims shows at least one military aircraft was flying close to Flight MH17 when it was shot down, killing all 298 on board.
Data from air traffic controllers in Rostov-on-Don, leaked to a Moscow newspaper, appears to show an unidentified object flying at the time of the crash on 17 July and remaining in the area for 20 minutes after the crash.
Russian military experts have previously claimed a Ukrainian war plane shot down the Malaysia Airline flight, but it has taken 119 days for sources to produce the 'proof'.
While the official Dutch-led probe into the MH17 horror is still underway, Western sources have suggested the aircraft was downed from rebel-held Ukrainian territory by a Russian-made BUK missile system.
Ukraine has denied any of its aircraft were in the sky at the time.
This screen grab, leaked to a Russian newspaper, claims to show that at least one military aircraft was flying close to Flight MH17 when
it was shot down. The red arrow points to one or more unidentified aircraft which, an expert claims, bear the hallmarks of military planes.
In the image, the blue lines apparently show the routes of other passenger planes, while the purple line is said to be the route of MH17 until its final signal
The screen grab shows the situation in the air over Rostov and nearby areas of Ukraine at the time of the crash, claimed Sergei Melnichenko, of Flight Safety agency, in Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.
However, Melnichenko - contrary to the newspaper - told MailOnline that he was not saying it must be a Ukrainian war plane.
He says it must be a manned aircraft rather than, say, a small drone, but cannot tell what altitude it was flying at.
He conceded it could be a helicopter though this would have been more easily noticed by people on the ground.
The 'warplane(s)' gave off a 'primary signal' which the radar detected, but not their full identification, in contrast to the passenger aircraft flying past the crash site.
The crash happened several minutes before MH17 was due to fly into Russian air space, in a sector controlled from Rostov.
While hard for laymen to verify, he claimed the information it shows was culled directly from air traffic control data in Rostov and that a red arrow points to one or more unidentified aircraft which, he claimed, bear the hallmarks of military planes.
Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets carried a reoprt (above) that claims data from air traffic controllers in Rostov-on-Don
appears to show an unidentified object flying at the time of the crash on 17 July and remaining in the area for 20 minutes after the
disaster. However, this could not be independently verified
'We fully trust the sources which helped us to make it public,' he told the newspaper, indicating the mystery plane or planes circled over the MH17 crash site immediately after the Boeing 777 was downed.
'The data from the Rostov radar station tells us about the situation at the moment of the crash and 20 minutes afterwards.'
It records other identified passenger planes and MH17 until its final signal.
'We can clearly see that at the moment of the crash and after it, to the North of the Boeing's route, some aircraft were flying.
'It is likely to have been military because all the dots are very close to each other. We can make a conclusion that it was either one or two aircraft; in any case, there was something there.
In the image, the blue lines show the routes of other passenger planes. The purple line is the route of MH17 until its final signal.
The unidentified object or objects are apparently shown as a cluster of marks inside the circle.
Their routes to and from the site are not seen, apparently because they did not identify themselves in the way that passenger planes do.
Mr Melnichenko said the reason there is no trail of the alleged warplane(s) is that the image is a snapshot of a 20-minute period which included the moment MH17 was downed.
It means that the mystery aircraft(s) were already in place, possibly waiting for MH17 to arrive.
And they were still in place when the snapshot was ended.
An emergency services worker photographs debris from MH17 the day after the crash in Ukraine on July 17
'Military aircrafts are either not equipped with such answering devices or the pilots switch them off when working on a military task,' he said.
So the radar shows the plane but 'we can't say what is there, what sort of plane, how high it is flying. But the fact is that it was there.'
He claimed that the aircraft could not be Russian since NATO would have exposed this fact immediately.
The pro-Russian fighters had no aviation, he said.
The newspaper echoed Russian military experts in accusing the West and Ukraine of a cover-up of the presence of a warplane in the sky close to MH17.
'The fact of these marks at the radar does not fit with statements from Ukrainians that its military planes were not flying in this area at that moment,' said Melnichenko.
'It is also important that the location of these marks at the radar - to the left of the Boeing's route - fits the photographs from the crash scene where we can clearly see the left side of the cockpit and the left wing were hit.'
It has been argued before that this is the wrong angle for a strike by a BUK missile.
Today's claim echoes an allegation from commander of Russian Air Force Igor Makushev four days after the crash.
Military sources in Moscow said they had registered 'accelerating aircraft of Ukrainian Air Force, supposedly Sukhoi-25' - which was approached the passenger airplane, flying at a distance of three to five kilometres.
Makushev claimed the military aircraft 'continued flying above the place where the passenger airplane went down'.
Vladimir Putin this week called for a thorough probe to determine all the causes of the plane's demise.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk
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