THE prospect of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 investigation team entering the crash site near Donetsk to recover pieces of the downed jetliner looks bleaker than the grey, bitter, harsh winter that will descend on the region in a matter of weeks.
Now, Australian, Dutch and Malaysian investigators say the earliest the team can enter is in April, six months from now. Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the team had agreed that the area was unsafe.
Yesterday, Khalid said the team was forced to abandon its plans to enter the crash site because of clashes between the Ukrainian security forces and the pro-Russain rebels. At least five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and several civilians injured in fighting at Donetsk Airport yesterday.
Khalid said the team would make a last-ditch attempt to enter the area if the situation permitted.
Concerns are growing that the consequence of this latest development is that any case the investigators hope to build against the perpetrators of the shootdown may be shaky because the evidence would have been further compromised, primarily by the weather, and, to a large extent, by the heavy fighting between the Ukrainian government forces and the pro-Russian separatists.
The New Straits Times was made to understand that the team is exploring the use of new systems and methodology, what Khalid terms as “technological investigative tools”, to minimise the risk of sending in boots on the ground.
The tools that may be used were, however, not specified.
Experts, meanwhile, have said that there should be no delays in getting to the critical pieces of the aircraft wreckage scattered at the vast crash site for fear of them being further compromised.
One of them suggested that the investigation team consider the use of the Light Detection and Ranging tool (Lidar).
Among them was Universiti Kuala Lumpur research and innovation head Associate Professor Captain Dr Mohd Harridon Mohamed Suffian, who said the equipment could scan and capture razor-sharp images of the crash site and everything on it. Sophisticated algorithms and filters will then be used to create a three-dimensional image of the objects.
Lidar uses remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and then, analysing the reflected light. It can measure distance, speed, rotation, chemical composition and concentration of a remote target, where the target can either be a clearly defined object, such as a vehicle, or a diffused object, such as a smoke plume or clouds. The technology was initially pioneered and used to detect mineral deposits deep underground.
Hydrogeologist Mohammed Hatta Abdul Karim said Lidar was the latest and best technology that could be used to examine the crash site.
He said the use of this detection method would give a detailed analysis of any material that was exposed on the surface.
Experts said the remote-sensing scanner would also help investigators pinpoint where some of the aircraft’s structures and components had impacted the ground.
This is because it has the ability to determine surface depressions, including those caused by objects falling from the sky.
In the course of investigations, it is critical for the team to be able to, among others, record the distance of one piece of evidence to the next.
“The scanner will be able to see features of the object investigators would want to analyse.
“It can zoom in up to 100m and even identify what type of material or chemical it is. Within a certain range, it can identify liquids on hard objects. For example, if there is jet fuel on a rock, it can be identified, so long as there is a trace,” he said.
The crime scene was heavily compromised within hours of the tragedy, before the international investigators gained access to the site.
It is understood that teams of investigators, led by the Dutch, are in the midst of a two-pronged probe; the air accident investigation and the criminal element of the July 17 tragedy.
The Dutch, after releasing the initial report, said the full findings would be released by mid-July.
It is learnt that the criminal investigation team is putting together a massive puzzle, which they hope will shed more light onto the tragedy that killed 298 on board the Boeing 777-200ER, 43 of whom were Malaysians.
The crucial pieces of this puzzle are in the form of data extracted from Hilversum in the Netherlands, where the bodies were sent for analysis after they were flown in from Kiev from July 23.
The NST was told that the minute a body bag was opened, scientists and investigators would identify, mark and catalogue the injuries on the bodies, including shards of metal or shrapnel embedded in them.
“The bodies were scanned. Some of the bodies had entry and exits wounds. Some had pieces of metal in their bodies.
“It will be possible to establish the type of shrapnel, where it originated from, and more,” a source close to the investigations, said.
International investigators are also analysing the pattern of injury suffered by the victims, and their seating arrangements, as this, they believe, could provide some answers into what had happened immediately after the plane was hit by the missile.
“You could see that those whose remains were either intact, or relatively intact, were sitting in the front and the back of the aircraft. They did not suffer burns.
“Investigators would also likely find that those who sat in the centre of the aircraft, near the engines, had suffered horrific burns, ” the source said.
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s team looking into the criminal aspects of the MH17 case is working with what it has, and dissecting all information and data they had retrieved so far.
Malaysia is hoping that it would be given access to data recovered from the aircraft’s flight data recorder (FDR), which records no less than 1,500 flight parameters.
Civil aviation experts believe there was a huge possibility that the FDR would help determine the trajectory of the missile, allowing investigators to work backwards in determining where the missile was launched.
They believe investigators would be able to establish this as they had pinpointed the exact coordinates of MH17 when it fell from the sky.