MH17 black boxes delivered to British investigators

The black boxes from the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that crashed in eastern Ukraine have arrived in Britain for expert analysis, the government said on Wednesday.

The recorders have been delivered to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch headquarters in Farnborough, southwest of London.

The AAIB experts were set to go through the information from the cockpit voice recorder, which should give them hours of pilots’ conversations, as well as study the contents of the flight data recorder.

“We can confirm that the two black boxes from MH17 have been delivered by the Dutch Safety Board to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch at Farnborough for download,” a Department for Transport spokeswoman said.

The passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur came down in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, 193 of them Dutch citizens.

US officials say the plane was mistakenly shot down by pro-Russian separatists in the region.

It is thought that the AAIB will be able to send details of their findings to the Dutch authorities within 24 hours — giving experts in the Netherlands further information of the doomed Boeing 777 jet’s last moments.