MOSCOW. July 24 (Interfax-AVN) - Ukraine should immediately provide the international community with information from recorders of data concerning the aerial situation in southeastern Ukraine at the moment when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed there on July 17, Lt. Gen. Alexander Maslov (Ret.), a former chief of staff of the Russian Air Defense forces in 2004-2009, told journalists.
"The most incontrovertible evidence includes recorder data, namely data from radar systems, the regional aerial traffic control system, the air defense forces on the plane's route, [information on] intensity of Ukrainian military planes' flights and their base airfields. Recordings of radio exchanges between air traffic controllers and the airliner's crew and between air defense combat crews are of special value. The Ukrainian military definitely possesses all of this. Why hasn't anyone but Russia demanded that this be presented immediately? That's strange," Maslov said.
Everything that surrounds the Malaysia Airlines Boeing crash is reminiscent of the 2001 tragedy in which a Ukrainian air defense unit erroneously shot down a Russian passenger plane over the Black Sea, he said.
"The fact that Ukraine is concealing all this within the Security Service confirms that the events are following the 2001 scenario. I remember how it was. Then the country's leadership was also hiding recorder data and swore that they had nothing to do with that," he said.
Maslov criticized remarks by Ukrainian military expert Gen. Volodymyr Dyakov circulated by Ukrainian media on the need "to collect evidence at the crash site of the Malaysian Boeing 777 to prove that the Russian military is responsible for the tragedy."
"Yes, I've heard about this statement by former Ukrainian Air Defense Deputy Commander Gen. Volodymyr Dyakov, who said that the most credible evidence is a fragment of a missile that hit the plane. After such remarks, I would like to tell him: you should have some honor as an officer or at least a grain of conscience! It's that very general under whose command the Russian S7 Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 plane was shot down over the Black Sea in 2001. And who categorically denied the Ukrainian military's responsibility for the tragedy involving the deaths of 78 citizens of Russia and Israel," Maslov said.
"Certainly, the damage caused to the plane's fuselage can help determine the type of the missile fired with great probability," Maslov said. "But not more than that," he added.
"I'd like to stress once again: the handling of aerial traffic and civil planes and also radar control of the aerial situation using air defense equipment is a very complicated process. It is handled not only by people but also by an automated system, which automatically stores all parameters in real time. Therefore, an international commission should demand access to all data from both civilian and military recorders, which should shed light on the true causes of the tragedy," Maslov said.
Former Deputy Commander of the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces Lt. Gen. Volodymyr Dyakov (Ret.) had said earlier, "The most credible evidence that would be difficult to deny is a fragment of a missile. This is the most important thing, as each missile carries the date of its manufacture and the serial number. If we find parts of the missile, we will determine immediately what exactly it is. The serial number can help find out where the missile system was commissioned and when."
"If all this information is collected, it would be possible to prove that the plane was shot down not by terrorists but by Russian servicemen," Dyakov said.