Russian experts to participate in MH17 crash probe

Will help decipher data from flight recorders

Russian experts will participate in retrieving and deciphering data from flight recorders of the crashed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, Moscow-based air disaster investigation body Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) said Wednesday.

"On Tuesday, an MAK representative joined an international commission to investigate the Boeing-777 crash and will take part in deciphering information obtained from flight data recorders, the so-called black boxes, in the United Kingdom," Xinhua quoted the MAK as saying in a statement.

The MAK comprises civil aviation and airspace officials of 11 former Soviet Union countries, including Ukraine.

The Dutch Safety Board has formally been in charge of the investigation of the MH17 crash, which claimed all 298 lives onboard and was allegedly shot down by a surface-to-air missile in eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a senior representative of the insurgents said the international experts did not hurry to the crash site on the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).

"Experts of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have not got to us. Currently there are no experts except three Malaysian experts," Deputy Prime Minister of the DPR Andrei Purgin told Russia's state-run Rossia-24 TV channel.