The pilots of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were killed instantly by missile fragments but it cannot be determined when the passengers died, air crash investigators say.
The Dutch Safety Board on Tuesday released its final report into the downing of the flight on July 17 last year, finding it was shot down by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile.
All 298 people aboard were killed including 38 Australian citizens and residents.
Detailed examination of the wreckage and parts of a missile determined that the warhead exploded just outside the front of the plane, blasting fragments into the cockpit.
Hundreds of metal fragments were found in the recovered bodies of the two pilots and the purser and they would have died instantly, the report said.
The blast sheered the cockpit off from the rest of the plane which then began breaking up, the mid-section crashing upside down before bursting into flames.
No fragments were found in the bodies of the passengers but they would have been exposed to abrupt deceleration and acceleration, decompression, a sudden decrease in oxygen, extreme cold, strong airflow and flying objects as the plane rapidly descended.
"As a result some occupants suffered severe injuries that were probably fatal," the report said.
"In others, the exposure led to reduced awareness or unconsciousness within a very short time. "It was not possible to ascertain at which moment the occupants died. The impact on the ground was not survivable."
An emergency oxygen mask was found with one passenger but the report said it found no indications of conscious actions by passengers after the detonation.
"It is likely that the occupants were barely able to comprehend the situation in which they found themselves."
