Son of MH17 victims doesn't blame Russia

Paul Guard, who lost his parents in the downing of flight MH17 more than a year ago, says it appears there were risk assessment failures.

Paul Guard, son of Roger and Jill Guard

The son of a Queensland couple killed on flight MH17 Paul Guard (AAP) Source: AAP

A Queensland man who lost both parents when MH17 was brought down has homed in on findings the Ukraine government should have closed its airspace to commercial airlines.

A Dutch safety board report into the destruction of the plane carrying 298 people, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, released overnight on Tuesday criticised Ukraine for failing to close the airspace above a war zone.

"Clearly there was some information available to military and governments that wasn't getting through to airlines because there wasn't any airline that stopped flying over Eastern Ukraine in the lead up to MH17," he told SBS World News.
Mr Guard lost his parents Jill and Roger in the July 2014 disaster.

Dutch investigators also found the aircraft was shot down by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile, believed to have been fired from within Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists.

"I blame the conflict for the whole incident myself. Both sides had those BUK missiles, both sides were committing horrendous warcrimes essentially firing rockets into civilian areas. So the sooner the resolution to that conflict can be found the better," Mr Guard said. 

Mr Guard also pointed out the Dutch findings had limited scope because it was a safety investigation not a criminal investigation.

However, he declined to totally blame Russia for what happened.

"Russia's got a role and they haven't been very helpful," he said.

"So I blame Russia partially but not completely. There are many other players that are also to blame."

Mr Guard also said he didn't plan to visit the Dutch air base where crash investigators have partially reconstructed the plane.

"I don't see it would help me at all but, yeah, I understand that some relatives might find that useful," he added.

Mr Guard was asked about his parents' final moments.

Another Dutch finding was that the MH17 passengers would have quickly lost consciousness after the missile exploded.

Of the 298 passengers and crew who died on board flight MH17, ten were British.

Barry Sweeney's 28-year-old son Liam was one of them.

He was traveling with a friend to watch Newcastle United play in a pre-season tour of New Zealand.

Mr Sweeney says he hopes his son and the other passengers on board didn't suffer too much in their final moments.
"They're not hundred percent certain, but because of the impact of the missile, the explosion, the confusion and everything else it sounds that everybody died peacefully and that's comforting me and I would think all other families of flight MH17," he said.

Paul Guard says the most satisfying thing that could come out of the tragedy is that it never be repeated.

"I think all that we can do is try and make sure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again," he said. "And that's both by trying to make sure that conflict is resolved and alsot to try and improve risk assessments for flight paths.

"And potentially look at also whether the civilian airline industry needs some sort of extra information gathering service provision by some sort of international body. I think that's the focus of what our attention should be on."

Asked about compensation, Mr Guard said there was potential for families to make claims against Malaysia Airlines under the Montreal Convention, which deals with airline liability in the case of death of passengers.


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Source: AAP, SBS



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