about this since 2012. we'll see what happens. >> thank you. that is all out of time for this news hour. head to hour website aljazeera.com. "inside story" is next. >> after almost away week, the men who controlled the crash site in eastern ukraine have allowed the investigators in, turned over the bodies and turned over the black boxes. can a compromised crash site still tell you what you need to know? it's the "inside story." >> hello, i'm ray suarez.

when a special jetliner doesn't reach its destination, almost anywhere in the world is a strenuous attempt to keep the accident scene pristine. pieces of the aircraft of photographed, positions cataloged, bodies mapped as a source of evidence of both the way the plane was damaged and how it broke up. the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, block boxes are meant to provide a treasure trove of time, altitude, a plane's vital statistics, you might say, along with what the people who were flying it were saying. investigators want to create a time line, determine a cause, and no piece of data is too small, no detail too insignificant. in eastern you a crane, the crash scene was controlled by days by the very men suspected of causing the crash. the black boxes were taken away, then returned, bodies moved without the kind of forensic data an investigator would want to record. the investigation into mh17 is

this addition of "inside story." >> malaysia airlines flight 17 was presumed shot down while flying at 32,000 feet. the piece he is fell to the ground in farm fields in eastern ukraine. the debris is strewn across five square miles, right in the heart of a shooting war. the territory is held by pro-russian separatists fighting ukrainian forces, the main suspects and they control the evidence. >> after the crime comes the cover up. what we have seen is evidence tampering on an industrial scale, and obviously that has to stop. >> the area was not immediately cordoned off. instead, on lookers and journalists were able to walk freely amidst the wreckage for days. there had been growing international concern. the separatists were holding and possibly compromising the site.

>> we observed that one of the largest debris, this appears to be the big cone section to the right of the road had someone been split or moved apart. >> monday, the united nations security council unanimously passed a resolution calling for full and unhindered access to the crash site. nearly a week after malaysia airlines flight 17 was shot done, the rebels gained permission to the site. near the village, heavily armed rebel fighters accompanied observers from malaysia and the organization for security and cooperation in europe, the osce. while rebels held the crash site, the bodies were gathered up and moved to the town of tores. the leader kept the remains in four refrigerated train cars and after a 17 hour journey, the train carrying 198 bodies

arrived where ukrainian authorities set up their crash investigation centered. >> to my dying day, i will not understand that it took so much time for the rescue workers to be allowed to do their difficult jobs and that human remains should be used in a political game, as somebody here around the table talks about a political game, this is the political game played with human remains and it is despicable. >> the prime minister was able to negotiate the surrender of the two flight data recorders said to be in good position, they will give time, and altitude of the aircraft when hit. the unsecured site of the crash has been a source of frustration for officials around the world. tuesday, russian president vladimir putin said his country will do everything in its power to facilitate the investigation and while putin accused ukraine and the west of escalating the conflict, rebels and the kiev

government agreed to limited ceasefire zones around the crash site. president obama visited the netherlands embassy in washington today, and signed a condolence book. 193 people who died on flight 17 were dutch. >> obviously i extend on behalf of all the american people our deepest condolences over the loss of family and friends, to express our solidarity with the people of the netherlands with whom we've been friends and had the deepest ties for centuries, and to assure the dutch people that we will work with them to make sure that loved ones are recovered, that a proper investigation is conducted, and that ultimately, justice is done. >> that probe has begun as teams have investigators comb the crash site, as victims remains

are identified and flight recorders are now in the hands of investigators. so many questions remain, not least of which is who fired at the civilian aircraft and did separatists with ties to moscow compromise evidence and hinder the hunt for answers. >> how investigators recover when an in quest makes such a flawed beginning as in eastern ukraine, that's this time on the program. are there some things that are now impossible to know for sure. can a group of armed militants neutralize a crash site, remove key evidence, tamper in a way that hides the people responsible? joining us for that conversation from san antonio, frank, a medical legal expert for nsa international is a former forensic investigators for the ntsb. from london, david diez, a

former air branch investigator of the uk's department of transportation, robert mcfaden, co case agent. what normally happens when a commercial aircraft goes down for whatever reason, who's in charge, and what's the best practice for handling the site? >> >> well, here in the united states, if it's a non-criminal event, the ntsb is in charge of the investigation and is typically supported by the f.b.i., federal bureau of investigation. normally, there's two phases in the sense that the ntsb about be the primary investigative agency where we look at the power plants, the air frame, the operations, maintenance records, air traffic control records, we

wanted to gather as much information and data to determine what possibly could happen to determine a probably cause. we gather all this information, both from the air carrier and most importantly from the scene. the sect part is really the victims. it's important to map out the location of where the victims are, coordinate identification of those victims and working with families in establishing a family systems center. all this information ties into together and all peeled together, whereby both sides in the investigation can come up with a probable cause as to what happened. >> david, what happens when we're dealing with an international carrier, in this case, we had a flight from amsterdam to kuala lampur, and

30 party countries. who's in charge and what is supposed to happen by international agreement. >> i think the normal way of doing it is that the country where the accident happens normally investigates the accident, but obviously there are many countries which don't have the resources to do this sort of thing and they are free to call upon other countries that do have those resources. i think in this current instance, i understand the ukrainian government asked the dutch government to be in the lead of the investigation, and they already have asked the british investigation branch to help them with the flight recorders, so it is an unusual situation when you've got quite so many parties involved. normally in this country, it will be very sometime larr to the way it's done in the states. the accident site would be secured, the investigation branch, their engineers, forensic medical experts would

also be there, because it is also worth trying to find out how the various individuals who died did die, whether they were killed by the explosion, whether killed by the decompression of the aircraft, or whatever. these are all useful parts of the puzzle. the other part, which i don't think was mentioned, is the data in the flight recorder and the voice recorder. these are used to corroborate other evidence. they've got a lot of useful evidence in them, but not on their own. it's all corroboration with the stuff the engineers see on the side and the operation experts in this country, when they interview witnesses, listen to recordings of air traffic control tapes and radar tapes and so on. >> robert, what's different when it's presumed to be a crime when what we're talking about is a

terrorist attack or people who thought they were shooting at something else. >> well, the presumption from the beginning is that a crime has been committed, that a murder of innocent civilians. in fact, in this case, with the u.s. citizen aboard the aircraft, u.s. statutes apply, a murder of a u.s. citizen abroad using weapons of mass destruction. going into an investigation, even though it's quite in at you active that it's a terrorist event, that it's terrorism, but from an investigative standpoint, it's a matter of conducting the investigative steps and ruling things out. whether it be terrorism or some other cause, in this situation, and speaking really to the obvious, from an investigators standpoint, i would be hard pressed to come up with a more difficult and extraordinarily difficult crime scene.

it's been profoundly altered and contaminated. for relative comparison for my work, post 9/11 and towers attack in saudi arabia in 1996, there are more can frost than comparison. some of those, yemen for example were a threat to the terrorism investigators. there's no relative comparison with m.h.17, it's actually in a combat area. >> just before we go to the break, i'm curious whether you, dave, or frank, can think of a case where the people who controlled the crash scene actually might have had an interest in keeping investigators from the scene and obscuring what actually happened. can you think of an example that even comes close to fitting this

situation? >> there have been other attacks by military forces, but not in this set of circumstance. >> frank? in the many international aviation disasters that i have worked, i can't think of anything close to this. >> we're going to take a short break right now. when we come back, we'll talk about what happens from now on. now that investigators are on the scene, now that the bodies have been removed, now that the data recorders are in investigators' hands, can we really find out what happened? no is "inside story." stay with us.

>> consider this: the news of the day plus so much more. >> we begin with the growing controversy. >> answers to the questions no one else will ask. >> real perspective, consider this on al jazeera america >> you're watching "inside story" on aljazeera america. i'm ray suarez. we're talking about the investigation into the crash of malaysia airlines flight 17 on this edition of the program. david, let me continue with you. we have a situation where objects on the ground have been moved around, people's personal effects looted, the black boxes were sequestered and only recently returned to a responsible investigative group. can you recover? >> well, all you can do is what you can do. the ideal would have been to have investigators on the spot

as soon as possible after the accident. in this case, it's very difficult to know what has been moved and what hasn't been moved, but certainly the normal way of doing it would be to have a complete security cordon around the area, so that the investigators would get in and do their work. this often involves leaving bodies, it sounds grizzly, but means that the investigators can get a better picture of what happens. they normally get through that phase of the investigation quickly. now the bodies aren't anywhere near the site and all the forensic work will have to be done in holland. >> were there things that might have been ascertainable immediately after the disaster that may not be known or knowable now? have we lost time? >> yes, the short and that is, absolutely have lost time, as mentioned with the corruption of the crime scene. those things now are just

presenting more and more obstacles as more time goes on with a situation like this. to the first part of your question, were things ascertainable, in a situation like this of a major event, whether criminal, terrorist or otherwise, investigation starts immediately among the stake holders in particular with the larger countries that almost always have a stake in a geopolitical manner. that would start with the manifest of the plane and where it originated in the netherlands and amsterdam. those things are going on right away. in a case like this behind the scenes, it's and you say much forensics as it is information and intelligence, so those kind of things were going on right from the beginning. something, too, that would be very important, if and when it's certainly hoped that those who have control of the area find it in their areas, it will be a matter of getting access to individuals who were at the

scene. the photographs that were taken, the film, the video, the photographing is such an important component of a crime scene, so of course, investigators when they finally arrive will have lost that opportunity, but it will be a matter of finding all of the photographic materials that might be available out there. >> frank, robert mcfadden reminded us there's a lot more that goes into the investigation than the physical remains of the plane and the passengers themselves. what else are we going to look at? are there things that perhaps don't occur to people when they think about how something like this happens. satellite transmissions, people tracking from other forms of our veils and intelligence, could the united have had a slight in orbit that was aware of where that jet was? >> loot. i mean, those are all piece that is they're going to look at. they're also going to want to be

in touch with other pilots, other air carriers in that area to see if they heard or saw anything. all that is going to be information, all that is intelligence gathering and stuff that is, again, another piece of the puzzle. it just adds to it, it's just another layer and another component. >> are places like national security agencies ready willing to surround their kind of information, if the american government knows something, if a european government knows something, are they likely to tell you if you ask? >> for recent frame of reference -- >> go ahead, robert, i'll come back to you, frank. >> i want to say and right up front tragically so but a recent frame of reference with a malaysian airlines, flight 370,

it was noted afterwards and we published a report on this, when you're talking about some of the information that is so important for figuring out what happened here, it involves air defense command and control, radar systems and other sensors. often times, even among allies, these are the holiest of holies. it indicates gaps in capability. quite unfortunately here, this would be a major, major piece of the mosaic to figure out what happened, but when you have stake holders involved that see it in their interest to conceal things, it presents another challenge. >> frank, do you have anything to add? >> i want to agree, that's absolutely correct. it's not so much the capabilities, but the gaps, as well, so, yes. >> are there international compacts that govern how a country's behaved when this kind

of tragedy occurs? are there information-sharing agreements within at least assurances that they'll be aid given when we're trying to get to the bam of something like this. >> the general frame was laid down by the arrangements and most of the signatories have some form of accident investigation organization of their own or they have links to other people's accident investigations. this is how this particular accident seems to be developing is that you have the dutch authorities in the lead, and they will be calling whatever expertise they need from various parts of the world. the other people who are involved in the accident investigation are the airline, the manufacturers of the aircraft and the manufacturers of the aircraft engines, so that the investigators if they got a

query about anything, they've got immediate access to expertise and this is quite normal for these sort of people, all said to be accredited to the investigation. >> we're going to take a short break. when we come back, we'll talk more about the cock pit voice recorder and flight data recorder. what can they tell us? is there a problem that they were missing for sometime before they were surrendered. they were surrendered. this is "inside story."

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>> welcome back to "inside story" on aljazeera america. i'm ray suarez. we're looking at the investigation into the loss of malaysia airlines flight 17 over eastern ukraine. there will be no detailed construction of an untampered crash scene this time. the jet, human remains, data recorders were all at least somewhat compromised before investigators could really begin their work.

frank, i know in any investigation, chain of possession is important. can people tamper with these recorders? >> well, you know, the recorders are very solid, and they look, what i've seen, in very good condition. they're able to withstand a lot, but, you know, anything is possible. in my career, i've never seen anybody actually physically tamper with them, but i would say the chances are pretty low at this point. >> so there's no hats, no reprogramming that you're aware of that can go on for units like this? are they i am permeable for people who know what they're doing? >> they are a solid, concealed box and in my experience, i've never seen anybody try to alter them or get into them.

i think they will get true data from those boxes. >> access to the site is still being controlled by people who are considered the primary suspects for bringing this jet aircraft down. how does that complicate things moving forward? >> you really have the fox guarding the hen house here. from an investigative standpoint, hard to come up with a worse case scenario. you have the three stake holders from the area. ukraine has little to no control, other than combat operations right now, so this will present a problem, but from a perspective, though, of trying to look for some positives in this incredible tragedy, you take a major event and use the

u.s. coal investigation, it may seem to the investigative work near 100% is being done there, but something like this on this scale, it becomes very quickly immediately a worldwide investigation, so overcoming, i have to say, i'd be hard pressed to come up with ways how to talk about how investigators get in there anyway quickly to ever a fair, open, honest and objective investigation until the stake holders, particularly the ukraine separatists and russian sponsors find it in their best interests. with that bang the case, all the parts of putting this together as to how this tragedy came about will go full speed ahead. >> david, often you were the public face of accident investigations. how important is confidence, widely shared confidence that the result of this investigation is really the truth? how important is that to everybody involved? >> well, normally an

investigation is looking into aspects of aviation safety, and lessons to be learned to make sure that a particular type of accident doesn't recur. in this case, it's rather different. going back to the data, it probably would be possible for an expert to do something to corrupt the data, but that really wouldn't serve much purpose, because there are other streams of data coming from the aircraft and if the data from the flight recorder didn't correlate with various other things, it would be obvious that it had been tampered with. to try and tamper, it doesn't really mean that, you know, that they haven't got the data. the data cups from other places, as well. >> back to that idea of not establishing, but corroborating things already known from other sources. >> that's exactly. >> thank you for joining us with that's exactly the thing. >> robert mcfadden joined us

from new york, frank from san antonio. good to talk to you all. thanks for your information. that brings us to the end of this edition of "inside story." the program maybe over, but the conversation continues. we want to hear what you think about the issues raised on this or any day's show. log on to our facebook page, send us your thoughts on twitter, our handle is insideaj story. we'll see you next time. i'm ray suarez.

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