Two military transport planes carrying 40 coffins bearing victims of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 have landed in the southern city of Eindhoven.
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Six days after the Boeing 777 was shot down over the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, the first bodies finally arrived Wednesday in the Netherlands, the country that bore the heaviest toll in the crash that killed all 298 passengers and crew.
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A Dutch Hercules C-130 that Dutch government spokesman Lodewijk Hekking says is carrying 16 coffins was closely followed by an Australian C-17 Globemaster plane carrying 24 coffins.
Meanwhile, British investigators have begun examining the flight recorders from the downed Malaysia Airlines plane.
Dutch officials, meanwhile, say they've taken charge of the investigation, and they're pleading for complete access to the wreckage in eastern Ukraine, in an area controlled by pro-Russia rebels.
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Independent military analysts say the shrapnel impacts that are visible in photos of the wreckage indicate that a missile from a system like the S-A-11 brought down the plane. (AP)
