MH17 black boxes arrive in Britain for analysis (Lead, changing dateline)

London, July 23 (IANS) The black box recorders from the crashed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 have arrived in Britain for data downloading and analysis, the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said Wednesday.

The flight recorders, commonly know as black boxes, from MH17 have been delivered by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) to the headquarters of AAIB in Farnborough, Hampshire, for downloading, Xinhua reported citing the AAIB announcement Wednesday on its Twitter feed.

The DSB also confirmed that the two black boxes have arrived in Britain, "where they are currently being read out and analysed by a team of international specialists".

"The on-site investigation in Ukraine is currently in full swing," said the DSB, which took over formal responsibility for the air crash investigation from Ukraine Tuesday.

"Although investigators still do not have safe access to the crash site, work to gather and analyse data from various sources is under way in both Kiev and the Netherlands," the board tweeted.

Flight MH17, while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed last Thursday in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.

Reports indicated that the Boeing 777 crashed after being hit by a missile. US President Barack Obama said initial investigations showed that the missile was fired from an area in Ukraine controlled by anti-Kiev militants.

The AAIB, a part of the British government's Department for Transport (DfT), is responsible for the investigation of civil aircraft accidents and serious incidents within Britain.

In March, it worked with British satellite company Inmarsat to provide information that helped Malaysian authorities confirm that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had "ended" in the southern Indian Ocean.