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Netherlands: The full report of the Dutch Safety Board into the crash of MH17 runs into six documents, totalling about 700 pages.
Here are the main points – and some of the forensic detail.
(Warning – some details may be distressing to some readers)
Who wrote the report?
The investigation was conducted by the Dutch Safety Board. Representatives of Ukraine, Malaysia, the US, Britain, Australia and Russia had access to the investigation information and were able to "study and verify it".
How did the plane come apart?
Structural analysis shows that first the cockpit and front fuselage separated from the rest of the plane. The roof came off and within a single second the rest of that section bent downwards and snapped off.
"After a short time interval" the wings broke off, then the rear fuselage separated from the centre.
Finally, the tail snapped off the rear section.
What did investigators learn from the human remains?
Most of the bodies of the crew and passengers were recovered from Ukraine, and forensically examined before being returned to their families.
However, "fragmentation, fire and decomposition explain why little or no human remains were found for some of the passengers", the report says.
Autopsies of the crew found 120 objects, mostly metal fragments, in the body of the first officer. The body of the captain also contained "hundreds of metal fragments".
"The captain and first officer ... and the purser sustained multiple fatal injuries associated with the impact of metal fragments moving at high velocity.
"The majority of the occupants seated in the cabin suffered multiple fractures consistent with the inflight disintegration of the aeroplane and ground impact."
There was no sign of an on-board fire prior to the plane breaking up.
Did the passengers and crew suffer?
The pilots of MH17 died immediately.
"[The] impact [of the missile shrapnel] was only instantly fatal to the occupants of the cockpit," the report found.
Within a second the plane began to break up, exposing other crew and passengers to deafening noise, "abrupt deceleration, decompression, reduced oxygen level, extreme cold, powerful airflow [and] objects flying around".
"Some occupants suffered serious injuries that probably caused their death. In others, the exposure led to reduced awareness or unconsciousness in a very short space of time."
However, it was not possible to say when they died.
"It cannot be ruled out that some occupants remained conscious for some time during the one to 1½ minutes for which the crash lasted," the report said.
There were no signs of "conscious actions" from passengers such as composing text messages or taking photographs on mobile phones.
However, "one passenger was found with an oxygen mask around the neck ... it remains unclear whether the person concerned put on the mask in a reflex or that it was done by someone on the ground after the passenger's death".
What was the report based on?
In November investigators began recovering wreckage from the crash area, while a fragile ceasefire made it safe enough to go in.
The next opportunity came in March 2015, and a third in late April. Wreckage pieces were also handed over by locals who had picked them up from their fields.
Earlier, air accident investigators from Ukraine and Malaysia, along with the Australian Federal Police and journalists, had access to the crash area in the days following the crash – taking extensive photographs of the wreckage.
By the time investigators came to look for the wreckage, some of it was missing. In particular, "a number of avionics units ... were no longer present".
Some recovered items did not belong to the plane.
"The parts found appeared to be connected with a surface-to-air missile," the report said. "The shape and form of the parts recovered [including an "engine nozzle, a part of a stabiliser fin and a data cable"] is consistent with a 9M38 series surface-to-air missile".
Investigators also simulated damage from an "assumed warhead" hitting the aircraft.
What caused the crash?
"The inflight disintegration of the aeroplane near the Ukrainian/Russian border was the result of the detonation of a warhead. The detonation occurred above the left-hand side of the cockpit.
"The weapon used was a 9N314M-model warhead carried on the 9M38-series of missiles, as installed on the Buk surface-to-air missile system.
"Other scenarios that could have led to the disintegrations of the aeroplane were considered, analysed and excluded."
On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 left Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport – on a Boeing 777-200 aircraft.
It departed 13 minutes late, due to overbooking and some late transfer passengers.
The flight plan, prepared in Kuala Lumpur, had detailed route and weather information. The route was to take it over Poland, Ukraine, then Russia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, then India, Thailand and Indonesia.
Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk flight control made contact with the plane at 12.53 (3.53pm local time). After a few adjustments to the plane's altitude and flight path, responding to local weather conditions, the flight crew made their last radio transmission at 4.20pm local time: a routine acknowledgement of a navigation clearance. They never sent a distress call.
The plane then fell from the sky, "and some wreckage and human remains impacted houses and gardens at about 16.30 local time".
There were no dangerous goods on board, and the aeroplane was "in an airworthy condition". Flight data recorders show no engine or system warnings, or technical malfunctions.
The cockpit voice recorder contains two "sound peaks" in the last 20 milliseconds of the recording. The difference in timing between the peaks, of 2.3 milliseconds, shows that a loud explosion, a "sound wave originated outside the aeroplane starting from a position above the left-hand side of the cockpit".
The wreckage recovered from the crash sites shows the upper left-hand side of the cockpit "showed evidence of perforation from the outside".
The damage observed on the forward fuselage and cockpit area of the aeroplane indicated that there were multiple impacts from more than 800 high-energy objects from outside the aeroplane. The back-traced trajectories converged to a general area to the left of and above the cockpit.
According to a computer simulation the warhead detonated four metres to the left of and above the tip of the aeroplane's nose.
The shapes of metal missile fragments found in the bodies of crew members in the cockpit, bow-tie and cube-shaped, are found only in the 9N314M warhead, which is fitted to the 9M38M1 missile, which is launched from a Buk surface-to-air missile system.
The system was designed in the former Soviet Union.
Both the 9M38 and 9M38M1 missiles can carry the 9N314M warhead.
Such a missile must have been fired from within a 320 square kilometre area in eastern Ukraine. Three studies, including one by Ukraine and another by a Russian group, are all consistent with this area.
Further forensic research is needed to more precisely determine the launch location.
What crash theories did they rule out?
"The inflight break-up was not caused by an external event such as a lightning strike, the impact of a meteor or the re-entry of space debris.
"The ... sound wave did not match ... structural failure and explosive decompression in previous aeroplane accidents.
"The inflight break-up was not caused by a fuel tank explosion ... [nor] by engine failure ... [nor] by an explosive device inside the aeroplane ... [nor] by an on-board fire."
The pattern of damage to the plane and to passengers rules out an air-to-air gun or missile, and shows the plane was not struck by more than one weapon.
Who is to blame for the crash?
The report says: "The board ... does not answer one important question – the question of who is to blame for the crash. It is the task of the criminal investigation to provide that answer."
However, while it doesn't address who fired the missile at MH17, it does parcel out some blame to those who put the flight at risk.
"The aviation sector should take more account of the changing world within which it operates. In this world armed conflicts are ongoing ... such conflicts are more disorderly and less predictable than 'traditional' wars between states.
"The existence and the spread of advanced weapon systems means that the parties involved in these conflicts ... are able to hit targets at great distances and altitudes. The aviation sector should take urgent measures to identify, assess and manage the risks associated with flying over conflict zones."
Under international law, countries are responsible for the safety of flights over them. However, "in practice, states embroiled in an armed conflict rarely close their airspace" – so other parties such as airlines and neighbouring states "bear a major responsibility" to improve the safety of flight routes.
What were the risks in that part of Ukraine?
The separatist conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine in April 2014. By the end of that month it had an air component: Ukrainian army "helicopters, transport aeroplanes and fighters were downed".
According to Ukrainian reports (before the MH17 crash), on July 14 a Ukrainian military plane, an Antonov An-26 was shot down in the region. On July 16 a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 was shot down.
"It was not recognised that as a result there was an increased risk to civil aeroplanes flying over the conflict zone at cruising altitude," the report said.
On July 14 Ukrainian authorities ordered that civil aviation must fly above 32,000 feet.
However, "the statements made by [Ukraine] related to the military aeroplanes being shot down, mentioned the use of weapons systems that can reach the cruising altitude of civil aeroplanes ... these statements provided sufficient reason for closing the airspace over the conflict zone as a precaution."
Not only Ukraine was at fault.
"Malaysia Airlines ... stated that it did not possess any information that flight MH17, or any other flights, faced any danger when flying over Ukraine."
Almost all airlines continued to use routes over the conflict zone – 160 flights passed over eastern Ukraine on the day of the crash.
"Airline operators may not assume in advance that an unrestricted airspace above a conflict zone is safe ... operators should take greater account of uncertainties and risk-increasing factors."
