DAVID Cameron has called for 'justice to be done' for the 298 people, including 10 Britons, who died on board a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 that was downed by a Russian-made missile.
The Prime Minister joined some of the families of the victims in calling for the culprits to be caught after Dutch investigators revealed the aircraft's final moments.
It also published remarkable images of the aircraft, MH17, shot down over eastern Ukraine during heavy fighting between Russian and the country's troops in July, that has been partly re-assembled for the probe.
The probe by the Dutch Safety Board concluded a Russian Buk surface to air missile warhead struck one metre from the left side of the cockpit at 32,000 ft, killing the pilot and two co-pilots instantly.
The nose section broke off, showering fragments of metal and the airliner broke up in mid-air.
The passengers and crew who were flying from Amsterdam to Kualar Lumpur, Malaysia's capital, would have died shortly afterwards.
After the findings were released, Mr Cameron said: "We have always been clear that justice must be done for all of the victims of MH17 and today's report brings us one step closer to establishing the truth.
"We, alongside our partners, will continue to send a clear message; those responsible for downing this plane will be held to account."
Barry Sweeney, whose son Liam, 28, was on board, said he found some solace from the fact passengers would have died soon after impact.
He said: "That is a comfort for 298 sets of relatives."
They wanted to know their loved ones had not suffered. "We cannot be 100 per cent, but we have to think that was the case," he said.
He added: "I'm going to have to go away and think 'Yes, Liam died instantly as (did) 297 other people'. If you think otherwise, it's just going to hurt forever."
Liam was travelling with his friend and fellow Newcastle United superfan John Alder to watch their side play pre-season games in New Zealand.
"It was the trip of a lifetime, unfortunately they didn't get there," Mr Sweeney said.
Claudio Villaca-Vanetta, whose husband Glenn Thomas, from Blackpool, died on board MH17, added: "We had some of the answers we were looking for today, but by far not all of them.
"We now know for sure that Malaysia Airlines was allowed to fly there, and we know now that it was a bad decision by Ukraine to leave the airspace open and that by just raising the cruise height it was safe for commercial airliners. We know there was a missile which is manufactured in Russia only.
"Of course, this doesn't tell us who did it, who is accountable for it. That is where we want to get now."
Dutch Safety Board chairman Tjibbe Joustra said civil aviation needed to learn lessons about flying over areas where armed conflict was taking place.
On that day 160 planes had flown over eastern Ukraine and three other commercial airliners were in the same area when MH17 was hit, he said.
"Every single one of those operators thought that was safe," he said.
Operators had been told that air space above 32,000ft was open, despite a number of military planes being brought down in recent days.
The report recommended that countries where armed conflict was taking place should do more to ensure air safety and carriers should be more transparent about the routes they use.
Debris was scattered over a 50km area on the ground where fighting between rebel separatists and government troops was going on.
Experts reconstructed the sections of the front of the plane at the Gilze-Rijen air base in the Netherlands.
An animation showed the route the doomed plane took, how it changed course to avoid a thunderstorm, then demonstrated how the front section sheared away after impact.
The tail probably fell to the ground first, with the central section flipping over and catching fire on impact.
The inquiry team indicated the missile was fired from a 320km square area. Russian experts said it was a smaller area, and Ukrainians indicated a smaller area still.
The DSB did not set out to find who fired the missile. That will be dealt with by prosecutors later.
Russian missile-makers have carried out their own investigation which they say point to Ukrainian fighters being to blame.
Almost 200 of the victims were from the Netherlands.
A search is still under way for another missin Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 237 passengers on board, when it went missing in March last year.
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