A pro-Russian armed man secures crash site wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane (flight MH17) at the site of the plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region November 16, 2014. Local emergency services have begun collecti
A pro-Russian armed man secures crash site wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane (flight MH17) at the site of the plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region November 16, 2014. Local emergency services have begun collecting parts of the wreckage from its crash site in the middle of the conflict zone, Dutch air accident investigators said on Sunday. Dutch inspectors had hoped to collect the parts themselves, following the downing of the flight on July 17 that killed 298 people, two thirds of them Dutch citizens. But they remain concerned about the safety of their staff in the rebel-held conflict zone, and so have decided to work with local services following an initial focus on finding human remains and belongings. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic

A new video showing the moments after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down in Eastern Ukraine has emerged four months after the doomed flight was shot down.

The amateur footage obtained by the Associated Press shows wreckage from the burning passenger aeroplane hitting the ground just a few metres away from the villagers’ homes. The residents scramble in alarm as they see how close the downed flight almost flight their village.

The clip is believed to be the first taken after the plane’s crash. According to the AP, residents first assumed that it was a Ukrainian military plane. They had asked the whereabouts of the pilot. As the AP noted, the question is significant because multiple Ukrainian military planes had been shot down during the time, and the crew are regularly taken prisoner by the rebel forces.

MH17 was an international passenger flight that was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It crashed on July 17 after it was shot down over a rebel-held area. All 283 passengers and 15 crew on board were killed.

Ukraine claims Russia-backed separatist rebels were responsible for the crash, while state-run television in Russia released a satellite photograph over the weekend that alleges Ukraine’s air force downed the passenger flight. Channel One and Rossiya TV stations claimed that they obtained the image from a Moscow-based organisation, which received it via email from a man purporting to be an aviation expert.

Dutch investigators and authorities from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have taken over the investigation. They have started collecting debris from the crash site on Sunday to be transported to the city of Kharkiv.

The U.S. State Department dismissed the photo as a “preposterous” attempt by Moscow to conceal the truth and ignore responsibility for the tragedy. Bloggers also claim that the photograph is a forgery, noting that there are details that appear to be taken from past data, including a cloud pattern that seemed to have been taken in 2012.

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