Amateur footage obtained Sunday by the Associated Press shows just how close Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 came to hitting homes in the eastern Ukrainian village of Hrabove.
The video, recorded on July 17 by a resident of Hrabove, shows villagers walking toward a plume of dense back smoke. Smoking wreckage can be seen strewn across a field in front of several homes and cars. A fire rages toward the far end of the field.
The villagers ask each other about the whereabouts of the pilot in the video, the AP reported. That suggests they at first believed the downed aircraft was a Ukrainian military plane, as rebel forces routinely shot down military planes and then took the pilots and crew prisoner.
Investigators have determined that the plane crashed after being struck by multiple “high-energy objects” — likely a missile — but have not determined exactly who was responsible.
Watch below:
It’s hard to think that a disaster like this could have been worse… but it could have, just as it was in Lockerbie.