A PRELIMINARY report on the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over wartorn Ukraine will be published next Tuesday.

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB), which is leading the investigation into the disaster in which 10 Britons were among the 298 people killed, said: "The preliminary report will present factual information based on the sources available to the DSB.

"In the months to come further investigation is nee-ded before the final report can be written."

The DSB expects to pub-lish the final report within a year after the crash.

No-one has claimed res-ponsibility for the shooting down of the Malaysia Air-lines Boeing 777 over Ukraine on July 17, but it is suspected that the plane may have been hit by a missile fired by pro-Russian separatists.

The plane was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, with the majority of those on board being Dutch.

The DSB has not been able to visit the crash site because the safety of investigators could not be guaranteed.

The flight's black boxes were recovered and were taken the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch's headquarters in Farnborough, Hampshire, for analysis.

The DSB said that both the boxes were damaged but that valid flight data had been successfully downloaded.