MH17: Relatives Of Victims View Plane Wreckage

Families of those who died in the MH17 disaster have visited a military airbase in the Netherlands where remnants of the plane have been collected.

Overhead bins, wing fragments and stretches of the aircraft's skin were transported from the crash scene to the Gilze-Reijen base near Breda.

The charred and twisted metal pieces of the Boeing 777 filled 12 train carriages and two low-loaders.

Every remnant was documented, photographed and sorted: those pieces less pertinent to the enquiry have now been stored in two large military shelters.

Investigators are concentrating their efforts on the nose cone and the business class section which are housed in an aircraft hangar.

Work will start soon on a three dimensional reconstruction of the plane.

A preliminary report suggested "damage observed on the forward fuselage and cockpit section of the aircraft appears to indicate that there were impacts from a large number of high energy objects from outside the aircraft".

Relatives of those who died have been invited to tour the site over the next few days.

One official, who wished to remain anonymous, told Sky News that many of those who attended were "obviously very upset".

Two investigations are running concurrently: one into the exact cause of the accident, the other, run by public prosecutors, is focusing on whether there was criminal intent.

It's believed pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region used a surface to air missile, perhaps from a seized Ukrainian Buk system, to down the aircraft.

A total of 283 passengers and 15 crew members died in the disaster on 17 July 2014, which occurred over disputed territory near the Ukraine/Russia border.

A rebel leader is reported to have written that his unit shot down a military transport plane in the same area.

The tweet was later deleted.

Some families have criticised the speed of the enquiry, and suggested the investigation should now be taken over by the United Nations.

But the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, Tjibbe Joustra, told Sky News that it is a complex and painstaking process: "It will take time.

"It has to be a very thorough otherwise, if you don't do it thoroughly, then decades after this you will still have discussions as to what was the real cause of the crash."