MH17: Russia says it won't take black box

Russian authorities said the country does not plan to take the black box flight recorders from the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 which was believed to have been shot down by separatists near the Ukraine-Russia border, said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“Despite what Kiev is again saying, we do not plan to take these (black) boxes. We do not plan to violate existing (international) norms for such situations,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state television.

“We want international experts to get to the site of the crash as soon as possible so that they get the black boxes right away.”

The crash site is located in the Donetsk People’s Republic, an area of Eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

Emergency workers sifting through the crash site also reportedly found the second black box belonging to the Boeing-777 aircraft owned by MAS.