and lots of details. big focus on the crash site, securing that investigation site, especially as the u.s. has agreed to send in investigators. and daylight hours in the ukraine. that s where we re begin this morning. the working theory is that whoever fired the missile that took down the airplane was aiming at a military aircraft and accidentally hit the passenger jet. the second tragedy to hit the malaysian airlines this year. flight 370 disappeared in march. with more on the latest crash, here s abc s brian ross. reporter: even that dramatic footage of the moment of impact is being questioned. as u.s. officials point fingers of blame at the pro-russian rebels. they asked who just happened to have a camera rolling at the precise direction and time the plane was blown out of the sky, bursting into flames. almost immediately the pro-russian rebels moved in to secure and take control of the crash scene and the debris field that stretches over ten miles. a gruesome landscape, litte
moment. because this is just the hard to control area, by the rebels, they didn t allow the government officials to access the area tonight. and although the team brokered some kind of deal with the rebels to access the area, the crash site was already raided by rebels and by locals. and with the investigation, this site, you can call it a dirty investigation site. even the investigators, if they will be allowed there possibly they will find little untouched details of that crash, and it could damage the investigation process a lot. maxim, a freelance journalist in kiev, thank you for joining us on cnn this morning.
the investigation site, something he has put out. no evidence from that or other sources at all. he calls this is a provocation, suggesting perhaps they did this themselves. obviously international condemnation of the separatists. he says himself that they do not have any weapons system in their possession that s capable of doing this. most sophisticated they have, a range of 3 kilometers in total. repeating what we have seen on social media before but goes on to say, he s heading there himself, imminently and will be there in minutes to try and work out exactly what did occur here. so a bid by the separatists, because they always do appear a functioning government. we don t know who these prosecutors are, if they have any expertise at all in aviation disaster investigation. but this is obviously their bid to try and show they have a plan of their own, and blame this squarely on the ukrainian authorities. obviously, they have no experience in investigating something like this.
hello again. what are we talking about here? in our terms, i guess, cyclone, we talk in hurricane talk around here. what are we looking at here and how can it move things around out there? it would be the equivalent of a category 3 and a lot of wind even with the hurricanes we face. there s indonesia, australia. sizable storm, strong storm. look at the last image. watch it. because you will see more orange, more yellow. that is an indication that this cyclone, severe tropical cyclone julian is still strengthening. in fact, here we are. take a look at the storm. the size of it. circulation of it. this is an area in the indian ocean where the winds quarterback erratic. you take this storm system, you put it just north of the investigation site and facing some not so good conditions by the time they get to midweek. why? it is moving to the south and
west and not moving very fast and should stay just to the north and west of the investigation site but it is about as large as the site that they have been going into. and any time you get the storms starting to weaken, the bands of rain and wind can break off and that could be the case on tuesday and wednesday of next week. but here s the deal. tomorrow i expect the cyclone to start weakening. i think by the time we get to tuesday the winds down to about 39 to 73 miles per hour. but even so, if any of the bands break off, t.j., they could be looking at huge waves over 10 feet and a whole lot of rain, too, that will reduce visibility. t.j., the forecast by the time we get to friday, saturday of next week, there s the potential of another cyclone that could develop and that could mean waving over 16 feet by friday, saturday time. thank you so much. they have a lot to worry about. now this. thank you so much. good having you this weekend. a desperate search, as well.