MH17 crash victim found with oxygen mask on: Dutch foreign minister

© RIA Novosti. Андрей Стенин

A victim of the Boeing crash over eastern Ukraine had an oxygen mask on when the body was pulled from the plane wreck, Timmermans was quoted as saying.

A victim of the Boeing crash over eastern Ukraine had an oxygen mask on when the body was pulled from the plane wreck, quoted Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans as saying Wednesday.

"Did you know that someone was found with an oxygen mask over their mouth? That means someone had the time to do that. We cannot rule that out," Timmermans said during a late-night talk show.

The Netherlands is in charge of the investigation into the alleged downing of Malaysia flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which killed a total of 298 people, most of them Dutch.

According to De Volkskrant, it was believed that all those aboard the ill-fated airliner had died instantly.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crashed in Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk on July 17. The official cause of the tragedy is still unclear.

The Dutch Safety Board issued a preliminary report on the crash on September 9, saying that the passenger plane broke up in mid-air as the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from the outside.

Ukrainian government and its Western allies have claimed that anti-Kiev militia in the region downed the plane with a missile, while independence supporters in Ukraine's east insisted that they do not have weapons capable of bringing down a high-flying aircraft.