British air accident investigators based in Farnborough are to be handed the two black box recorders to help determine the cause of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

The recorders should offer evidence as to whether flight MH17 was shot down or whether the plane or pilots were in any distress in the minutes leading up to the crash in eastern Ukraine last Thursday.

Western nations have blamed pro-Russia rebels in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine for shooting down the aircraft when they mistook it for a Ukrainian military cargo plane. They claim that the rebels used a Russian-supplied SA-11 BUK “Gadfly” anti-aircraft missile system to bring down the plane.

Earlier, a refrigerated train carrying 282 bodies from the crash arrived in the city of Kharkiv, from where Ukraine authorities have said that they will start sending them back to the Netherlands on Wednesday.

Air crash investigators have still not been able to visit the crash site and international observers say that the site is being compromised during the delay, with pieces of wreckage being dismantled, possibly to retrieve the

International monitors say the crash site is being compromised, with pieces of wreckage cut into, possibly to retrieve victims’ bodies.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people on board.