Brussels, Sep 9 (IANS/EFE): The preliminary report from the Dutch Safety Board on the causes of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in July with 298 people on board, confirmed it was downed by "high-energy objects" fired from the outside.

Preliminary findings indicate that experts had not found indications of "technical malfunctions" and that the plane exploded in the air.

"The final report will be released in the summer of 2015," the board spokeswoman, Sara Vernooij, told Efe news agency.

Flight MH17 was flying in "unrestricted airspace" when the incident took place, according to the preliminary findings.

The Boeing 777-200 exploded in the air probably as a consequence of structural damage caused by "a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from the outside," according to the report.

"Photographs of some of the wreckage showed that a number of pieces contained multiple holes and indentations," the report said.

Moreover, it added that although the experts had not been able to recover those pieces for forensic examination, "photographs from the wreckage indicate that the material around the holes was deformed in a manner consistent with being punctured by high-energy objects".

The Malaysian airliner took off from Amsterdam July 17 and was heading for Kuala Lumpur, carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members. When the horrific tragedy took place.

Everyone aboard died.

The report from the Dutch Safety Board also confirmed that most of those killed, 193, were of Dutch nationality, and others came from Malaysia (43), Australia (27), Indonesia (12), Britain (10), Germany (four), Belgium (four), the Philippines (three), Canada (one) and New Zealand (one).