MH17之后，什么变了？

    在越南战争期间，法国航空公司每天都有从巴黎直飞河内的航班。这一点北越知道，南越知道，美国也知道。但该航班从未遭遇攻击。

    但马航MH17航班被导弹击落这起事故将带来重大改变，在风险业务方面，此类风险因此次事故而大幅提高。承保战争险的保险公司从现在开始将更改其免责条款，将更广泛的地区定义为战区。这样做也是提请航空公司注意（无论有没有政府的命令），飞机飞越该区域即违反该保单的条款。而任何一家航空公司都不会以失去保险覆盖为代价而以身试险。

    同时，在坠机现场取回的黑匣子（驾驶舱语音记录器和飞行数据记录器）可能只具有象征意义，在确定坠毁细节方面并不会起到真正的建设性作用。目前，假设黑匣子完好无损，没有被动过手脚且交由适当的空难调查实验室处理，则黑匣子能提供的也只有飞机被导弹击中以及失去电力的确切时间。

    对调查人员而言，机身现场调查是至关重要的。他们要检查金属是否有确切的波纹痕迹（波纹痕迹意味着化学品爆炸，如塞姆汀炸药，当年调查人员在泛美103航班的机身内部很快就发现了这种炸药）以及金属机身的形状。向外扭曲说明是飞机内部爆炸，而向内扭曲并带有燃烧痕迹则表明是飞机外部爆炸。在未来的96小时内，如果调查人员能够自由进入事发地点，那么他们应该能够确立一个时间表，并获得相关的法医线索，而后者可能会给出他们所需的化学品成分，来追溯导弹的制造商，甚至还能查出终端用户。

    待这一过程结束之后，我们将回到之前提到的监管链问题，即证明武器的提供方和导弹发射方是谁。即使这个问题在短期内水落石出，也并不意味着问题很快就能在法庭上解决。在未来四天内，我们将确切得知关于MH17航班被击落的时间、方式和地点。甚至可能很快就会知道元凶是谁。但是，法庭上责任方的判定，以及随后给予遇难者家属应有的赔偿可能需要耗费数年的时间。（财富中文网）

    译者：Lina

    During the Vietnam War, Air France had a daily nonstop from Paris to Hanoi. The North Vietnamese knew it. The South Vietnamese knew it. And the U.S. knew it. And that plane was never attacked.

    But the missile attack that downed MH 17 was a game-changer, and in the risk business, the stakes were just raised stratospherically. The insurance companies that write war-risk policies are now beginning to change their exclusions to add a much wider tract of territory that they now would characterize as a war zone. In doing so, they are putting airlines on notice that—with or without government orders—an airline flying over that zone would be violating the terms of that particular policy. And no airline is going to do risk voiding its coverage.

    Meanwhile, at the scene of the crash, the retrieval of the black boxes (the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder) may only have symbolic significance and may have no real constructive role in determining the details of the crash. At this point, assuming they are found intact, not compromised and taken to the appropriate air crash investigation lab, about the only thing the black boxes can contribute is an exact time when the plane was hit with the missile and the aircraft lost electric power.

    What’s crucial to the investigators is getting their hands on the fuselage. They need to inspect the metal for definitive signs of striation marks (which would be consistent with chemical explosive, like Semtex, which they quickly discovered on the inside of the fuselage of Pan Am 103) and for the shape of the metal. Twisted out is consistent with an explosion from inside the plane. Twisted in– with burn marks – is consistent with an explosion from outside the plane. Over the next 96 hours, assuming the investigators have unfettered access to the site, they should be able to construct a timeline, and a forensic trail that could give them the chemical DNA they need to lead them back to the missile manufacturer and perhaps even the end-user.

    Then there is the aforementioned chain of custody issue—meaning the issue of proving who supplied the weapon and who fired it. Even if we gain clarity on that in the near term, it does not mean it will be settled in a court of law anytime soon. In the next four days, we should be able to learn conclusively the when, the how and the where of the downing of MH17. We might even soon learn the who. But proving who’s responsible in a court of law, and giving families their due, could easily take years.