Operation to recover Malaysia Airlines plane wreckage starts in Ukraine's rebel-held east

OSCE members watch as recovery workers in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine load debris from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, in Hrabove, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014, four months after the plane was brought down. Sunday's operation is being carried out under the supervision of Dutch investigators and officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The recovered fragments will be loaded onto trains and ferried to the government-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and the investigation into the cause of the crash is being conducted there and in the Netherlands. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov) (The Associated Press)

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Recovery workers in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine load debris from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, in Hrabove, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014, four months after the plane was brought down. Sunday's operation is being carried out under the supervision of Dutch investigators and officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The recovered fragments will be loaded onto trains and ferried to the government-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and the investigation into the cause of the crash is being conducted there and in the Netherlands. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov) (The Associated Press)

In this image made from amateur video taken on July 17, 2014 and obtained by The Associated Press, men stand near the burning wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine. Four months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine, the Associated Press has obtained video material that shows how close the burning passenger jet came to hitting village homes and suggests that residents first assumed it was a Ukrainian military plane that had been struck. (AP Photo) (The Associated Press)

HRABOVE, Ukraine – Recovery workers in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine have started collecting debris from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, four months after the plane was brought down.

Sunday's operation is being carried out under the supervision of Dutch investigators and officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The recovered fragments will be loaded onto trains and ferried to the government-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and the investigation into the cause of the crash is being conducted there and in the Netherlands.

All 298 people aboard the Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed when it was shot down July 17 over a rebel-held area of Ukraine. Ukraine and the West have blamed the attack on Russia-backed separatists using a ground-to-air missile.