According to news portal Daily Mail Online, the video, created by Dutch air crash investigators, simulated the final moments of the aircraft before it was shot down by a Russian missile over Ukraine in 2014.
“Coroners do not make findings of criminal guilt but it would be pointless sophistry not to acknowledge that these deaths were part of a gross mass murder,” said NSW State Coroner Michael Barnes on Friday.
Among the NSW victims killed after the aircraft was shot down were Michael and Carol Clamcy, Jack O’ Brien, Gabrielle Lauschet, Victor Oreshkin and the Catholic church province leader of the Sacred Heart Order Sister Pohilmene Tiernan.
The family and friends of the victims gave heartbreaking evidence at the inquest about the pain and sadness they suffered since the tragedy.
The father of 25-year-old fitness trainer Jack O’Brien broke down in the witness box as he told of the last time he saw his son.
“I drove him to the airport. He was going on a seven-week trip with a friend,
“He was hungry for new experiences. On the way, I gave him a letter. We hugged and I told him I loved him. I watched him walk into the terminal. I didn’t know it would be the last time I saw him.
“I’d concluded the letter with ‘your mum and I love you very much. Whatever the future holds, we will continue to love and support you and wish only the best for you. I am very proud to be your Dad’,” he said.
Jack’s mother Meryn told the court: “He was sitting minding his own business and he was shot out of the sky and his beautiful body that he took such good care of was broken and burnt, then lying on the ground in a war zone.
“I go to work. I function. I probably look normal on the outside. Yet I wait for Jack to walk back in.”
Mother of groundskeeper and theology student Victor Oreshkin, Vera Oreshkin, said she kept hoping that her son would walk through the door and “tell me it was all a mistake”.
Counsel assisting the inquest, Cate Follent, said that though the NSW inquest had no impact on the investigations into the crash, it was nonetheless important to “honour the victims” and formally acknowledge their identities, time of death and the cause.
Out of the 298 people who died after the MH17 was shot down, 38 were Australian.