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Four days after flight MH17 fell from the sky over eastern Ukraine, rebels have finally handed over the Boeing 777's recorders last night.

The delay in handing over the box has led to fears about whether the data has been compromised, but an expert has told the MailOnline that anything contained in the recordings would be 'absolutely useless'.

Stewart John, past president of the Royal Aeronautical Society, added: 'The most you're going to get is an explosion, and there's nothing in my mind that could prove useful.'

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Four days after flight MH17 crashed over Ukraine, rebels handed over the Boeing 777's recorders (pictured) last night. The delay led to fears that the data had been compromised, but aeronautical expert Stewart John told the MailOnline that the recordings would be 'absolutely useless'

Malaysian investigators will now begin studying the data to try and determine what happened to the flight before and after it was shot using a missile.

The handover came after 12 hours of negotiations with Alexander Borodai from the Donetsk People's Republic.

Borodai insisted the pro-Russia rebels in east Ukraine were not responsible for the crash, and blamed the Kiev government.

The bodies of the plane's 282 victims were also given to authorities following the meeting.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman told a press conference: 'There is information the recorders were in their hands all these days and they did certain things to them.'

He did not elaborate where this information had come from, however.

Mr John, who is also a fellow at the Royal Academy of Engineering, told MailOnline: 'What happened wasn't a typical crash.  

'If they had technical problems and crashed to the ground there would be parameter details, but in this case there would have just been almighty bang and everything would have switched off.'

He continued it is unlikely, as a result, that anyone would want to cover up or delete the data - and all that they would have heard if they has listened to the recordings is 'normal, everyday' plane data.

Richard Taylor from the Civil Aviation Authority added that even if the boxes were tampered with, it would be impossible to do so undetected.

On board a plane there are cockpit voice and flight data recorders – the 'black boxes' – which each include a 'pinger' that sends a transmission up to 30 days after submersion underwater.

In the black box is an ASD-B flight transponder which, unlike the GPS in a car, broadcasts its location by sending information back to air traffic controllers every second.

Crews are also able to speak to their airline through discrete radio channels.

The cockpit voice recorders can additionally reveal conversations and other sounds to hint at problems that may have occurred during the flight.

Older black boxes used magnetic tape, but modern boxes use solid-state memory boards.

Separatist leader hands over black boxes to Malaysia officials

Commercial planes are required by law to be fitted with recorders. To protect the memory boards, black boxes are covered in a layer of aluminium, as well as a 1-inch layer of insulation, encased in a corrosion-resistant orange stainless steel or titanium shell (pictured at last night's handover)

Data from both recorders is stored on stacked memory boards inside the crash-survivable memory unit (CSMU).

Any commercial plane or corporate jet is required by law to be fitted with both recorders, and it's these two items of separate equipment which are commonly referred to as a black box – even though it's not black, but bright orange. 

To protect the memory boards, black boxes are first covered in a thin layer of aluminium, as well as a 1-inch layer of insulation, encased in a corrosion-resistant stainless steel or titanium shell.

Forensic experts at the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines Boeying 777, near the village of Grabovo. All flight recorders undergo tests to be able to survive accidents, as well as forceful entry. This includes drop tests, as well as fire and pressure tests. The law requires all flight solid-state recorders can survive these conditions

All recorders undergo tests to be able to survive accidents, as well as forceful entry.

Each design is tested to make sure it can withstand crashes, fires and being submerged in the sea.

For example, to test the unit's resistance, researchers drop a 500lb (227kg) weight with a 0.25-inch (0.64cm) steel pin onto the CSMU from 10 feet (3 metres) in the air.

The box is also subjected to pressure of 5,000lbs per square-inch (psi) across the device.

Elsewhere, researchers 'cook' the boxes in burners that heat up 1,100° Celcius (2,000° Fahrenheit) for one hour.

The law requires all solid-state recorders can survive at least one hour at this temperature.

This makes it difficult for anyone to penetrate the black box, or destroy the data, using force.

Mr John continued the data on the recorders can be listened using readout software, and this, in theory, works like a laptop.

He said people on the crash site may have been able to listen to the data, if they had similar software.

Mr Taylor added that even listening to the data would need to be carried out using specialist equipment by trained analysts.

However, accessing and tampering with the data is much more difficult.

'Experts are used to handle this data and you would need extremely specialist knowledge to be able to tamper with it,' said Mr John.

'It's true that people can hack and tamper with anything these days, but in this instance they'd need to be highly qualified experts or scientists to interfere with the recordings.'

He also continued that the data could not be wiped externally, using any form of magnetic or similar device.

'The explosion would have caused the box to stop working, but it wouldn't be wiped; it would still be on there.'

To 'hack' the box someone would also need to replace existing data with a false narrative to explain what happened to the plane during the time period.

Smoke billows into the sky after the Malaysia Airlines plane was shot out of the sky over Ukraine.  Mr John said the data on the recorders can be listened to using readout software, but accessing the data requires specialist knowledge. The explosion would have stopped the box working, but would not have wiped the data

UK foreign secretary Philip Hammond said all the evidence currently available indicates that the surface-to-air missile which destroyed the MH17 was supplied by Russia

A black box records more than 80 channels of data, so any attempts to hack it would need to alter all relevant data within the box.

For example, to 'prove' a plane's engines shut off, someone could alter the data readings for the plane's throttle settings and the engine RPM.

However, any attempt to hack a black box would encounter problems when attempts were made to correlate the data with other sources.

Almost all planes use what's called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (Acars), which involves transmissions of basic data from aircraft to ground stations.

Malaysia Airlines has already confirmed that, in the case of MH17, Acars transmitted as normal.

And if a black box was tampered with, it would not be possible to alter the Acars data, meaning any discrepancies would be noticeable.

Researchers from the University of California also recently proved it's 'almost impossible' to reliably erase data from a solid state drive.

They put repeating data on an SSD or USB drive, tried using various erasing techniques, took the SSD or USB drive apart, and pulled raw data off the chips.

They were not able to completely erase all the data on the drive, meaning even if the rebels or other group did remove the information, traces of data would still remain.

It is now believed that the flight was brought down by a Soviet-built BUK missile launcher.

The BUK missile system, also known as the SA-11 Gadfly, was created by the Soviet Union in 1979 to engage aircraft, cruise missiles and drones.

BUK - which means 'beech tree' in Russian - includes four missiles on a turntable mounted on a tracked vehicle. A separate tracked vehicle carries radars to guide the missiles.

Capable of carrying 154lbs (70kg) of highly-explosive warheads, BUK can send missiles up to an altitude of 75,000ft (23,000 metres).

It takes just five minutes to warm up, 12 minutes to reload and 8-12 seconds to reach its target. Once there, it has a kill probability of 90 to 95 per cent.