It was a gut-wrenching experience for a 12-member Malaysian elite squad to recover the bodies and black boxes from the downed Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 aircraft as it travelled from Donetsk to
Karkhiv on Wednesday.

One of the squad members, Rosli Shaari, 50, said the nine-hour trip from the border of Donetsk to Karkhiv was a harrowing time as they had to cross a war-ravaged region.

"We managed to secure the black boxes, the key to unravel more details on Flight MH17, safely out of the war zone," he told Bernama when met at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), following the return of the MH17 special investigation team from Ukraine Saturday morning.

The Sapura Secured Technologies general manager said the separatists only accompanied them to the border of Donetsk and after that, their lives and fate were in the hands of the Ukrainian Government.

"It is a war zone at 3am (Ukraine time) when anything is possible as we made our way through mountains and forests in darkness," said Rosli who was involved in a humanitarian operation during the Haiyan disaster in the
Philippines.

However, he and other members of the team, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Mohd Sakri Hussain were relieved when the black boxes were safety brought to the investigation party.

Rosli, who was the only civilian involved in the special mission to retrieve the black boxes, was assigned as a special operations communications officer. Among his duties was to ensure smooth communication between the MH17 special investigation team and Ukraine.

"The system I brought and used is a GIRN (Government Integrated Radio Network) which is also used by 16 Malaysian Government agencies, as well as the operations room in Ukraine," he said.

On the treatment by the separatists during their discussion to hand over the the black boxes, Rosli said they gave their full cooperation.

"Although there was a language problem, an interpreter from the separatists was on hand to translate Russian to English and things went on well," he said.

Sixty-five of the 116 members of the MH17 special investigation team to Ukraine arrived home from Amsterdam at 10.52am today.

The team left on July 18 after the MH17 aircraft from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was believed to have been shot down in the Donetsk region, a day earlier.

The aircraft was carrying 298 passengers, including 43 Malaysians.