Feature: A tale of two black boxes

First look: Major Mustafa (left) receiving one of the black boxes from an official while Mohd Sakri (fourth from right) looks on during a press conference at the pro-Russian separatists’ HQ in Donetsk in the early hours of July 22, 2014. — AP screen grab

IT was like going behind enemy lines to retrieve intel.

Colonel Mohd Sakri Hussin and his men knew death was a possibility on the urgent mission to get hold of flight MH17’s black boxes – they would be going against explicit orders not to enter a conflict zone to retrieve the boxes and secure the bodies from the downed aircraft.