AFP Strikes Gold for MH17 Podcast at NY Radio Awards

The AFP has won Gold at the 2025 New York Festivals Radio Awards for its Search Among the Sunflowers podcast, which reveals the AFP's role in the haunting and decade-long investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014.

Released last year ahead of the tragedy's 10th anniversary, the five-episode series was honoured in the Narrative/Documentary Podcast category from a field of 22 finalists.

The award win was announced today.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down by a BUK surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine on 17 July, 2014, killing all 298 men, women and children on board. Thirty-eight people who called Australia home were among those who died.

Over the course of AFP operations Bring Them Home and Arew, more than 500 AFP members were deployed internationally to undertake the heartbreaking victim recovery process, support those families who had lost loved ones and contribute to the complex and unprecedented investigation.

This month, the United Nations' top aviation body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council, formally determined Russia was responsible for the downing of MH17, marking a landmark ruling in a case brought by Australia and the Netherlands in 2022. This is the first time the council has made such a finding on the merits of a dispute in its 80-year history. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Attorney-General's Department (AGD) led this process on behalf of the Australian Government in combination with our Dutch government partners.

AFP Assistant Commissioner Peter Crozier, who led the investigation for the AFP, said the podcast win was an honour, but the real honour would always be supporting Australian families when they needed the AFP during their darkest days.

"I want to thank the families who participated in the podcast," Assistant Commissioner Crozier said. "While time can numb grief, it will never dilute the deplorable way their loved ones were taken from them.

"We do amazing work at the AFP, but what always humbles me is how Australians pull together during times of tragedy and say to one another: share some of your pain with us, so you don't have to shoulder it all by yourself."

The podcast was shaped by 18 months of meticulous research, with key focuses including the AFP's critical role in identifying victims and finding evidence the plane had been brought down by missile attack.

Participants included loved ones of the 38 victims who called Australia home, the AFP Family Investigation Liaison Officers who supported them, members of the investigative team, and politicians and officials including Julie Bishop, who was Foreign Minister in 2014.

"It was one of the most complex and diplomatically sensitive operations the AFP has been involved with, from the very genuine personal risks faced by our on-the-ground investigators - who deployed unarmed to an ongoing conflict zone - and the liaison work required to navigate relationships with our international partners, through to undertaking an investigation unprecedented in size and scope," Assistant Commissioner Crozier said.

"What makes this so special are the human stories at the heart of the tragedy and the fact the family members have shown so much courage to tell them."

The podcast series is named for the golden sunflowers that grew in the eastern Ukrainian field where the plane was brought down - 50km from the Russian border.

The annual awards, which recognise excellence across radio, podcasts and audio storytelling, are widely acclaimed as the most prestigious in their field.

They are judged by a Grand Jury of industry professionals, who consider everything from production values and creativity to writing and audience suitability.

Search Among the Sunflowers was commissioned from Australian production company Media Heads, with contributions from the Attorney-General's Department, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, National Police of the Netherlands (NPN) and the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service.

Then Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus KC recorded the introduction to the podcast, while Foreign Minister Penny Wong read out the names of the Australians lost in this tragedy.

The podcast hears from:

You can access Search Among the Sunflowers episodes, or read transcripts, at afp.gov.au/MH17.