Photo Credit: Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty
By CBS Seattle/AP.
A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over the country, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the plane.
As plumes of black smoke rose up near a rebel-held village of Grabovo in eastern Ukraine, an Associated Press journalist counted at least 22 bodies at the crash site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border.
Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet). He also said it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet).
A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday.
Malaysia Airlines confirmed that it received notification from Ukrainian aviation authorities that it had lost contact with flight MH17 at 1415 GMT some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Tamak waypoint, approximately 50 km (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border.
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Photo Credit: SkyNews
By Sky News.
A plane which crashed in eastern Ukraine with 298 people, including nine Britons, on board was reportedly shot down as it flew near airspace deemed unsafe for passenger jets.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was travelling at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 metres) when contact was lost.
An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry told the Interfax news agency the Boeing 777 was brought down by a Buk ground-to-air missile, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
As well as the nine Britons, the victims included 154 Dutch, 45 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one Canadian.
Three infants are among the dead, and the nationalities of 41 passengers have yet to be verified. These are thought to include a number of Americans.
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Photo Credit: AP / Dmitry Lovetsky
By Yuras Karmanau and Dmitry Lovetsky.
Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners – dressed in overalls and covered in soot – searched through wreckage and bodies scattered across sunflower fields and Ukrainian villages Friday after a Malaysian jetliner flying high above the country’s battlefield was shot down, killing 298 people.
Separatist rebels who control the area where the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down said they had recovered most of its black boxes and were considering what to do with them. Their statement had profound implications for the integrity of the plane crash investigation.
U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile downed the plane, but could not say who fired it.
Ukraine, whose investigators have no access to the area, has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and insisted it was not its military.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: Reuters
By BBC News.
A Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 295 people has crashed in east Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
There are no signs of survivors at the scene of the crash near the village of Grabovo, in rebel-held territory close to the border with Russia.
Both sides in Ukraine’s civil conflict accused each other of shooting down the plane with a missile. It is still not clear why the plane came down.
It is the second disaster suffered by Malaysia Airlines this year.
Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Malaysia to China in March and still has not been found.
Read more from this story HERE.
