The Russian news agency Interfax broke the news this morning (via Reuters) that a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet carrying 295 passengers and crew members was shot down Thursday (Jul 17) somewhere along the border between Ukraine and Russia.
Malaysia Airlines confirmed in a post on its official Facebook page that air traffic control in Ukraine lost contact with flight MH17 about 30 miles from the Ukraine-Russia border at about 2:15 local time. The plane was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew members, the airline said.
According to Interfax, the plane — which can be seen in the picture above taking off from LAX airport in 2012 — was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down at an altitude of about 32,000 feet.
Per Reuters, the plane failed to enter Russian airspace when expected to, and was taken down by a missile, presumably from either Russia or Ukraine. A Reuters reporter on the scene in Eastern Ukraine actually saw the burning wreckage along with “bodies on the ground.”
Unsurprisingly, neither Russia nor Ukraine are accepting responsibility for the plane being shot down, with both countries pinning the blame for one of the worst disasters in aviation history on the other.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko said that his country’s armed forces “did not take action against any airborne targets.” He called the downing an act of terrorism and called for an international investigation into the crash.
Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine denied responsibility as well, blaming Ukrainian armed forces and stating that they don’t even possess the type of missile that is alleged to have brought the Boeing 777 airliner jet down.
The (currently unverified) video below purportedly shows smoke billowing from the crash site:
Here is a blurred image of the wreckage site from Russia’s LifeNews:
A Reuters photographer took this photo:
First pictures from crash scene of Malaysia Airlines #MH17 in Ukraine Live blog http://t.co/t9D5LbQX63 pic.twitter.com/QQE8xVodkS
— Reuters Pictures (@reuterspictures) July 17, 2014
Twitter user @MatevzNovak posted these photos, which he says are from the downed plane. Though the photos haven’t been confirmed, the debris — which has reportedly been scattered across several miles — appears to match up with the Malaysia Airlines jet.
Flight #MH-17 #Torez #Donetsk #Ukraine by Nadezhda Chernetskaya pic.twitter.com/nrokR3svTU
— legionar (@MatevzNovak) July 17, 2014
Flight #MH-17 #Torez #Donetsk #Ukraine by Nadezhda Chernetskaya pic.twitter.com/z4byDeovcp
— legionar (@MatevzNovak) July 17, 2014
Sources: USA Today, AP, Gawker
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