A Malaysia Airlines Commercial Flight Shot Down by a Missile over Eastern Ukraine

Dear readers, there is terrible breaking news from eastern Ukraine this evening, where a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said. Both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region have denied any responsibility for downing the aircraft, which US official sources, including Vice President Biden, confirm was shot down by a missile over the rebel-held village of Hrabove. At least 22 bodies have been recovered at the wreckage site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border. The impact area and the burning wreckage - which includes body parts and the belongings of passengers - occupied a wide area. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the downing an act of terrorism and called for an international investigation into the crash. He insisted that his forces did not shoot down the plane. Poroshenko said his country's armed forces did not fire at any aircraft and "are not responsible." Ukraine's security services produced what they said were two intercepted telephone conversations that they said showed rebels were responsible. In the first call, the security services said, rebel commander Igor Bezler tells a Russian military intelligence officer that rebel forces shot down a plane, saying a rocket attack was carried out by a unit of insurgents about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of the crash site. Neither recording could be independently verified. President Barack Obama called the crash a "terrible tragedy" and talked about it on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said that "Russian President Putin informed US President Obama of the report from air traffic controllers that the Malaysian plane had crashed on Ukrainian territory.' There are no further details about their call, although lhe White House confirmed the call. ~~~~~ There have been questions about planes being shot down over eastern Ukraine in recent days, and Ukraine air force planes have been hit by pro-Russian separatists. Ukrainian authorities said Thursday that several rockets or missiles have been fired at Ukraine air force aircraft, adding to what Kiev says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatist insurgents. Ukraine Security Council spokesman Andrei Lysenko said the pilot of a Sukhoi-25 jet hit by an air-to-air missile was forced to bail after his jet was shot down. Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters at UN headquarters in New York on Thursday that Russia did not shoot down the Ukrainian fighter jet on Wednesday. "We didn't do it," Churkin said. Pro-Russia rebels, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for strikes Wednesday on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets. Earlier this week, Ukraine said a military transport plane was shot down Monday over eastern Ukraine by a missile fired from Russian territory. ~~~~~ Malaysia Airlines said Ukrainian aviation lost contact with Flight MH17 at 1415 GMT (10 a.m. EDT) about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Tamak waypoint, which is 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border. The plane, which was delivered to Malaysia Airlines in 1997 and has 43,000 hours of flight time and 6,950 takeoffs and landings, carried 280 passengers and 15 crew members. It had left Amsterdam at 12:15 p.m. and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6:10 a.m. Friday. Ukraine's interior minister said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile from a Buk launcher, which can fire up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet). Russian studies experts at the British Royal United Services Institute said both Ukrainian and Russian forces have SA-17 missile systems - also known as Buk ground-to-air launcher systems - and they confirmed that Russia had supplied separatist rebels with military hardware, but the Institute said it had seen no evidence "of the transfer of that type of system from Russia." The weapons that the rebels are known to have do not have the capacity to reach beyond 4,500 meters. (14,750 feet). However, a launcher similar to the Buk missile system was seen by Associated Press journalists earlier Thursday near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne, which is held by the rebels. A Ukraine separatist leader said he did not know whether rebel forces owned Buk missile launchers, but said even if they did, they had no fighters capable of operating it. Russian media quoted witnesses as saying they saw a plane being hit by what they thought was a rocket. ~~~~~ This is the second Malaysia Airlines plane crash in six months. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It has not been found, but the search has been concentrated in the Indian Ocean far west of Australia. ~~~~~ Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who had been attending a European Union summit in Brussels, headed back to the Netherlands to deal with fallout from the crash. Britain has asked for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Ukraine. Britain's UN Mission said Thursday the time of the meeting has not been set, but said international organizations would be allowed into the conflict-plagued region, including the FAA. Air traffic authorities in the United States and Europe had issued warnings not to fly over parts of Ukraine prior to Thursday's crash. Within hours, several airlines, including Lufthansa, Delta and KLM, released statements Thursday saying they were avoiding parts of Ukrainian airspace. But, many airlines had continued to use the route despite the warnings, said Norman Shanks, a former head of group security for BAA at British airports and professor of aviation security at Coventry University in England. There have been suggestions that a notice was given to aviators telling airlines to avoid that particular area," Shanks said, but they continue to use it because it is a shorter route, which means less fuel and therefore less money." Flights that were airborne when the Malaysia Airlines jet crashed have been re-routed, transportation officials said.