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| Malaysia Airlines jet crashes in Ukraine |
(CNN) -- A Malaysia Airlines passenger jet crashed
in a rebel-controlled part of eastern Ukraine on Thursday, spurring
swift accusations from Ukrainian officials that "terrorists" shot down
the aircraft.
The United States has
concluded a missile shot down the plane, but hasn't pinpointed who was
responsible, a senior U.S. official told CNN's Barbara Starr.
The Boeing 777 with 298
people aboard fell from the sky near the town of Torez in the Donetsk
region of eastern Ukraine, officials said. A top Ukrainian official said
the plane, which was on the way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was
flying at about 10,000 meters (nearly 33,000 feet) when the missile hit.
A radar system saw a
surface-to-air missile system turn on and track an aircraft right before
the plane went down, the senior U.S. official said. A second system saw
a heat signature at the time the airliner was hit, the official said.
The United States is analyzing the trajectory of the missile to try to
learn where the attack came from, the official said.
The Obama administration
believes Ukraine did not have the capability in the region -- let alone
the motivation -- to shoot down the plane, a U.S. official told CNN's
Jake Tapper.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the plane never made a distress call.
He called for an international team to have full access to the crash site.
"We must and we will find out precisely what happened to this flight. No stone will be left unturned," he said.
"If it transpires that
the plane was indeed shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must
swiftly be brought to justice," Najib said.
Ukrainian officials maintained that pro-Russian separatists were behind the crash.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine's military campaign against the separatists was to blame.
"This tragedy would not
have happened, if there had been peace on that land, or in any case, if
military operations in southeastern Ukraine had not been renewed," Putin
said in televised remarks. "And without a doubt the government of the
territory on which it happened bears responsibility for this frightening
tragedy."
Ukraine's state security chief accused two Russian military intelligence officers of involvement and said they must be punished.
Valentyn Nalyvaichenko
said he based his allegation on intercepts of phone conversations
between the two officers. "Now you know who carried out this crime. We
will do everything for the Russian military who carried out this crime
to be punished," he told reporters.
The jet plunged toward the ground in a fireball, leaving a trail of black smoke behind in the sky.
Emergency crews scrambled to what witnesses described as a staggering scene of death and utter destruction.
"People said the plane
kind of exploded in the air, and that everything rained down in bits and
pieces, the plane itself, the people inside," said Noah Sneider, an
American freelance journalist who interviewed witnesses at the scene.
Charred wreckage
stretched for kilometers, he said. Stunned rescue workers and rebel
fighters combed the area, Sneider said, planting sticks with white
cotton ribbons where they found bodies in the fields.
"As you walk through the
fields, you see a man with his cracked iPhone sticking out of his
pocket. You see sort of people's clothing everywhere. Most of it's kind
of ripped off by the air. There's some suitcases and stuff in a pile by
the road," Sneider said.
There were many bodies left to be found as night fell, he said, and people were trying to figure out what to do next.
Locals in the rural area
trying to help were overwhelmed, he said. Firemen who rushed to put out
the flames found they had a hose with holes in it, spraying water
everywhere, he said.
"One man said to me, 'Nothing's happened in this village for 30 years, and now this,'" Sneider said.
As details emerge, accusations fly
Details -- and
accusations -- quickly poured in about Thursday's crash, which came the
same week that Ukrainian officials said a Russian fighter shot down a
Ukrainian military transport plane while the aircraft was in Ukrainian
airspace.
Anton Gerashchenko,
adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, said in a Facebook post that
"terrorists" fired on the plane operating a Buk surface-to-air missile
system.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko described the crash as a "terrorist action."
"We do not exclude that
the plane was shot down and confirm that the Ukraine Armed Forces did
not fire at any targets in the sky," Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko said, according to his website.
CNN's Richard Quest, an
aviation expert, said that it would be "extremely unusual" for an
airliner at nearly 33,000 feet to be shot down.
From the ground, one
could simply look up and tell whether a plane was a commercial aircraft,
he said. "So something is absolutely appalling that's gone on here."
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that Ukraine's president had accepted an offer of U.S. experts to help investigate the crash.
"They will be on their way rapidly to see if we can get to the bottom of this," he said.
Biden said the plane was apparently shot down, adding "not an accident, blown out of the sky."
Who was on the plane?
The 15 crew members on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were all Malaysian nationals, officials said.
Malaysia Airlines also
gave a breakdown of the known nationalities of the 283 passengers: 154
were Dutch, 27 were Australians, 28 were Malaysians, 12 were Indonesian,
nine were from the United Kingdom, four were from Germany; four were
from Belgium, three were from the Philippines and one was Canadian.
Authorities were still trying to determine the nationalities of the
other passengers.
The International AIDS
Society said in a statement that "a number of colleagues and friends"
were on the plane, on the way to attend the 20th International AIDS
Conference in Melbourne, Australia.
"At this incredibly sad
and sensitive time the IAS stands with our international family and
sends condolences to the loved ones of those who have been lost to this
tragedy," the statement said.
Russia-Ukraine dispute
The route the Malaysian
plane was on, between Kuala Lumpur and the Netherlands, is a common one,
CNN aviation safety consultant Mary Schiavo said Thursday. She said
that the plane was flying over a troubled area and that close
communication with air traffic controllers would be a key necessity.
Torez is in a rebel-held area.
In hostile or disputed areas, "any alteration from your course, and you can have a problem," Schiavo said.
Tensions have been high
between Ukraine and Russia since street protests forced former
pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February. Russia
subsequently annexed Ukraine's southeastern Crimea region, and a
pro-Russian separatist rebellion has been raging in Ukraine's eastern
Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Ukrainian forces have
been struggling to quell the separatist unrest. Ukraine's government has
accused Russia of allowing weapons and military equipment, including
tanks, to cross the border illegally into the hands of pro-Russian
separatists.
The Pentagon said
Wednesday that Russia now has 12,000 troops on the border with Ukraine,
as well as some heavy weapons. The troop numbers had fallen to about
1,000 previously from a high of an estimated 40,000 forces earlier this
year.
READ: Obama imposes new sanctions on Russia over Ukraine
On Thursday, CNN
reported that Ukrainian officials said a Russian fighter shot down a
Ukrainian jet Wednesday as the jet flew in Ukrainian airspace.
Tensions are high over that incident, separate from the breaking news of the Malaysian flight Thursday.
Three months ago, the
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. airlines from
flying in areas not far from where Flight 17 reportedly crashed
Thursday. "Due to the potential for conflicting air traffic control
instructions from Ukrainian and Russian authorities and for the related
potential misidentification of civil aircraft, United States flight
operations are prohibited until further notice in the airspace over
Crimea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov," the FAA said in April.
Thursday's plane crash reportedly was in eastern Ukraine, scores of
miles north-northeast of the Sea of Azov.
On Thursday, French
transportation official Frederic Cuvillier ordered that French airlines
avoid Ukrainian airspace until the cause of Thursday's Malaysia Airlines
crash is known, the French Transportation Ministry said in a news
release.
Airline's troubles
Thursday's crash marks the second time this year that Malaysia Airlines has faced an incident involving a downed plane.
On March 8, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared.
That Boeing 777 had 239 people on board. Searchers have found no trace
of 370 or its passengers, despite extensive search efforts.
Flight 370 probably flew
into the southern Indian Ocean on autopilot with an unresponsive crew,
Australian authorities said last month.
During the early phase
of the search for Flight 370, aircraft and ships scoured vast stretches
of the surface of the southern Indian Ocean but found no debris.
Pings initially thought
to be from the missing plane's flight recorders led to a concentrated
underwater search that turned up nothing.
A new underwater search,
farther south, will be broadly in an area where planes and vessels had
already looked for debris on the surface of the water. It is expected to
begin in August.
The first Boeing 777
entered service in June 1985, and the airplane has flown almost five
million flights, accumulating more than 18 million flight hours, according to Boeing's web site. The plane is capable to flying up to 43,100 feet.
What next?
Aviation experts cautioned against jumping to conclusions about Thursday's crash at this early stage.
But all agreed that a
massive investigation should be launched, involving parties not involved
in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia,
The families of people
on board will demand a transparent international investigation, and so
will the global community, Quest said.
In the coming days,
finding and examining the plane's data recorders will be key -- but the
fact that the crash occurred in such a volatile region makes what comes
next anything but certain, CNN aviation analyst and pilot Miles O'Brien
said.
"The big question will
be, in whose hands will they fall, and will this be a really objective,
international investigation?" he said.
The wreckage path,
O'Brien said, will reveal a lot. If a plane breaks up in midair, which
is likely what would happen in a missile strike, there would be a large
swath of wreckage, he said, but if it breaks down due to mechanical
failure, the debris field would be more concentrated.
