XPost: alt.obituaries, rec.travel.air   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   Malaysia airliner 'shot down' over Ukraine   
   Malaysian Airlines plane carrying 298 passengers and crew crashes in eastern   
   Ukraine, in apparent missile strike.   
      
   Last updated: 18 Jul 2014 05:08   
      
   A Malaysian airliner has been brought down over eastern Ukraine, killing all   
   298 people aboard and sharply raising the stakes in a conflict between Kiev   
   and pro-Moscow rebels in which Russia and the West back opposing sides.   
      
   Ukraine accused "terrorists" - fighters aiming to unite eastern Ukraine with   
   Russia - of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with a Soviet-era   
   SA-11 ground-to-air missile as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on   
   Thursday.   
      
   Leaders of the rebel Donetsk People's Republic denied any involvement,   
   although around the same time their military commander said his forces had   
   downed a much smaller Ukrainian transport plane. It would be their third such   
   kill this week.   
      
   US Vice President Joe Biden said the downing of the plane was "not an   
   accident" and that the passenger jet was "apparently ... blown out of the   
   sky."   
      
   Burning and charred wreckage bearing the red and blue Malaysia insignia and   
   dozens of bodies were strewn in fields near the village of Hrabove, 40km from   
   the Russian border near the rebel-held regional capital of Donetsk.   
      
   Al Jazeera's Rory Challands, reporting from Moscow, said the plane fell in an   
   area controlled by pro-Russian separatists.   
      
   "The investigation will be very difficult given that it's controlled by the   
   rebels," he said.   
      
   Despite the shooting down of several Ukrainian military aircraft in the area   
   in recent months, including two this week, and renewed accusations from Kiev   
   that Russian forces were taking a direct part, international air lanes had   
   remained open.   
      
      
   Malaysia Airlines said that 154 Dutch citizens, 27 Australians, 43 Malaysians,   
   12 Indonesians, nine British, four German, four Belgian, three Filipinos and   
   one Canadian were onboard the aircraft.   
      
   Wreckage and bodies   
      
   Malaysia Airlines said air traffic controllers lost contact with flight MH17   
   at 14:15 GMT as it flew over eastern Ukraine towards the Russian border, bound   
   for Asia.   
      
   Flight tracking data indicated it was at its cruising altitude of 33,000 feet   
   [10km] when it disappeared.   
      
   That would be beyond the range of smaller rockets used by the rebels to bring   
   down helicopters and other low-flying Ukrainian military aircraft - but not of   
   the SA-11 system which a Ukrainian official accused Russia of supplying to the   
   rebels.   
      
   "I was working in the field on my tractor when I heard the sound of a plane   
   and then a bang," one local man told Reuters news agency at Hrabove, known in   
   Russian as Grabovo.   
      
   "Then I saw the plane hit the ground and break in two. There was thick black   
   smoke."   
      
   An emergency worker said at least 100 bodies had been found so far and that   
   debris was spread over 15km.   
      
   People were scouring the area for the black box flight recorders and   
   separatists were later quoted as saying they had found one.   
      
   "MH17 is not an incident or catastrophe, it is a terrorist attack," Ukrainian   
   President Petro Poroshenko tweeted. He has stepped up his military campaign   
   against the rebels since a ceasefire late last month failed to produce any   
   negotiations.   
      
   Ukrainian Interior Ministry official Anton Gerashchenko said on Facebook:   
   "Just now, over Torez, terrorists using a Buk anti-aircraft system kindly   
   given to them by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin have shot down a civilian   
   airliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur."   
      
   The Buk is a 1970s truck-mounted, radar-guided missile system, codenamed SA-11   
   Gadfly by Cold War NATO adversaries. It fires a 5.7-metre, 55-kg missiles for   
   up to 28km.   
      
   Rebel accusation   
      
   A rebel leader said Ukrainian forces shot the airliner down and that rebel   
   forces did not have weaponry capable of hitting a plane flying 10km up.   
   Ukrainian officials said their military was not involved in the incident.   
      
   The military commander of the rebels, a Russian named Igor Strelkov, had   
   written on his social media page at 13:37 GMT, half an hour before the last   
   reported contact with MH17, that his forces had brought down an Antonov An-26,   
   a turboprop transport plane of type used by Ukraine's forces, in the same   
   area.   
      
   Putin said Ukraine bore responsibility for the crash, but he did not address   
   the question of who might have shot it down and did not accuse Ukraine of   
   doing so.   
      
   "This tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the   
   military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine,'' Putin said,   
   according to a Kremlin statement issued early on Friday. "And, certainly, the   
   state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful   
   tragedy.''   
      
   The loss of MH-17 is the second disaster for Malaysia Airlines this year,   
   following the mysterious loss of flight MH370. It disappeared in March with   
   239 passengers and crew on board on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.   
      
   http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/07/report-malaysian-je   
   -crashes-near-ukraine-2014717151147473508.html   
      
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