A Malaysia Airlines passenger jet carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew was shot down over the Ukraine, Fox News reports. The Boeing 777 was shot down at cruising altitude (above 30,000 feet) over the Ukraine. All 295 souls on board are dead. This is the 2nd tragedy to strike Malaysia Airlines since March, when one of its jets disappeared over the South Indian Ocean.
The MH17 Boeing 777 wide body jet was en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam when it was shot down. “The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace. More details to follow,” read a tweet from Malaysia Airlines’ Twitter account.
American planes are banned from flying over that region because of the risk of planes being shot out of the sky.
From Fox News:
Gerashenko wrote on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit. The missile was believed to have been fired from a Russian Buk launcher. A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday.
A Reuters correspondent near the scene reported seeing burning wreckage and bodies strewn across a nine-mile debris field. A Ukrainian Emergency official told the news agency body parts and at least 100 bodies were seen in the area.
The border area where the plane apparently went down, near the city of Kremenchuk, has been embroiled in the larger dispute between Ukraine and ethnic Russian separatists. Fighting has intensified in recent months in the region. A day before, according to the Ukrainian government, a Russian military plane shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet in Ukrainian airspace.
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