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 Malaysia
airlines 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.
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, which sent the jet falling from the sky in a fireball
with a trail of black smoke.
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.
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.
Firm details about what happened remained scarce.
Vice President of Malaysia Airlines Europe Huib Gorter told reporters
that the 15 crew members on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were all
Malaysian nationals.
Malaysia Airlines gave a breakdown of the known nationalities of the
283 passengers: 154 were Dutch, 27 were Australians, 30 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.
As news broke of the crash, Malaysia Airlines confirmed in a tweet
that it lost contact with Flight 17 and that the jet’s last known
position was over Ukrainian airspace.
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.
“It looks like a commercial aircraft, it squawks a commercial
aircraft. So something is absolutely appalling that’s gone on here,” he
said.
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.”
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.
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.
Putin expresses condolences
Putin “expressed deep condolences” to Malaysia’s Prime Minister over
the crash, a post Thursday on the Kremlin’s website said. He “asked to
pass the most sincere word of condolences and support to families and
relatives of (the crash) victims,” the post said.
Near the end of a phone call Thursday morning with President Obama,
Putin noted to the President the early reports of a downed passenger jet
near the Russia-Ukraine border, White House press secretary Josh
Earnest said.
Obama directed his staff to be in touch with senior Ukrainian officials, Earnest said.
Later Thursday, Obama said the crash “looks like it may be a terrible
tragedy” and he said efforts were underway to determine if any
Americans were aboard.
Poroshenko said he has expressed condolences to Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte about the crash.
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.
CNN aviation analyst and pilot Miles O’Brien said he thinks it would
be difficult to mistake the plane for a military or hostile aircraft.
“A civilian airliner at that level, at that flight path, would be
very difficult to mistake for something that has hostile intent,” 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.
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