July 17 – A Malaysian airliner with 295 people on board has crashed in Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, amid allegations it was shot down.
Malaysia Airlines said it lost contact with Flight MH17 from Amsterdam over Ukraine. The Ukrainian presidency has officially confirmed the crash.
An aviation source in Moscow told Reuters the plane had been found burning on the ground in east Ukraine.
Separatist rebels have been fighting government forces in the region.
A number of Ukrainian military planes have been shot down by missiles in recent weeks. Ukraine has accused Russia’s military of supplying advanced missiles to the rebels.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confirmed the crash of the plane while Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak reportedly said he was launching an immediate inquiry into the crash.
Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying the plane had been hit by a missile at an altitude of 10,000m (33,000ft). The claim could not be verified independently.
Reports suggest the plane fell between Krasni Luch in Luhansk region and Shakhtarsk in the neighbouring region of Donetsk the BBC reports.
Earlier on Thursday, Ukrainian officials blamed the Russian air force for shooting down one of its ground attack jets on Wednesday.
“This is a third such tragic event in recent days, when Ukrainian military An-26 and Su-25 aircraft have been shot down from Russian territory,” Mr Poroshenko said in a statement.
“The Ukrainian armed forces did not attempt to shoot down targets in the air.”
The source which spoke to Reuters about burning wreckage on the ground said the plane had failed to enter Russian airspace.
The UK Foreign Office said it was aware of the reports of the crash and was “urgently working to establish what has happened”.
This is also the second plane crash involving a Malaysian airliner this year, following the disappearance of Flight MH370 to Beijing in March.
UM– USEKE.RW
