Malaysia airlines flight MH17 crash: 295 killed after Boeing passenger jet 'shot down' in Ukraine
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Alami news : 295 people have reportedly died after a Malaysian passenger aircraft crashed after being shot down near the Russian border in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, according to an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister.
Anton Gerashenko, an aide to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, wrote on his Facebook page that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet over eastern Ukraine when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher and landed near the city of Donetsk - a stronghold of pro-Russian rebels.
A similar launcher was reported by journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier today.
The aircraft involved is understood to be a Boeing 777 with flight number MH17, which departed from Amsterdam at 12.14am local time, 15 minutes alter than scheduled, according to flight records.
It was expected to arrive in Malaysia at 6:10am local time, but did enter Russian airspace when it was expected to, a Russian aviation source told Reuters.
The Interfax report said the plane came down 50 km (20 miles) short of entering Russian airspace. It "began to drop, afterwards it was found burning on the ground on Ukrainian territory," the unnamed source said.
The Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has ordered an investigation into what he has called an "airplan catastrophe", his spokeswoman Olga Lappo said on Thursday.
A separate unnamed source in the Ukrainian security apparatus, quoted by Interfax, said the plane disappeared from radar at a height of 10,000 metres after which it came down near the town of Shakhtyorsk.
Malaysia Airlines posted a tweet on its official account confirming it had "lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam".
"The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace. More details to follow."
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souce :http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/malaysia-airlines-plane-crash-boeing-jet-carrying-295-people-crashes-in-ukraine-9612882.html
