Flight
MH17, which was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew, was flying between
Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur after taking off at lunchtime today.
The
Interfax news agency reported that the aircraft went missing near
Donetsk, where pro-Russian rebels have been fighting Ukrainian
government forces.
TV pictures from the scene showed a pall of smoke billowing into the sky apparently from the stricken aircraft.
It is believed the plane was struck by BUK surface-to-air missile at 33,000ft around 20 miles before entering Russian airspace.
Disaster: Smoke billows into the sky after a
Malaysia Airlines passenger plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine,
killing all 295 people on board
Defence experts have expressed fears in the past they could be used to target at civil aircraft.
A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier today.
However, defence analyst Major Charles Heyman, who edited a book called Armed Forces of the European Union, believes it could have been downed by a 'slack' Ukraine air defence centre.
He told Sky News: 'It looks like confusion. It’s possible that Ukraine thought it was hostile and not civilian and shot it down.'
Path to disaster: A graphic showing the flight
path of Malaysia Airlines MH17 after taking off from Amsterdam at
lunchtime en route to Kuala Lumpur
Malaysian Airlines said they have no information about any survivors.
In
a tweet, the airline said: 'Malaysia Airlines has lost contact of MH17
from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace.
More details to follow.'
The
jet would have been flying at high altitude on an intercontinental
flight that took it over the crisis hit region of Ukraine, where the
authorities have accused Russia-backed separatists of previous attacks
on aircraft.
Earlier
today the Ukrainian authorities said one of their fighter jets was shot
down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane and Ukrainian troops
were fired upon by missiles from a village inside Russia.
The
alleged episodes mark what Ukraine says is mounting evidence that
Moscow is directly supporting separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine
who have substantial quantities of powerful weapons.
Ukraine
said a military transport plane was shot down Monday by a missile fired
from Russian territory. Security Service chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko
said he had "unconditional evidence" that Russia was involved in downing
that aircraft.
Downed: A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, similar to the passenger plane that has crashed in the Ukraine
The
crash comes three months after the mysterious disappearance of
Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 which is though to have crashed into the
Indian Occean.
Two
weeks ago, investigators say what little evidence they have to work
with suggests the plane was deliberately diverted thousands of
kilometres from its scheduled route before eventually plunging into the
Indian Ocean.
The
search was narrowed in April after a series of acoustic pings thought
to be from the plane's black box recorders were heard along a final arc
where analysis of satellite data put its last location.
But
a month later, officials conceded the wreckage was not in that
concentrated area, some 1,000 miles off the northwest coast of
Australia, and the search area would have to be expanded.
The
next phase of the search is expected to start in August and take a
year, covering some 60,000 sq km at a cost of AU$60 million ($56
million) or more. The search is already the most expensive in aviation
history.
The
new priority search area is around 2,000km west of Perth, a stretch of
isolated ocean frequently lashed by storm force winds and massive
swells.
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