A passenger plane from Malaysia Airlines with 295 passengers aboard was shot down this Thursday in a city in eastern Ukraine , said an adviser to the interior minister, while the Malaysian airline itself said it lost contact with the aircraft in the Ukrainian airspace.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the armed forces of his country did not launch any missile against an aerial target. The pro-Russian rebels also blamed the incident and they blamed the Ukrainian armed forces.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with U.S. President Barack Obama about what happened.
Anton Gerashenko , adviser of the Ukrainian Interior Minister, said on his Facebook page that the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile fired from a launcher Buk. (this type of missile can reach an altitude of up to 22,000 meters (72,000 feet).
The fate of the passengers was unknown, how many could have died or if there were any survivors could not be determined at the moment.
"We do not exclude that this plane could have been shot down and ensure that the armed forces of Ukraine did not participate in any action against aerial targets," said President Poroshenko. "We ensure that those who are guilty of this tragedy will be held accountable."
Earlier the same Thursday, The Associated Press journalists saw a missile launcher near the eastern Ukrainian city of Snizhne, which is controlled by Russian rebels.
The airline said on Twitter that his flight MH17 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia Airlines is notorious because one of their aircraft, the 370 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared earlier in March. The plane has not been found, but the search has been concentrated in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
Malaysian Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein gave orders to the army to confirm all information.
The Donetsk regional government said Thursday that the plane crashed near the village of Gravobo , currently under the control of pro-Russian separatists and where in recent days there has been heavy fighting between rebels and soldiers.
On Wednesday, a Ukrainian military plane was shot down by a missile launched by a Russian aircraft, the Ukrainian authorities said Thursday. The statement adds to the growing evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Many airlines prefer to fly higher, or around the conflict zone to prevent such tragedies.
So far it is unknown who is responsible for the incident.
