Malaysia Airlines Crash in Ukraine Is Called 'Act of Terror

Ukraine's President has described the Malaysia Airlines plane crash as an act of terrorisim.Ukraine said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down as it flew over the country, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the plane.

  

Emergencies Ministry members work at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014. The Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian militants on Thursday, killing all 295 people aboard, a Ukrainian interior ministry official said.

 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the downing an act of terrorism and called for an international investigation into the crash.As plumes of black smoke rose up near a rebel-held village of Grabovo in eastern Ukraine, an Associated Press journalist counted at least 22 bodies at the crash site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border.The plane appeared to have broken up before impact and the burning wreckage was scattered over a wide area.

 FIRST PHOTO: Eyewitness' alleged photo of debris of #MH17 Malaysian Airlines plane in #Ukraine.http:/ 

 

This photo shows people looking at what appears to part of a fuselage near Donetsk on July 17

An armed pro-Russian separatist stands at a site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of 

 Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014 

The village of Grabovo is currently under the control of the separatists and the area has seen severe fighting between the two sides in recent days.Malaysia Airlines confirmed that it received notification from Ukrainian aviation authorities that it had lost contact with flight MH17 at 1415 GMT some 30 kilometres from Tamak waypoint, approximately 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border. 

It said the plane had 280 passengers and 15 crew aboard a Boeing 777 that left Amsterdam at 12.15pm (local time) and was to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.10am Friday.Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 metres. He said it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 metres.Poroshenko said his country's armed forces didn't shoot at any airborne targets."We do not exclude that this plane was shot down, and we stress that the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not take action against any airborne targets," he said. 

"We are sure that those who are guilty in this tragedy will be held responsible."

Separatist leader Andrei Purgin told The Associated Press that he was certain that Ukrainian troops had shot the plane down but gave no explanation or proof for his statement.The Malaysia Airlines plane is a Boeing 777-200ER, which was delivered to Malaysia Airlines on July 30, 1997, according to Flightglobal's Ascend Online Fleets, which sells and tracks information about aircraft. It has more than 43,000 hours of flight time and 6,950 takeoffs and landings.