Live: Russia won’t take flight MH17 black boxes, says Sergei Lavrov

5.38 pm: Russia won’t take flight MH17 black boxes, says Sergei Lavrov

According to Reuters, Russia does not plan to take the “black box” flight recorders from a Malaysian airliner downed in territory held by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

“Despite what Kyiv is again saying, we do not plan to take these (black) boxes. We do not plan to violate existing (international) norms for such situations,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state television.

“We want international experts to get to the site of the crash as soon as possible so that they get the black boxes right away.”

5.13 pm: Prince William speaks of “deep sadness” over MH17 incident

Britain’s Prince William spoke of his “deep sadness” Friday after a Malaysia Airlines plane was apparently shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, reported AFP.

William offered the “thoughts and prayers” of Britain’s royal family to the relatives of those who died in the disaster during an event at Australia’s diplomatic mission in London.

“I know that I speak for all of us here when I acknowledge our deep sadness following yesterday’s disaster in the Ukraine,” William said.

“For all of us who have lost fellow countrymen and women in the tragedy, words cannot do justice to our sense of loss,” AFP quoted William as saying.

The flight was carrying 173 Dutch citizens as well as 43 Malaysian nationals, 28 Australians and nine Britons.

“For Australians, and for our Malaysian brothers and sisters in the Commonwealth, the crash is a particularly cruel tragedy coming so soon after the loss of MH370,” the prince added.

“Please be assured of my family’s thoughts and prayers at this time.”

4.50 pm: Pro-Russian insurgents had assumed MH17 as Ukrainian army plane

According to AFP social media posts by pro-Russian insurgents — most of them hastily removed — suggest the rebels thought they had shot down a Ukrainian army plane before realising in horror that it was in fact a packed Malaysian airliner.

The Twitter and blog messages were immediately publicised by top Kyiv officials in their furious information war with the Kremlin for global opinion and the hearts and minds of ethnic Russians caught in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.

Confirmation of separatist fighters killing 298 passengers and crew on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur would further complicate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to paint their uprising as a fight for self-determination.

Russia’s state media avoided any mention of the controversial posts and instead reported militia leaders’ later charges that the Ukrainian air force had shot down the Boeing 777 liner instead.

– ‘We downed an An-26’ –

The rebels first claimed to have downed at least one Ukrainian army plane over the strife-torn eastern rustbelt on late Thursday afternoon.

The VK social networking page of Igor Strelkov — “defence minister” of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic — first announced: “We just downed an An-26 near (the town of) Torez.”

“And here is a video confirming that a ‘bird fell’,” said the post.

The website then provides a link identical to that published by Ukrainian media in reports about the Malaysia Airlines jet.

The video shows locals referring to the same coal mine in the region mentioned by Strelkov.

The strongly pro-Kyiv Ukrainska Pravda news site later posted an audio recording of what it claimed were the intercepted field communications between rebels and a Russian agent discussing the downing.

“We just downed a plane,” a rebel the recording identifies as Bes (Demon) tells an alleged Russian military intelligency officer.

Another recording shows one alleged fighter reporting from the site of the plane’s remains that it was “100 percent certain this is a civilian aircraft.”

He spits out a Russian expletive when asked whether there were a lot of passengers on board.

– ‘We have seized missiles’ –

The VK post was soon removed — but not before its screen grab was captured and distributed in an English-language press release by the military headquarters of Kyiv’s eastern campaign.

The comments attributed to Strelkov did not identify what missile was used to down the craft at what Kyiv said was an altitude of 10,000 metres (33,000 feet).

But a message on the official Twitter account of the Donetsk People’s Republic had announced hours earlier that insurgents had seized a series of Russian-made Buk systems capable of soaring to that height.

“@dnrpress: self-propelled Buk surface-to-air missile systems have been seized by the DNR from (Ukrainian) surface-to-air missile regiment A1402,” said the post.

That tweet was later deleted as well.

4.45 pm: Putin has gone too far, says Hillary Clinton

Following the shooting down of Malaysian flight MH17, Hillary Clinton has hit out at Russia saying “Putin has gone too far.”

Huffington Post reported “The former US secretary of state and likely 2016 presidential candidate said yesterday that “there does seem to be some growing awareness that it probably had to be Russian insurgents” who shot down the passenger jet.”

4.19 pm: After MH17 incident, Russia says it will respond to cross-border shooting from Ukraine

Russia warned Friday it may respond if cross-border shooting from Ukraine continues, sharply raising tensions over the crisis a day after a Malaysian jet crashed in the country’s rebel-held east killing all 298 people aboard.

“We already warned that if this continues then we will take measures. At least if it is clear that this has been done deliberately I am convinced that such a firing position should be neutralised as a one-off measure,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Rossiya 24 state television.

“We have delivered a serious warning to our Ukrainian colleagues,” he was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

3:55 pm: WHO spokesman among the 298 killed

Glen Thomas, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation, was among the 298 people killed in the crash in eastern Ukraine of a Malaysia Airlines jet, the UN agency said Friday.

Thomas was headed to Melbourne for a global AIDS conference along with dozens of others on the flight that ended in tragedy on Thursday.

“It is with deep sadness that WHO lost one of our colleagues in the Malaysia crash,” communications official Gregory Hartl told reporters in Geneva.

Thomas came to WHO from the BBC and was passionate about public health issues, Hartl said, flanked by press service colleagues, several in tears.

“His twin sister said he died doing what he loves,” Hartl said, adding that no other UN staff were aboard the doomed airliner.

Many of the journalists attending the briefing had worked with Thomas, and a minute of silence was held in his memory.

3:52 pm: Woman loses relatives in both MH370 and MH17 air disasters

An Australian woman who lost her brother in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has now learned that her stepdaughter was on the Malaysia Airlines flight shot down over Ukraine.

Kaylene Mann’s brother Rod Burrows and sister-in-law Mary Burrows were on Flight 370 when it vanished in March. On Friday, she found out that her stepdaughter, Maree Rizk, was killed along with 297 other passengers on board Flight 17 when it crashed in Ukraine.

Mann’s brother Greg Burrows says news of the second tragedy to hit the family has “ripped our guts again.”

Rizk and her husband Albert were returning home to Melbourne from a four-week European vacation.

3:29 pm: 181 bodies located so far

A Ukrainian official says 181 bodies have been located so far at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine Foreign Ministry representative Andriy Sybiga cited local emergency workers at the site for the numbers Friday. He said the bodies will be taken to Kharkiv, a government-controlled city 270 kilometers (170 miles) north of the crash site, for identification.

Authorities say 298 people were killed when the plane traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down Thursday.

3.13 pm: Malaysia PM’s grandmother was aboard crashed plane

Malaysian newspaper reports have said that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s step-grandmother Puan Sri Siti Amirah was one of the 43 Malaysians aboard the ill fated MH17 flight.

According to a family spokeswoman, Siti was travelling alone on her way back to Jogjakarta, Indonesia from Amsterdam and intended to transit at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

She was 83 years old, and was once married to Tan Sri Mohammad Noah Omar as his second wife. Noah, who passed away in 1990, was Najib’s grandfather.

“She was a very, very nice lady. A kind-hearted, beautiful woman. She was a homemaker who looked after my grandfather very well. We called her ‘ibu’ (mother),” family spokeswoman Datin Dr Faridah Abdullah told The Star over the phone on Friday.

2.40 pm: Malaysia transport minister provides new breakdown of nationalities

Malaysia’s transport minister Liow has provided a new breakdown of the nationalities of those known to have been on board MH17, writes Kate Hodal in Kuala Lumpur.

Some 21 passengers are accounted for, another 20 still have as yet to be verified as they were transit passengers, he said:

The latest breakdown of known nationalities of those on board is as follows:

173 from the Netherlands
44 Malaysians
27 Australians
12 Indonesians
9 from the United Kingdom
4 Germans
4 Belgians
3 Filipinos
1 Canadian
1 New Zealander

Once all passengers have been identified, Malaysia Airlines will release the full passenger manifest.

2.30 pm: Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has been granted access to the crash site

The Organization for the Security and Co-operation in Europe has been granted access to the site, according to their Twitter account update. You can check out the tweet below:

The group has been monitoring the crisis in Ukraine and had earlier tweeted saying that they had “requested people and resources closer to the place of the disaster MH17 with the purpose of fact-finding and reporting.”

2.20 pm: Ukraine government denies that its missiles were involved in bringing down MH17

According to a report in The Guardian  Ukraine’s foreign minister said there is no chance that the missile apparently used to shoot down the Malaysia Airlines jet.

Pavlo Klimkin told the Guardian, “We are absolutely sure and we checked yesterday that no missiles have been taken from the Ukrainian army.”

2.00 pm: Ukraine rebels say they have most of the plane’s recorders

Separatist rebels who control the area where the plane went down said they had recovered “most” of the plane’s black boxes and were considering what to do with them, according to Associated Press.

Ukraine, whose investigators have no access to the area, has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and insisted it was not its military. US intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile downed the plane, but could not say who fired it.

The report quotes an assistant to the insurgency’s military commander, Igor Girkin, as saying that eight out of the plane’s 12 recording devices had been located at the crash site. He did not elaborate.

The assistant said Girkin, was still considering whether to give international crash investigators access to the sprawling crash site. Any investigators would need specific permission from the rebel leadership before they could safely film or take photos at the crash site.

1.45 pm: Malaysia govt to send 62-member disaster team to Ukraine

The Malaysian government has said that it plans to send a 62-member disaster team to Ukraine. Speaking to international media, the Prime Minister said that it was essential that the crash site integrity is preserved’.

He added that responsibility for all further information was now on Ukraine. The Premier also confirmed the nationality breakdown of all the passengers who were aboard flight MH17.

154 Dutch passengers, 43 Malaysians, including 15 crew, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one Canadian on board the doomed flight, he said.

A total of 121 bodies have been found at the MH17 crash site as of 0700 local time (0400 GMT), Ukraine’s State Emergencies Service says.

1.35 pm: Malaysia Airlines to arrange access to crash site

Malaysia Airlines is trying to arrange safe access for relatives of victims to the site in eastern Ukraine where its Boeing 777 airliner crashed killing all 298 on board, a spokeswoman for Amsterdam airport said on Friday.

“The relatives, a few hundred of them, are currently being housed in a hotel at Schiphol,” the spokeswoman said. On Thursday, the airline’s European head said it was sending a Boeing 747 to Amsterdam to take relatives to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Meanwhile People are continuinge to search for bodies at the site of the crash. Reporters at the scene earlier had said there was a bitter acrid smell.

Ukrainian officials have complained that rebels around the crash site are hampering access.

1.19 pm: Putin calls up Dutch PM, seeks urgent settlement of Ukraine crisis

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for an urgent settlement of the Ukraine crisis Friday as he expressed condolences to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte over the Malaysian jet crash.

“The head of Russia stressed that the tragedy once again highlighted the need for an urgent peaceful settlement of the most acute crisis in Ukraine and noted there is a need for a thorough and objective investigation of the air crash,” the Kremlin said in a statement after Putin spoke with Rutte by phone.

12.40 pm: There was no threat to PM Modi’s plane, says govt

The Indian Government has said there was no threat to Air Force One, the aircraft that flew Prime Minister Narendra Modi back from Germany over the airspace where Malaysian Airlines plane was shot down yesterday.

“I think that is speculation …. There was no danger to our PM’s aircraft. No problem. On Air Force One, the flight data is on foreign radar,” Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju told reporters when asked whether there was any threat to the PM’s plane which flew over the same airspace.

The Prime Minister returned last night after his trip to Brazil for the BRICS Summit.

“What happens is that whenever any air route (for a VIP aircraft) is finalised, the countries involved get to know about it. If you don’t keep them informed, there is another type of problem,” he said.

“So generally whenever any civilian aircraft flies over a country, suppose India, obviously the Government of India will know what aircraft it is, to whom it belongs, what its intentions are,” Raju said.

12.28 pm: Crash felt like an earthquake, say residents near site

Dozens of mutilated corpses and body parts were strewn around the smouldering wreckage in the village of Grabove, near the Russian border. Rescuers say that they have recovered 21 bodies as of now.

Shocked residents of the village said the crash felt “like an earthquake”.

Meanwhile the BBC says it has learned that four pilots were on board MH17 – two captains and two co-pilots, the BBC has learned. The two captains were among Malaysia Airline’s most experienced pilots – one was an instructor on the airline’s Boeing 777 fleet and both had flown the route before.

11.52 am: Air India asked to avoid flying over Ukraine

Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju today held a meeting with senior ministry officials.

In this meeting, it was decided to ask Air India to avoid flying over the troubled area of Ukraine.

It is not clear if flights will avoid Russian airspace too. A source in the Ministry said Air India has been directed to take alternate flight paths and that private airlines will be asked to take a call individually.

He also said it is likely that a complete evaluation of all flight paths, which go over sensitive areas or countries where fighting is on at present, will be done. But he did not provide any further details.

No NOTAM (note to airmen) has been issued by the aviaton regulator DGCA as of now about avoiding airspace over Ukraine as of now.

11.45 am: Malaysia Airlines says it will change flight route to and from Europe

Malaysia Airlines says that it has changed the route it planes will take on flights to and from Europe, following the shooting down of flight MH17 in Russian airspace.

The airline said in a statement Friday on its website that all of its European flights “will be taking alternative routes avoiding the usual route.”

“The usual flight route was earlier declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organization. International Air Transportation Association has stated that the airspace the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions,” the airline said in a statement on its website.

Even though there were no restrictions, Malaysia Airlines may still face questions about why it continued with flight paths over eastern Ukraine — at the heart of a violent rebellion against Kyiv — when some airlines decided months ago to change routes to skip around the area.

In Seoul, Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said Asiana had a once-a-week cargo flight that had flown over Ukraine but re-routed the flight in early March amid the worsening situation over the Crimean peninsula.

Korean Air Line also said it had rerouted cargo and passenger flights in early March amid the worsening situation over the Crimean peninsula. Likewise, Australia’s Qantas stopped flying over Ukraine several months ago and shifted its London-Dubai route 645 kilometers (400 miles) to the south.

Air China changed its route for flights between Beijing and Rome to avoid Ukrainian airspace following Thursday’s incident, according to an employee of the airline’s publicity department, who would give only his surname, Xu. Xu said the airline has several possible routes for each flight and removed the one that passed through Ukraine from its list of options for Rome flights.

A statement from Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department said local “airlines do not use air routes that cross Ukrainian airspace.”

11.37 am: Rescue workers recover second flight recorder

Rescue workers have recovered a second flight recorder from the crash site in eastern Ukraine, according to a report by BBC News.

Rescue workers, policemen and even off-duty coal miners are combing the area adjacent to the crash site.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Ukraine has accused pro-Russian separatists who control the area of shooting down the plane, a claim they denied. American intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile brought the plane down but were still working on who fired the missile.

Coal miners joined the rescue effort early Friday morning. Police and rescue teams were combing the area, looking for bodies and debris.

An Associated Press journalist said that he saw bodies and body parts strewn across the field outside the village of Rozsypne about 4 kilometers away from the crash site.

11.19 am: BREAKING: Ukraine rebels guarantee investigators access to MH17 crash site

Ukraine rebels have guaranteed investigators “safe access” to the crash site of Malaysian Airliner MH17 in territory they hold, negotiators said after talks with the insurgents.

The separatists committed to providing “safe access and security guarantees to the national investigation commission, including international investigators, in the area under their control,” the trilateral Contact Group on the Ukraine Crisis said in a statement, adding rebels would also close off the site and allow local authorities to recover the bodies of the victims.

This is in line with a US demand that international investigators are granted access to the site of the crash. The White House has also demanded an international probe into the incident.

11.05 am: PM Modi condoles with MH17 victim’s families

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today condoled the loss of lives in the Malaysian airline tragedy and said India stands with the families of victims in this hour of grief.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives on board Flight MH17. We stand with them in this hour of grief,” he said in a tweet.

In a strange coincidence the Prime Minister’s plane from Frankfurt had been on the same route as the Malayasia Airlines plane. It had been about an hour behind the doomed flight.

The flight was then rerouted.

11.00 am: Route taken by MH17 had been abandoned by other Asian airlines

The Malaysian airliner apparently shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine was flying over airspace that a number of other Asian carriers abandoned months ago because of security concerns.

South Korea’s two main airlines, Korean Air and Asiana, as well as Australia’s Qantas and Taiwan’s China Airlines said they had all rerouted flights from as early as the beginning of March when Russian troops moved into Crimea.

“We stopped flying over Ukraine because of safety concerns,” Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyo-Min said.

Korean Air re-routed its flights 250 kilometres (160 miles) south of Ukraine from March 3 “due to the political unrest in the region”, an official for the carrier told AFP.

A Qantas spokeswoman said its London to Dubai service used to fly over Ukraine, but the route was changed “several months ago”, while Taiwan’s China Airlines diverted its flights from April 3.

Quizzed as to why Malaysia Airlines had not taken similar precautions, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said international air authorities had deemed the flight path secure.

“The aircraft’s flight route was declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organization. And (the) International Air Transportation Association has stated that the airspace the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions,” he said.

Re-routing would have involved a longer flight-time and therefore higher fuel costs.

10.00 am: UN Security council to hold emergency meeting on Ukraine

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Ukraine, following the downing Malaysia Airlines passenger plane MH17 carrying 298 people over eastern Ukraine.

Britain proposed a Security Council press statement calling for “a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident.”

The statement, obtained by The Associated Press, was circulated to all 15 council members, who must approve it before it can be issued.

Earlier, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “there is clearly a need for a full and transparent international investigation” into the plane crash in Ukraine.

Ban said during a media event that the International Civil Aviation Organization, a UN agency, is closely monitoring the disaster involving the Malaysia Airlines plane.

10.00 am: Former International AIDS President, 100 activists were aboard MH17

As many as 100 of those killed on a Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed in Ukraine were delegates heading to Australia for a global AIDS conference, reports said.

Among the passengers was former president of the International AIDS Society Joep Lange, a well-known HIV researcher from the Netherlands.

The Australian broadsheet and the Sydney Morning Herald both said that more than one-third of the nearly 300 who died were AIDS researchers, health workers and activists en route to Melbourne.

The Herald said those attending a pre-conference meeting in Sydney were told that around 100 of their colleagues were on the plane that went down, including former International AIDS Society president Joep Lange.

9.30 am: It was a surface-to-air missile: US intelligence

AP has reported that US intelligence authorities believe it was a surface-to-air missile that took down the MH17 passenger jet in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, though the Obama administration was still to confirm who launched the strike.

There appears to be growing agreement that the pro-Russia separatists may have indeed armed themselves with such a missile, though it was believed until now that the militants only had shoulder-fired ‘manpads’ that only have a range of about 10,000 feet and can thus target low-flying aircraft only..

A Wall Street Journal report says all eyes would now be on Russia if it emerges that the sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry has been obtained by the militants.

The report adds that in late June, separatist leaders told the Russian news outlets RIA Novosti and Interfax that they had taken control of a Ukrainian air-defense base near the village of Oleksiivka equipped with Buk missiles.

The Donetsk People’s Republic also posted a photo of the missiles, sometimes known as Gadfly systems, on its official Twitter feed at the time, declaring a victory in having seized the weaponry. The Russian maker of the Buk system, Almaz-Antey, is among the firms the US subjected to new sanctions this week.

On Thursday, separatist leaders denied they had ground-to-air missiles, such as the Buk system, that were powerful enough to shoot down a Boeing 777 flying at such a height. “The plane was shot down by the Ukrainian side,” Sergei Kavtaradze, one of the leaders of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, told the Interfax news agency.

“We simply don’t have those kind of air-defense systems.”

9.20 am: Phone recording appears to implicate pro-Russia militants

A telephone conversation between alleged Russian-backed Cossack militants appears to indicate their involvement, according to the KyivPost.

The recorded conversation was released by the Security Service of Ukraine between militants code-named named ‘Greek’ and ‘Major’. According to the translated transcript, one admits to shooting down a “100 per cent civilian” plane and says somebody was sent to inspect the site and the bodies.

9.00 am: Unimpeded investigation: Full text of statement put out by the White House

Here is the full statement of The White House, seeking a “full, credible, and unimpeded  international investigation”. The US has also called for an immediate cease-fire in order to ensure safe and unfettered access to the crash site for international investigators and ensure that all remains are safely recovered.

Significantly, the statement also urges Russia to take steps to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine and to support such a ceasefire and the “path toward peace that the Ukrainian government has consistently put forward”.

8.45 am: Malaysia Airlines says MH17 route had been declared safe

Malaysia Airlines said on Friday the flight route taken by the MH17 airliner that came down in Ukraine had been declared safe by the UN aviation arm, the International Civil Aviation Organisation. It also said the International Air Transportation Association “had stated that the airspace the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions”.

Here is the full flight history of the flight, as recorded by the live air traffic tracking site, flight radar 24.

It shows that the flight took a slight deviation from its planned route, which meant that it flew across the length of Ukraine.

MH17-flight-historyMH17-flight-history  

The airline said the plane was carrying a total 298 people, including three infants, 283 passengers and 15 crew. It earlier said it had been carrying 295 people.

8.30 am: Malaysia Airlines stock plummets 18% as country wakes up to crash

Shares in Malaysia Airlines tumbled almost 18 percent on Friday after one of its passenger jets crashed in violence-wracked Ukraine, just months after the carrier was hit by the loss of a plane over the Indian Ocean. The firm fell 17.8 percent to 0.185 ringgit at one point in morning trade on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange, before paring some of those losses to sit 13 percent lower.

Malaysia Airlines is still reeling from the unexplained disappearance March 8 of flight MH370 with 239 people aboard. Combined with the airline’s perennial losses, the MH370 debacle has pummelled its shares this year — it has lost more than a third of its value since January 1 — and sparked intense speculation over whether it may be sold off or restructured. The latest crash worsens the carrier’s outlook, said Mohshin Aziz, research analyst at Maybank Investment Bank.

“In the history of aviation… there’s never been an airline that had to go through two huge disasters in the span of four months, so I don’t think there’s any historical evidence that they can get out of this,” he told Dow Jones Newswires.

8.20 am: US demands ceasefire to access crash site

In a statement, the White House has urged Russia, pro-Russian separatists and Ukraine “to support an immediate cease-fire in order to ensure safe and unfettered access to the crash site for international investigators and in order to facilitate the recovery of remains”. Meanwhile US vice president Joe Biden has said that the plane ‘was blown out of the sky’ and that it was ‘not an accident’.

7.40 am: Australia PM lays blame on ‘Russia backed’ rebels, Putin blames Ukraine

Australia Prime Minister Tony Abbot has laid the blame on ‘Russia’ backed rebels, showing that the West is determined to lay the blame where it feels it belongs. “This is a grim day for our country and it’s a grim day for our world.”

He said MH17 was shot down, “it seems by Russia-backed rebels”. Meanwhile Putin said Ukraine bore responsibility for the downing of a passenger plane in the country’s east, saying it would not have happened if Kyiv had not resumed a military campaign against separatists. “This tragedy would not have happened, if there had been peace on that land, or in any case if military operations in southeastern Ukraine had not been renewed,” he said in televised comments.

“And without doubt the government of the territory on which it happened bears responsibility for this frightening tragedy,” he said, adding that he had urged the Russian authorities to do everything possible to help with the investigation into the incident.

7.12 am: Flight carrying PM Modi was on same flight route as MH17

A flight carrying Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on the same flight route as the Malaysian Airlines plane that is believed to have been shot down, according to a report in The Hindu.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flight back to India, which took off from Frankfurt two hours before the crash and was in the same flight corridor, was rerouted”, the report said. “There was no danger to the PM’s plane, but obviously the area that they would have flown over would have been the same”, the report quoted an aviation official as saying. Read the Hindu report here

Meanwhile Newsweek tweeted out this map of the airspace over Ukraine after the plane was shot down:

https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/489871610237952002  

7.00 am: Malaysian PM demands swift justice if flight was shot down

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak demanded swift justice against those responsible if a Malaysian airliner that came down in Ukraine was found to have been shot down. Najib, reading out a statement at a news conference on Friday, said Malaysia had not been able to verify what caused the Boeing 777-200 to crash while on a flight from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, but it had not made a distress call.

But he said he had agreed in talks with U.S. President Barack Obama that investigators must get full access to the site of the crash. “The Ukrainian authorities believe that the plane was shot down,” Najib said in the statement.

“At this stage, however, Malaysia is unable to verify the cause of this tragedy. But we must, and we will, find out precisely what happened to this flight. No stone will be left unturned.” “If it transpires that the plane was indeed shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must swiftly be brought to justice.”

6.45 am: MH17 had 154 Dutch passengers aboard, says Malaysian Airlines

At least 154 Dutch citizens have been killed in the Malaysian passenger crash in the eastern part of Ukraine Thursday, the airlines’ European head said. Huib Gorte said that the victims include 154 Dutch passengers, 27 Australians, 23 Malaysians, 11 Indonesians, 6 Britons, 4 Germans, 4 Belgians, 3 Philippines, one Canadian and 47 of yet unknown identities, Xinhua reported.

Meanwhile a tweet from the airline said that it was in the process of identifying next of kin of the passengers:

The Malaysia Airlines MH17 passenger plane crashed Thursday in Ukraine near the Russian border, with all the 280 passengers and 15 crew members on board reportedly having been killed. All 15 crew members are Malaysians. Jos Nijhuis, president and CEO of the Schiphol Airport Group, said: “We sympathize with the families who have been affected. We will do everything in our power to accommodate and support them as well as possible and support.”

6.30 am: Germany demands independent probe into shooting down of flight MH17

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday called for an independent, international investigation into the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine. Ukraine accused “terrorists” – militants fighting to unite eastern Ukraine with Russia – of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing 777 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 295 people aboard.

Leaders of the rebel Donetsk People’s Republic denied any involvement. Merkel called for an “immediate, independent investigation into the causes of the crash”, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement. “For the chancellor, the suspected circumstances in which the plane was allegedly shot down from a great height are shocking”, he said.

– – end of updates for 17 July —

11.01 pm: 22 bodies counted at Malaysian airlines flight crash site

An Associated Press journalist has counted at least 22 bodies at the plane wreckage site in eastern Ukraine involving a Malaysia Airlines commercial flight. The plane appeared to have broken up before impact and the wreck is scattered over a wide area in the eastern Ukraine village of Grabovo.

The field around the burning wreck was strewn with body parts and the belongings of the passengers Thursday. Malaysia Airlines has said 295 people were aboard the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

10.43 pm: Body parts scattered to about 15 kms, says official

Ukraine official on the site has said at least 100 bodies were seen at the site. He also said that body parts were scattered around an area of 15 kms, reported CNN.

10.30 pm: Russia’s rebel leader had boasted of having shot down plane

Reports suggest that a rebel leader in Russia had boasted of shooting down a plane right before reports of Malaysian flight MH17 appeared.

A man works at putting out a fire at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region. ReutersA man works at putting out a fire at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region. Reuters

A man works at putting out a fire at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region. Reuters

A website reports that “in a post on his VKontakte page, Russia’s largest social media site, separatist leader Igor Girkin, aka Strelkov, wrote: “In the vicinity of Torez, we just downed a plane, an AN-26. It is lying somewhere in the Progress Mine.

We have issued warnings not to fly in our airspace. We have video confirming. The bird fell on a waste heap. Residential areas were not hit. Civilians were not injured.”

10.23 pm: Obama asks officials to keep him updated on MH17

President Barack Obama is asking his advisers to keep him updated on reports of the Malaysian plane MH17 thats was shot down over Ukraine. But the White House says it cannot confirm the reports. Meanwhile Obama has also discussed the plane crash with Vladimir Putin over the phone.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday that Obama spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin before leaving on a trip to Delaware and New York. But Earnest could not say whether it was before or after Obama was aware of reports that the plane was shot down.

An adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister says a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down near the Russian border. Malaysian Airlines said it lost contact with one of its flights over Ukrainian airspace. Earnest says Putin requested the call to discuss new sanctions imposed on Russia Wednesday.

10.13 pm: Ukraine pro-Russia rebels say they didn’t shoot down airline

This comes right after even the Ukraine president denies involvement in the country’s army in the shocking incident. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the downing an act of terrorism and called for an international investigation into the crash.

The Donetsk region government said a plane crashed Thursday near a village called Grabovo, which it said is currently under the control of the separatists. The region where the flight was lost has seen severe fighting between the two sides in recent days. Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet).

He said it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet). 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. 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.

Purgin said he did not know whether rebel forces owned Buk missile launchers, but said even if they did, there had no fighters capable of operating it. A launcher similar to the Buk missile system was seen by Associated Press journalists earlier Thursday near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne, which is held by the rebels.

It was the second time that a Malaysia Airlines plane was lost in less than six months. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It has not been found, but the search has been concentrated in the Indian Ocean far west of Australia.

Malaysian Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said on Twitter there’s no confirmation that Thursday’s plane was shot down. He said he has instructed the country’s military to check. There have been disputes over planes being shot down earlier in the region. On Wednesday evening, a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday, adding to what Kyiv says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatist insurgents.

Security Council spokesman Andrei Lysenko said the pilot of the Sukhoi-25 jet hit by the air-to-air missile was forced to bail after his jet was shot down. Pro-Russia rebels, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for strikes Wednesday on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the second jet was hit by a portable surface-to-air missile, but added the pilot was unscathed and managed to land his plane safely Moscow denies Western charges that is supporting the separatists or sowing unrest in its neighbor.

The Russian Defense Ministry couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday about the Ukrainian jet being shot down. Earlier this week, Ukraine said a military transport plane was shot down Monday by a missile fired from Russian territory.

9.58 pm: Here are images of the parts of the crashed Malaysian flight

9.51 pm: Ukraine army did not shoot down plane, says prez Petro Poroshenko

Ukraine’s president says his country’s armed forces did not shoot at any airborne targets, after reports that a Malaysian Airlines plane went down over Ukraine. President Petro Poroshenko says Thursday “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.”

Poroshenko said “we are sure that those who are guilty in this tragedy will be held responsible.”

9.39 pm: I am shocked that an MH plane has crashed, says Malaysian PM

Najib Razak, Malaysian Prime Minister said he was shocked by the news of the Malaysian Airlines crash in a tweet. “I am shocked by reports that an MH plane crashed. We are launching an immediate investigation,” Razak said.

9.37 pm: Aware of situation, gathering information, says Boeing spokesperson

The spokesperson for Beoing said, “We are aware of the media reports and are trying to gather information.”

9.31: Video shows smoke billowing from area of crash

A video put up by The Telegraph shows huge clouds of smoke billowing from the area of the crash. Here is the video courtesy The Telegraph

9.23 pm: Shivraj Singh Chouhan condemns incident

9.15 pm: Crashed Malaysia airline flight with 295 on board was hit by missile

A Ukrainian official said a Malaysian passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday over a town in the east of the country, reported Associated Press.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher.

A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday.

Malaysia Airlines said on its Twitter feed that it “has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace. More details to follow.”

The region has seen severe fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia separatist rebels in recent days.

On Wednesday evening, a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday, adding to what Kyiv says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine.

Security Council spokesman Andrei Lysenko said the pilot of the Sukhoi-25 jet hit by the air-to-air missile was forced to bail after his jet was shot down. Pro-Russia rebels, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for strikes Wednesday on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the second jet was hit by a portable surface-to-air missile, but added the pilot was unscathed and managed to land his plane safely Moscow denies Western charges that is supporting the separatists or sowing unrest in its neighbor. The Russian Defense Ministry couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday about the Ukrainian jet and Russia’s foreign ministry didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

Earlier this week, Ukraine said a military transport plane was shot down Monday by a missile fired from Russian territory. The rebels are known to possess portable anti-aircraft rocket launchers, but Ukrainian officials say that kind of weapon would have been unable to reach Monday’s plane at the altitude at which it was flying Monday. Aviation experts, however, have questioned whether the stricken transport plane was flying at the altitude Ukrainian officials had claimed.

9.10 pm: Lost contact with flight, says Malaysia airlines

After reports emerged of Malaysia airlines flight flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur having crashed near the Ukraine border, the airline has confirmed that they had lost contact with the plane. CNN reports that no other details of the reason behind the crash is available yet.

8.57 pm: Was crashed Malaysia Airline flight shot down?

Since the area where the plane went down was an area of intense fighting between Russia and Ukraine, CNN correspondent from Ukrain says that the possiblity of the plane having been shot down cannot be ruled out.

8.50 pm: Malaysian passenger airline crashes in Ukraine

A Malaysian passenger airliner with 295 people on board crashed in Ukraine near the Russian border, Interfax cited an aviation industry source as saying on Thursday, reported Reuters.

It said the Boeing plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Reuters could not immediately confirm the Interfax report.

Representational image. Representational image.

Representational image.

The crashed flight was a Boeing 777-200.

This comes around four months after MH370, another Malaysian Airline flight mysteriously disappeared on 8 March 2014.

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