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By Lucy Westcott
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A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members crashed in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, near the Russian border. Echoing Ukrainian officials, U.S. intelligence believes a surface-to-air missile brought the flight down, but they are divided on the origin of the strike, a source told Reuters.
There were no reports of survivors. Reuters pictures showed a scene of devastation with burning debris and body parts spread over a wide area near the village of Grabovo. An airport official puts the death toll as follows: 189 Dutch, 44 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, ten from the U.K., four from Germany, four from Belgium, three from the Philippines, and one Canadian, and one from New Zealand, the BBC reports. In a news conference on Friday, President Barack Obama said there was at least one U.S. citizen on board.
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Ukraine's intelligence agency has released footage of what they say are intercepted phone calls between Russian military intelligence officers and pro-Russia separatists. In the conversations, they appear to acknowledge the plane has been shot down, but sound shocked upon realizing it's a civilian aircraft completely devoid of any weapons. "Civilian items, medical equipment, towels, toilet paper" are some of the items they find on the ground.
The Ukrainian Prime Minister has ordered an investigation, while the Ukrainian president says that Ukrainian forces were not involved in bringing the plane down. Ukrainian officials said the plane may have been shot down by a Russian-made Buk, or Beech, antiaircraft system, according to a report in The New York Times. A Ukrainian interior ministry official blamed "terrorists" using a ground-to-air missile on the "catastrophe," Reuters reports.
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