MH17

UKRAINE PALNE CRASH: MALAYSIAN AIRLINES FLIGHT MH17 DOWNED, 295 PEOPLE ON BOARD

This morning, we all woke up to shocking news that Malaysian Airlines MH17 has crash landed on Ukraine land! It was a plane from Amsterdam en route to Kuala Lumpur. The incident happened yesterday on 17th July 2014, at around 10:50 pm.  

"A Malaysia Airlines passenger jet crashed in a rebel-controlled area of eastern Ukraine on Thursday, prompting swift accusations from Ukrainian officials that "terrorists" shot down the aircraft.

The United States also has concluded that the plane was shot down, but hasn't pinpointed who was responsible, a senior U.S. official told CNN's Barbara Starr.

The Boeing 777 carrying 295 people fell from the sky near the town of Torez in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, according to a Facebook post from a top Ukrainian official, as it flew at about 10,000 meters (nearly 33,000 feet) on the way from Amsterdam to Malaysia.

A radar system saw a surface-to-air missile system turn on and track an aircraft right before the plane went down, the senior U.S. official said. A second system saw a heat signature at the time the airliner was hit, the official said. The United States is analyzing the trajectory of the missile to try to learn where the attack came from.

"We must and we will find out precisely what happened to this flight. No stone will be left unturned," he said.

He called for an international team to have full access to the crash site. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the plane never made a distress call.

"If it transpires that the plane was indeed shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must swiftly be brought to justice," Najib said.

Ukrainian officials maintained that pro-Russian separatists were behind the crash, which sent the jet falling from the sky in a fireball with a trail of black smoke.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine's military campaign against the separatists was to blame.

"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," Putin said in televised remarks. "And without a doubt the government of the territory on which it happened bears responsibility for this frightening tragedy."

Ukraine's state security chief accused two Russian military intelligence officers of involvement and said they must be punished for their "crime."

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said he based his allegation on intercepts of phone conversations between the two officers. "Now you know who carried out this crime. We will do everything for the Russian military who carried out this crime to be punished," he told journalists.

Emergency crews scrambled to what witnesses described as a staggering scene of death and utter destruction.

"People said the plane kind of exploded in the air, and that everything rained down in bits and pieces, the plane itself, the people inside," said Noah Sneider, an American freelance journalist who interviewed witnesses at the scene.

Charred wreckage stretched for kilometers, he said. Stunned rescue workers and rebel fighters combed the area, Sneider said, planting sticks with white cotton ribbons where they find bodies in the fields.

"As you walk through the fields, you see a man with his cracked iPhone sticking out of his pocket. You see sort of people's clothing everywhere. Most of it's kind of ripped off by the air. There's some suitcases and stuff in a pile by the road," Sneider said.

There were many bodies left to be found as night fell, he said, and people were trying to figure out what to do next.

Locals in the rural area trying to help were overwhelmed, he said. Firemen who rushed to put out the flames found they had a hose with holes in it, spraying water everywhere, he said.

"One man said to me, 'Nothing's happened in this village for 30 years, and now this,'" Sneider said."

To read more about MH17, log on to:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/17/world/europe/ukraine-malaysia-airlines-crash/index.html

Thank you for reading!