[Peace-discuss] Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashes in east Ukraine

[David Johnson via Peace-discuss]

  Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashes in east Ukraine


  *
  * theguardian.com <http://www.theguardian.com/>, Thursday 17 July 2014
    13.55 EDT

Link to video: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashes over Ukraine 
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jul/17/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh17-crashes-ukraine-video>

A Malaysia <http://www.theguardian.com/world/malaysia>Airlines passenger 
jet carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has crashed in an 
area of eastern Ukraine <http://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine>where 
separatist rebels have been engaging Ukrainian military forces in recent 
weeks. Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, said the jet may have been 
shot down.

"We do not exclude that the plane was shot down and confirm that the 
Ukraine armed forces did not fire at any targets in the sky," Poroshenko 
said in a statement.

Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in Ukraine Emergency workers at 
the crash site. Photograph: Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters


In a statement, Malaysia Airlines said Ukraine's air traffic control 
lost contact with flight MH17 at 2.15pm GMT, approximately 30 miles from 
the Russia-Ukraine border.

Ukraine Plance crash WEB1 Credit: Guardian graphics

Leaders of the self-declared Donetsk people's republic denied any 
involvement, according to Interfax news agency. A member of the 
republic's security council said rebel weapons only had the capacity to 
shoot down a plane at 3,000 metres and blamed Ukrainian military forces 
for the attack.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, 
called allegations that Russia had been involved in the downing of MH17 
"stupidity". Peskov told the Guardian that the Kremlin would not make a 
further statement on the tragedy
because "no one knows" who is responsible. Smoke reportedly from 
Malaysian Airlines plane crash in Ukraine Local Ukrainian TV images show 
smoke from the Malaysia passenger airliner that has crashed near the 
Russian border. Photograph: Universal News And Sport (Europe)

Asked about the possibility of further US sanctions in light of this 
bloody development in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Peskov said he 
could not rule it out.

"The United States has recently been conducting a very non-constructive 
policy, and their actions are very unpredictable," he said.

Several airlines, including British Airways, Aeroflot, Turkish Airlines 
and Russia's Transaereo, announced that they would avoid Ukrainian 
airspace with immediate effect. Lufthansa said it would steer clear of 
airspace over eastern Ukraine.

The crash comes four months after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 
vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on 
board, two-thirds of them Chinese citizens. It has yet to be found 
despite a massive international search, which is ongoing, but Malaysia 
Airlines has said it believes everyone on board died when the plane 
crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.

That aircraft was a Boeing-777 -- the same kind of plane as flight MH17.

In 2001, Ukraine admitted that its military was probably responsible for 
shooting down a Russian airliner that crashed into the Black Sea, 
killing all 78 on board. A senior Ukrainian official said it had most 
likely been downed by an accidental hit from an S-200 rocket fired 
during exercises.

In 1983, a Soviet jet fighter shot down a South Korean airliner after it 
veered off course into Russian air space and failed to respond to 
attempts to make contact. All 269 passengers and crew were killed.

In 1988, the US warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner over the 
Gulf, killing all 290 passengers and crew, in what the United States 
said was an accident after crew mistook the plane for a fighter. Tehran 
called it a deliberate attack.

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