A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has crashed in eastern Ukraine, killing 295 people, with Ukraine officials pointing the finger at pro-Russia rebels and calling it a "terrorist act".
The disaster comes only four months after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished on a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing on March 8 with 239 people aboard, including New Zealanders Paul Weeks, 38, and Ximin Wang, 50.
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 (33,000 feet) over the eastern Ukraine about 3am (NZ time) when it crashed.
He also said it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 metres (72,000 feet).
A New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said the ministry was awaiting a passenger list to check whether any Kiwis were on board the flight.
The New Zealand High Commission in Kuala Lumpur was in touch with Malaysian Airlines, she said.
A representative from the New Zealand Embassy in The Hague was en route to Schiphol Airport where Dutch authorities had set up a crisis co-ordination centre.
An Air New Zealand spokeswoman said Air NZ did not operate over Eastern Europe.
The Boeing 777 would have carried Dutch holidaymakers as well as Malaysians returning home. There were also reports of 23 US and nine UK passengers.
MH17 was also a very popular route with oil and gas workers coming to South East Asia from the UK.
A Lonely Planet guidebook for Bali and Lombok was found in the wreckage among passengers' possessions strewn over the ground.
Ukrainian armed forces were not involved in the plane being brought down, the Ukranian presidential press service said.
Interfax quoted it as saying that President Petro Poroshenko did not exclude that the plane had been shot down.
"This is the third event in the last few days following AN-26 and SU-25 planes being brought down. We do not exclude that this plane was also shot down and we stress that the armed forces of Ukraine did not carry out any action to destroy targets in the air," the press service said.
Poroshenko described the incident an act of "terrorism".
Separatist leader Aleksander Borodai blamed the downing on Ukraine's government forces.
"Apparently, it's a passenger airliner indeed, truly shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force," Borodai told Russia's state-run Rossiya 24 TV broadcaster.
Pro-Russian separatists have said they were willing to have up to three days of ceasefire in eastern Ukraine to allow for recovery work at the site of the downed airliner, RIA news agency reported. However, the head of Ukrainian Emergency Situations said search efforts at scene were being hampered by "armed terrorists".
Malaysia Airlines confirmed in a press release it had received notification from Ukrainian air traffic control that it had lost contact with flight MH17 at 1415 (GMT) at 30km from Tamak waypoint, approximately 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border.
Flight MH17 operated on a Boeing 777 departed Amsterdam at 12.15pm (Amsterdam local time) and was estimated to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.10am (Malaysia local time) the next day.
On board were 280 passengers and 15 crew, Russia's Interfax news agency said. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Raza said he was shocked and was launching an immediate investigation.
BODIES SCATTERED
An emergency services rescue worker confirmed 100 bodies had so far been found at the scene, near the village of Grabovo, and that debris from the wreckage was spread across an area up to about 15km in diameter.
"I was working in the field on my tractor when I heard the sound of a plane and then a bang and shots. Then I saw the plane hit the ground and break in two. There was thick black smoke," said a witness, who gave his name only as Vladimir.
A separatist rebel from nearby Krasnyi Luch who gave his name only as Sergei said: "From my balcony I saw a plane begin to descend from a great height and then heard two explosions."
Ukraine's Espreso TV reported that pro-Russian militants had recently received anti-aircraft weapons capable of shooting down planes at high altitudes.
The 'Buk' anti-aircraft missile system, manufactured in Russia, can hit aircraft up to an altitude of 25km. A launcher similar to the Buk missile system was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne, which is held by pro-Russia rebels yesterday.
On June 29, the Itar-Tass news agency reported that Donetsk People's Republic separatists had taken control of a missile defence unit equipped with Buk missile systems.
However a spokesman for the Donetsk rebels denied any involvement.
"The plane was shot down by the Ukrainian side," the spokesman told Interfax.
"We simply do not have such air defence systems."
He said the plane was well beyond the range of any of their weapons, which can only go as high as 3000m. He also expressed his condolences to the bereaved families.
According to an online flight tracking site, the plane's last known position was near Donetsk at an altitude of just over 10km.
PUTIN AND OBAMA TALK
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama had discussed the incident in a phone call.
The Kremlin website published a statement late Thursday that said: "the Russian leader informed the US president of the report from air traffic controllers that the Malaysian plane had crashed on Ukrainian territory, which had arrived immediately before the phone call."
The statement gave no further details about what the leaders discussed with regard to the plane crash.
Putin and Obama both offered their condolences to the victims' families, with Obama saying he had ordered security officials to work together to ascertain what had happened.
Russian officials had asked officials in Ukraine's capital Kiev for permission to help at the scene in the contested region.
REBELS HIT MILITARY PLANES
Pro-Russia rebels, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for strikes Wednesday on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets.
The Ukrainian Defence 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 neighbour.
The Russian Defence 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.
Source: Fairfax NZ, Reuters and Associated Press
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