Malaysia plane ‘shot down’ over Ukraine, 295 feared dead

All 295 people on board a Malaysia Airlines plane were feared dead today after the aircraft was reportedly shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, nearly four months after the mysterious disappearance of MH370 in the Indian Ocean.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew.

The passenger liner came down close to the town of Shaktarsk in Ukraine’s rebellion-wracked region of Donetsk after disappearing from the radar and teams from the emergency services were trying to reach the scene, Russian media quoted an unnamed security source as saying.

Burning aircraft wreckage and bodies strewn on the ground were seen at the village of Grabovo, some 40 km from the Russian border in an area where pro-Russian rebels are reportedly active.

Malaysia Airlines confirmed on Twitter, “Malaysian Airlines has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam. The last known position of the plane was over Ukrainian airspace“.

Malaysia’s Star newspaper quoting sources said the plane was “shot down” while cruising at an altitude of 30,000 feet.

Ukraine Interior Ministry said 295 people are feared dead in the crash, it said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also said that the jetliner may have been shot down over his country’s airspace.

“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 posted on the president’s website.

The plane could have been brought down by a ground-to-air missile, sources said.

“I am shocked by reports that an MH plane crashed,” Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on his Twitter feed.

“We are launching an immediate investigation,” he said as he headed to the Kuala Lumpur airport.

ITAR-Tass news agency reported that the airliner flying at the altitude of over 10,000 metres was supposed to enter the Russian air space at 17:20 Moscow standard time.

“However, it fell down in 60 km from the border; the plane’s emergency location beacon went off,” the agency reported quoting sources.

Amber Dubey on flight crash of Malaysian

This naturally will force governments to issue advisories to their airlines. Diversion of routes away from hotspots will increase time and cost of travel.

This may also cause the airline sector to be de-rated, with an adverse impact on the cost of leasing, borrowing and insurance. Overall a bad day for global peace and the beleaguered aviation sector in particular", says Amber Dubey, partner and India head of aerospace and defence at global consultancy KPMG.

"Flight altitude has no impact against modern missiles which can bring down objects even beyond 75,000 ft. Civilian aircrafts fly only upto around 38,000 ft", Dubey added. - Our New Delhi Bureau

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