Malaysian passenger plane carrying 295 people 'shot down' over Ukraine near Russian border
A Malaysian passenger airline has reportedly been shot down on the Russian-Ukraine border, apparently killing all 295 people on board.
The aircraft was flying between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpar after taking off leaving at lunchtime today.
The Interfax news agency reported that the aircraft went missing near Donetsk.
A Malaysian Airlines passenger jet is thought to have been shot down over the Ukraine / Russian border
The crash comes three months after the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 which is though to have crashed into the Indian Occean.
Two weeks ago, investigators say what little evidence they have to work with suggests the plane was deliberately diverted thousands of kilometres from its scheduled route before eventually plunging into the Indian Ocean.
The search was narrowed in April after a series of acoustic pings thought to be from the plane's black box recorders were heard along a final arc where analysis of satellite data put its last location.
But a month later, officials conceded the wreckage was not in that concentrated area, some 1,000 miles off the northwest coast of Australia, and the search area would have to be expanded.
The next phase of the search is expected to start in August and take a year, covering some 60,000 sq km at a cost of AU$60 million ($56 million) or more. The search is already the most expensive in aviation history.
The new priority search area is around 2,000km west of Perth, a stretch of isolated ocean frequently lashed by storm force winds and massive swells.
Share story
0 comments: