A Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by a surface-to-air missile Thursday, ******* all 295 aboard after crashing near Ukraine's border with Russia.
Malaysia Airlines confirmed that Ukrainian air traffic control lost contact with Flight MH17 about 30 miles from Russia. The plane was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew. There were no distress calls from the aircraft as it began breaking up as it fell from the sky.
Crash victims and body parts were strewn among burning debris up to 10 miles away. News agencies reported 154 Dutch nationals, 27 Australians, 11 Indonesians, six Brits, four Germans, four Belgians, four French, three Filipinos and a Canadian were among the dead.
The crash site is in a region where tensions and fighting between Ukraine and pro-Russian militants has festered for months. After the downing of several Ukraine aircraft in recent days, accusations, blame and finger-pointing over Thursday's crash was fevered.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the incident a terrorist act. Russian and pro-Russian separatists denied responsibility. But Ukrainian officials said they had intercepted telephone calls in which a separatist leader talked about crash with Russian military intelligence officers. Separatists initially believed they had downed a military cargo plane, according to the SBU, Ukraine's main security agency.
U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that the airliner, flying at about 30,000 feet, had been downed by a radar-guided missile, although they were not in agreement where it originated.
It was "not an accident, it was blown out of the sky,'' said Vice President Joe Biden
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