Malaysian plane crash in Ukraine - 295 dead

photo - Twitter Euromajdan/print screen

“Unspeakable horror for the passengers of downed flight MH17. Condolences to families, justice for perpetrators and those who enabled them,” Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski tweeted on Thursday after 295 people died when the plane came down near the village of Grabovo, between Krasni Luch in the Luhansk region and Shakhtarsk in the neighbouring region of Donetsk.

Both Ukrainian government and pro-Russian rebels have denied shooting down the Boeing 777 commercial flight, though Russian separatists are believed to have shot down two Ukrainian military planes over the region in the last few days.

Ukraine's interior minister claims the plane had been hit by a missile at an altitude of 10,000m.

Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak is launching an inquiry into the crash and Russian president Vladimir Putin and US president Barack Obama have spoken on the telephone about the disaster. (pg)