A Malaysian Airlines flight was shot down over eastern Ukraine by militants on Thursday, killing 295 people onboard, Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted a Ukrainian interior ministry official as saying.
The Boeing 777, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, disappeared from radar at 10,000 meters, before crashing near the city of Shakhtarsk in Ukraine's Donetsk region, a source in the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities told Interfax-Ukraine. A group of the state emergencies service is on the way to the scene of the crash.
According to a report by Reuters, Ukrainian official Anton Gerashchenko claimed that the aircraft went down near the city of Donetsk, a stronghold of pro-Russian rebels after being hit by a ground-to-air missile.
"A civilian airliner travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has just been shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft system... 280 passengers and 15 crew have been killed," Gerashchenko was quoted as saying.
The Ukrainian officials have reportedly found the wreckage of the airplane but an official confirmation has not come at the time of filing this story.
