MOSCOW – A Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 295 people was shot down by either Ukranian forces or the Rebels fighting them in east Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
All passengers and crew were killed when it crashed near the village of Grabovo, in rebel-held territory close to the border with Russia.
Both sides in Ukraine’s civil conflict accused each other of shooting down the plane with a missile. It is still not clear why the plane came down.
It is the second disaster suffered by Malaysia Airlines this year.
Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Malaysia to China in April and still has not been found.
At a news conference at Schiphol airport, Malaysia Airlines’ European chief Huib Gorter said they were still trying to identify some of the passengers from flight MH17.
He said of the passengers that have been identified there were:
• 154 Dutch nationals
• 27 Australians
• 23 Malaysians
• 11 Indonesians
• Six Britons
• Four Germans
• Four Belgians
• Three from the Philippines
• One Canadian
• All 15 of the crew were Malaysian
