(UPDATE 4 - 9:50 p.m., July 18, 2014) KIEV - A
Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine by militants on
Thursday, killing all 298 people onboard, among them three Filipinos.
Above is the photo of an aircraft similar to the plane that crashed.
"There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board the plane,"
Malaysian Airlines vice president Huib Gorter told reporters at a press
conference at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport from where the doomed flight
had taken off.
He gave a preliminary breakdown of the passenger's nationalities, saying: "154 were Dutch, 27 were Australian."
In addition, 23 others were from Malaysia, 11 were Indonesian, six
were British, four were German, another four were from Belgium, three
were from the Philippines and one was Canadian.
See also a copy of the MH17
passenger list.
A DFA source indicated the identities of the Filipino passengers as
follows: Irene Gunawan, 54; her daughter Sherryl Shania, 20; and son
Darryl Dwight, 15.
According to a family friend who was quoted in
a TV report, Mrs. Gunawan works in Amsterdam and her husband, who
wasn't on Flight MH17, is a Malaysian Airlines employee.
Malacañang extended its sympathies to the families of the MH17 passengers.
"The
Philippines joins the entire global community in expressing its
deepest sympathies to the families of the two hundred ninety five (295)
passengers of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, that reportedly crashed
in Ukraine. Initial reports revealed that there were also three (3)
Filipinos on board the ill-fated flight," Secretary Herminio Coloma,
chief of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, said.
"The
government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, will coordinate
with Ukrainian and Malaysian authorities in order to ascertain the
identities of the Filipinos that were passengers on that flight," he
said.
"The government is one with the international community
in calling for the thorough and swift inquiry on this incident," Coloma
added.
Air traffic control lost contact with the Boeing 777-400 around 14:15
(12:15 GMT) near the Russian-Ukrainian border, the Malaysia Airlines
official said.
Flight MH17 took off from Schiphol shortly after noon and was
supposed to land in Kuala Lumpur at around 06:10 am local time, Gorter
said.
Malaysia Airlines was to send a team to Ukraine on Friday to help with the investigation.
Another airplane will also be made available to grieving relatives wanting to visit the crash site, Gorter said.
Questioned about the cause of the plane crash, Gorter said: "At this
stage we are still looking at it from the viewpoint of being an
accident."
Earlier, shocked and crying relatives were shielded from the press as
they arrived at Schiphol to be taken to a special gathering area.
They were later escorted from the airport and taken by bus to an undetermined destination, Dutch news agency ANP reported.
The White House says US President Obama has directed senior U.S.
officials to remain in close touch with Ukrainian officials about the
downed plane.
Russian President Putin has discussed the Malaysian Airliner crash in Ukraine with US President Obama, RIA news agency reported.
The White House also disclosed that President Putin, near the end of a
phone call with Obama, noted early reports of a downed passenger jet
near the Russia-Ukraine border.
BBC News posted a map showing the apparent crash site on its Twitter Page:
The aircraft came down near the city of Donetsk, stronghold of
pro-Russian rebels, Anton Gerashchenko said, adding that it was hit by a
ground-to-air missile.
Regional officials in Donetsk confirmed the plane had come down near the town of Shaktarsk.
Below are initial photos posted by BBC on Twitter purportedly showing the crash site:
"The number of dead is not yet known," the administration said in a statement.
Emergency services were rushing to the scene, a security source told Interfax-Ukraine.
RIA news agency also reported that the Moscow-Russian emergency
services have asked Kiev for permission to help with rescue work at site
of crash.
Reuters said bodies and debris are scattered in a range of 7 miles
(11 kilometers), a vast area consistent with a midair explosion at high
altitude.
Malaysia Airlines has confirmed that it received notification from
Ukrainian ATC that it had lost contact with Flight MH17 2:15 GMT.
US
stocks fell sharply following reports the Malaysia Airlines plane had
been shot down, while Britain's Foreign Office said it was "working
urgently to find out what's happened."
Ukrainian officials said local residents had found wreckage. Below is a photo posted online by Reuters.
Ukrainian armed forces were not involved in Malaysian plane being brought down, Interfax quoted the presidential press service.
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said in a statement: "We do not
exclude that the plane was shot down and confirm that the Ukraine Armed
Forces did not fire at any targets in the sky."
Below is a photo posted online by Reuters showing an aircraft part among the debris field.
Russian news agency Itar-Tass cited an unnamed source at Ukraine's
aviation authority as saying that all 280 passengers and 15 crew members
on board the plane had died.
Poroshenko expressed his "deepest
and sincerest sympathies for the families and loved ones of those
killed" and vowed that "those behind this tragedy will be brought to
justice."
Rebel leaders told Russian news agencies that they were
not responsible for shooting down the plane and pledged to allow
"international experts" access to the crash site.
The Boeing
passenger liner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur came down close to
town of Shaktarsk in the rebellion-wracked region of Donetsk, local
authorities told AFP.
Malaysian Airlines confirmed that it had "lost contact" with one its planes in Ukrainian airspace.
A post on Twitter by @businessinsider graphically showed how busy the air corridor above Ukraine was:
CNN aviation safety consultant Mary Schiavon said that the plane was
flying over a troubled area and that close communication with air
traffic controllers would be a key necessity.
In hostile or disputed areas, "any alteration from your course, and you can have a problem," she said.
The airspace where plane downed "was not subject to restrictions,"
CNN cited International Air Transport Association as indicating. IATA
affirmed it believes the crashed Malaysian aircraft was not flying in
restricted airspace.
Russian airline Aeroflot says will no longer fly over Ukraine territory.
For its part, Dubai's Emirates says it is suspending flights to Kiev.
An aviation source told Reuters that a Malaysian airplane failed to
enter Russian airspace when expected on Thursday and was found burning
on the ground in eastern Ukraine. The photo below is from Agence
France-Presse photographer Dominique Faget.
On
his Facebook page, Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs Anton
Gerashchenko claims that terrorists struck down the plane under Russian
President Vladimir Putin's orders.
Malaysia Airlines said on its Twitter feed it had lost contact with
its flight MH-17 from Amsterdam. "The last known position was over
Ukrainian airspace," it said.
Gerashchenko was quoted as saying: "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."
Interfax-Ukraine quoted another Ukrainian official as saying the
plane disappeared from radar when it was flying at 10,000 meters
(33,000 feet), a typical cruising altitude for airliners.
It came down at Torez, near Shakhtersk, some 40 km (25 miles) from
the Russia border. The area has been the scene of fighting between
Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels.
Ukraine has accused Russia of taking an active role in the
four-month-old conflict in recent days and accused it earlier on
Thursday of shooting down a Ukrainian fighter jet - an accusation that
Moscow denied.
For his part, CNN's Richard Quest, an aviation expert, said on air that the incident is "extremely unusual."
"This
is in the rare, very rare category for an airliner potentially to be
shot down, at altitude, 32,000 feet, simply because of the profile of an
aircraft," he said. "You can tell an aircraft, you can see a commercial
aircraft. It looks like a commercial aircraft, it squawks like a
commercial aircraft. So something is absolutely appalling that's gone on
here."
The incident is a fresh body blow to the flag carrier which, along
with the Malaysian government, is still struggling to provide answers to
the disappearance of flight MH370.
The plane went missing with 239 passengers and crew on board and is
now believed to have diverted off its flight path and crashed in the
remote Indian Ocean.
