this is quite possibly the most bizarre headline I have ever seen/ There is no doubt in my mind it was no accident that it crashed in Ukraine, I just have no idea who caused it or from which side.

Shit...

Other sites are saying shot down.

What on earth is a civilian plane doing over a conflict zone like that in the first place though?

Malaysian Airlines does have some issues with their planes.

its the normal route, it must have been high in the sky, i doubt that Ukrainian rebels could have done it, I think we are looking at a Russian or Ukrainian mistake here.

30,000 feet. Seeing that Russia handed out fairly powerful anti aircraft missiles to the uncontrolled militias it is entirely possible that someone felt like trying out their new toys

"A Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine by militants on July 17, killing all 295 people aboard, a Ukrainian interior ministry official was quoted as saying by Interfax-Ukraine news agency."

Color me skeptical, 10,000 feet? What kind of artillery do they have there?

excuse me, I meant to say 10,000 meters

You'd need a long range, radar-guided SAM, probably from a fixed site, to have a good chance of shooting down a plane at 10,000 feet. Most shoulder-mounted portable missiles would struggle to reach a height of 10,000 feet, let alone accurately hit a target at that altitude.

The Russians just gave a bunch of ground-to-air missiles systems to the separatists.

Sorry, yes, 10,000m - much highter than 10,000ft.

it was 33,000 feet

@ Chaqa - I would be very surprised if the Russians have put any of their long-range radar-guided SAM launcher sites into the hands of the seperatists. Portable shoulder-mounted rocket launchers would have slim to no chance of a shot at this altitude from what I've read.

I'll try to find the page I was reading. They said what type of system it was.

(Yes Santa that's about right. 10,000m = about 33,000 ft)

I think we won't know what happened to another malaysia airlines flight for an entirely different reason. Both sides are going to blame each other in short order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system

https://twitter.com/MiddleEast_BRK/status/489798936224628736

There's a few other reports, but all agree that the Russians provided the separatists with Buk systems.

The Ukranian air force plane shot down on Wednesday would have been flying much lower than 33,000ft, for reference.

@Jamiet: that plane was shot down by a Russian jet, not a ground-to-air system.

don't know why, it was destroyed by an air to air missile.

@ Chaqa: Do you have an actual news source rather than some guy on Twitter? The Buk / Gadfly / Grizzly is one heavy-duty piece of kit. I'm surprised the Russians would arm the seperatists with something as serious as that. The BBC reports said the seperatists only had man-portable units.

NY Post (yes I know this is suspect) says that interfax stated that Russian authorities shot it down but unconfirmed.

If a civilian airliner was actually shot down by regular Russian forces that would be a serious escalation of the situation.

I still can't believe civilian aircraft are flying over a zone where SAM's are known to be in use.

Russia has said nothing as of yet,

First things first, there's no evidence that Malaysia Airlines has been at fault for either of these crashes. They're still going to take a massive hit for sure in the market, but I haven't seen a case that could incriminate them, including the ocean crash.

Eyewitnesses have apparently seen burning wreckage and bodies scattered on the ground, but if they find a line of wreckage on the ground (evidence that the plane split up in the air), that would basically confirm that it was shot by a large missile.

I agree that there's no reason to fly over a war zone, but the apparent flight path wasn't over the Ukraine/Russian border where the fighting is taking place. They really weren't in a huge danger zone.

If this was a pro-Russian or Russian strike, the EU and US HAVE to do something more targeted...nothing rash and no need to engage militarily, but the West has to unify again.

@Jamiet: I'll try to find something more official, but I'm inclined to believe the reports given Russia's history.

a plane that is blown up in the air doesn't cause a line of wreckage, it goes everywhere...