Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashes in east Ukraine

A passenger jet has crashed in eastern Ukraine in an area where separatist rebels have been engaging Ukrainian military forces in recent weeks.

Ukrainian official Anton Gerashchenko said 280 passengers and 15 crew were on board.

Dozens of bodies were scattered around the smouldering wreckage of the plane, near the village of Grabovo, about 25 miles from the Russian border, according to reporters at the scene.

Local emergency workers said at least 100 bodies had been found so far, and wreckage was scattered across an area nine miles in diameter.

“I was working in the field on my tractor when I heard the sound of a plane and then a bang and shots. Then I saw the plane hit the ground and break in two. There was thick black smoke,” a witness, who gave his name only as Vladimir, told Reuters.

Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, wrote on his Facebook page that the plane had crashed in Ukrainian territory after being hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher. Associated Press said one of its journalists had seen a similar launcher near the town of Snizhne earlier on Thursday.

Leaders of the self-declared Donetsk people’s republic denied any involvement, according the Interfax news agency. A member of the republic’s security council said the rebels only have weapons able to shoot down a plane at 3,000 metres and blamed Ukrainian military forces for the attack.

In a statement posted on his website, Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko said: “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.”

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