Answers Demanded After Jet 'Blown Out Of Sky'

Pressure is growing for an international investigation after a plane was allegedly shot down in eastern Ukraine killing all 298 people on board.

American intelligence has indicated Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was hit by a surface-to-air missile - but who fired it remains a mystery.

The jet, which was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was travelling at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 metres) when contact was lost.

An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry told the Interfax news agency the Boeing 777 was brought down by a Buk ground-to-air missile. There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board.

An emergency worker at the scene of the crash

As well as the nine Britons, the victims included 154 Dutch, 43 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one Canadian.

Three infants are among the dead, and the nationalities of 41 passengers have yet to be verified.

Many of the passengers were on their way to an International Aids Society (IAS) conference in Melbourne, and the Society has said they may have included one of its former presidents, Joep Lange.

Flames rise from wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines jet

Plumes of thick, black smoke could be seen rising high into the air near the village of Grabovo, Donetsk, where the airliner came down.

It was said to have split in half on impact, with burning wreckage scattered across a vast area.

Britain has joined the US and other countries in calling for an international probe into the disaster. US President Barack Obama has said it should be "prompt, full, credible and unimpeded".

Flight MH17 taking off at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands

Malaysia Airlines, still reeling from the loss of flight MH370 in March, has said the route taken by flight MH17 had been declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

It has announced all its European flights will be taking alternative routes with immediate effect.

A spokesman for the airline said: "Malaysia Airlines is in the process of notifying the next of kin of the passengers and crew. Our focus now is to ... provide (them with) all possible care."

The Interfax news agency has reported that the plane's 'black box' flight recorder has already been recovered.

Officials in Kiev were quick to deny any involvement in the crash, with President Petro Poroshenko lamenting what he called an "act of terrorism".

US Vice-President Joe Biden said the jet appeared to have been deliberately "blown out of the sky", with an unnamed US official blaming Ukrainian separatists backed by Russia.

Armed Russian separatists inspect the wreckage

However, separatist leader Alexander Borodai said the aircraft was shot down by Ukrainian government forces - a claim backed by another separatist who told Reuters the rebels do not have weapons capable of shooting down a plane at such height.

Sky's Katie Stallard, in Moscow, said Igor Strelkov, the commander of the pro-Russian Donetsk People's Republic, appeared to have boasted about the incident on social media.

In one deleted message recovered by Sky News, he allegedly wrote: "We warned you not to fly over our sky."

The wreckage was scattered over a wide area

Ukraine's security service also released what it claimed was a recording of an intercepted phone call between two Russian military intelligence officers, discussing the downing of the plane.

Sky's Mark White, citing aviation sources, said the aircraft had been flying just 1,000 feet (300 metres) above a zone deemed "unsuitable for civilian aircraft".

"It raises questions about why the plane was near an area it had been advised not to fly through," he said.

A distressed woman waits for information in Kuala Lumpur

"Did it stray into that area by accident or did the pilot decide it was a risk worth taking, perhaps as a fuel saving measure?"

Data from Flightradar24 indicated the plane, which took off from Schiphol airport at 12.15pm local time, had just passed the city of Kremenchuk, around 186 miles (300km) from the Russian border, when it disappeared.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the incident was "absolutely unacceptable" and an "awful tragedy", but added: "This would not have happened if there were peace on this land ... and, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility."

The disaster is the latest in a series of reported attacks on planes in Ukrainian airspace and came a day after one of the country's Sukhoi-25 fighter jets was shot down.

The United Nations Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting on Ukraine later today.

:: Malaysia Airlines has set up an emergency line for worried relatives: 00 6 037 884 1234.

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