he wants whoever is responsible to be brought to justice, the perpetrators handed over. >> we were talking about the families for 370. and now here we are again. >> absolutely. all over the world. >> all over the world. all right. thank you very much, guys. it is the top of the hour. and i'm don lemon. this is "cnn tonight." thank you so much for joining us. 11 p.m. in the east. and we're back live now with more on our breaking news on two fronts. malaysia flight 17 shot out of the sky over ukraine. and israel putting boots on the ground in gaza. all day we have been telling you about this devastating scene in ukraine. but it's important to remember here that this is more than just a crash. this is a tragedy for 298 people from all over the world, from the netherlands to malaysia. 15 crew members, 283 passengers, including three infants. so here is what we know right now. the united states concludes that the plane was shot down but hasn't pinpointed who is responsible. the white house does not believe

the government of ukraine has air defenses in the region where the plane went down. ukraine says pro-russian separatists are behind the crash, while vladimir putin says ukraine's military campaign against the separatists is to blame for this. we're going to cover all angles of the story for you. and meanwhile, in israel, how long will the ground operation last? and is the showdown with hamas spinning out of control? we're going to take you there live as well. so let's get right to the very latest on flight 17. back with me now is our chief national correspondent jim sciutto. jim, thanks for joining us again. what do u.s. officials belief happened here and who do they believe is responsible? >> well, they'll give an answer to the first question, not to the second question. they believe the plane was taken down by a surface-to-air missile for two reasons. one, u.s. assets in the region detected a missile system locking on the radar of a missile system locking on to this jet before it disappeared. and two, detected the heat signature of the missile going from the ground up to the air

and striking this aircraft. the step that u.s. officials will not take is who shot this plane down. and indeed, where it came from. was it the russian side of the border or the ukrainian side of the border. that is a step that ukrainian officials are willing to take. and they present a fair amount of evidence to indicate that one of the most convincing, a recorded conversation between what they say is a pro-russian militant in the eastern ukraine speaking to a russian military or intelligence official talking about shooting down this plane. i believe we have the audio here. i think it's worth our viewers hearing that audio again of this recorded phone conversation. >> okay. let's listen.

>> now, the scenario this paints, don, is an alarming one. and that is that ukrainian pro-russian militants in ukraine

accidentally shot down a passenger's plane. they thought they were targeting a ukrainian military transport, an antonov 26, as that call referred to which is the kind of plane they shot down earlier this week in fact on monday. and in fact this time took down by accident it appears a malaysian passenger jet. again, this is based purely on information coming from the ukrainian side. u.s. officials have not corroborated it. but it also gels with other information the ukrainian officials have noted. and that is that one of the pro-russian militant leaders tweeted proudly at the time that this plane was first shot down that his forces had taken down a ukrainian military transport. that tweet was later deleted as it turned out to be a passenger jet. this is the narrative that ukrainian officials are building right now, the idea that pro-russian militants took this jet down by accident. that tweet you're seeing up there on the air is another point the ukrainian officials have drawn my attention to. and that is this.

on june 29th, pro-russian militants overtook a ukrainian base in eastern ukraine and captured that missile launcher that you're seeing right there. it's a russian-made missile launcher that is called a buk, b-u-k. they captured it. that is the kind of launch they're would have a range, an altitude range to hit a plane at cruising altitude of 33,000 feet. and that fits, again, with this narrative here, that this is what happened. militants targeting this passenger jet thinking it was a ukrainian military jet and taking it down. u.s. officials have not confirmed that. in fact, don, they have told us tonight that the president is not going to comment any more on this crashed until they have more definitive information. >> and we saw the president tonight. we didn't see the president. we saw his plane, air force one and also marine one and him head back to the white house from new york. jim sciutto, thank you very much in washington for us this evening. what kind of weapons system would it take to shoot a

commercial airliner out of the sky? cnn's tom foreman has that for you. >> reporter: to figure out, don, what sort of system was used for this, you have to think about where the plane was at the time. they had been making this flight over ukraine. it was at about 32, 33,000 feet at the moment that it seemed to have failed and go to ground, about 30 miles from the russian border. so what could reach it up here? not a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile of any sort. you're going to need something much more robust, something like this. this is the buk anti-missile system. it's operated by four people. it has four ready to launch missiles. it can move very quickly. it can fire very quickly. and then it can move on. and these missiles have a tremendous amount of power. let's bring one down here and talk about what it's capable of doing. a buk missile, one of the missiles fired off a unit like this is about 16 feet long. so we have made it a little smaller here just to get it into the picture. it weighs about 1500 pounds.

it has a warhead of 154 pounds of high explosives. it doesn't actually have to hit the target. it just has to get close to it. but with electronic guidance from the ground, it can get very, very close before it blows up. and look at that last number there. top speed 2684 miles an hour. traveling more than three times the speed of sound. by comparison, a plane like this is only going 500, 600 miles an hour. what that means is if a missile like this is fired at that plane, it can cover 30 miles to the plane in about 40 seconds. and in all likelihood, nobody on board, including the crew, would even see it coming. don? >> all right, tom foreman, thank you very much for that. cnn's richard quest back with me now. also joining us is "new york times" matthew l. wald. to hit a 777, a missile like that, a 77 doesn't stand a chance? >> not at all. >> at 33,000 feet.

>> it's moving relatively slow to the missile. it has a certain limited maneuverability. this is an aircraft that is just moving in a straight line. i mean, forget what movies you may have seen about how you could take evasive action. they wouldn't have even seen this coming. by the time they say mai have seen a contrail coming up, it would have been way too late. >> matthew, i posed a similar question to richard earlier. but speaking to fareed zakaria, they're saying this is one of the places on earth that has had the most unrest in recent history. i'm wondering what it's like getting into that scene from an international community, and if that's going to pose a problem? >> you have to have the cooperation of all sides. i should add that what we learned at the lockerbie bombing, that was bombed over scotland by moammar gadhafi, if you hit a plane at high altitude, it's pressurized. it's got a pressure difference

in the range of four or five pounds per square inch, six pounds per square inch. you put a hole in that, and the airplane breaks up. you don't fly it down with a hole in it. so yes, it has no chance. it's a school bus. it's not a maneuverable thing. you need -- you need to get on the ground. you need to -- they used to call it kicking the tin. now it's not even aluminum. but you need to get in and see it. and you don't that in a war zone without the cooperation of all parties. >> how likely, though, i hate to keep harping on this, how likely is it that we're going to have a transparent investigation here, matthew? >> we have conflicts in international investigations when all the parties are at peace. in this one, each of the two main parties who are contesting for control of the geography have their own outcome that they desperately want to see. so i'm really not an expert on the politics. but i guess it's going to be pretty tough. >> you agree? >> oh, this is -- to get in there, to get an independent

investigation when both parties want a partisan result, one side or the other is going to be very difficult. matthew hits it spot on. even on those incidents where you have friendly countricountru still end up with a airplane not wanting to blame its airline or wanting to blame the other side. this is going to be very, very tricky. >> we were asking the questions in the beginning of the 370, who was going to lead the investigation. >> start with what the treaty says, state of occurrence. that's a problem because of the separatists versus the ukrainians, and work your way down from there. >> richard quest, matthew l. wald, thanks to both you have. when we come back, we're going to dig deeper into all the unanswered questions about flight 17. kid: hey dad, who was that man?

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welcome back. the news that a malaysia airlines jet was shot out of the sky today was shocking. how could it happen and what will it mean in the region and the world? joining me now, cnn military analyst major general spider marks, and also national security analyst fran townsend. matthew rojansky is the director of the kenan institute at the wilson center. matthew, to you first there has been an open flow of military weapons and personnel across the border for months now. is russia responsible directly or indirectly for this attack? >> so this is a challenge of positioning and of context at

this point. the russian position, putin's position, the kremlin's position all along has been there is a war going on in ukraine. it's a war that was in their view started by an illegal fascist in their words, coup in kiev. that is the protest, the pro european, pro western protest, and it's sort of been the natural outbreak of conflict. the western position is, a, the russians may in fact be calling a lot of the shots directly. there may be russian citizens, and in fact russian special forces physically involved on the ground, and certainly the russians are supplying weapons. what is critical to understand about this latest tragedy is that there is still a fair amount of ambiguity about the system that was actually used. if in fact it was captured on ukrainian territory, then it's not clear that you can really connect the dots here between something russia is doing and this result. and i think that will give mr. putin plenty of room to push the west back and say look, wait a second. we have been calling for a

negotiated diplomatic solution here. it hasn't worked as much because the ukrainians want to keep fighting, want to keep mounting what they call a counter terrorist operation because of anything we're doing. let's slow down here, let's all work together. and frankly, if they maintain that position, i think it would be smart of the united states and the west to give them that exit ramp as the administration has called it and try to at least work with them to get a ceasefire in place and to get some kind of credible international investigation. >> fran, i'm going to get your take. the same question to you. >> yeah, look. i do think matthew is quite right about their being a lot of ambiguity here. we cautioned our viewers over and over. what we need more than anything right now are facts before we draw sort of what are the consequences ought to be. but there is good evidence over now a substantial period of time of russian influence and involvement for sure with these russian separatists in the

ukraine. and russia has played a spoiler's role, right? they have an interest in destabilizing ukraine, in supporting the russian separatists. the question really on this tragedy is were they responsible for supplying the weapons that were used. certainly they have supplied other weapons. certainly they provided advice and training. and so, you know, there is a good likelihood when we have defects that russia may bear responsibility. but we haven't confirmed that yet. >> general? >> don, you're expecting a lot of me, man. the question was about six minutes ago. >> would you like me to reread the question to you? >> no. >> are they directly or indirectly responsible? >> don, i'm with you 100%. both fran and matt are absolutely spot on. the russians annexed crimea after the maidan incident. the world just accepted that as a fait accompli. and now it's part of russia

again. so that inspired and allowed additional anger and frustration. we have an ungoverned space in eastern ukraine, and these kinds of tragedies take place, and we'll figure out clearly as we have discussed and as fran has just laid out what took place as a result of some really good intelligence that is going to take place both technical and human intelligence and we'll piece all that together. and clearly, tomorrow morning the president will get on his desk a president daily brief that is going to say this is what we estimate occurred. and then we'll go about the business of really trying to do some good intelligence forensics to piece it all together. >> so i'll ask you the question directly first, then, general. what i want to know is the relationship between the president, president obama and vladimir putin, it's already strained. so -- >> sure. >> with this event, are we -- are we possibly going to see a cold war scenario? >> well, that's a stretch.

i mean, clearly, i would say it's chilly right now. the cold war was an immense engagement, gazillions of collars. mutually assured destruction. we're not there. but what we have is -- i think fran said earlier this evening, probably 16 hours ago, we've been sitting in these chairs. but fran indicated that putin knows exactly with great clarity what took place. we probably know as much as he does, because we can read their telemetry data just like they can read their telemetry data. and all that is taking place right now. the president and putin have a strained -- it's probably cordial when they're in proximity. this is going to be very, very difficult for our administration to state with emphasis what we think the next steps are going to be. but we have to be able to paint a picture that we can all understand before we take those next steps.

>> matthew, i want to ask you in our short time left here, is this a problem of putin or does it go beyond that? is he the problem or is it far beyond that? >> i actually think it's a far broader problem both in terms of russia. you have to remember an overwhelming numbers of russian news are supportive of putin, certainly because of his annexation of crimea, but also because of his characterization that i described earlier as this about protecting the russian minority in ukraine in what he believes is a fascist, illegal coup. a great number of russians support this. this is about a breakdown of a security order for half a century or more has maintained prosperity and enabled prosperity in europe. i think what might be changing as a result of this particular incident wherever you lay the blame, remember the huge number of casualties here which are western european citizens, netherlands and germany and the

uk. these are companies that have not felt the way that poland has, the way that ukraine has closely involved in this until now. and that may fundamentally change the calculus about sanctions, about involvement and about seeing this conflict as a european war and not some problem far off in the east. >> i've learned the most from having you three on in this conversation tonight. so thank you. thank you all for being here tonight. up next, the reporter who was an eyewitness to this devastating scene tonight. i'm m-a-r-y and i have copd. i'm j-e-f-f and i have copd. i'm l-i-s-a and i have copd, but i don't want my breathing problems to get in the way of hosting my book club. that's why i asked my doctor about b-r-e-o. once-daily breo ellipta helps increase airflow from the lungs for a full 24 hours. and breo helps reduce symptom flare-ups that last several days

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the fastest elevator. the fastest speed dial. the fastest office plant. so why wouldn't i choose the fastest wifi? i would. switch to comcast business internet and get the fastest wifi included. comcast business. built for business. welcome back. ukrainian officials blame pro-russian separatists for the crash of flight 17. cnn's deborah feyerick looks at who they are and the advances they have made with russia's backing. >> reporter: malaysia airlines flight 17 shot down near the town of torez, a rebel-held stronghold in the donetsk region of eastern ukraine. analysts say fighting has intensified in recent weeks between rebels and ukrainian military forces with cities

destroyed and planes targeted. >> there have been two ukrainian military cargo planes that were carrying ukrainian forces to eastern ukraine. they've been shot down. even today there was a ukrainian fighter jet that was shot down. it is, again, according to the ukrainian authority, it was shot down by a russian aircraft. that would be the first evidence of air-to-air combat. >> reporter: possibly thinking it was another ukrainian plane shot down, an ominous message appeared on twitter. we warn you'd to stay out of our skies, posted by someone claiming to be russian-backed rebel commander igor strelkov. that post ruiz removed not long after the aircraft was identified as a passenger plane. >> over the last couple of days this has escalated, which culminated in yesterday president obama announcing a series of very tough sanctions to penalize russia for its support of the separatists. >> reporter: russian president vladimir putin has denied

providing help to these separatists. but russian finance year alexander borodi in charge of rebels and he says hundreds of russian fighters. >> pro-russian separatists were backed by russia and began to take over strategic administrative buildings. again, airplanes, some of the military bases. they were being aided and abetted bibi russian special forces. >> reporter: both sides have access to the type of russian-made buk missile launcher believed to have brought down malaysia flight 17. and the russians might not have even had to supply to it the rebels. some analysts believe the pro-russian rebels could have received it after storming a ukrainian military base. satellite and other means will likely be able to pinpoint where the missile took place, maybe identifying which side was behind the shootdown of malaysia flight 17.

deborah feyerick, cnn, new york. >> all right, deb, thank you very much. i want to bring in man who saw the devastation of flight 17 firsthand. his name is noah sneider. he is a journalist and a photographer, and he joins me now by telephone. noah, thank you very much. i know this was a traumatic experience for you. you doing okay? >> yeah, you know. you get used to things. i guess faster than you expect. but thank you for having me. we're still out here actually, a few colleagues and i spent the night in this sort of along the road bordering this field. we figured that they probably would close down access in the morning. and we wanted to get out here before they did. >> so what is going on at the scene now? >> people are trying to identify bodies, mark the spots where bodies have fallen. there is fire and four search

and rescue team vehicles lined up along the road. but the way it's being done is not systematic by any means. they're basically just laying white cotton ribbons to sticks and laying them in the field. the rebels are as stunned as anyone else. i think the overwhelming mood here is that this is -- this is even darker perhaps in daylight. you can see everything. >> you appear to be more matter of fact, at least your description of what is going on than earlier when we heard from you. you appeared to be devastated. i want to read something you tweeted earlier. at crash site of mh17. bodies everywhere, organs splayed out. too gruesome to produce photographs. this is an absolute disaster,

and you hagg hash tag ukraine. in the initial moments when you were witnessing what happened, take us back to that. >> sure. we heard the news while we were in donetsk, which is about an hour and a half drive from here. there were a few news flashes on the wires that a plane had been brought down, a civilian plane potentially. so we drove out here and found sort of strange scene of smoke rising over this hillside, rebels kind of waving us through checkpoints which they normally don't, don't do. and we found i think what i said last night still stands. it's a total disaster and a total tragedy. and looking at it now in daylight, i mean, you wander through these fields, and you have to pretty much look, watch every step, because if you don't, you could step on a person's organ. i mean it's like it was raining body parts.

and like i said, the folks on the ground here have very little idea how to respond to this. as it seems to me the international community. it's not something that really fits into any schema. >> you said it's like it's raining bodies. it's very descriptive what you said. you would step on someone's body part. we have heard reports of people looting the victims' bodies and taking pieces of the plane. but you're there. have you witnessed people doing that? >> i have not witnessed that at all. i'm not sure where the reports are coming from. i don't have access to the internet out here, as you can imagine. but from what i've seen, there -- what is surprising is how few people there are. this place is like nearly empty. like i said, there are these emergency service teams kind of clustered on the road.

and then these little pockets of rebels, like three guys wandering through the field. kind of looking glassy-eyed at what is left here. i don't see any sign of people looting bodies. not that these are bodies you would want to loot. i mean, pretty much anything anyone had on them has been destroyed. and if you -- you know, at some point the photographs will come out of what has happened here. if you walk up to these bodies, you are not about to stick your hands on them. >> yeah. >> people are turned inside out. so the notion that someone is going around and looting is to me pretty absurd. and the stuff about moving plane parts, i haven't seen any evidence of that in part because most of the plane burned up. there is metal from the plane, the alloys have melted and solidified into this like thin layer of silver on the ground.

so i don't know what one would even loot, frankly. >> we are looking at pictures of people that appear to be standing on the skin of the side of the plane. not sure if they're looting, but they're definitely looking at it. and the concern has been about the contamination of this crash site. is it clear who is in control? when you say emergency personnel, who are you talking about? >> they're local, local folks, local firefighters, local rescue teams. what their political allegiances are, i can't say for certain. in terms of control of the territory, it's clearly controlled by the rebels here and the so-called donetsk people's republic. but it's -- it's a pretty large territory. as i mentioned before, and securing it in terms of establishing a proper perimeter is clearly not happening. and any sort of a systemized

rescue where they're actually making a grid and mapping where the bodies are and mapping where the fragments of the aircraft are, none of that is happening. >> so were you earlier right on the scene? were you up right with the debris? >> last night? yeah. you could kind of walk up. there was a part of it that was still smoldering. an these firefighters were trying to put it out. >> so my question is there is going to be concern about the black boxes, of course. and listen, i know that you're not an aviation expert. but have you seen anyone carrying off anything like that or anything that appears to be of the sort? >> no, i haven't, to be completely honest. and most of what is there, like i said, you walk into the blast site where most of the parts of the plane are, and there is -- it's littered with human

skeletons. and, again, you can say what you want about any one party in this conflict. but i have a hard time imagining people digging through skeletons to pick up parts of the plane. >> noah sneider, american freelance journalist who has been at the site of the plane crash. thank you. we appreciate you. >> no problem. up next, we're going to turn to our other breaking news story, and that's israel's military's ground operation in gaza. and we'll be back with more, of course, on crash -- on the crash of flight 17. don't go anywhere. moderate to severe crohn's disease is tough, but i've managed. ♪ i got to be pretty good at managing my symptoms, except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. ♪ when i finally told my doctor, he said my crohn's was not under control. ♪ he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease.

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the other big breaking news story tonight, israel moves its military forces into gaza. how is the showdown going to end? joining me now is michael orrin, a senior military analyst and former israeli ambassador to the united states. ambassador, thank you for being here. israel launched what they called an incursion into gaza today. what is the goal? >> good to be with you, don. well, the immediate goal is finding and destroying hamas

tunnels that go from inside the gaza strip under the border and come out in israel. yesterday morning, 13 hamas gunmen went through those tunnels, came out, tried to attack a kibbutz, a collective farm. fortunately, they were stopped. but there are other tunnels under the border. israel has iron domes to protect itself against missiles. but right now no protection against the tunnels. >> how is an incursion different from an invasion? >> it's just large numbers of troops going over the border. i think the idea of the incursion is to indicate that it's limited in terms of its scope. israel has not declared its intention to reconquer the gaza strip, not to drive hamas out of the gaza strip. that would be a much longer, more detailed and certainly bloodier type of operation. this is limited. the tunnels begin usually under houses. and so in order to get at the

tunnels, the army has to actually go into those tunnels and search them out and destroy them. >> so ambassador, four children killed on a gaza beach yesterday. three children on a rooftop killed by air strikes today. how can the israeli forces guarantee the safety of civilians in gaza? can they do it? >> well, you're talking about a war zone. the israeli army takes unprecedented super human efforts to minimize civilian casualties, whether it's dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets telling civilians to clear out of an area that is going to become a battle zone. they send text messages, even telephone calls. they count the people leaving the building. they can see them from the air from observation panes to make sure everyone is out of the area. attend of the day, it's not an exact science. and if civilians don't leave an area of a combat zone, they will be endangered. it's very difficult from the air to distinguish between a civilian who is wearing civilian

clothes and a hamas terrorist who also wears civilian clothes. >> how do you expect hamas to respond to the ground offensive? they have said that they will continue firing missiles. >> i expect they will. and so far this hamas, this is not a particularly brave organization. it has buried itself deep under the civilian population. it comes out only reluctantly. and to gauge from previous engagements between the israeli forces and hamas, hamas will continue to try to hide out. hamas' leaders have not shown their faces now for more than ten days. for fear of being struck by israeli forces. there will be fighting. but most of the work here will be going house to house, looking for those tunnels. >> ambassador, the egyptian foreign minister said today if hamas had accepted the truce, palestinian lives could have been saved. are you willing to let egypt

mediate an attempt at another ceasefire? >> have i great respect for the egyptian foreign minister, a personal friend. it's true. if hamas had accepted the ceasefire, of course, there would be no round of fighting. hamas rejected the ceasefire and responded with 100 rockets yesterday, and then this tunnel attack. i think israel is going to be looking for a ceasefire. but a ceasefire that does not restore the status quo. under the previous arrangement, there was a ceasefire. but hamas used the ceasefire to import and build more rockets, bigger rockets, longer range rockets. and then to choose a time for firing those rockets. you know, this is a pretty divided and fractious society, don. israelis rarely agree on anything. you have close to a national consensus here that israel can't go back to the situation that existed before. and we have to have a different type of ceasefire. >> the question is, though,

really, how long can this go on. >> well, i think the army was indicating yesterday, sources within the army, not officials, saying this could go on for another week, perhaps another two weeks. much of it will depend on the success in getting at those tunnels, whether hamas will literally cry uncle and say enough and will agree to the terms of the ceasefire. as those were worked out between israel, egypt, and other concerned parties. secretary kerry is coming back to the region. he'll be working very hard there is lots of diplomatic action going around the world. palestinian president mahmoud abbas is also in various capitals. in turkey today, trying to work out an arrangement which will restore not just quiet to the area, but create a new basis for stability and in an ideal situation, would actually animate or reanimate the peace process. >> michael oren, thank you for joining us. when we come right back, more

malaysia airlines flight 17. this is hardly the first time a commercial airliner has been shot out of the sky. we're going to get into that, next. ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ hooking up the country helping business run ♪ ♪ build! we're investing big to keep our country in the lead. ♪ load! we keep moving to deliver what you need. and that means growth, lots of cargo going all around the globe. cars and parts, fuel and steel, peas and rice, hey that's nice! ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ helping this big country move ahead as one ♪

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today is just the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a lengthy investigation. the second is less than five months involving malaysia airlines. i'm joined now by mayor schiavo now an attorney for victims of transportation accidents. steven soucie, the author of "why planes crash." this is an interesting anniversary. today today's crash happened on the anniversary of twa 800. it is incredibly rare for a civilian aircraft to come down, isn't it is in it? >> oh, incredibly rare. remember, with twa 800, there was a lot of speculation about missiles going into that aircraft. after going through that aircraft time and time and time again, the ntsb and fbi, everybody agreed. and there was a terrible on this the other night on cnn about the fact that there was no missile that had entered that aircraft, yet people still believe it did.

with this we really do have a missile. with this we really do have an aircraft shot down. it's not the first one either. flight 007 actually crashed as well the same manner. >> mary, we were talking about this, you and i when we were reporting on 370 about what people thought about flight 800. we had a conversation with the gentleman who thought that, you know, he saw missiles and that this plane was actually hit by a missile. it turns out it wasn't. it was a center fuel tank, right? >> that's correct. and of course, the plane has reassembled and is preserved to this day as a teaching tool in virginia. and you can see from the wreckage, it's very apparent about that. and then also the explanation on the tapes. and once the nose cone came off, the nose of the plane, rather, why it pitched up. but, you know, in terms of shoot-downs, though, there is a pretty defined group. once you get past world war ii, there are about a dozen. and they do have some common characteristics. so terrorism and bombings, there are about 800 attacks on aviation. but actual shoot-downs, a little

more than a dozen. >> you know, mh17, mary, was on its way from amsterdam to kuala lumpur. was there anything about this route that the plane took that should have been cause for concern? it seems that the airspace above ukraine was being used by many international airline. >> right. and certainly cause for concern, but more after the fact than before. the u.s. had issued a warning in april. but the u.s. warnings, which other carriers had followed, was not exactly over this area. now this plane did detour apparently around storms. but it was in airspace where it was allowed to be, and the warnings didn't cover it. now after the accident, there is much discussion. some airlines said well, we quit going there, et cetera. and airlines can quit. they can make their own routes. they're free to do that as long as they're flying over airspace that is recognized for commercial traffic. so there will be a lot of discussion about should it have detoured as it did. but it was in a legal airspace. and now the warnings are very broad and firm. but even our warnings didn't

cover it. >> david, the international community, many other authorities want to have a part of this investigation. are they likely to be able to get involved given that this is a war zone? >> well, they're going to have to be. and it looks like they have done some work to try to get the war zone settled and stopped at least for a few days. but it's going to take much more than that. i spoke with about what their plans are and whether or not they can change the authority of the ukrainian government. right now the ko annex 13 says ukraine contains the control of what is going to go on with that investigation. and they have the option of delegating it. so far they really haven't given any indication they're going to do that. so i'm very concerned about that. >> watching earlier, you were in a very interesting conversation about whether or not when you saw the initial video. you thought that people may have been jumping to conclusions about the plane being shot down. do you still feel that way? >> no, i certainly don't now.

there is proof that it has been. radar has captured a missile launcher capturing the aircraft. and the heat signatures that would match that missile at the same time of the aircraft being shot down. so i don't feel that way now. although it is still odd to me that there is no smoke going down to that impact site. but there is some explanations for that. miles o'brien and i have talked about that, and he came up with a previous accident in which there was a shot through the aircraft. there was a brief flash, but then after that, the fuel, because there was so much fuel in the aircraft, the fuel actually extinguished the fire. because jet fuel doesn't burn unless it's the fumes off of the jet fuel. so it actually extinguishes its own fire. so that would explain that to me, at least. >> i'm going do ask both you have this. first to mary. mary, i know in these investigations, you have said you look at video. whatever it is that you can get your hands on, you look at it, if it's video. what do you see in this video as you look at it initially?

>> well, what i see is obviously we see just the fireball and the landing pattern. what is more important, i think, is the distribution top wreckage and the condition of the wreckage. you know, one of the hallmarks of a mid-air breakup, be it an explosion, a shoot-down, a bombing, you have some of these pieces of the wreckage that have seemingly escaped damage. we even had it on two of the four planes on september 11 where you would find a passport or a pocketbook or other personal effects perfectly intact. and then you would find others completely destroyed. and that's the explosion or the breakup that can blow some pieces very far away, some completely burned and destroyed. and it's the hit or miss nature of an inflight breakup from in this case an initial shoot-down at altitude. so i think the distribution of the wreckage is very telling to me. because planes just don't fall apart at 33,000 feet ordinarily. >> we'll talk more hen we come back. we'll be right back.

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welcome back. i'm with mary and david talking about the next step in this investigation of the crash of flight 17. you remember when we were talking about 370, who had exposure, whether it was boeing, whether it was malaysia airlines. if you enter a war zone and the plane is shot down, is there any exposure to anyone here? what do families do?

can they sue anyone here? >> they can. it depends on the circumstances and what was known. for example, the russian shootdown of k-007 ended up paying for some of that. they have terrorism insurance. if terrorists are being responsible, they do have that. then they have insurance depending on the facts to sort out. >> david, this is the second time malaysia airlines is dealing with families, two sets of families dealing with this unbelievable tragedy. >> that's right. it's been just devastating for these families. i'm sorry, i'm a little upset. after seeing these pictures, and how they were being treated and the bodies and people walking around in them, it's very disturbing to me. i've been on many accident sites and it's disturbing to see that going on. that's got to be difficult for the families to see that as

well. >> i agree. thank you both very much for joining us this evening. coverage of the breaking news stories, shooting down of malaysia airlines flight 17 in ukraine, and israeli invasion of gaza, continues now with michael holmes and rosemary church. holmes and rosemary church. i'm don lemon. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com ukraine, a ground incursion in gaza. we are following two breaking news stories right now. hello, i'm rosemary church. >> and i'm michael holmes. we welcome our viewers from the united states, and indeed, all around the world. it is 7:00 a.m. in ukraine. officials are blaming pro-russian separatists for shooting down a malaysian airline with 298 people onboard. video from that