shepard smith on fox and a vision networks across the station and on the fox news channel around the world. this is breaking news from the fox news channel. the word today is a malaysian airlines jet has crashed in eastern ukraine, and there are indications that might have been shot down. malaysia airlines reports the flight was headed from amsterdam with 295 people on board. a boeing 777. ukrainian officials as on the facebook page their plan was

flying at 32,000 feet, so at cruising altitude in essence over a conflict zone. if you wish, over a war zone. the missile from the russian launcher hit the jet, associated press journalists reported a similar launcher near the eastern ukrainian town earlier today. ukraine president now says armed forces in ukraine did not take any action against airborne target. leisure airline says on the twitter feed it has "lost contact with malaysian airlines flight 17 from amsterdam." that is the word from malaysian airliners. we are told airline is preparing a statement now. the white house says president obama has been briefed on the situation and spoke by phone today with russian president putin before any of this happened to discuss new sanctions announced yesterday. moscow requested that phone call

allegedly. they have tweeted "i'm shocked by reports a plane crashed they cal, we are launching immediate investigation." here is what we believe in the early going has happened. with every indication seems to be is that separatist working in the east of ukraine that were pro-russians fired off some sort of missile surface-to-air missile. there are indications that group they were trying to hit another plane. we have recently learned this. and now it appears instead they hit a passenger jet, a boeing 777 with 295 people on board. and we've just gotten word from journalists on the ground there, and i quote "bodies are scattered for miles around the smoking debris seen." so what happened, who is responsible, and what degree

this is escalate an already very difficult situation? let's turn to jennifer griffin in washington. the first reports it may have been shot down seemed absolutely impossible until you get the background of what happened in recent days. >> reporter: shep ard, remember this is the third plane to go down in this region since monday. on monday, you krienian officials say it was a russian missile fired at an antonov-26, ukrainian cargo plane that went down in this same area. just hours ago a fighter jet, sukhoi 25 was shot down by surface-to-air missile. the you anian pilot of that plane ejected safely. moments later we learned the malaysian plane had crashed in the same area. it has gone down in the village

of torez. that is in donetsk. that is where these russian-supported separatists have been fighting against the ukraine government for the last four months. pentagon officials in the last few days have told us that there was an increase of russian soldiers along the border with ukraine in that area, about 10 to 12,000 russian troops had been deployed in recent days to that border region. that had raised concerns at the pentagon. as had reports that sophisticated russian surface-to-air missile systems had been flowing across from russia into this area of donetsk. reporters on the ground had seen a surface-to-air missile system known as a buchanon. buk. this is a sophisticated medium-range missile that can file up to 72,000 feet into the air. the malaysian plane that crashed and went down within the recent

hours it, was flying at 33,000 feet, well within the range of this buk missile system. the russian rebel separatists in donetsk had been bragging in recent days, showing off they had this new missile system known as the buk. in fact on their social media page just moments ago we understand they claim to have shot again at a ukrainian transport plane at the about the same time this malaysian commercial jet disappeared. so all indications right now look as though it may have been a russian missile provided to the separatist its that may have brought down the malaysian flight within recent hours. >> jennifer, we're monitoring our sister network sky news in the united kingdom and they have word from the separatists on the ground, these rebels who are in support moves could you, and against ukraine and, what once part of ukraine to become part of russia, these people who shot

down as you just reported, airliners in the past, are now saying that they were attempting to shoot down a ukrainian military aircraft, and instead a passenger jet came crashing to the ground. >> reporter: what is so worrisome right now, again pentagon officials have been watching this area very closely. and they have noted this sophisticated buk missile system was brought across the border from russia and provided to the separatist it is. the range of the buk missiles, they can fly up to 72,000 feet. what the separatists have been talking about in recent days, now according to this posting on social media, they were targeting ukrainian military cargo planes, like the one that they brought down on monday and it what seems at this point in

team #r time because of circumstantial evidence they may have inadvertently targeted malaysia flight 17. >> jennifer are, we expecting anything from the pentagon this afternoon? >> we've been speaking with pentagon officials since the first news reports of plane going down occurred. they are watching this very closely. they have signals intelligence. they have satellites trained on this area. they are not speaking as of now, they're not confirming any of the details at this point in time. we do understand that president obama has been, is being kept informed of the developments. he spoke to russian president vladmir putin in the last 24 hours after the, after he announced yesterday, just before 6:00 p.m. eastern that he was going to level more sanctions on russia for its involvement in ukraine, for its support of the russian separatist it is. those were, that was a big announcement last night that angered the russian president

greatly because it was targeting the oil industry, the energy sector of russia and was going to have dramatic impact on russia's economy. so again, for the white house and for the president to take that kind of move against russia over increasing concerns that russia was deploying more troops to the border of ukraine as well as supplying more sophisticated weapons to the russian separate i have it is in donetsk, it is clear that the white house and the pentagon have been very concerned about these developments and watching. again, this is the third plane to be brought down in this area by russian-supported separatists in the last four days, sheppard. >> jennifer griffin at washington newsroom on capitol hill. jennifer, thank you very much. i want to show you the flight path. this is kuala lumpur. this is amsterdam, schipol airport up in amsterdam. you're flying across clearly europe. this is where you're headed,

kuala lumpur, right? pilots, captains of jets have the option to change their flight path for any reason they want. they are the captain of the ship. the decisions are theirs. the decisions are not made by air traffic control or anyone else much the captain makes the decision. so here's what happened. on the ground there in the east of ukraine and in the west of russia, there is a war going on because people on the ukraine side of the border have been shooting aircraft from the sky at altitude, meaning at 20, 30, thousand feet, sheeting them out of the sky and they're crashing. what happened today the captain got aboard, well the map has changed. the captain got aboard his jet with a flight plan that took him over the war zone where just yesterday a jet was shot from the sky and decided, i'll fly that way. the pilot decided he would fly over this war zone where just

yesterday a plane just got shot out of the sky. and today it would appear he got shot out of the sky. john bussey with us, from "the wall street journal." since the moment i was in the gym, when this happened. and from the moment i heard it, a passenger jet just flew over what? >> yes. right. >> unimaginable that a captain of a jet would do this. not that this is his fault, not to pass blame, but what are you thinking? >> this is a dicey zone that has been getting worse very quickly. might have been the airliner or the air traffic controllers thought it was still safe but over the last four days there was a lot of indications as jennifer griffin has pointed out, a lot of indication it is wasn't safe. cargo jet getting shot down by a missile on monday. the ukrainians saying one of their fighter jets shot down yesterday by a russian plane and now this. and shep, there is a long history of commercial jets flying into or over dicey areas

and getting into trouble. in african conflicts where there have been commercial jets shot down. remember flight oo 7 in the 1980s, korean jetliner flew over russia, it was sensitive and flown off course and shot down by the russians. the united states in 1988 when iranian passenger jet flew out into the persian gulf, uss vincennes thinking a fighter plane on the attack shot down a commercial jet as well. >> we're monitoring our sister network sky news in the united kingdom. they have resources in the region. this is the smoke coming from the ground from the plane crash. ukrainian interior ministry advises 295 people are dead. that is confirmed from the ukrainian interior minister. i want to give you a little background as we continue to watch these pictures, please, what happened in that region. june the 6th, rebels say

they shot down ukrainian an-30 surveillance plane. killed 3 people. use ad shoulder-fired missile to shoot down a large ukrainian military transport jet and killed all 49 people on board. on jewel 14th, pro-russian militants in eastern ukraine claimed responsibility for shooting down a ukrainian military transport plane. july 16th, ukranian fighter jets shot down in ukranian airspace. ukraine blamed the russian military. today, july 17th, accidentally it would now appear, best reporting we have, the same separatists claimed they were trying to shoot down a ukrainian military jet and instead killed 25 people in a passenger jet flying over over e airspace. >> this tragedy, the discussion turns into two different directions. one is air traffic control around the world. how does this happen a commercial jet flies over a very, very dangerous area where planes are getting shot down out of the sky. the second area this moves into, the discussion fairly quickly,

what was vladmir putin's role in this? this missile system, if it was a missile, if the plane was shot down by the buk missile system, was given to ukraine by russia, does that somehow -- putin from responsibility for this or does it engage him directly in responsibility for this? and that international concern over the conflict in ukraine really escalates. way beyond all the incremental sanctioning that has been going on, the europeans are forced to step forward with much harsher measures. >> i want to shop pictures just coming in. i have it over here. these are pictures sent in. we've got them overtwitter, we confirmed they're real. this is a piece of the plane in the country side, east of ukraine, not far from the border. this is only one i have up at the moment. from reporters on the ground. there are pictures we can not show you because remains of those on the plane are scattered

all over the place. i would assume we'll hear from the pentagon. we'll hear from the president within a short period of time. he was leaving to go to an event. this event happened as marine one my understanding was taking off from the white house. the president is in transport. i suspect we'll hear from him soon. i wonder if and when we hear from vladmir putin. i figure he wants to get ahead of the message. >> the difference between 24 and flight 370 couldn't be more stark. there was no information on flight three sift and it dribbled in over days. this was the malaysian jet lost over the indian ocean of the there will be a wealth of information surrounding what happened here. everything from eyewitnesses on the ground to u.s. military surveillance which has been ongoing in the region and significantly stepped up since the conflict began. there will be a lot of data points to consider. >> i would be willing to venture, not speculation but

educated guess, when this jet went down our cameras were on it because our surveillance on this region has been constant when this all began. more pictures coming in. our friends at sky news in the united kingdom are getting information who may have been on the plane. what appears here to me, to be a piece of the fuselage, and more pictures that are coming in from the jet itself, again these are twitter, these are twitpics that we've gotten we confirmed are in fact from the region and our friend at sky news now is speaking who is on this jet. let's listen. >> to conserve fuel and most direct routes destinations on weather. i remember flying to the middle east not so long ago, honest we were flying very close to syrian and iraqi airspace and mildly intrigued the pilot should choose such a course. i suppose the calculation a civilian aircraft of high altitude was unlikely involved in anything occurring further

down below. >> i've just gotten this in from the associated press. the ukraine pro-russian rebels as we were mentioning a moment ago saying they did not shoot down the airliner. they instead are blaming ukrainian armed forces. you can not believe anything that is being said right now because the first information from these rebels was, hey, we were trying to shoot down a ukrainian military vehicle, military aircraft. that is what they said first. the separatists are now saying, no, we didn't shoot anything. ukrainian armed forces did this. that does not stand to reason. that is not to say that is impossible but i can tell you the intelligence is on the ground and in the air and whatever did happen we won't have to rely on anybody from malaysian airlines thankfully to know. because we'll know because our people are there and our satellites are there and our intelligence is on the ground. this matter who was on board, they're traveling from amsterdam

to kuala lumpur, it wait a minute full but with 295 people on board it is close to full. back to sky news. >> i would have thought so. if you look at any historical book on warfare, who was shot down by whom at what time, difficult to put down after number of years. after hours or days this would be difficult. a aircraft at altitude can travel long way when damaged. not clear because it came down in particular region it was hit in that region. any weapon that could have damaged it would have a very long-range and could be far away. at present there is little idea concerning what occurred. >> by the sounds of this show -- though, this seems to have been a pretty catastrophic strike if that is the case as this plane was heading towards russian airspace. people are expected to turn up within moments and, it vanished from the skies and appears to have dropped some 50-k short of

the russian border. sound like a pretty catastrophic strike that had an immediate impact and this was no case of a plane flying on for a long way? >> no, possibly not. the kind of weapons that the could reach an aircraft at altitude, the sa-11 that ukrainian government ministry suggested it might have been, s-300, similar weapon have quite large warheads designed to do a lot of damage. a civil aircraft is not designed to take such punishment could have flown in varying states of damage before finally falling apart sop distance after the impact. >> edward hunt. >> shepard smith back in new york now. we can't know yet exactly what happened to the yet. we ownly know what authorities are saying and what the flight path indicates. the early indication this plane was shot out of the sky. is that confirmed? the answer is no. the intelligence agencies no doubt know exactly what happened

by now because they have tracked it. but we don't yet know. we're awaiting specifics exactly what happened. i can tell you flightaware, the flight trafficking website that tracks all jets in the air at all times, has updated this flight path and it now indicates that the jet actually came down much closer to the russian border than previously stated. there are a number of reasons this could have happened and the most likely according to those who are watching this is that whenever it was struck or whatever happened, there was a glide path that happened after the strike that made it land many miles closer to the russian border than it would have been. this is the path from the website. so they would have lost contact at one specific location, and then it would have kept forward progress for a while. you figure it is flying close to 500 miles an hour, ground speed, and at 33,000 to 34,000 feet it could glide quite a while.

it is not as if any of this is in question. it is just where the plane stopped functioning properly and where it landed are two different locations. john bussey, from "the wall street journal," managing editor there is with us. there's a lot yet to learn. >> a lot of ifs, a lot of ifs. the presumption it is still shot down. we still don't even know that for sure. it looks like it but there are a lot of ifs. there will be a lot of information coming from this plane. there will be satellite tracking. there will be ground radar tracking. there will be a black box this time for this malaysian jet. shep, look, ukraine itself shot down, by mistake, shot down a commercial jet once in 2001 during military exercises. this happens. whether or not plane was shot down and whether by separatist it is, was it by some ukrainian force, we still don't have those firm data points yet. >> we talked about this buk or buk missile surface-to-air

missile. we've explained that associated press reporters saw one of these launchers at the border in recent days. i believe it was yesterday but i know it was within recent days. so the separate rate of it is from the, russian separatist its do have these missile launchers. that said, so does ukraine bought. associated press it has four missile system file photos including one on flatbed truck maneuvered in ukraine by ukrainian forces. that happened to be on july 4th. as this jet dose gown, it is interesting and i would assume at this moment nothing but coincidental that 18 years ago today, twa flight 800 crashed off the coast of long island, new york and killed everyone on board. we know the conspiracy theoryies live to this day surrounding that. >> one of them was a missile fired at it brought it down. in fact investigators found it

was a malfunction inside of a fuel tank that ignited the fuel tank and the plane blew up. so it could very quickly escalate into the zone of skepticism. the reason are looking at buk missile system, the presumption is nothing else could get that high. >> right. >> cruising altitude. a buk missile system can fire a missile above 70,000 feet. theoretically it would be weapon of choice for a plane flying that high, if this was ultimately shot out of the sky. as you point out, both side have the system. >> the kremlin has, i will go to jennifer griffin for more on the system in just a moment but i want to give you this. the kremlin in moscow put out a new statement claiming that, i spoke earlier of the phone call between the russian president vladmir putin and our president obama obama, call that happened earlier today today, sanctions and some cases european leaders placed on russia for its activity in the region, economic

sanctions, energy sanctions, all kinds of stuff. the kremlin has a new version on that phone call. i will let you know what it is. the kremlin put out a statement claiming in their phone call today about new sanctions, president putin told president obama that malaysian airplane crashed on ukraine can territory. the kremlin claims that putin mentioned the crash, during the phone call from obama, russians were getting new information from air traffic controllers about the air crash. it is important to caution here white house spokesman josh earnest told our white house correspondent ed henry that he is still seeking clarification on the exact timing of the obama-putin call. so the kremlin says the president learned about this while on the phone with putin. the white house says, we're not sure yet. so this the putin version of call that he told obama about a crash in general. they're pushing the white house for more information. i'm sure at this moment it doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things. what matters who was on this plane, who did this, how will they be punished and what does

it mean to the now escalating crisis on the ukraine border? the number of crises in the world right now is astonishing and, i listened to bob schieffer on cbs last night he felt like we're in a very, very dire moment around the world. not only what is happening now in ukraine but what is happening in israel and in palestinian territories. not to mention unrest across the middle east. secretary of state who bob schieffer put it hopping from country to country putting out fires and really isn't able to get very much accomplished along the way because the problems are so big, so widespread. when you look at the world as a whole it looks sometimes like everything is falling apart. >> this is one of those times where there's a lot going on overseas. our correspondents did risely a piece on a this, probably not since the 1970s have you had this much unrest in so many parts of the world. what happens in ukraine now? does this inflame -- let's

assume for the moment this was somehow shot out of the sky. does it inflame matters? if it was done by the russian separatist its does it focus international ire on vladmir putin for supplying them with the missiles? does that force a, a pressure on russia to back away from this conflict? and does it actually, damp down the conflict there? or does it go the other direction, does it inflame it? russia feels, there is a lot of nationalism in russia. they're very much in support of what putin is doing in ukraine and has done in crimea, does it inflame it even further? >> it is important to remember exactly how this went down. this began with vladmir putin invading another country and taking its territory by force. it was quiet. it was under the radar, it was done with social media. you never really saw pictures. i was there in crimea in the days after, in the days before

and after this happened. you couldn't even see it on the streets. it was happening behind gates and suddenly crimea no longer belonged to ukraine! and now the russians are trying to do the same thing in the east of ukraine. and those who are in support of it have been ramped up by what is, you can not imagine the level of vitriol that is being broadcast on russian state television. the propaganda is of cold war-age style but new world spread. in other words, it is across all mediums. it is on social media. it is all over the internet. it is in the newspapers. it is on television and on radio and all state controlled. in the east of ukraine they no longer get ukrainian television and you krienian media. they get the kremlin. they ramp up force people are screaming in the streets about facism and how they have to be taken away from the which is.

they are all riled up to they are shooting jets from the sky. we know they did it yesterday. they admit they did it. it would appear in early reporting, first they said we tried to shoot a ukrainian military jet out of the sky. instead down came this 777. what are they using with all of this as your background? these buk or buk missile systems. let's get to jennifer griffin at the pentagon. these are from russia. moscow sent them to the separatists, right? >> reporter: it is important, shepard as you and john were speaking about before, both sides have these buk missiles as far as we know. ukrainian forces in still photos on july 4th, their forces traveling with buk missile systems. ukraine is close to russia and natural they would have bought them from there. in recent days we heard reports that russia provided to the separatists in the donetsk

region the buk missiles and separatists were bragging about having these buk missiles. here is how the missile system works. it can fire up to 72,000 feet. it is a surface-to-air missile, medium-range missile, designed to bring down planes, warplanes as well as cruise missiles. the way it works according to military sources it has two radar systems, and it has a semiautonomous homing device which means that if somebody points that missile at a target, if there is a nearby target that is larger, the missile will divert off course and take on that larger target. so you could see in a situation like this where there are multiple planes in the sky that the separatist its, if in fact they fired the buk missile they could have thought they were targeting a cargo jet, a military plane, ukrainian military plane as they did on monday when they brought down the antonov-26. that missile could have honed on

to a commercial jet like the mh17 passing by. that is how this missile system works. it is very similar to our patriot missile system which you heard deployed multiple times over the years to various war zones. this sa-17 or sa-11 buk missile system. that is how it works. it deploys with ground forces and it is used to shoot cruise missiles and planes out of the sky, shepard. >> jennifer griffin at the pentagon. we'll get back to jennifer in just a moment. i should let you know we're waiting for the latest from the white house. ed henry informs us that we, that we are expected to hear from them details of exactly what the call was to president obama and who knew what when. the malaysian defense minister says he is on the way to the ops room with the prime minister. he says the transport minister is on his way back from beijing. that is what is happening in malaysia with this malaysian airlines jet which has gone down.

it was hard to imagine malaysian would survive to this day after the disappearance of the previous malaysian airlines flight, what happens to malaysian airlines now is anyone's guess but they were in horrible financial trouble. now to find out who was on that plane, what happened to it, how it came from the sky and who is responsible. who is responsible. it is 1 o'clock and 10 o'clock a.m. on the west coast and in ukraine a malaysian airline from amsterdam to kuala lumpur was lost from radar and suddenly in a field in the east of ukraine not far from the russian border. those who support russia taking over. the rebel fighting many weeks and months, attempted to shoot down