boeing seven seven seven has crashed in eastern ukraine all two hundred eighty passengers fifteen crew as well meaning two hundred ninety five people are presumed dead that is according to ukraine's security services that the plane was on route from kuala lumpur and was flying over the part of ukraine where kiev this military crackdown on government protesters the jet apparently disappeared from radar around sixty kilometers we believe from the russian border the first locals who arrived at the scene reported dozens of bodies the crash site is spread over an area round a kilometer wide and ukrainian authorities claim the boeing was presumably hit from a rocket launched by self defense. but later denied be of any weapon capable of bringing down it yet so high president said the ukrainian military did not target anything in the region either several major including earth flights are

fronts and live tons and have temporarily diverted all flights ukrainian airspace meanwhile local activists say they find flight recorders of the crashed plane which would go a long way to giving us a lot of information about what i curd and also some news just in right now russia's interfax news agency is quoting a source in the russian aviation industry excuse me this isn't quite breaking news we have heard it before that president putin's plane may have been the target of the attack it is claimed the president's jet crossed over warsaw at the exact same height as the doomed boeing just forty minutes after that quite incredible but the planes were said to share of course a similar form on the colors red white and blue malaysia's flying russian's flag as well.

ok plenty more information to bring you on this story before we go forward though that's just. because it's not the first time that a civil plane has been downed over ukraine thirteen years ago a similar incident happened over the black sea we've got the d'souza vote no from medina coach the country joins us once again it's it's very sad to be nice to have to go to hear about the tragedies but there are some obvious similarities which people will understand and in a moment you just take has been through two thousand. and one in there was well the president another plane crash that indeed has similarities to the to the accident to the horrible tragedy that we are at the moment discussing here indeed it happened back in october two thousand and one russian plane operated by the russian airliner was routes from tel aviv from israel to the wish to be at school when

somewhere above the area of the black sea the russian ground control center reported that it lost its lost control and it lost any contact with the plane so the digit somehow disappeared from the russian radar now really very shortly after that it was reported that the plane now went down into the sea of course every time when these incidents do happen there is a number of reasons and the investigation goes under way and in that case there were some conflicting reports coming in in particular there was one report of a pilots of one plane that was crossing the area very close to the. the site of the plane crash that said that he saw the russian plane explode before it crashed into the sea the investigators first thought about terrorist attack being the main reason behind the crash but then it turned out that the crash happened due to ukrainian misselling that brought down the plane and that happened. accidentally

during military exercises military drills that were taking place very close to that area so mistakenly ukrainian military forces shot down a russian commercial airliner over the black sea and that happened back in two thousand and one but the thing about that case that we need to also mention is that ukraine quite a while it's with knowledge that that did happen that it was there a missing child behind the plane crash and that only happened after international society acknowledged the same thing basically came up with the same conclusion of what happened back in october two thousand and one over seventy people were on board on that plane and no one survived so again this was the case happened back in two thousand and one and it does have. a bit of a similarity to what we're talking about but again still we're questioning and everyone is questioning both the investigators for what might be the reason that

tragedy that we are reporting on at the moment. that's the question isn't there. i think with the information we're hoping to get from the from the flight recorders thanks so much for agreeing bringing this up today with the information i think smiting ok. to speak to people in eastern ukraine who actually witnessed the kurdish. while they still are. we were swimming and we heard three distinct strong actually not sure it's more like explosions and then we saw the plane for its wing was falling off and then we saw a black smoke and that's all. the order came down on the four year old my brother is there at the moment there are many people and degree everywhere you found

a ticket from amsterdam from malaysia everything is scattered around it simply horrific so many bodies he couldn't even count them. r.t. spanish correspondent is in the area right now for us francisco what can you see from where you are. in the situation right now after seven hours of the crash of the aircraft is that the firemen are trying to finish with their fire that is still in some parts of. the different pieces of the aircraft and like just in one kilometer around we have seen these itself aircraft and pieces. of bodies that it's clear that it's very difficult in this situation that this could be any survival we have to imagine sea services and they said that they

didn't have the opportunity to have any one alive in this situation is right now i rise and drive it is then on its greatest public alexander but i he said and he actually said to the governor the government of ukraine and to the military forces of ukraine to do these acts as they said they said that. they couldn't do these because they don't have the captive reality to shut down an aircraft that is mean and attitude of ten thousand meters on the other hand publishing god awful ready and have. to do to the militia to shut down these aircraft and said that east is special that somehow there could be not just an accident but we would base it on terrorists attack and

they said that these issues are. in charge of these of these. these are the situation where we talked with witnesses that they said that it was around four o'clock in the afternoon and we talk all shocked. that what they said is that they don't have the capability to do such tragedies because as i said. thousand. and they don't have that they have all of the problems we want. i don't need an inch of my national airlines they said that they lost their connection with the crash. scene. here green berets base ok you're there at the scene of course it's hectic i can only imagine how

terrible this scene is but have you had the chance to see any maybe officials ukrainian officials how are they dealing with the crisis what's going on there from the authority side. right now in these moments. where he's. exceeded just. arrived governments from donetsk with the prime minister they set the. current government and they said that they are going to open an investigation to figure out what happened with the skin craft and this accident that is not a normal accident because we need to understand that in the last race they also from that ukrainian forces. in militia and. very close to. the spot we need to remember that these and it's controlled by the

militia. and we are just twenty five kilometers fire away from the border between ukraine and russia. and just remind us is there any sign of the ukrainian army in the area what you can see now or did you come across them earlier. this equation is catastrophic you don't see any sign very few you can see different parts of the aircraft you see a very very difficult image of bodies. it's not clear there is there is nothing clear about about about these. the situation that it's going on because right now we're getting dark and right now they're trying to do the firemen try to finish with the fire. and figure out what

it would be their response at what is the responsible of these of these accidents that right now we don't have any any any responsible because it's not really clear if it was. actually there and. because of. any any part of this conflict as you said the scene is simply catastrophic we were looking at pictures now to francisco thank you so much for for keeping us updated on what you're seeing there and and please continue to do so we've no we know it's getting late it is getting dark there where you are but thank you for that. you just mentioned that's going to complicate things isn't it because of course it's going to be very dark there in ukraine now just complicating the whole sort of recovery procedure and investigation let's let's hear from some more eyewitnesses now some suspect the ukrainian military could be behind the tragedy there's a point in the finger. still they had to say. it's shocking on

a passenger plane the bodies are burning what their passports most of the malaysian citizens of the never lose to complain was ripped into many pieces scattered over a radius of five hundred thousand meters by local militias say the plane was shot down with a missile fired by the ukrainian army but this information is unconfirmed that there is of course ability that it was shot down from a rocket launcher the weapons that the self-defense forces however are incapable of shooting down an aircraft now to shoot of ten thousand meters. or care that was one eye witnesses report of what occurred let's listen to another from a local resident this time who arrived at the scene around thirty minutes after the crash we do believe let's take a listen. it was terrible what i saw at first i saw smoke and fire and when the firemen started to put out the flames i saw bodies torn apart there

were children too there were bodies attached to seats here and there. it was eyewitnesses we've also managed to speak to both sides of the actual conflict taking place on the ground in the region we spoke to the deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed and yet republic now he denies allegations coming from kiev that anti government forces could be behind the disaster he also says that they lack the actual capability in order to shoot down a plane at such a high altitude. on the whole. we have no radio stations anti missile systems could not have shot it down even accidentally we were unable to spot it on radar it was flying at ten thousand meters so technically we could not have done this i would like to remind you that ukraine's government has declared the republics of jeanette's going again as a no fly zone they were claiming that russian unmanned aircraft have been violating the airspace i think the crane inside mistook the boeing her russian plane and shot

it down. we've been hearing reaction and indeed sympathy from all over the world about what's occurring and i think we can cross the peter all over who has been following the the european reaction to what occurred peter what can you tell us governments what what are they saying about what happened. well we have heard statements flooding in from across europe with messages of condolence but it's from the leaders of those governments that seem have seems of all the had their citizens caught up in the in this tragic incident that we've heard some of the the more revealing statement the french foreign minister while expressing his condolences said that he understood that there was at least four french citizens on board the flight now the german news channel r.t.l. here has been reporting that they seem to have information that as many as seventy one dutch nationals were on board now we did hear

a little earlier from the from the dutch prime minister mr rooter now he said that there was at least thirty dutch nationals on board but that was a lot is still unclear facts circumstances in passengers and from david cameron in the u.k. the prime minister there well he said the meeting of government officials was being held to try and ascertain just went on the main thing is here after they've expressed their condolences the citizens of their countries want to find out how many british french dutch any other nation were on board this plane now because this is a very popular route is the route between. between amsterdam and kuala lumpur they're both major world hubs when it comes to air travel people fly from all over the world to amsterdam to fly out to other parts of the of the world now we saw on the screen just a little earlier there a graphic that was showing a list of airlines that have already said that they're not going to be flying their

planes over the eastern part of ukraine one of those the is british airways british airways have said in fact that they're not going to fly any of their planes over ukrainian airspace at all that's with the one exception of their once a day flight into kiev from london but even that was under review at the moment the governing body that deals with air traffic. control here in europe. troll well dave advised all airlines all commercial airlines all business airlines to stop flying any flights at all over the eastern part of ukraine for the time being until we can ascertain exactly what's going on here because as i say the european leaders that have been coming out and giving their condolences to what's going on for the immediately said they don't have any of the facts to be able to tell their citizens exactly what's happened and it does seem that a lot of europeans have been caught up in this terrible disaster and i suppose that is the issue of course everybody is waiting just to find out what is in those black

boxes that we're hearing a number of them possibly have been find where we're waiting just to hear what comes out of a peter oliver thank you for the update and. well as peter mentioned global leaders have been coming out passing on their commiserations braca bomber has spoken he's called the malaysian plane crash a tragedy the u.s. president has found to do everything he can to help determine what happened and why let's get more now from cannes reporting live from the u.s. capitol. what else did president obama have to say. well he didn't say much air apparently he didn't have that much information he just said that his priority is to find out whether u.s. citizens were on board that plane and we know that there were twenty three american citizens on board the plane now and the u.s. president has not yet pointed a blame finger at anybody the state department answering questions earlier also

refrain from making premature statements about who's to blame for this tragedy but then we also we're getting different reports and tweets in the media and one of the tweets that we just saw is the pentagon says the pentagon confirmed via c.n.n. that the crash jet was hit by miss solid originated from russia then you also have the pentagon saying another statement coming from the department of defense is saying that they are aware of the reports the reports of about the crash of course but they cannot confirm any details. in most in all likelihood in the coming hours and coming days will see a vicious blame game with ukraine pointing at russia russia saying it has nothing to do with this the rebels in eastern ukraine saying they didn't do it the u.s. has so far been most supportive of kiev's accusations but it hasn't yet backed this

latest batch of accusations what exactly happened is absolutely a mystery at this point this morning president obama and vladimir putin spoke over the phone and reportedly they discussed the breaking news saying no details of course how that conversation went ok thanks so much for bringing us up to date they're going to chicken reporting from the u.s. for us right now for more on the situation developing situation we're joined by richard security expert from embry riddle aeronautical university thanks again for speaking to us richard tragically it's not the first time a malaysian airlines plane has crashed what is their safety record like. well quite frankly i don't believe there's much of a link between what happened with the malaysian aircraft three seventy and the current the malaysian aircraft seventeen i think the two very different situations in terms of malaysian aviation safety and security not the best not the worst

like most countries and i'm most organizations plenty that can be done to modify to upgrade safety and security i think the real issue with what's been happening in the ukraine in russia quite frankly i think this girl you think is fully back in the late one nine hundred eighty s. when the soviet union was disestablished territory it was lost and i think under the current russian administration there's some real opportunities to gain what has been lost i think that's already occurred in georgia in most of the crimea now and in the ukraine i think i think it's more a story dealing with power politics and with aviation safety malaysia. now richard i know i think i did right perhaps rather naively and i'm sure i wasn't alone in thinking that flights would have been allowed a region where there's been such military conflict but we're wonder standing now

that actually that's fairly normal is that the case that actually just because there's a conflict zone doesn't mean that lines wouldn't be routed well different countries different organisations different airlines meet different decisions about what to do they rely in different information they have different tolerances of risk and danger they have different motivation and financial revenue. different political motivations and quite frankly i different levels of aviation safety and security competence and because of that different decisions are made in that's what are your decision was made for the malaysian aircraft to go forward while other countries and other airlines have made different decisions. defense minister we know has said that there's no information on why it crashed but kiev sees it could have been done. from what we know in their perceiving hours after the tragedy how

likely is that. well quite frankly many stories floating around the global mass media right now i think you can make a case by various groupings of people some related to the russian military and paramilitary capabilities some related to what are often called ukrainian rebels and east in southeastern ukraine even people related to the ukrainian government are coming out that there are all kinds of possibilities all kinds of calculations and miscalculations in my opinion. the countries that have sophisticated intelligence capabilities they collect in many parts of the world twenty four hours a day already have the information already have analyzed information and probably have a really good idea what happened to do with responsible richard in terms of the investigation you know people will talk always about the black box here how much is depended on

and how much also rests on what they discover from other areas of the investigation of the crash site. quite frankly in terms of figuring out who is accountable and what happened in the related details i think the formal investigation is probably less valuable here going back to intelligence capabilities i think there's more than enough information already information that's been analyzed i think on like malaysia malaysian aircraft in the for the malaysian aircraft continuing this will not be a mystery again i believe people already know what happened that information probably classified i'm sure it will be released sooner or later and then we'll be all the politically militarily up volatile situation and in the issues that will come up now will have a lot to do with what people will choose to believe. we've been seeing lots of pictures coming in of the tragedy on the ground in eastern ukraine all the debris

what seems that there's large on burn chunks of debris what can we the juice from that if anything. well i think technical experts need to documents in terms of how big the debris how many pieces. you can make deductions in terms of whether there was an implosion or explosion on the aircraft going to do and i think this really isn't the mystery story it goes back to frankly given what is functional you know and there are political issues and military issues and that's what truly. it's not a mystery it's really a question of what happens how people are affected throughout the world because of what happened in the eastern ukraine. and once again thank you so much richard blue maybe ation security expert from the riddle avenue article university thanks for your insights that. it is you know i mean from the impression

we're getting there from richard and what from we've heard from our correspondent sounds like the data gathering process is well underway now so hopefully it will be to them hopefully a matter of hours before we'll actually get well though as he said before somebody will know what i exactly happened before we and the public get to find out that could be a whole new time frame it is and i think what else the guest richard limit was stressing was that not to me the duction find it information as well trying to get this information as much as we can from the black box from what malaysian airlines are seeing themselves and try and figure out what happened let's get a little bit more information from marina who is in the the border of russia and ukraine she's been standing by there all all evening long with with updates about what's occurring arena we've been hearing from a lot of experts where the almost none the wiser really about what is occurring what can you tell us. what we do know at this point

according to the latest information coming from the self-proclaimed people's republic is that. they have recovered at least eight of the twelve data flight data recorders that were onboard but perhaps the most important bit of information they can provide right now is the fact that the prime minister of the self-proclaimed people's republic has said that. meaning in the nets are ready to declare a truce with kiya for two three days in order to ease the process of investigation and in fact an official investigation has already been launched by kiev officials and there's also information coming in that the e.u. officials have already started demanding that an international investigation into the crash of malaysian air for malaysian airlines flight m h seventeen also a beginning now of course we're talking about

a great tragedy where almost three hundred people have perished and i would like to remind our viewers that at least eighty of those are reported to be children so obviously a great tragedy international tragedy because there are also reports saying. oh the nationals. from tens of. on board we already know that there has been confirmed french citizens on board the plane obviously that list that grim list is obviously going to get just longer and of course we're watching exactly what how it's going to develop of course we also heard from the ministries of emergencies russian ministry of emergencies who are saying that they are ready to assist in an investigation they actually have already filed a special a special request of authorities in order to do so. reporting for the ukraine russia border thanks once again. to put

a new issue on the house and believe to be true that's new information that i'm hearing is yeah and. tons of nationalities and. well we heard just recently several dozen dutch nationals believed to be on board but but tens of different nationalities involved it is a global catastrophe for many to quote one person we do assume that the world all of those people a lot of malaysian people on the flight but also a lot of european different nationalities as well. ok let's say let's try this we're going to move to peter all over but before that let's just a little bit more information on there on those flights. indeed maybe peter can even bring us up to date will what is occurring peter. can you hear us at the moment yes i can hello yeah we're hearing a lot of information you brought to us not so long ago up by the european reaction

what else are you hearing there well the whole airline industry everybody flying out of europe anybody in fact there is flies across. the this eastern part of ukraine is diverting their flights some airlines like british airways about she said they're not even going to fly into. the ukrainian airspace apart from one flight into kiev but it yes the likes of air force air france k l m trans aero virgin tons and others of all said that they're not going to fly over that particular area of eastern ukraine in fact euro control which is the governing watchdog of air traffic safety here in europe is issued a statement to all airlines saying do not fly over this part of eastern ukraine now as i say some airlines taken out even further and saying they're not going to fly over your.