this is a special edition of "nightline" -- >> tonight, murder in the sky. we're on the scene of one of the deadliest air disasters ever. >> the first thing that hits you is the absolute carnage of it all. >> new information about the investigation, as the portrait of the american victim emerges. how could this have happened? and how safe are you really when flying around the globe? plus, who fired the deadly missile? right now, the search is on for some of the most-wanted men in the world. >> outrage of unspeakable proportions. >> new evidence about how the passenger plane may have been shot down. and what this mystery vehicle has to do with it. can those responsible ever be brought to justice?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ our planet he paid for ya. ♪

it's a german luxury sedan. but it's still an audi. ♪ the audi a4. performance with the right attitude. get exceptional offers on the audi a4 during the summer of audi event. visit audioffers.com today (sfx) rings sound design. 300 people were shot down out of the blue, in a devastating attack. families, painting pictures of lives lost, including at least one american. but why was malaysia airlines

flight 17 flying over a war zone in the first place? abc's chief foreign correspondent, terry moran, is in ukraine where it's already saturday morning. terry? >> reporter: good morning, rebecca. from eastern ukraine. this is the city of kharkiv. this is where the bodies will be brought. this is where the families will come to collect their loved ones. 298 souls, who were just flying in the skies above this war-torn country, having nothing to do with it, when they were blown out of the skies. their lives robbed from them. in the fields of eastern ukraine, the wreckage still smoldered. the dead were still uncollected. the heart rending personal items. a disney backpack. and the shock was fresh for local residents who witnessed the tragedy. there was a sort of explosion, this man said. and then, people started falling from the sky.

they searched the sunflower fields. so beautiful. but today, littered with horror. at least one american is among the dead. a 19-year-old with duel u.s./dutch citizenship, shown here with his girlfriend. he was on his way to meet his family for a vacation in malaysia. an avid soccer player, his former team reeling today. we can barely comprehend the news. president obama called the downing of malaysia airlines flight 17 within outrage of unspeakable proportion. >> nearly 300 innocent lives were taken. men, women, children, infants, who had nothing to do with the crisis in ukraine. >> reporter: he said a clear picture is emerging of what brought down the boeing 777 in eastern ukraine, near the border with russia. >> evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile that was launched from an area that is controlled by russian-backed

separatists inside of ukraine. >> reporter: the president called for immediate cease-fire. and as the grim reality set in. new questions emerged. should the plane have been flying over the region? how can we prevent this type of disaster from ever happening again? and was it an act of terror? or a terrible mistake? >> i think it's too early for us to be able to guess what the intentions of those who might have launched the surface-to-air missile might have had. >> i'm sure this was not an intentional attempt to shoot down a passenger aircraft. >> reporter: how are things going there, one person asks. the response, we are 100% sure that was a civilian plane. at another point, this question -- they're saying it says malaysian

airlines. what was it doing on the ukrainian territory? the answer, then it was bringing spies. why the hell were they flying? there's a war going on. yesterday, ukrainian president poroshenko placed the blame on russia. today, president obama had this to say, noting that the rebels had boasted about shooting down military planes. >> a group of separatists can't shoot down military transport planes, or they claim, shoot down fighter jets, without sophisticated equipment and sophisticated training. and that is coming from russia. >> reporter: with a ten-mile-long debris field, investigators begin the grim process of identifying and locating the bodies, hailing from 11 countries. the netherlands suffering the greatest loss, with 189 passengers onboard. we now know that awful number. 83 children onboard, including

edie, otis and mo, traveling home with their grandfather to start school in australia. their parents on vacation in holland. their aunt writing on facebook, i will be miss you so very much. at least dad is looking out for you. the tragedy, nearly too much for samantha power, the u.s. ambassador to the united nations, who spoke of the three babies among the dead, identified with a single letter on the manifest. >> as we stared at the passenger list yesterday, next to three of the passengers' names, a capital "i." the letter "i," stands for infant. >> reporter: white flags over the debris field. they mark human remains. abc news moscow correspondent, kirit radia, traveled to the crash site. finishing the journey by car.

>> we reached. we ran into a couple of ukrainian military checkpoints. they were checking documents thoroughly. they went through the trunk to make sure we didn't have weapons. they had tanks and automatic weapons behind barricades. >> reporter: air traffic routes over eastern ukraine are closed. kirit arrived on the scene just before dark. >> this is where the bulk of the plane landed. you have landing gear here. turbines in the back. and you see smoke coming out. this wreckage still smoldering more than 24 hours later. and the smell of burning jet fuel and death everywhere. residents say this was one giant inferno after the crash. >> reporter: late today, an international team of investigators arrived. but armed separatists stalked them as they worked. and the team said afterwards, they did not get proper access to the crash site. so, how did this happen? at the time of the crash, the route was open at higher lt tuesday, including at 33,000 feet where the plane was

traveling. but it was closed at lower levels. >> the assumption by the airlines will be if the air space is open, it's safe. who should have stopped this flight and other flights from flying on this route is the question of the day. it's not as if people didn't know that airplanes were being shot down by missiles in this area. >> reporter: before the air space was shut down, 67 commercial airplanes had operated in that air space. >> it's quite likely that this plane could have been any airliner flying overhead. any 1 of 700 airplanes that are flying over this route on any given day, which is what makes it so frightening. >> reporter: relatives gathered in amsterdam and kuala lumpur, waiting information on loved ones and world when they could travel to the crash site. among the dead, aids researchers and health workers, headed to a conference. >> this incredibly sad and sensitive time, the iaf stands

with our international family and sends condolences to the loved ones of those who have been lost in this tragedy. >> reporter: an australian couple are once again mourning the loss of a loved one on a malaysian air flight. after losing their son and daughter-in-law, in the disappearance of malaysian flight 370 last march, the couple is now coping with the loss of their step granddaughter and her husband, who are among the dead on flight 17. karlan, a 25-year-old doctoral couldn't at indiana university, was on the plane. she was a decorated member of the varsity rowing team. >> knowing her. >> reporter: her classmate also remembered her smile. >> she was always smiling. she was always positive. >> reporter: the fields of eastern ukraine are calm now. it is the calm of bewildering and senseless tragedy. and the dead who cry out from here for justice.

for "nightline," i'm terry moran, in kharkiv ukraine. next, what are we learning about the criminals believed to be responsible for this act of terror? celebrate your love of crab with gthis year's largest variety!. 'cause it's crabfest at red lobster! dig into a succulent selection of crab entrées. like new crab lover's trio! with sweet snow crab legs, split king crab, and jumbo lump crab over savory shrimp. crab three ways! all on one plate. or try new jumbo lump crab over wood-grilled salmon. experience crabfest at red lobster today. only for a limited time. come in and sea food differently! intercourse that's painfulit... due to menopausal changes. the problem isn't likely to go away... ...on its own. so it's time we do something about it. and there's help. premarin vaginal cream. a prescription that does what

no over-the-counter product was designed to do. it provides estrogens to help rebuild vaginal tissue and make intercourse more comfortable. premarin vaginal cream treats vaginal changes due to menopause and moderate-to-severe painful intercourse caused by these changes. don't use premarin vaginal cream if you've had unusual bleeding, breast or uterine cancer, blood clots, liver problems, stroke or heart attack, are allergic to any of its ingredients or think you're pregnant. side effects may include headache, pelvic pain, breast pain, vaginal bleeding and vaginitis. estrogen may increase your chances of getting cancer of the uterus, strokes, blood clots or dementia, so use it for the shortest time based on goals and risks. estrogen should not be used to prevent heart disease, heart attack, stroke or dementia. ask your doctor about premarin vaginal cream. and go to premarinvaginalcream.com this is worth talking about.

if you suffer from constipation, you will likely also suffer from gas. introducing new dulcogas, which starts working to eliminate gas bubbles in minutes for effective relief. dulcogas, from the makers of dulcolax- nothing relieves gas faster.

president obama, today, called the shooting down of malaysia airlines flight 17 an unspeakable outrage. so, who are these separatists believed responsible for the loss of so many lives? new evidence is shedding light on the men behind one of the

worst attacks in airliner history. and how they pulled it off. here's abc's chief investigative correspondent, brian ross. >> reporter: until they were accused of the atrocity that took 298 lives, the pro-russian rebels in ukraine, had portrayed themselves as heros. they put up movie-like billboards, promoting their cause. and photographers and reporters were invited to this recent wedding of one of the wounded fighters, whose bride also wore a gun over her shoulder. and among the honored guests was their top military commander, a russian, not a ukrainian, who uses the name, igor strelkov, which means igor the rifleman. >> he has a long-standing relationship with the russian intelligence services. with ties to the putin regime in moscow. >> reporter: strelkov says he is fighting so people in ukraine who want to be russian or independent can do so. but under strelkov's command, the separatist militia fighting in ukraine has become known as a

ruthless gang of egotistical thugs, well-armed and trained by the russians, according to u.s. intelligence officials. >> that's a core of the ukrainian separatist movements are people who are not ukrainian. they are russians. they are soldiers of fortune. rambo types. they like to fight. they like to kill. and they are usually rewarded for that, very well, by the russian government. >> reporter: friday, as strelkov's rebels patrolled the crash site, they denied reports they were responsible for shooting down the malaysian air jetliner. >> here is what we know. >> reporter: but the evidence gathered by the u.s. continues to mount against them. presented in its fullest form friday by the u.s. ambassador to the united nations, samantha power. >> separatists were spotted hours before the incident, with an sa-11 system at a location close to the site where the plane came down. >> reporter: at the same time today, ukraine released this

footage. it says shows the actual russian-made sa-11 missile launcher that brought down the plane, near the scene, right before the strike. u.s. officials believe the rebels shot down a cargo plane earlier in the week. but hit the wrong plane on thursday because they did not fully understand how to use the sa-11 system. >> they made a mistake. and shot down what they thought was another ukrainian cargo plane. >> reporter: according to phone calls intercepted by ukraine, a separatist militant first reported the plane had been shot down. are there any weapons, the person asks. nothing at all. civilian belongings. medical scraps. towels. toilet paper. told that the wreckage made clear it was a malaysian airliner. another person answers -- well, then it was bringing spies. why were they flying? there's a war going on. in fact, that's a question many are asking now in the wake of the tragic incident thursday.

at the time, passenger aircraft were permitted to fly over the combat zone in ukraine, as long as they were above 32,000 feet. among the dozens of airlines that overflew the area in the last week, united airlines, lufthansa, virgin, klm and singapore airlines. even after a number of military aircraft had been shot down by the rebels. all those airlines have stopped flying over the area now. >> everyone associated with commercial aviation is taking a look, not just at the ukraine. but at iraq, afghanistan, any area where there's hostility and saying, is our idea that we can fly above hostilities and be safe -- is that accurate? >> reporter: aviation experts say, if no-fly zones were declared in all of the world's hot spots, air traffic into and through the middle east and southwest asia would become very difficult. >> as all of these airlines trying to reshuffle their routes and try to avoid, you know, areas of conflict, that may very

well add distance to flights, which means burning more fuel, which means more costs. >> reporter: and other than air force one, few passenger jets are equipped with anti-missile systems. >> aircraft are vulnerable to attack within the plane, but also from the ground. >> reporter: our report on "nightline" ten years ago, featured a new system that could detect and deflect some less-sophisticated missiles. but the cost then was calculated at more than $1 million a plane to install. and even at that price, it was hardly fool-proof. so, commercial aircraft today essentially fly unarmed, naked, against a threat that was considered highly unlikely until this week. officials in the u.s. and ukraine say, the best defense is to bring to justice those responsible for shooting down malaysia air flight 17. >> i would say that this is very, very, very outrageous crime. and all those who commit that

crime should be brought to justice. >> reporter: but that may be difficult. there are already indications a cover-up could be under way. international investigators were kept from the accident scene. and today, ukraine officials released this video, showing what they said was a surface-to-air missile system, in the same area as the crash, being returned to russia, with only two of its four missiles still onboard. and no one seems sure, tonight, about the whereabouts of the jet's black box, which the u.s. has demanded remain at the site. but the rebels say they will send to moscow. ukraine officials say the cover-up is already under way. so many wanting answers. we'll be right back. how can i ease this pain? (man) when i can't go, it's like bricks piling up. i wish i could find some relief. (announcer) ask your doctor about linzess--

a once-daily capsule for adults with ibs with constipation or chronic idiopathic constipation. linzess is thought to help calm pain-sensing nerves and accelerate bowel movements. it helps you proactively manage your symptoms. do not give linzess to children under 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to 17. it may harm them. don't take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain especially with bloody or black stools the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach-area pain and swelling. bottom line, ask your doctor about linzess today.

from your favorite restaurant to the local gas station, there are potential predators everywhere, devising ways to get their hands on your money. but what happens when we catch them red-handed? tomorrow night on "nightline" prime, we're turning the tables and showing you how to protect yourself. >> i just thought that maybe i had been blessed. >> it can take one phone call. >> the prize that you're receiving, ma'am, is $1.2 million. >> i truly, truly was convinced. >> reporter: it could happen in your living room. >> they became my friends. >> they robbed you. >> reporter: or even in your church. >> how many of you want to get paid this morning? raise your hand. >> this is your retirement? >> yes. >> it's gone. >> yes.

it's gone. >> reporter: people anxious to get their hands on your money are everywhere. and now, as millions of summer travelers hit the road, beware. a new kind of thief could be stealing your hard-earned money. >> i knew it was stealing. i knew it was wrong. >> reporter: you're witnessing a new breed of credit card thief caught on tape. this drive through attendant in florida is wiping each card twice. once to charge for the food and again through something called a skimmer, which steals the card number, expiration date and information. richard norris was the card's owner. >> you watch them use your card. i never paid attention to a skimmer being so small. >> reporter: but for norris, the worst part wasn't the money. it was the deception. >> i think that's what makes it worse. he actually made a point to, how are you doing? good afternoon. good morning, whatever the case would be. always seemed to be smiling. he was making more than minimum wage. >> reporter: credit card skimming is becoming a national

problem. just ask jeffrey marshal of the nassau county police department in new york. a waitress in here was doing just that. >> yep. >> reporter: how many cards did she get? >> 20, 25 cards. >> reporter: who is the person doing this one? >> a male individual. >> reporter: a two-minute drive from your station, you've seen three different scores with scams? >> yes. it can happen anywhere. >> reporter: now, electronic skimmers are so advanced they don't need a human to operate. check out this crook modifying an atm in an convenient store. he places a card slot that contains a skimmer, over the real one. >> will check it to make sure the card works. >> reporter: two occasions he walks up to that atm, puts on two devices. you'd never know. >> that's correct. >> reporter: to protect yourself, check your account, a lot. once you report loss or theft, the law says you have no additional responsibility for

charges you didn't make. tomorrow night, "nightline prime" is on the case, bringing you an hour, called "catch me if you can," with more on the shocking summer scams. tune in 10:00 p.m. eastern right here on abc. thank you for watching abc news. tune in to "good morning america" tomorrow. and as always, we're online at abcnews.com. good night, america. [dramatic music] ♪ >> hey! [cheers and applause] what up, baby? what up, what up, what up, what up, what up, what up, what's up, what up, what up, what up, what's up, what's up? >> good to see you. >> what's up, sir? what's up, man? come on in. great. [cheers and applause] yeah. hello, and welcome to

millionaire. back with us today is a high school math teacher who lives, eats, and breathes math. he even works it into his love life. from yonkers, new york, show some love for greg apostle. what up, greg? [cheers and applause] greg, i understand this now-- you--math everywhere. and you work it into your love life. you got to explain. >> yeah, early on in my relationship with my beautiful wife over here, we were cuddling on the couch; she was trying to get romantic. she looked at me and lovingly asked, "what are you thinking about?" and i said, "calculus." and she got up and walked away. >> oh, oh-- >> but she stayed with me, so, you know. >> yeah, i don't know why she-- i don't even know why she's shocked by that. all guys are looking for the right angle, you know what i mean? you know? oh! whoa! [cheers and applause] so, sarah, what were you thinking at the time? >> a really endearing point in our relationship, but--