BY NAN
Ukrainian Prime Minister Areseny Yatseniuk, has ordered an investigation into the “airplane catastrophe” in eastern Ukraine, his Spokeswoman Olga Lappo said on Thursday.
A Ukrainian Interior Ministry official earlier said that 295 people onboard the Malaysian passenger airliner died when it came down.
Anton Gerashchenko, an official of the Ukraine interior ministry, was quoted by Interfax-Ukraine news agency as saying that the aircraft was hit by a ground-to-air missile.
The aircraft, which other sources said was a Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came down near the city of Donetsk, stronghold of pro-Russian rebels, Gerashchenko said.
There was no further confirmation of the report, although Ukrainian officials said local residents had found wreckage.
A Reuters reporter said dozens of bodies were scattered around the smouldering wreckage of a passenger jet that crashed in a field in eastern Ukraine.
An emergency services rescue worker said at least 100 bodies had so far been found at the scene, near the village of Grabovo.
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Also the debris from the wreckage had spread across an area up to about 15 km (nine miles) in diameter.
Broken pieces of the wings were marked with blue and red paint – the same colours as the emblem of the Malaysian airline.
“I was working in the field on my tractor when I heard the sound of a plane and then a bang and shots.
“Then I saw the plane hit the ground and break in two; there was thick black smoke,” a witness, who gave his name only as Vladimir told Reuters.
A separatist rebel from nearby Krasnyi Luch who gave his name only as Sergei said: “From my balcony I saw a plane begin to descend from a great height and then heard two explosions.”
He denied that rebels shot down the plane
“This could happen only if it was a fighter jet or a surface-to-air missile (that shot it down),” he told Reuters.
Luch insisted that the rebels did not have weapons capable of shooting down a plane at such a height.
It will be recalled that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board after it took off from Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing.
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