Mystery Over Who 'Shot Down' Malaysia Plane

World leaders are demanding an international investigation after a passenger plane was allegedly shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur at an altitude of 33,000ft (10,000m) when contact was lost yesterday afternoon and it crashed near the border with Russia.

The Netherlands suffered the biggest loss of life with 173 of its citizens dying. Among the other victims were nine Britons.

An emergency worker at the scene of the crash

They included 49-year-old Glenn Thomas, a media officer at the World Health Organisation, who was described as a "wonderful person and a great professional".

Two Newcastle United fans, who were travelling to see their football team play in New Zealand, also died.

Plumes of thick, black smoke could be seen rising high into the air close to the village of Grabovo, Donetsk, where the airliner came down.

Flames rise from wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines jet

The cockpit and one of the turbines were over half a mile apart, and residents said the tail was about six miles away, indicating the aircraft most likely broke up before hitting the ground.

Many of the bodies strewn across the fields are largely intact – some of them are still strapped into their plane seats. People who live in the area have described seeing bodies falling through the sky.

Pro-Russian separatists in the region said they had found one of the "black box" recorders and rescue workers have recovered a second flight recorder.

If it was shot down, it has not yet been confirmed who did it.

An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry said the Boeing 777 was hit by a Buk ground-to-air missile. US intelligence also concluded a surface-to-air missile had brought the plane down.

Authorities in Kiev said pro-Russian separatists were to blame, as President Petro Poroshenko called it an "act of terrorism".

Flight MH17 taking off at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands

However, separatist leader Alexander Borodai said Ukrainian government forces were responsible.

And Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "The state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility."

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott criticised Russia's attitude, saying the crash was "not an accident, but a crime".

The last known location of flight MH17

Among the 283 passengers and 15 crew on board were 44 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos, one Canadian and one from New Zealand.

The victims included three infants, and the nationalities of 20 passengers have yet to be verified.

Many of the passengers were on their way to an International Aids Society (IAS) conference in Melbourne, and the Society has said they may have included one of its former presidents, Joep Lange.

Armed Russian separatists inspect the wreckage

Britain has joined the US and other countries in calling for an international probe into the disaster. US President Barack Obama has said it should be "prompt, full, credible and unimpeded".

US Vice-President Joe Biden said the jet appeared to have been deliberately "blown out of the sky", with an unnamed US official blaming Ukrainian separatists backed by Russia.

The wreckage was scattered over a wide area

Sky's Katie Stallard, in Moscow, said Igor Strelkov, the commander of the pro-Russian Donetsk People's Republic, appeared to have boasted about the incident on social media.

In one deleted message recovered by Sky News, he allegedly wrote: "We warned you not to fly over our sky."

A distressed woman waits for information in Kuala Lumpur

Ukraine's security service also released what it claimed was a recording of an intercepted phone call between two Russian military intelligence officers, discussing the downing of the plane.

Sky's Mark White said the aircraft had been flying just 1,000ft (300m) above a zone deemed "unsuitable for civilian aircraft".

However Malaysia Airlines has said the route taken by flight MH17 had been declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The operator, still reeling from the loss of flight MH370 in March, has announced all its European flights will be taking alternative routes with immediate effect.

The disaster is the latest in a series of reported attacks on planes in Ukrainian airspace and came a day after one of the country's Sukhoi-25 fighter jets was shot down.

The United Nations Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting on Ukraine later today.

:: Malaysia Airlines has set up an emergency line for worried relatives: 00 6 037 884 1234.

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