Malaysian airplane shot down in Ukraine, killing 295 passengers

A Malaysian passenger airline with 295 people on board has reportedly been shot down over eastern Ukraine border by militants, Reuters quotes an Ukrainian interior ministry as saying to Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

The Boeing 777 aircraft was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The Interfax news agency further reports that the aircraft went missing near Donetsk, where pro-Russian rebels have been fighting Ukrainian government forces for several weeks. 

Malaysia Airlines had earlier in the day said on its Twitter feed it had lost contact with its flight MH-17 from Amsterdam. "The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace," it said.

"A civilian airliner travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has just been shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft system ... 280 passengers and 15 crew have been killed." An official had said.

Interfax-Ukraine quoted another Ukrainian official as saying the plane disappeared from radar when it was flying at 10,000 metres (33,000 feet), a typical cruising altitude for airliners.

It was however reported to have come down at Torez, near Shakhtersk, some 40 km from the Russia border, an area that has been the scene of fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels.

"We do not have any idea what this is about and who shot down the plane. We're heading there now to investigate everything independently," Tatyana Dvoryadkina, co-chair of the DPR told gazeta.ru

Ukrainian Prime Minister Areseny Yatseniuk has since ordered an investigation into the "airplane catastrophe". in eastern Ukraine, his spokeswoman Olga Lappo said.

This crash comes three months after the mysterious disappearance of another Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 which is believed to have crashed into the Indian Occean. Investigations so far suggests that the plane must have been deliberately diverted thousands of kilometres off course before eventually crashing into the Indian Ocean.