295 feared killed as Malaysian plane crashes in Ukraine near Russian border

A Malaysian passenger airliner with 295 people on board crashed in Ukraine near the Russian border on Thursday, the Interfax news agency cited an aviation industry source as saying.

The Boeing plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, it said.

Ukrainian interior ministry said 280 passengers and 15 crew onboard the plane were killed in the crash.

An adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister said the plane has been shot down over a town in the east of the country.

Anton Gerashenko said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 metres (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher.

The Interfax report said the plane came down 50km short of entering Russian airspace. It “began to drop, afterwards it was found burning on the ground on Ukrainian territory,” the unnamed source said.

The plane appeared to have come down in a region of military action where Ukrainian government forces are battling pro-Russian separatists.

A separate unnamed source in the Ukrainian security apparatus, quoted by Interfax, said the plane disappeared from radar at a height of 10,000 metres after which it came down near the town of Shakhtyorsk.

Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines and the Malaysian Ministry of Transport said they had no information about any airliner that may have been crashed over Ukraine.