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Malaysia Jet Brought Down in Ukraine by Missile, U.S. Officials Say Malaysia Jet Brought Down in Ukraine by Missile, U.S. Officials Say
(35 minutes later)
WASHINGTON — A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 298 people aboard was shot down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday by a surface-to-air missile, American officials have confirmed. The plane was traveling at about 30,000 feet, according to tracking information from a military spy satellite. The satellite was unable to detect where exactly the missile was fired. GRABOVO, Ukraine — A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 298 people aboard exploded, crashed and burned on a flowered wheat field Thursday in a part of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists, blown out of the sky at 33,000 feet by what Ukrainian and American officials described as a Russian-made antiaircraft missile.
Military and intelligence analysts are using mathematical formulas, high-speed computers and other sensors to try to pin down the missile’s point of origin. Other analysts will work with the Ukrainian authorities to recover and analyze pieces of the missile and the aircraft to help determine what kind of missile was fired, the officials said. Ukraine accused the separatists of carrying out what it called a terrorist attack. American intelligence and military officials said the plane had been destroyed by a Russian SA-series missile, based on surveillance satellite data that showed the final trajectory and impact of the missile but not its point of origin.
The plane — Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — crashed and burned in an eastern Ukraine wheat field near the Russian border, in an area roiled by fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces. There were no known survivors. Ukrainian officials immediately called the crash an act of terrorism. There were strong indications that those responsible may have errantly downed what they had thought was a military aircraft only to discover, to their shock, that they had struck a civilian airliner. Everyone aboard was killed, their corpses littered among wreckage that smoldered late into the summer night.
The furiously unfolding investigation centered on Ukrainian separatists or Russian troops as the missile operators. The Ukrainian authorities said they had intercepted communications that indicated separatist involvement. But the reason for the attack — whether it was a deliberate strike or a tragic accident — was unknown. Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, blamed Ukraine’s government for creating what he called the conditions for the insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where separatists have bragged about shooting down at least three Ukrainian military aircraft. But Mr. Putin did not specifically deny that a Russian-made weapon had felled the Malaysian jetliner.
“What we still don’t know is what were they thinking,” one official said. Whatever the cause, the news of the crashed plane, with a passenger manifest that spanned at least nine countries, elevated the insurgency into a new international crisis. The day before, the United States had slapped new sanctions on Russia for its support of the pro-Kremlin insurgency that has brought East-West relations to their lowest point in many years.
“This is truly a grave situation,” said Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. of the United States, speaking in Detroit. “It’s important we get to the bottom of this sooner than later because of the possible repercussions that can flow beyond from this, beyond the tragic loss of life.” Making the crash even more of a shock, it was the second time within months that Malaysia Airlines had suffered a mass-casualty flight disaster with international intrigue — and with the same model plane, a Boeing 777 -200ER.
Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, called for an immediate investigation and asked the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, to send experts to assist. “I would like to note that we are calling this not an incident, not a catastrophe, but a terrorist act,” Mr. Poroshenko said. Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia — whose government is still reeling from the unexplained disappearance of Flight 370 in March, somewhere over the Indian Ocean — said he was stupefied at the news of Flight 17, which had been bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam with 283 passengers, including three infants, and 15 crew members. Aviation officials said the aircraft had been traveling an approved and heavily trafficked route over eastern Ukraine, about 20 miles from the Russia border, when it vanished from radar screens at 2:15 p.m. local time, with no distress signal.
Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, said, “If it transpires that the plane was, indeed, shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must be brought to justice.” “This is a tragic day in what has already been a tragic year for Malaysia,” Mr. Najib told reporters in a televised statement from Kuala Lumpur. “If it transpires that the plane was indeed shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must swiftly be brought to justice.”
Forensics evidence from the site, as well as the satellite data and any intercepted communications, would help analysts and investigators determine who fired the lethal missile. Mr. Najib said he had spoken with the leaders of Ukraine and the Netherlands, who promised their cooperation. He also said that he had spoken with President Obama, and that “he and I both agreed that the investigation must not be hindered in any way.” The remark pointed to concerns about evidence tampering at the crash site, which is in an area controlled by pro-Russia insurgents.
Defense Department officials said late Thursday that they were examining the possibility that Ukrainian separatists with Russian advisers had fired a captured Ukrainian Army Buk missile system. The separatists do not otherwise have the technology to shoot down an airliner at such a high altitude, the officials said. Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin also spoke about the disaster and the broader Ukraine crisis, White House officials said, and Mr. Putin expressed his condolences to Malaysia. But in a statement quoted by Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, Mr. Putin said, “This tragedy would not have happened if there was peace in the country, if military operations had not resumed in the southeast of Ukraine.”
Another possibility, a senior Pentagon official said, was that Russian troops just across the border from eastern Ukraine may have fired the missile. In both scenarios, the senior official said, the missile operator most likely mistook the Malaysian airliner for a Ukrainian military transport plane. A third possibility, the official said, was that the Russians supplied the rebels with the missile. Adding to Ukrainian and Western suspicions that pro-Russia separatists were culpable, Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service, known as the S.B.U., released what it said was audio from intercepted phone calls between separatist rebels and Russian military intelligence officers on Thursday. In the audio, the separatists appeared to acknowledge shooting down a civilian plane.
Two senior Pentagon officials said military analysts suspected that the missile was either an SA-11 or an SA-20. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent reporters a link to the edited audio of the calls, with English subtitles, posted on YouTube by the S.B.U.
Reporters arriving at the scene near the town of Grabovo described dozens of lifeless bodies strewn about, mostly intact, in a field dotted with purple flowers, with remnants of the plane scattered across a road lined with fire engines and emergency vehicles. “It fell down in pieces,” said one rescue worker as tents were set up to gather the dead. According to a translation of the Russian audio by the English-language Kyiv Post, the recording begins with a separatist commander, identified as Igor Bezler, telling a Russian military intelligence official, “We have just shot down a plane.”
One passenger in a black sweater lay on her back, with blood streaming down her face and her left arm raised. The carcass of the plane was still smoldering, and rescue workers moved through the dark field with flashlights. Dogs barked in the distance, and the air was filled with a bitter smell. In another call, a man who seems to be at the scene of the crash says that a group of Cossack militiamen shot down the plane. He adds that it was a passenger plane and that the debris contains no sign of military equipment. Asked if there are any weapons, he says: “Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medical equipment, towels, toilet paper.”
By Thursday night, American analysts were increasingly focused on a theory that rebels had used an SA-11 system seized from the Ukrainian Army to shoot down the aircraft. “Everything we have, and it is not much, says separatists,” said a fourth senior Pentagon official. “That said, there’s still a lot of conjecture.” Asked if there are any documents among the debris, the man says, “Yes, of one Indonesian student.”
Russian troops have very similar SA-11 systems, as well as the larger SA-20s, Pentagon officials said. Myroslava Petsa, a Ukrainian journalist in Kiev, said that the voices in the audio sounded shocked by what they found in the wreckage.
Analysts from the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, European Command and Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as the C.I.A. and others, were expected to work around the clock in the coming days to try to determine what happened. By Thursday night, American intelligence analysts were increasingly focused on a theory that rebels had used a Russian-made SA-11 surface-to-air missile system and operated on their own fire-control radar — outside the checks and balances of the national Ukrainian air-defense network — to shoot down the aircraft.
Just hours after the crash, the Ukrainian foreign ministry distributed what it said were intercepted conversations from separatists suggesting that they had shot down the plane and were shocked to discover it was a civilian jetliner. “Everything we have, and it is not much, says separatists,” a senior Pentagon official said. “That said, there’s still a lot of conjecture.”
Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service, known as the S.B.U., said the audio was from intercepted phone calls between rebels and Russian military intelligence officers. The people speaking in the recording seem to acknowledge shooting down a civilian plane. The Ukrainian foreign ministry sent reporters a link to the edited audio of the calls posted on YouTube, with English subtitles, by the S.B.U. Russian troops, who have been deployed along the eastern Ukraine border, have similar SA-11 systems, as well as larger weapons known as SA-20s, Pentagon officials said.
According to a translation of the Russian audio by the English-language Kyiv Post, the recording begins with a separatist commander, Igor Bezler, telling a Russian military intelligence official, “We have just shot down a plane.” Petro O. Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, said he had called the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, to express his condolences and to invite Dutch experts to assist in the investigation. “I would like to note that we are calling this not an incident, not a catastrophe, but a terrorist act,” Mr. Poroshenko said.
In another call, a man who seems to be at the scene of the crash says that a group of Cossack militiamen shot down the plane. He adds that it was a passenger plane and that the debris contains no sign of military equipment. Asked if there are any weapons, he says: “Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medical equipment, towels, toilet paper.” Asked if there are any documents among the debris, the man says, “Yes, of one Indonesian student.” Reporters arriving at the scene near the town of Grabovo described dozens of lifeless bodies strewn about, many intact, in a field dotted with purple flowers, and remnants of the plane scattered across a road lined with fire engines and emergency vehicles. “It fell down in pieces,” one rescue worker said as tents were set up to gather the dead. The carcass of the plane was still smoldering, and rescue workers moved through the dark field with flashlights.
For months, eastern Ukraine has been the scene of a violent pro-Russian separatist uprising in which a number of military aircraft have been downed. But this would be the first commercial airline disaster to result from the hostilities. For months, eastern Ukraine has been the scene of a violent pro-Russia separatist uprising. Rebels have claimed responsibility for attacking a Ukrainian military jet as it landed in the city of Luhansk on June 14, and for felling an AN-26 transport plane on Monday and an SU-25 jet fighter on Wednesday. But this would be the first commercial airline disaster to result from the hostilities.
Despite the turmoil in eastern Ukraine, the commercial airspace over that part of the country is heavily trafficked and has remained open. Aeroflot, Russia’s national carrier, announced that it had suspended all flights to Ukraine for at least three days. Despite the turmoil, the commercial airspace over eastern Ukraine is heavily trafficked and has remained open. Questions are likely to be raised in the coming days about why the traffic line, which is controlled by Ukraine and Russia, was not closed earlier.
Malaysia Airlines, still reeling from the mysterious loss of another Boeing 777 flight in March, said it had lost contact with Thursday’s flight over Ukraine a few hours after takeoff. With the news of the disaster on Thursday, the Ukrainian authorities declared the eastern part of the country a no-fly zone. American and European carriers rerouted their flights, and Aeroflot, Russia’s national carrier, announced that it had suspended all flights to Ukraine for at least three days. The conspicuous exception was Aeroflot flights to Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in March, a pivotal point in the Ukraine crisis.
Among the 283 passengers onboard were 154 Dutch, 27 Australians, 23 Malaysians, 11 Indonesians, 6 British, 4 Germans, 4 Belgians, and one Canadian. The remaining passengers’ nationalities have not been identified. All 15 crew members were Malaysian. It was unclear late Thursday whether any Americans had been aboard the flight. Russia’s Interfax news agency said there had been no Russians aboard.
Speaking at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, Huib Gorter, senior vice president at Malaysia Airlines Europe, said the Ukrainian authorities had lost contact with the plane at 2:15 p.m. local time at a Ukrainian waypoint called “tarmac,” after it took off from Amsterdam at 12:15 p.m. local time. (Ukraine is one hour ahead of the Netherlands.) In Amsterdam, a Malaysia Airlines official, Huib Gorter, said the plane had carried 154 Dutch passengers; 27 Australians; 45 Malaysians, including the crew; 12 Indonesians; nine Britons; four Germans; four Belgians; three Filipinos; and one Canadian. The rest of the passengers had not been identified.
President Obama, who one day earlier had announced strengthened sanctions against Russia over its support for the eastern Ukraine separatists, spoke by telephone with Mr. Putin, who raised the issue of the reports of the downed plane, White House officials said. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Obama had been briefed about the plane crash. Andrei Purgin, deputy prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, an insurgent group in eastern Ukraine, denied in a telephone interview that the rebels had anything to do with the loss of the jet. He said they had shot down Ukrainian planes before but that their antiaircraft weapons could reach only to around 4,000 meters, far below the cruising level of passenger jets.
Later Mr. Obama said the United States government was working to determine whether any Americans had been aboard the flight. Russia’s Interfax news agency said there had been no Russians aboard. “We don’t have the technical ability to hit a plane at that height,” Mr. Purgin said. He also did not rule out the possibility that Ukrainian forces themselves had shot down the plane.
There was no immediate word from the Kremlin about the substance of the Obama-Putin telephone call. The Kremlin put out a short statement saying that Mr. Putin had a previously scheduled telephone conversation with Mr. Obama.
“The parties had a detailed discussion about the crisis in Ukraine,” the statement said. Mr. Putin repeated the need for an immediate cease-fire and objected to what he said was Ukrainian army fire striking inside Russia.
Interfax reported that Mr. Putin said later, during a meeting about economic issues that he started with a moment of silence for the victims of the crash, that “the government under whose territory this happened holds responsibility for this horrible tragedy.”
He added, “This tragedy would not have happened if there was peace in this world, if there were no resumed hostilities in southeast Ukraine.”
A brief truce between the Ukrainian government and the separatists ended when the Ukrainian authorities began military operations to retake rebel-held towns.
“We must do everything that we can so that an objective picture of what happened would be available to our people, and the people of Ukraine, and the whole world,” Mr. Putin said. He told Russian military officials to “provide necessary help in investigating this crime.”
Andrei Purgin, deputy prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the insurgent group in eastern Ukraine, denied in a telephone interview that the rebels had anything to do with the loss of the passenger jet. He said that the rebels had shot down Ukrainian planes before but that their antiaircraft weapons could reach only to around 4,000 meters, far below the cruising level of passenger jets.
“We don’t have the technical ability to hit a plane at that height,” he said.
He said that the plane had apparently come down in an area of Ukrainian military operations and that it was not out of the question that the Ukrainians themselves shot it down.
“Remember the Black Sea plane disaster,” he said, referring to the 2001 crash of a Siberian Airlines passenger jet bound for Novosibirsk from Tel Aviv that the Ukrainians shot down by accident during a military training exercise.“Remember the Black Sea plane disaster,” he said, referring to the 2001 crash of a Siberian Airlines passenger jet bound for Novosibirsk from Tel Aviv that the Ukrainians shot down by accident during a military training exercise.
Anton Geraschenko, an adviser at Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, said on his Facebook page that the Malaysia Airlines plane had been brought down by a Russian-made Buk, or Beech, antiaircraft system. Russian missile systems are named for trees.
A reference book published by Rosoboronexport, the Russian state weapons export monopoly, describes the Buk antiaircraft missile system as designed to target both low- and high-flying aircraft, to a maximum height of 72,000 feet.
Mr. Geraschenko wrote that earlier Thursday people in eastern Ukraine supporting the central government had reported seeing a Buk system moved from the town of Torez toward the town of Snezhnoye.
A commander of a rebel unit in Donetsk said, “We could have shot down three planes over Donetsk yesterday, but we didn’t because they could have been civilians.” He said the rebel forces did not have the Buk system.
In comments broadcast on Ukrainian television, Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev and former heavyweight boxing champion, said the crash illustrated the risks to peace in Europe of the fighting in eastern Ukraine. “This is not just a local conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk but a full-scale war in the center of Europe,” he said. “I’m certain the international community this time will pay attention and understand.”In comments broadcast on Ukrainian television, Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev and former heavyweight boxing champion, said the crash illustrated the risks to peace in Europe of the fighting in eastern Ukraine. “This is not just a local conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk but a full-scale war in the center of Europe,” he said. “I’m certain the international community this time will pay attention and understand.”