DUTCH authorities have said 27 Australians were among the 295 passengers of the Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed in rebel-held east Ukraine in what has been called a terrorist attack.
Alongside the Australians, 23 Malaysians, 11 Indonesians, six from the UK, four each from France, Belgium and Germany, one from Canada, 143 Dutch and 23 Americans were believed to have been on board the doomed flight. All of the 15 crew were Malaysian nationals. Some infants were also on board.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) this morning urged Australians with concerns about families to try to contact their relatives directly.
“If you are unable to contact them and still hold concerns for their welfare, you should call DFAT’s 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on + 61 2 6261 3305 from overseas, or within Australia on 1300 555 135,” the department said.
The flight, MH 17, codeshare with KLM flight KL4103, from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur is a popular cheap route for Australians to travel back home from Europe and Britain. Social media has run images of an Australian passport allegedly found at the site crash.
Relatives of those who had boarded the Boeing 777 plane have started gathering at Schipol airport and have been corralled in a separate area of the airport.
Officials from Malaysian Airlines, speaking at Schipol airport in Amsterdam said their “gravest attention is to help the people who are suffering’’, adding that they will assist family members to visit the crash site in the coming days.
A charter plane will take the families to Kiev and from there the grieving relatives will have a difficult seven-hour road trip to the site.
A special phone number for family members of passengers on the downed flight has been set up by Malaysian Airlines in Amsterdam. It is +31 703487770.
The Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence agencies had confirmed that the plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile. The intelligence sources didn’t say whether the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces or pro-Russia separatist rebels.
Ukraine has accepted a US offer of assistance to investigate the crash.
Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: “We have no definitive information about how it occurred, but believe there must be a UN-led investigation of the facts.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also called for a full international investigation of the disaster.
“There is clearly a need for a full, transparent and international investigation,” Ban said.
Ukraine’s government and pro-Russian insurgents traded blame for the disaster, with comments attributed to a rebel commander suggesting his men may have downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by mistake, believing it was a Ukrainian army transport plane.
There was no sign of survivors at the crash site near the rebel-held town of Shaktarsk in the Donetsk region, where an AFP reporter saw dozens of severely mutilated corpses strewn through the smouldering wreck of the decimated airliner.
Debris stretched for kilometres in the area near the Russian border, with the jet’s tail marked with the Malaysian Airlines insignia laying in a corn field, and insurgent fighters and fire trucks nearby.
Malaysia Airlines announced on Twitter the loss of the Boeing 777 carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew, which had been expected in the Malaysian capital at around 8am AEST. Malaysia Airlines is expected to hold a press conference this morning.
The disaster comes just months after Malaysia’s Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 with 239 on board.
Safety fears at three major airports
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Twitter he was “shocked by reports that an MH plane crashed” and announced an “immediate investigation”.
Boeing said it was ready to assist the authorities in any way following the crash.
“All our thoughts and prayers go to the people on board the Malaysia Airlines plane missing in Ukrainian airspace, as well as their families and friends,” it said in a statement.
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama — at loggerheads over a new wave of US sanctions over Ukraine — had discussed the crash.
Mr Putin has expressed his condolences but has not yet countered accusations that Russians may have been involved.
President Obama said “It looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. I have directed my national security team to stay in close contact with the Ukrainian government. The US will offer any assistance we can to determine what happened and why. As a country, our thoughts and prayers are with all the families of the passengers, wherever they call home.’’
The official spokesman for Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said he believed pro-Russian insurgents downed the jet and said the “incident is not a catastrophe. It is a terrorist act”.
The Ukrainian leader said earlier that “the Ukraine Armed Forces did not fire at any targets in the sky” and vowed “those behind this tragedy will be brought to justice”.
However, pro-Russian rebels in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic claimed in a statement the airline split in two after being shot down by a Ukrainian jet — which was then shot down.
But a social media site attributed to a rebel commander in Donetsk itself said the insurgents shot down an army transporter at the exact site of the Malaysia Airlines crash.
There are also reports that pro-Russian separatists have obtained the black box from the plane.
Ukraine rebels have since said they are ready for temporary truce following plane crash.
The crash came with tensions already soaring after Kiev accused Russia of downing a Ukrainian military plane on a mission over the east of the country on Wednesday, the first direct claim of a Russian attack on Ukrainian forces.
source:theaustralian.com.au
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 