Intel Shows Missile that Downed Jet Launched from Area Controlled by Russian Separatists: US Official
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iStock Editorial/Thinkstoc(WASHINGTON) — Intelligence officials in the United States said Friday that the missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Thursday was launched from inside Ukraine in an area controlled by Russian Separatists.
There is nothing that definitively links Russia to the training of those who launched the missile, U.S. officials told ABC News.
The officials said that based on preliminary intelligence, they believe the missile was an SA-11 and that they have reports showing an explosion in the air following the missile launch.
Investigators from around the world will descend on the crash site Friday to continue the probe into the missile launch and subsequent crash. The incident left 298 people dead.
The pro-Russian separatists who control the area where the jetliner was brought down agreed to allow investigators safe access to the site in order to recover bodies and gather evidence, according to a statement from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
It was unclear how soon investigators would begin sifting through the wreckage, which went down Thursday in Ukraine near the Russian border. The plane had left Amsterdam at 12:15 p.m. Thursday (local time) and was estimated to arrive in Kuala Lumpur International Airport today at 6:10 a.m. (local time), according to Malaysia Airlines.
FBI and NTSB officials will head to Ukraine in an “advisory role” in the investigation, a senior U.S. administration official told ABC News.
Malaysia Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, speaking at a news conference Friday, called the initial indications that the plane was shot down “an outrage against human decency.”
“Malaysia condemns any such action in the strongest possible terms, and calls for those responsible to be swiftly brought to justice,” he said.
Malaysia officials are calling for an independent international investigation into the incident.
At this point, no Americans have been verified among the passengers. Malaysia officials said that 173 passengers were Dutch. In addition, according to officials at a news conference Friday, 44 were Malaysian, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine British, four Belgians, four Germans, three Filipinos and one Canadian. Nationalities of 20 other passengers remain unknown at this time.
Among the victims identified were the Gunawan family, relatives of an ABC News employee. Hadiono Gunawan, an employee of Malaysia Airlines, was headed to the Philippines for a family vacation. His wife, Irene, and their two children, Daryl and Sherryl, were traveling with him.
Karlijn Keijzer, a Dutch student studying in the United States, was going on vacation with her boyfriend.
“I’m just in disbelief and expecting Karlijn to pop up on Facebook and tell everybody she’s OK,” Keijzer’s friend, Rachel Weigler said in a phone interview with ABC News.
One Dutch passenger, Cor Pan, posted a chilling picture of the plane right before takeoff on Facebook with the caption, “Should it disappear, this is what it looks like,” a reference to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared earlier this year.
Amid the tragedy were unbelievable twists of fate. Sarah Moonen says her brother and a friend were bumped from the flight at the last minute, but two of their friends boarded the doomed jetliner.
“I felt bad for feeling good that my family hadn’t been ruined and that my brother was alive,” Moonen said in a telephone interview.
The International AIDS Society said in a statement it was looking into reports that some of its members may have been on the flight en route to the International AIDS Conference taking place in Melbourne, Australia.
“At this incredibly sad and sensitive time the IAS stands with our international family and sends condolences to the loved ones of those who have been lost to this tragedy,” the statement reads.
The World Health Organization announced on its Twitter account that spokesman Glenn Thomas was on board the jetliner.
John Wendle, a freelance reporter for ABC News, described seeing “bodies scattered everywhere” at the crash site.
“There’s blood splattered everywhere, and pieces of remains,” Wendle said. “It’s a pretty grim sight…This is terrible.”
Among the debris were watches and smashed mobile phones, charred boarding passes, passports and guidebooks.
Intelligence and analysis of the situation determined that it was a single surface-to-air missile that struck the Boeing 777-200 aircraft while at cruising altitude, a U.S. official told ABC News. It is unclear whether the missile was fired from inside Ukrainian or Russian territory and who fired it, the official added.
The White House issued a statement calling it “vital that no evidence be tampered with in any way and that all potential evidence and remains at the crash site are undisturbed” until an investigation can begin.
“The role of international organizations — such as the United Nations and the OSCE in Ukraine — may be particularly relevant for this effort, and we will be in touch with affected nations and our partners in these organizations in the coming hours and days to determine the best path forward,” the statement said.
“While we do not yet have all the facts, we do know that this incident occurred in the context of a crisis in Ukraine that is fueled by Russian support for the separatists, including through arms, materiel, and training,” the White House statement said. “This incident only highlights the urgency with which we continue to urge Russia to immediately take concrete steps to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine and to support a sustainable cease-fire and path toward peace that the Ukrainian government has consistently put forward.”
Investigators will also be tasked with determining the series of events leading up to the crash.
Ukrainian authorities told U.S. Embassy officials that debris was spread out over a 10-mile path near the town of Hrabove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry in Kiev claimed the plane had been “shot down.”
“According to the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces, the airplane was shot down by the Russian Buk missile system as the liner was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters [33,000 feet],” the statement reads. “Ukraine has no long-range air defense missile systems in this area. The plane was shot down, because the Russian air defense systems was affording protection to Russian mercenaries and terrorists in this area. Ukraine will present the evidence of Russian military involvement into the Boeing crash.”
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko later added, “We are not calling it an accident, or a disaster, but an act of terrorism.”
In a tweet soon after the plane went down, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Condolences to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in connection with the crash of a passenger aircraft in Ukraine.”
A Kremlin statement said Putin opened a meeting with his economic advisers by calling for a moment of silence over the crash.
“This tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine,” he said. “And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy.”
The plane did not make a distress call and the route had been deemed safe by the International Civil Aviation Organization despite the ongoing fighting in Ukraine, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak said.
The FAA Thursday issued an order that U.S. flight operations avoid airspace over eastern Ukraine, expanding on a previous warning about flying over the contested Crimean region and additional portions adjacent to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
At Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, grieving family members gathered as airline officials briefed them. Malaysia Airlines said a manifest of the passengers would not be released until all next of kin were notified.
This is the second Malaysia Airlines plane to be involved in an air tragedy this year. On March 8, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished with 239 people on board after it took off from Kuala Lampur bound for Beijing. Malaysian officials said the plane disappeared somewhere in the Southern Indian Ocean, but no wreckage has been recovered.
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