People lay flowers and light candles in front of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Kiev on Friday, to commemorate passengers of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 carrying 298 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur which crashed in eastern Ukraine. AFP Photo UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Friday demanded a full, independent and international investigation into the apparent shooting down of a
Malaysian jet over Ukraine that killed 298 people on board. Council members stood for a minute of silence in memory of those who lost their lives in Thursday’s crash over rebel-held eastern Ukraine, at the start of an emergency meeting on the disaster. “The members of the Security Council called for a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines and for appropriate accountability,” the council said. “The members of the Security Council further stressed the need for all parties to grant immediate access to investigators to the crash site to determine the cause of the incident,” it added. The Council expressed their deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the people and governments of all those killed in the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. The Security Council added to mounting global demands to find those responsible for apparently shooting down the Boeing 777. Local emergency crews picked through terrible carnage at the crash site, placing dozens of sticks with white rags in the ground to mark where bodies lay. The jet came down in corn fields in the separatist-held region, spraying debris and body parts for kilometers around, with the United States claiming it was shot down in a missile attack. Meanwhile, an initial review of US intelligence suggests pro-Russian separatists likely shot down a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, but Washington is still examining the evidence, a US official said Friday, according to AFP. “There are indications (the separatists downed the plane) but there’s no final conclusion,” the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP. Military and intelligence analysts were still poring over satellite and other data and there were still unanswered questions. But a preliminary review suggested the airliner was hit by a SA-11, a common variant of Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile. At the UN Security Council, Washington’s UN ambassador Samantha Power said the United States believed Flight MH17 was hit by a missile fired from the eastern region held by pro-Russian separatists. US officials on Thursday had said intelligence analysts concluded that the Boeing 777 airliner—which had 298 people on board—was shot out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile. The plane was flying at about 33,000 feet (10,000 meters) when it went down, putting it well within reach of Russian-made missiles possessed by both Ukrainian and Russian forces. The Buk surface-to-air missile systems are “fairly sophisticated” and require some training to use, as a radar operator must coordinate with those launching the weapon, the US official said. Meanwhile, Russia’s state-controlled television on Friday wheeled out conspiracy theories to explain the Malaysian air crash including one holding that it was a bungled attempt to down president Vladimir Putin’s presidential jet. Kiev accused pro-Russian separatists battling Ukrainian forces of the “terrorist act” as stunned world leaders called for an international inquiry into the disaster, which could further fan the flames of the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War. The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, enroute from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, also heaps new distress on Malaysia and its flag carrier, which is still afflicted by the trauma and global stigma of flight MH370’s disappearance four months ago. Malaysian Airlines said 283 passengers and 15 crew were aboard the plane—including 154 Dutch nationals, 27 Australians and 43 Malaysians. As many as 100 of those killed in the crash were delegates heading to Australia for a global AIDS conference, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. President Barack Obama warned evidence among scattered debris must not be tampered with as the United States called for an unimpeded and prompt investigation. Comments attributed to a pro-Russia rebel chief suggested his men may have downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by mistake, believing it was a Ukrainian army transport plane. However Russian President Vladimir Putin’s said Kiev bore full responsibility for the crash, saying Ukraine’s crackdown on separatist rebels stoked tensions that led to the disaster. News of the crash sent European, US and Asian stock markets tumbling. Shares in Malaysia Airlines plummeted almost 18 percent. The disaster comes just months after Malaysia’s Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 with 239 on board. That plane diverted from its Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight path and its fate remains a mystery despite a massive multinational aerial and underwater search. “This is a tragic day, in what has already been a tragic year, for Malaysia,” Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak told a press conference early Friday after announcing an “immediate investigation”. Najib added that a team of disaster response specialists had been dispatched to Kiev and that authorities in Ukraine had agreed to try to establish “a humanitarian corridor to the crash site”. Two US officials told AFP that intelligence analysts were reviewing the data to see whether the missile used to down the aircraft was launched by pro-Moscow separatists, Russian troops across the border or Ukrainian government forces. “We are working through all the analysis,” said one official, adding that there was little doubt that the plane was struck by a surface-to-air missile. There were conflicting claims of responsibility after the shocking new development in crisis-torn Ukraine, where fighting between separatists and the Western-backed government has claimed over 600 lives. Poroshenko’s spokesman said he believed pro-Russian insurgents downed the jet. “This incident is not a catastrophe. It is a terrorist act,” the spokesman, Svyatoslav Tsegolko, said on Twitter. A Russian-made surface-to-air missile has also emerged as the most likely cause of the suspected downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, analysts said on Friday, as claim and counter-claim swirl over who launched the weapon. The vehicle-mounted “Buk” missile system is capable of soaring to the height of a civilian airliner like Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, unlike more widely available shoulder-launched weapons, defence experts said. A flurry of comments on social media by rebel chiefs claiming they had shot down a Ukrainian army plane in the exact spot the Malaysian plane went down were hastily removed as they appeared to realise their error. After Putin said that Ukraine was responsible for the crash, Russian state television focused on several theories that pinned the blame accordingly. “The aim could have been Plane No. 1,” Russia 24 television said, referring to Putin’s presidential jet, quoting an Interfax civil aviation source as saying the logo on the Malaysian plane’s wing “looks like the Russian tricolour.” To back up the claim, it aired television footage of a hawkishly pro-NATO former Ukraine defence minister, Anatoliy Grytsenko, saying someone should kill Putin. The president returned to Moscow on Thursday from a tour of Latin America, and his plane and the Malaysian liner both flew over eastern Europe at roughly the same time, Channel One television noted. Television reports also centred on an alleged second plane that several witnesses said they saw at the scene. Channel One cited a local resident who said she saw another plane fly off as the Malaysian jet burned on the ground.
No comments:
Post a Comment