Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 Shot Down By SAM

A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said, as both the government and the pro-Russia rebels fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the aircraft.

The flight was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew, the airline confirmed. Dozens of bodies were scattered around the smoldering wreckage in the village of Hrabove, located about 25 miles from the Russian border.

Al Jazeera’s Scott Heidler reported that the area is controlled by rebel fighters and has seen heavy fighting recently.

"We’re talking a large area of what looks like at least two fields. There is a farm road right in between them, the big wreck, as I was talking about, on one side, farmers on the other,” Heidler said.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said on his Facebook page that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk surface-to-air missile system, which Russia began producing in the mid-1990s.

A senior U.S. official confirmed that the flight was shot down by a surface-to-air missile.

The self-appointed prime minister of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Alexander Borodai, told Al Jazeera that he was headed to the location of the downed plane and that a Donetsk People's Republic investigation team was now in the area. He blamed the downing of the plane on Ukraine's government forces.

"Apparently, it's a passenger airliner indeed, truly shot down by the Ukrainian air force," Borodai told Russia's state-run Rossiya 24 TV broadcaster.

Russian news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Borodai as saying rebels intend to call a three-day cease-fire to allow an investigation of the crash.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, meanwhile, called the downing an act of terrorism and called for an international investigation into the crash. He insisted that his forces did not shoot down the plane. Poroshenko said his country's armed forces didn't shoot at any airborne targets.

"We do not exclude that this plane was shot down, and we stress that the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not take action against any airborne targets," he said. "We are sure that those who are guilty in this tragedy will be held responsible."

The death toll includes 23 U.S. citizens, according to a Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser quoted by Interfax news agency.

President Barack Obama, speaking in Delaware on Thursday afternoon, said the U.S. would "offer any assistance to help determine what happened and why."

Malaysia Airlines confirmed on its Twitter feed earlier Thursday that it had lost contact with Flight MH17, which was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, adding that "the last known position was over Ukrainian airspace."

Malaysia Airlines also said that it received notification from Ukrainian air traffic control that it lost contact with the plane, a Boeing 777, about 31 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on his Twitter page that he was "shocked" by the reports of the crash and that the government was "launching an immediate investigation."

Meanwhile, Britain has asked for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the crisis in Ukraine, diplomats said Thursday.

The flight, according to the aviation tracking website Flightstats.com, was scheduled to arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 6:10 a.m. local time. Major airlines have diverted their flight paths and said they would avoid flying over Ukrainian airspace.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Obama discussed the plane crash in Ukraine during a phone call.

The development comes a day after the Ukrainian military said a Russian jet shot down a Ukrainian air force plane that was on military operations over eastern Ukraine, where government forces are fighting to quell a pro-Russian rebellion.

The incident also comes after a Malaysia Airlines plane went missing on March 8 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. It has not been found.

Philip J. Victor contributed to this report, with Al Jazeera and wire services.