Close to 300 people including, 15 crew members, aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 were killed in Thursday’s (July 17) air strike causing the plane to crash in eastern Ukraine . The Boeing 770-220 was shot out of the sky by a single missile while at the cruising altitude of 30,000 feet, U.S. officials said.
The aircraft was struck “by the Russian Buk missile system,” the General Staff of Ukraine Armed Forces has confirmed.
Speaking from Detroit earlier today, Vice President Joe Biden concluded that the aircraft takedown was “not an accident.”
“This is truly a grave situation,” Biden said. “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.”
The majority of the passengers on the plane were Dutch, 27 were Australian, in addition to 23 Malaysians, 11 Indonesians, 6 Brits, 4 Belgians, 4 Germans, 4 French, and one Canadian passenger. It is unclear if there were any Americans on the plane.
A list of crew members names can be found here.
See photos from the crash scene, as well as relatives of the victims in the gallery below.
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Photos: Twitter/Getty/AP
