A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane was reportedly shot down in Ukraine near the Russian border Thursday.
The Boeing 777 had 280 passengers and 15 crew members, Interfax reported citing an an aviation industry source.
Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister, said on Facebook that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher.
It came down just 20 miles short of entering Russian airspace near the town of Shakhtyorsk, in an area where the Ukrainian government has been fighting pro-Russian rebels.
It "began to drop, afterwards it was found burning on the ground on Ukrainian territory," a unidentified source told Reuters.
Flight Aware shows the flight was heading from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the main international airport in the Netherlands, to Kuala Lumpur International Airport outside Kuala Lumpur, the most populous city of Malaysia.
The flight reportedly departed at 12:14 a.m. local time.
