Civilian Plane Shot Down by Surface to Air Missile

A Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was shot down on July 17, 2014 by a missile that was possibly fired from a surface to air weapon.  Flight MH17 was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and had 280 passengers and 15 crew on board.  Currently, no known survivors have been reported.  The plane had left Amsterdam at 12:15 p.m. (local time) and was estimated to arrive in Kuala Lampur International Airport on Friday at 6:10 a.m. (local time), according to Malaysia Airlines. The last known contact with the plane was at 4:21 P.M. (local time).  The plane was traveling at an altitude of approximately 33,000 feet.  Malaysian Airlines has released a partial list of passenger nationalities based on currently available flight manifest data:

• 154 Dutch
• 27 Australian
• 23 Malaysian
• 11 Indonesian
• 6 UK
• 4 German
• 4 Belgian
• 3 Philippines
• 1 Canadian

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