Terrible. Praying for the families of the 300 victims
17.27 A key question over the next few hours and days will be who fired the missile - if it was a missile that downed the jet.
Colin Freeman has been asking whether it could have been separatists from the region.
"A key question now is whether the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have access to the kind of missile systems that could reach a plane flying at high altitude."
"The separatists have denied having any such systems. But the Associated Press is reporting that one of its journalists saw a launcher that resembled a Russian BUK system - the kind the Ukrainian goverment says carried out the strike - near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier today. The Russian network TV Zvezda, the news network for the Russian military, did report that a Buk fell to separatist hands on June 29th."
"Several of the other missile launch systems possessed by the separatists can also reach considerable height - for example the 9K38, can reach up to 11,000 feet."