Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Tjibbe Joustra, chairman of the Dutch Safety Board: "The plane broke up in the air" 
 
 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed as a result of a Russian-made Buk missile, the Dutch Safety Board says. 
 
 The missile hit the front left of the plane causing other parts to break off, it said in a final report into the July 2014 disaster, which killed 298 people. 
 
 The West and Ukraine say Russian-backed rebels brought down the Boeing 777, but Russia blames Ukrainian forces. 
 
 The report does not say who fired the missile, but says airspace over eastern Ukraine should have been closed. 
 
 The plane - flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur - crashed at the height of the conflict between government troops and pro-Russian separatists. 
 
 Most of the victims were Dutch - 196, including some with dual nationality. The other passengers and crew were nationals from 10 countries. 
 
 How the findings were presented 
 
 A separate Dutch-led criminal investigation is under way. 
 
 The report says the three crew members in the cockpit were killed by the missile explosion instantly. 
 
 However, it adds, it was unclear at which point the others died, and the possibility of some remaining conscious for some time during the one-and-a-half minutes it took for the plane to go down could not be ruled out. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption An animated video from the Dutch Safety Board shows the damage to the plane and how it was caused 
 
 Matching paint 
 
 Presenting its findings at the Gilze-Rijen military base in the Netherlands, the safety board showed plane parts that had been brought back from the rebel-held Donetsk region and reconstructed. 
 
 Board president Djibbe Joustra said the impact pattern could not have been caused by a meteor, an air-to-air missile or an internal explosion. 
 
 Instead, he said, a warhead carried by a surface-to-air missile had detonated above the left-hand side of the cockpit, causing structural damage. 
 
 Image copyright Dutch Safety Board Image caption This oxygen mask was found around the neck of one of the passengers, suggesting death was not immediate 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jeremy Pocock, father of Ben Pocock: "We have to make sure there is justice at the end of this" 
 
 Mr Joustra said the missile was a Buk - which experts say both Russian and Ukrainian armies possess. 
 
 He added that paint had been found on metal fragments within the plane that matched with missile fragments on the ground. 
 
 Mr Joustra also said there had been sufficient reason to close off Ukrainian airspace but Ukraine did not do that - and on the day of the crash, 160 flights flew over the area in question. 
 
 Read more 
 
 Key findings - Dutch Safety Board report in a nutshell 
 
 Malaysia plane crash: What we know - How flight MH17 unfolded 
 
 A reporter's story - Searching for truth at the crash site 
 
 Remembering the victims - Shared sadness and sunflowers 
 
 The board does not have the authority to apportion blame, under the rules governing international crash investigations. 
 
 But speaking to reporters after the news conference, Mr Joustra said pro-Russian rebels were in charge of the area from where the missile that hit MH17 had been fired. 
 
 The government in Ukraine and several Western officials have said the missile was brought from Russia into the rebel-held part of Ukraine. 
 
 The Dutch-led criminal investigation has already published photos of the launcher being transported around rebel areas. 
 
 Warhead discrepancy 
 
 In the report, the Dutch Safety Board says the weapon used was a 9N314M-model warhead carried on the 9M38M1 missile, as installed on the Buk surface-to-air missile system. 
 
 It adds that the type of fragments found in the wreckage and bodies of crew members in the cockpit were bow-tie or cube shaped - only found in the 9N314M warhead. 
 
 Image copyright Dutch Safety Board 
 
 Image copyright Dutch Safety Board 
 
 However, the Russian side disputed the Dutch findings insisting that only older warheads and missiles of the 9M38 type still in the hands of the Ukrainian army could have been used as they were the only weapons with "butterfly or bow-tie" fragments. The Russian army had phased them out. 
 
 "The 9M38M1 missile has no H-shaped striking elements," Yan Novikov, the head of Buk missile company Almaz-Antey said. 
 
 In their submission to the Dutch report, the Russian experts argue that investigators should not have discounted other potential reasons for plane's destruction, such as an air-to-air rocket. This is completely rejected by the Dutch Safety Board. 
 
 Dutch Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke on Tuesday said a number of "persons of interest" had been identified, but there was still much to be done and the inquiry would not be finished this year. 
 
 In official reaction on Tuesday: 
 
 Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte urged Russia to co-operate in the investigation, saying "the priority now is to find and pursue those who are responsible" 
 
 Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says he had "no doubt" that the crash was "a planned operation of the Russian special services" 
 
 The White House said the US would "fully support all efforts to bring to justice those responsible" 
 
 Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov called the Dutch crash investigation "biased in nature" and said Russia was "ready to present its own information" 
 
 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said his government's "commitment to bringing the perpetrators to justice remains as strong as it was on that fateful day 17 July 2014" 
 
 Eduard Basurin, deputy defence minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, said rebel forces "did not have a Buk anti-air defence system at that time". 
 
 Report 'wrong' 
 
 Earlier, Russian officials from Almaz-Antey - the state firm that manufactures Buk missiles - said the evidence suggested the plane had been shot down by a Buk missile fired by Ukrainian forces. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The report left key questions unanswered 
 
 Using their own simulation, the officials said the missile had been fired from Zaroshchenke in Ukrainian-controlled territory, some 20km (12 miles) away from the area highlighted by the Dutch report. 
 
 They argued the missile used was a decades-old model no longer used by Russian forces. 
 
 In July, Russia vetoed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council to set up an international tribunal into the MH17 air disaster. 
 
 President Vladimir Putin said at the time that such a tribunal would be "premature" and "counterproductive". ||||| Gilze-Rijen air force base: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed last year after it was hit by a Russian-made Buk surface to air missile, an air safety investigation has found, which killed the pilots immediately but may have left passengers alive for up to a full minute and a half. 
 
 A report by the Dutch Safety Board, released on Tuesday in the Netherlands, found that a Russian-made Buk missile exploded just a few metres above and to the left of the plane's cockpit. 
 
 "(The) impact (of the missile shrapnel) was only instantly fatal to the occupants of the cockpit," the report found. 
 
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 Link The reconstructed cockpit of MH17 at the presentation of the Dutch Safety Board's final report into the tragedy. Photo: AP 
 
 Within a second the plane began to break up, exposing other crew and passengers to deafening noise, "abrupt deceleration, decompression, reduced oxygen level, extreme cold, powerful airflow (and) objects flying around". 
 
 "Some occupants suffered serious injuries that probably caused their death. In others, the exposure led to reduced awareness or unconsciousness in a very short space of time." 
 
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 However it was not possible to say when they died. 
 
 "It cannot be ruled out that some occupants remained conscious for some time during the one to one and a half minutes for which the crash lasted," the report said. 
 
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 Link Tjibbe Joustra, head of the Dutch Safety Board, presents the final report into what caused MH17, seen reconstructed at rear, to break up high over Ukraine last year. Photo: AP 
 
 There were no signs of 'conscious actions' from passengers such as composing text messages or taking photographs on mobile phones. However, "one passenger was found with an oxygen mask around the neck... it remains unclear whether the person concerned put on the mask in a reflex or that it was done by someone on the ground after the passenger's death." 
 
 Relatives were briefed by the board about the findings and one man, Barry Sweeney, whose 28-year-old son Liam was on board, told the BBC they were told the explosion of the missile would have caused disorientation and confusion in the rest of the plane. 
 
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 Link MH17 crashed over Donetsk, Ukraine after being shot down by Russia-backed rebels using a Russian missile. Photo: Kate Geraghty 
 
 "Hopefully most people were unconscious by the time this happened and death would have occurred pretty quick," he said. 
 
 "That is a comfort for 298 sets of relatives." 
 
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 Link Australian Federal Police and their Dutch counterparts searching at the MH17 crash site. Photo: Kate Geraghty 
 
 Risks not properly identified 
 
 The investigators' report found that the airline and air traffic bodies had not "adequately identified the risks to civil aviation brought about by the armed conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine". 
 
 Ukraine itself came in for strong criticism, for not closing the airspace over a region where scores of military aircraft had been shot down in the previous few months. 
 
 MH17 crashed in Ukraine's east on July 17, 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members aboard the Boeing 777 – including 39 people who called Australia home. 
 
 The report was presented at Gilze-Rijen air force base in the Netherlands, by Dutch Safety Board chairman Tjibbe Joustra, standing in front of a reconstruction of the front third of the plane, rebuilt from wreckage recovered from the fields of eastern Ukraine. 
 
 The reconstruction showed the cockpit area riddled with holes, punctured by shrapnel from the exploding missile. Buk missiles are designed to explode next to their targets, rather than collide directly with them. 
 
 "Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane," Mr Joustra said. "None of the aviation parties involved recognised the risks posed to civil aviation by the conflict on ground." 
 
 There was sufficient reason to close airspace as a precaution, Mr Joustra said, as more than 60 military aircraft had been brought down in the months prior, and there was evidence of weapons systems that could reach civil aircraft cruising altitude. 
 
 The reason for the omission was "straightforward and disquieting", he said – "Nobody had thought that civil aviation was at risk (even though) there was undeniably an armed conflict taking place on the ground." 
 
 Ukraine, which was responsible for the safety of the airspace under international law, came in for strong criticism for not closing its airspace as a precaution. However other states and airline operators were also at fault, and international rules needed to be changed, the investigators said. 
 
 Alternative theories ruled out 
 
 Investigators forensically examined the wreckage of the plane, recovered from the fields of eastern Ukraine, and eliminated the possibilities that the plane was brought down by an internal explosion, by gunfire or air-to-air attack. 
 
 They even excluded one theory that it was hit by a meteor. 
 
 "We investigated and eliminated the possibilities one by one," Mr Joustra said. 
 
 Investigators found a Buk warhead detonated outside the aircraft, slightly in front and above the left side of the cockpit. Thousands of pre-formed metal fragments penetrated the front of the plane with great force. 
 
 Computer simulations backed up this theory, and it was also corroborated by millisecond analysis of the cockpit voice recorder. 
 
 The front of the plane broke off, the rest of the plane broke up in mid air. The tail section crashed first, then the centre, with the engines, hit the ground upside down and caught fire. 
 
 Mr Joustra said the launch site of the missile could be narrowed to a 320 square km area in eastern Ukraine, but further work narrowing this area was beyond the investigators' mandate. 
 
 The finding contradicts one theory pushed by Russia and its supporters, that the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet. 
 
 However the investigators did not directly confront another Russian theory: that the missile was fired by the Ukrainian army, rather than by Russian-backed separatists (or Russian soldiers working with the separatists). 
 
 Russian missile manufacturer rejects findings 
 
 Before the Dutch report was released, Russia's state arms producer (and Buk missile manufacturer) Almaz-Antey announced the results of its own investigation. 
 
 The manufacturer said it had fired Buk missiles at a decommissioned jet plane, similar to a Boeing 777, so they could examine the pattern of impact. 
 
 They said the results demonstrated that MH17 was shot down by an old form of Buk missile – a 9M38 – which was not in use by the Russian army, and is a decade past the 'use-by date' intended by the manufacturer. 
 
 The last missile of this type was produced in the Soviet Union in 1986 and Russia decommissioned its remaining 9M38s in 2011, Russian state-sponsored Sputnik News reported. 
 
 "The results of the experiment completely contradict the results of the Dutch commission on the type of missile and the location of its launch," Almaz-Antey CEO Yan Novikov told journalists. 
 
 His company's report also said the missile was fired from near the village of Zaroschenskoye – an area reportedly under Ukrainian control at the time. 
 
 However they produced no eyewitness evidence of a Buk in that region at the time, in contrast to the significant amount of eyewitness, video and photographic evidence of a Buk in rebel-controlled territory on the day MH17 came down. 
 
 And Dutch TV reporter Rudy Bouma Tweeted that he had visited Zaroschenskoye recently and "villagers didn't witness (a) Buk launch previous to (the) crash", though the Ukrainian army was around 5km away at the time. 
 
 The Dutch report was not intended to address "questions of blame or liability", a DSB spokesman said. 
 
 However one DSB source told the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant the BUK missile is developed and made in Russia, and "It can be assumed that the rebels would not be able to operate such a device. I suspect the involvement of former Russian military officials". 
 
 World leaders react, vow justice 
 
 Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop released a joint statement welcoming the findings, saying their thoughts and prayers were with the families and loved ones of those killed on the flight. 
 
 Ms Bishop said the reports findings provided critical insight into the incident. 
 
 "It determines the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, consistent with the Australian government's initial assessment of the incident," she said. 
 
 The criminal investigation into who was responsible for the tragedy is run separately by an international 'Joint Investigation Team', including Australian federal police, who recently told Fairfax it may be another year before the case is ready for prosecution. 
 
 And in any case it is still unclear where the case could be tried. Russia vetoed a proposal for an international tribunal that was proposed by Australia and the Netherlands at the United Nations in July. 
 
 "We, and other partner governments of the Joint Investigation Team, remain absolutely committed to seeing justice done," said Ms Bishop. 
 
 Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak said countries must work together to hold those responsible for "this murderous" act after speaking with Mr Turnbull about the MH17 findings, and labelled the attack as "unforseeable". 
 
 "Fifteen months have passed but our commitment to bringing the perpetrators to justice remains as strong as it was on that fateful day when hundreds of innocent people lost their lives in a conflict that was not theirs," Mr Najib said in a statement. 
 
 "This was an unforeseeable act and, of the 160 flights that were on MH17's general route that day, not one was advised by the relevant authorities about any specific threat," he said. 
 
 The White House released a statement calling the report an "important milestone in the effort to hold accountable those responsible." 
 
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 Issuing the long-awaited findings of its investigation into the crash of a Malaysian passenger plane over eastern Ukraine, the Dutch Safety Board says it was downed by a Russian-made Buk missile but does not say who was responsible for firing it. Rough Cut (no reporter narration). 
 
 Gilze-Rijen (Netherlands) (AFP) - Investigators concluded Tuesday that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made BUK missile fired over war-torn Ukraine, but 15 months after the disaster Russia and the West remain locked in a bitter blame game. 
 
 The Dutch-led inquiry did not identify who launched the missile that crashed into the Boeing 777 on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board. 
 
 But Russia, Ukraine and Western nations all seized the moment to step up accusations that the fault for the tragedy lay at someone else's door. 
 
 "Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane against the left-hand side of the cockpit," the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, Tjibbe Joustra, told a press conference. 
 
 "This warhead fits the kind of missile that is installed in the BUK surface-to-air missile system." 
 
 The inquiry delineated a 320-square-kilometre (120 square mile) area in eastern Ukraine from which the missile must have been fired. 
 
 View gallery Tjibbe Joustra, chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, presents the final report into the crash of July … 
 
 And while the report did not specify whether it was under the control of pro-Russian separatists battling Ukrainian forces, the board's chairman Joustra later seemed to suggest it was. 
 
 "It's an area where the borders have fluctuated a lot, but it's a territory where the pro-Russian rebels have laid down the law," he told Dutch media after briefing lawmakers. 
 
 The much-anticipated report also said it was possible that some on board the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur may have remained conscious during the 90 seconds it took to crash. 
 
 - Conspiracy theories - 
 
 The White House, which has long accused pro-Russian rebels of being behind the attack, said its "assessment is unchanged -- MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine." 
 
 View gallery An Emergencies Ministry member walks at a site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash near th … 
 
 British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told AFP the report was a "step closer to the truth" and "undermines completely the conspiracy theories that Russia has trying to put around since this appalling act." 
 
 But Moscow reacted angrily saying it had "serious doubts" about the goal of an investigation conducted in the Netherlands, adding it was merely "a justification of accusations that were put forward before." 
 
 Hundreds of people, who attended the release of the report at a Dutch air base, were confronted with the eerie reconstruction of the plane's cockpit, composed of recovered wreckage. 
 
 Standing in front of the reconstruction, Joustra also hit out at Kiev for not shutting down the airspace above the conflict zone. 
 
 On the day that MH17 was blown out of the skies, some 160 commercial flights overflew the area, the inquiry said. 
 
 View gallery College students gather around candles forming the shape of an airplane, during a candlelight vigil … 
 
 "There was sufficient reason for the Ukrainian authorities to close the air space above the eastern part of their country," Joustra said. 
 
 Kiev hit back however that such a conclusion was "groundless" as it had been in the process of "gradually closing all sky corridors of an altitude of 9,750 metres and less." 
 
 - Closure for families - 
 
 Relatives were visibly shaken after first being privately briefed by Joustra in The Hague. 
 
 "They showed us the fragments that were inside the plane," Oehlers said, adding in the room "it was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop." 
 
 View gallery A military policeman stands guard in the cockpit of the MH17 airplane after the presentation of the … 
 
 The downing of MH17 threw the global spotlight back on the uprising in eastern Ukraine and was followed by a toughening of Western sanctions against Russia. 
 
 Tuesday's findings were swiftly dismissed by the missile maker Almaz-Antey, which said its tests showed the jet being likely shot down by an outdated version of the BUK missile no longer used by Russia. 
 
 Nick de Larrinaga, Europe Editor for IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, queried that argument, telling AFP: "This is not borne out by the evidence, which shows they remained in Russian service and in Russian military stockpiles at the time of the shootdown." 
 
 Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk wasted no time in pointing the finger at Russia. 
 
 "I personally have no doubt that this was a planned operation of the Russian special services aimed at downing a civilian aircraft," Yatsenyuk told a cabinet meeting. 
 
 View gallery Local workers transport a piece of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 wreckage at the site of the pla … 
 
 The Dutch report makes 11 recommendations, aiming to improve safety for civilian aircraft. 
 
 They include that countries involved in a conflict should close their air space in a timely manner, and that stricter rules should be applied by international aviation bodies. 
 
 But it has stressed its mandate was not to determine who pulled the trigger, amid a separate criminal probe by Dutch prosecutors. 
 
 Malaysia vowed it would seek the prosecution of the "trigger happy criminals" who downed the flight, the second aviation tragedy for the country after the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 in March 2014. 
 
 Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte meanwhile called on Russia to cooperate in the criminal investigation, adding "the priority now is to find and pursue those who are responsible." 
 
 Relative Pierre Chardom, who lost his 51-year-old brother in the disaster, told AFP he felt had some "closure on all the uncertainty which I had had until now." ||||| HRABOVO, Ukraine (AP) — A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the aircraft. 
 
 Smoke rises up at a crash site of a passenger plane, near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014. A Ukrainian official said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday... (Associated Press) 
 
 Malaysia Airlines planes are parked at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Thursday, July 18, 2013. A Malaysia Airlines flight with nearly 300 people aboard crashed over eastern Ukraine... (Associated Press) 
 
 People inspect the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014. Ukraine said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over... (Associated Press) 
 
 Passenger wait at the departure hall at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, July 18, 2014. Malaysia Airlines said it lost contact with Flight MH17 over Ukrainian airspace... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this Nov. 15, 2012 photo, the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 with tail number 9M-MRD _ the same aircraft that was shot down near the Ukraine Russia border on Thursday, July 17, 2014 _ takes off from... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken with a mobile phone provided by Andrei Kashtanov, smoke rises from where a Malaysia Airlines commercial plane crashed in eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014. Malaysia Airlines... (Associated Press) 
 
 Airport security personnel look at the flight information board in the departure hall, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, July 18, 2014. Malaysia Airlines said it lost... (Associated Press) 
 
 Airport police stand guard at the arrival hall at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, July 18, 2014. Malaysia Airlines said it lost contact with Flight MH17 over Ukrainian... (Associated Press) 
 
 Passengers wait in line at the departure hall at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, July 18, 2014. Malaysia Airlines said it lost contact with Flight MH17 over Ukrainian... (Associated Press) 
 
 A man gestures at a crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014. Ukraine said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew... (Associated Press) 
 
 As plumes of black smoke rose up near a rebel-held village of Hrabovo, an Associated Press journalist counted at least 22 bodies at the wreckage site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border. 
 
 The Boeing 777-200ER plane, traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, appeared to have broken up before impact and the burning wreckage — which included body parts and the belongings of passengers — was scattered over a wide area. 
 
 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko 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. 
 
 President Barack Obama called the crash a "terrible tragedy" and talked about it on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 
 
 The village of Grabovo is currently under the control of pro-Russia separatists and the area has seen severe fighting between the two sides in recent days. 
 
 Aviation authorities in several countries, including the FAA in the United States, had issued warnings not to fly over parts of Ukraine prior to Thursday's crash. Within hours, several airlines, including Lufthansa and KLM, released statements Thursday saying they were avoiding parts of Ukrainian airspace. 
 
 Malaysia Airlines said Ukrainian aviation authorities told the company they had lost contact with Flight MH17 at 1415 GMT (10 a.m. EDT) about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Tamak waypoint, which is 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border. 
 
 It said the plane was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew members. It had left Amsterdam at 12:15 p.m. and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6:10 a.m. Friday. 
 
 Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile from a Buk launcher, which can fire up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet). 
 
 Igor Sutyagin, a research fellow in Russian studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said both Ukrainian and Russian forces have SA-17 missile systems — also known as Buk ground-to-air launcher systems. 
 
 He said Russia had supplied separatist rebels with military hardware, but he had seen no evidence "of the transfer of that type of system from Russia." The weapons that the rebels are known to have do not have the capacity to reach beyond 4,500 meters. (14,750 feet) 
 
 A launcher similar to the Buk missile system was seen by Associated Press journalists earlier Thursday near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne, which is held by the rebels. 
 
 The Malaysia Airlines plane was delivered to the company on July 30, 1997, according to Flightglobal's Ascend Online Fleets. It has more than 43,000 hours of flight time and 6,950 takeoffs and landings. 
 
 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 Kremlin said Putin "informed the U.S. president of the report from air traffic controllers that the Malaysian plane had crashed on Ukrainian territory" without giving further details about their call. The White House confirmed the call. 
 
 Separatist leader Andrei Purgin told The Associated Press that he was certain that Ukrainian troops had shot the plane down, but gave no explanation or proof for his statement. 
 
 Purgin said he did not know whether rebel forces owned Buk missile launchers, but said even if they did, they had no fighters capable of operating it. 
 
 Around the time the plane crashed, Russian media quoted witnesses as saying they saw a plane being hit by what they thought was a rocket. 
 
 It was the second time that a Malaysia Airlines plane was lost in less than six months. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It has not been found, but the search has been concentrated in the Indian Ocean far west of Australia. 
 
 Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who had been attending a European Union summit in Brussels, headed back to the Netherlands to deal with fallout from the crash. 
 
 There have been several disputes over planes being shot down over eastern Ukraine in recent days. 
 
 On Wednesday evening, a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday, adding to what Kiev says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatist insurgents. Ukraine Security Council spokesman Andrei Lysenko said the pilot of the Sukhoi-25 jet hit by the air-to-air missile was forced to bail after his jet was shot down. 
 
 Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York on Thursday that Russia did not shoot down the Ukrainian fighter jet on Wednesday. "We didn't do it," Churkin said. 
 
 Pro-Russia rebels, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for strikes Wednesday on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets. 
 
 The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the second jet was hit by a portable surface-to-air missile, but added the pilot was unscathed and managed to land his plane safely 
 
 Moscow denies Western charges that is supporting the separatists or sowing unrest in its neighbor. 
 
 Earlier this week, Ukraine said a military transport plane was shot down Monday over eastern Ukraine by a missile fired from Russian territory. 
 
 Many airlines had continued to use the route despite warnings not to because of the fighting, said Norman Shanks, former head of group security at airports group BAA and professor of aviation security at Coventry University in England. 
 
 "It is a busy aviation route and there have been suggestions that a notice was given to aviators telling airlines to avoid that particular area," Shanks said. 
 
 "But Malaysia Airlines, like a number of other carriers, have been continuing to use it because it is a shorter route, which means less fuel and therefore less money." 
 
 Flights that were airborne when the Malaysia Airlines jet crashed have been re-routed, transportation officials said. 
 
 Other passenger planes have been shot down before including: 
 
 — April 20, 1978: Korean Airlines Flight 902, which diverted from its planned course on a flight from Paris to Seoul and strayed over the Soviet Union. After being fired upon by an interceptor aircraft, the crew made a forced landing at night on the surface of a frozen lake. Two of the 97 passengers were killed by the hostile fire. 
 
 — Sept. 1, 1983: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shot down by at least one Soviet air-to-air missile after the 747 had strayed into Soviet airspace. All 240 passengers and 29 crew were killed. 
 
 — July 3, 1988: Iran Air Flight 655 Aircraft was shot down by a surface to air missile from the American naval vessel U.S.S. Vincennes. All 16 crew and 274 passengers were killed. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Peter Leonard reported from Kiev. Contributing to this report were AP Airlines Writer Scott Mayerowitz in New York; Jill Lawless and Matthew Knight in London; Laura Mills and Jim Heintz in Moscow; Darlene Superville in Washington; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Eileen Ng and Satish Cheney in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
– A Dutch report on the MH17 crash concludes the plane was shot down by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile that struck the front left side of the plane near the cockpit, Dutch Safety Board Chairman Tjibbe Joustra said at a press conference on Tuesday. The report, the result of a 15-month-long investigation, notes the explosion sent thousands of metal objects in all directions and hundreds hit the plane with "tremendous force," Joustra said, per the Guardian. He added shrapnel from the Buk missile was found inside the bodies of the pilots, who died instantly, along with traces of paint from a Buk missile. The BBC's Anna Holligan, who spoke to relatives briefed on the report, says all passengers and crew would've lost consciousness immediately as the plane broke apart in the air. A 65-foot reconstruction of a portion of the plane, revealed at the press conference, showed holes perforating the upper part of the cockpit, according to reporter Luke Harding. "We can't be 100% sure" that no one suffered, "but we've got to sort of think that was the case," a relative says. The report mainly focuses on the cause of the crash and avoids "blame and culpability"; a separate criminal investigation will point fingers, reports AFP. The report at least rejects Moscow's claim that the Boeing 777 was downed by a missile fired by Ukrainian troops on July 17, 2014, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. But about 30 minutes before the report's release, Moscow had dismissed it. "It's always special when people already know that they don't agree with a report that's not even published yet," Joustra said.