A Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew crashed Thursday in the battle-torn east Ukraine region of Donetsk, where U.S. intelligence agencies say it was struck by a ground-to-air missile. 
 
 The U.S. agencies are divided over whether the missile was launched by the Russian military or by pro-Russia separatist rebels, who officials say lack the expertise on their own to bring down a commercial airline in midflight.... ||||| WILMINGTON Del. (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke to Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday and offered U.S. assistance to help determine what happened to a crashed Malaysian plane on the Ukraine border, the White House said. ||||| 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. ||||| GRABOVO, Ukraine — A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 298 people aboard exploded, crashed and burned on a flowered wheat field Thursday in a part of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists, blown out of the sky at 33,000 feet by what Ukrainian and American officials described as a Russian-made antiaircraft missile. 
 
 Ukraine accused the separatists of carrying out what it called a terrorist attack. American intelligence and military officials said the plane had been destroyed by a Russian SA-series missile, based on surveillance satellite data that showed the final trajectory and impact of the missile but not its point of origin. 
 
 There were strong indications that those responsible may have errantly downed what they had thought was a military aircraft only to discover, to their shock, that they had struck a civilian airliner. Everyone aboard was killed, their corpses littered among wreckage that smoldered late into the summer night. 
 
 Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, blamed Ukraine’s government for creating what he called conditions for insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where separatists have bragged about shooting down at least three Ukrainian military aircraft. But Mr. Putin did not specifically deny that a Russian-made weapon had felled the Malaysian jetliner.
– US intelligence officials say that a surface-to-air missile did indeed bring down a passenger jet over Ukraine today, but they can't say who fired it or even which side of the border it came from, reports the Wall Street Journal. Both the Ukraine government and pro-Russian separatists have denied responsibility. A Ukraine official asserts that a missile system known as a Buk launcher brought down the plane, and he alleges that Russia supplied it to separatists. The AP reports seeing something similar to a Buk system this week in separatist-held territory, but that's not exactly damning proof—a weapons expert points out that Ukraine forces also have Buk systems. It will take a while for investigators to make an official determination, though CNBC cites unconfirmed reports that the plane's black-box data recorder has been found, which should speed things up. Meanwhile, Joe Biden, who said the plane was "blown out of the sky," spoke to Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and offered US help with the investigation, reports Reuters. Poroshenko is calling the plane crash a "terrorist act," notes the New York Times, though President Obama used the phrase "terrible tragedy" to describe it in his initial comments. No word yet on whether any Americans were among the 298 people aboard. All are feared dead.