KUALA LUMPUR: The following is the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 timeline.
The Boeing 777 aircraft, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 280 passengers and 15 crew onboard, was reported to have crashed in a tense-area of Ukraine near the Russian border on Thursday.
The flight was scheduled to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), Malaysia, at 6.10 am Friday.
Foreign media reported that the plane was “shot down”, but the Russianand Ukraine governments had denied their involvement in the incident.
July 17 (Thursday)
* 12.15 PM – (Amsterdam local time) MH17 took off from the Amsterdam airport.
* 10.15 PM – (Malaysia time) Malaysia Airlines confirmed it received notification from Ukrainian ATC that it had lost contact with flight MH17 at 1415 (GMT) at 30km from Tamak waypoint, approximately 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border.
July 18 (Friday)
* 12.00 AM – Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak tweets: “I am shocked by reports that an MH plane crashed. We are launching an immediate investigation”.
– Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk orders an investigation into the crash.
* 2.07 AM – Reuters reported quoting the Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov as saying that Russia has asked Kiev on Thursday for permission to help with rescue work in eastern Ukraine after a Malaysian passenger airliner was brought down there.
* 2.30 AM – Reuters reported quoting US President Barack Obama as saying on Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware, that the crash of a Malaysian jetliner on the border of Ukraine was a “terrible tragedy” and the United States would offer any assistance necessary to help determine what happened and why. — BERNAMA