this could have been a target that wasn t intended to be struck and the may be more likely perpetrators are separatists within the country. i want to go to nina, a professor at the new school and an expert on this region. what do you think separatists if indeed this was a deliberate effort, and if, indeed this came from them. these are both assumptions at this point, would hope to achieve from striking de ining commercial airliner like this. i agree that most likely, it was just a very inept act of attacking something because that s what they ve been doing. on monday, the cargo plane was shot down. then yesterday the fighter jet. so it does seem to be part of the same plan that they have that ukrainian ukrainian airplanes are up in the air and we are going to shoot. i don t imagine when what i know from that region or those who
i would imagine that would be one of the first questions they receive. tom costello, you are a great help in making sense of this. the latest we re receiving from malaysian airlines, they are not yet confirming the exact nature of the fate of this flight but they are saying they received notification from ukrainian atc that they lost contact with flight mh-1730 kilometers from the tamak way point. we ll be following this closely from every angle. i want to go back to john cox, our aviation expert here helping us keep track of this situation and also a former pilot. john, tell us about the route that was chosen here. we were just talking about this with tom costello. how dangerous is this particular route given that it s flying directly over what is essential l essentially a war zone. it s important to notice there had been a notice to airmen to exercise extreme caution in the area but the air space was not closed. it was not prohibited.
that apparently there were 23 u.s. passengers we ve seen the public reports. i spoke to our team right before i came out here. we don t have any additional details at this point on american citizens. we re looking to, of course, obtan that information. as soon as we have it available, we ll make it available to all of you. as the secretary, we know that the president was spoke to president putin this morning about, not this, but the plane came up. has the secretary made any calls to anyone in russia, anyone in ukraine that you are aware of? not at this point. obviously, this just happened a couple of hours ago. we can keep you updated as well on any additional calls he makes this afternoon. does he plan to? i don t have any planned calls to predict for you, but, you know, if any calls happen, we can make sure those are available to all of you. the crimean foreign ministry is saying they have reason to believe this not just a guess but based on their assessment, that thi
has controls on it. that would be one observation. second thing is we should know immediately that there was a missile launch and the site from which it was fired. and i personally heard, you know, missiles off the ground in the gulf war, when our satellites immediately get the hot spot. so i think we already know that it was a missile launch, if it occurred, and from where it was fired. and my guess it s not russian. it s inside the separatist zone. the russians have been pushing sophisticated equipment across the border. this sa-17, the buk missile is a self-propelled outfit. it s supposed to be part of a battalion. so you probably got some poorly trained people trying to operate a system. they would have thought they were engaging a ukrainian national air force aircraft or something along those lines. again, the facts are unclear at this point but we re watching every detail. that s a fascinating theory from general barry mccaffrey.
that conference and all the response from the u.s. government. this is malaysian air flight 17. a boeing 777 with 295 individuals on board. 280 of them passengers. 15 crew. the wreckage you see there has been reported to be a nine-mile radius, suggesting that this plane went down from a great height, potentially 30,000 feet to the point it would have been at that flight. we re seeing dozens of bodies reported to be scattered around that smoldering wreckage. a real scene of devastation and tough questions for authorities who have just slammed russia with some of our harshest san e sanctions yet. it is reported the president addressed this downed plane in his conversation. we heard the state department decline to confirm any new details about those purportedly 23 u.s. citizens the interior ministry adviser from ukraun says could have been on that flight. do you think there s maybe