disappears from the radar. you have been doing some reporting here. set up your package for us. the plane was passing through the air space here, really, 24 hours ago, almost to the minute that s when the plane disappeared from the radar and that s when this began. erupting in a ball of flame and a plume of black smoke, malaysia airline 17 headed to kuala lumpur. the u.s. says it was shot down in mid-air. on the ground, 298 bodies and debris scattered across eastern ukrainian fields. overnight, a newly released phone call provided by the ukrainian government purports to show a pro-russian militant revealing to a russian agent how they were the ones who accidentally shot down the boeing 777 with a surface-to-air missile system. thinking it was a ukrainian military plane.
but this whole area planes going backwards and forward. not only long haul flights going across to asia but one ceo e-mailed me last night and basically said, we have planes going backwards and forwards. dozens of planes every day over ukraine. we re rewriting their flight plans now, obviously, with new restrictions. the question, what happened yesterday is not where they right to be flying there? they were following an open pathway. the road was open and they flew it. the question is, why was the road open? why hadn t euro control and why hadn t the regulators closed those roads in that dangerous part of the world? that is a great question. all right, i want to bring in mary schiavo right now because a crisis on top of a crisis. who shot down this plane, how
australia seem to suggest the plane was hit by a missile. others mourn the dead. some also suggest president put tin and russia are to blame. they will suffer the consequences. australian prime minister tony abbott says the world should be filled with revulsion over what happened. because as it stands it is more like a crime. he called in the russian ambassador today and the russian ambassador told him it was ukraine s fault. abbott said that wasn t satisfactory. you referenced babies in nonallocated seats. does that bring now the death toll up to 301? no. at the moment i think it s 298. they are included. so at the moment 298. david piper. i wanted to ask you about the manifest itself. there s a lot of confusion here in the states. why do we not have it fconfirme
behind me is a piece of the wreckage, perhaps two pieces. it s difficult to be sure. and they are large. they re significant and they are standing here in isolation in these very dark fields, nothing else around that sort of shows obviously to be such a large piece of the plane. really gives a sense of the very likely fact that this aircraft broke up in the skies and then rained down in various pieces across a wide area here. as i say, it is late, it is dark. we can t see far. but we can see this. it was one of the first thing we saw when we arrived here today, this very large piece of the aircraft. it gives a sense of the force responsible for tearing it apart in the skies. to stand before it really, really conveying that. but then to look closer, to stand closer to look into it and you see an example of the human cost. there is a body in that piece of wreckage behind me and it is a terrible thing to see. we don t know if it was a crew
that s confusing the situation on the ground. the other fact there, of course, the debris field is very wide and scattered. that, of course, hampering investigations, as well, john. the fact that the separatists have shot down planes over the last couple days coupled with this audio that nic was telling us about that points so many fingers that likelihood this was the pro-russian separatists in this area that did this. it happened just this morning raising a lot of questions. if there have been planes taken down in this region before, why was this air space open? i want to bring in richard quest on this exact question because you say, richard, that is a dangerous road to go down and we need to be careful. yes. the issue here is the flight path that the plane took. if you look, of course, at the map you ll get a very good idea of exactly that flight path. it leaves amsterdam and goes out