U.S.: Plane Shot Down By Surface-To-Air Missile; Malaysia Airlines Jet Shot Down in Ukraine; Israel Launches Ground Offensive in Gaza
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Next, two major breaking news stories we are following tonight. Another Malaysia airlines plane goes down. This one shot down with nearly 300 on board. Who is behind the attack? And Israel launches a major ground offensive into the Gaza strip. We are live there tonight. Let's go OUTFRONT. Good evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight breaking news, shot down. A Malaysian airline Boeing 777 with 295 people on board downed by a surface-to-air missile. There are no survivors. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was at cruising altitude near 33,000 fleet in mid-flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The plane departed Amsterdam at 12:15 in the afternoon, Amsterdam time, scheduled to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 12 hours later. Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane as you see there two hours after takeoff, about 31 miles from the Russia/Ukraine border. It is a stunning twist of fate that this was another Malaysia Airlines flight. The pictures are terrifying and tragic. Human beings intact, passports, even a guide book for a vacation unharmed. Yet every single human being on that plane lost their lives. This ominous picture of MH-17 before takeoff was purportedly taken by a passenger on the plane during boarding. He posted this picture to his Facebook page referencing the missing plane Malaysia Airlines plane with the caption reading, "In case it disappears, this is what it looks like." We do not know how many Americans were on the plane, but the evidence of lives lost suddenly is everywhere on the ground. They are some passports, 154 Dutch passports, many of them found on board, seen on the ground untouched by fire or ruins. Some of them looked unused, new. The wreckage you can see here in a field near the Donetsk region of Ukraine, which is controlled by pro- Russian forces. This picture purports to show an anti-aircraft weapon in Donetsk. The question is was this the weapon used to shoot down this plane, and if so, who fired it? Did they intend to shoot a commercial airplane out of mid-air? We begin our coverage tonight with Jim Sciutto in Washington. Jim, what is the latest you know about this terror in the sky?</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL: Well, I'll tell you U.S. officials now confirming what Ukrainian officials have been telling me all day long and that is that there was evidence that this plane was taken down by a surface-to-air missile. The two pieces of evidence that U.S. officials cite are, one, tracking by U.S. assets in the region showing that a missile system radar locked on to this jet before it was shot down and signs of a heat signature missile rising from the ground towards that jet. So two very strong clues that this was a missile attack. Ukrainian officials going on to say that it was a missile like that one that you just showed a picture of there, a Russian-made missile, which Ukrainian officials say was taken by pro-Russian separatists a couple of weeks ago, then leading to this tragedy today.</s>SCIUTTO (voice-over): The Malaysian jet fell from the sky over Eastern Ukraine in a fireball in a black cloud, pieces of burning debris visible, trailing gray smoke. On the ground wreckage littered the landscape, spread over a large area. Evidence, Ukrainian officials tell CNN, that the Boeing 777 came apart at high altitude. Ukrainian officials quickly blamed a missile strike by pro-Russian separatists. The foreign minister telling CNN, quote, "It's as clear as day. They've been hunting our planes for weeks. Ukraine's newly elected pro-western president, Petro Poroshenko, called it an act of terrorism.</s>PRESIDENT PETRO POROSHENKO, UKRAINE (through translator): We do not call it an incident or a catastrophe but a terrorist action.</s>SCIUTTO: The U.S. has now concluded the plane was shot down, a senior U.S. official tells CNN. But the U.S. does not know who is responsible. Russian President Vladimir Putin is already laying his own blame saying the state over whose territory it happened, naming Ukraine, is responsible for this terrible tragedy. This morning Putin delivered the news of the crash to President Obama during a phone call to discuss new U.S. sanctions against Russia. Sanctions sparked by Russian support for Ukrainian militants including supplying weapons and fighters.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. The United States will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why.</s>SCIUTTO: President Obama has since spoken to Ukraine's president and Malaysia's prime minister pledging U.S. support to determine exactly what happened.</s>NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: If it transpires that the plane was indeed shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must swiftly be brought to justice.</s>SCIUTTO: U.S. officials say they've not determined who shot the plane down, but Ukrainian officials are not pulling punches. They blame not just pro-Russian separatists, they blame Russia and one piece of evidence they use is an intercepted phone communication at the time this plane was shot down between, they say, a pro-Russian separatist and a Russian intelligence agent describing that they shot this plane down and then even as they're realizing it was a passenger plane, as it hit the ground, pretty alarming evidence coming out of the Ukrainian government tonight.</s>BURNETT: All right, Jim Sciutto, thank you very much. The latest on the investigation as it is beginning. Nic Robertson is on the ground in Kiev for us tonight. What do you know, Nic?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, rescue and investigation officials have only been allowed through to the crash site in the last seven hours or so. The Ukrainian government doesn't control the area there. We're told that five teams were allowed through to that area about seven hours ago. They say they are being hampered because the debris is strewn over a large area. They're being hampered by armed groups in the area that are getting in the way of the rescue and investigation. We've seen on pictures already a contamination of the crime scene, if you will, there's been pictures of people standing on parts of the wrecked aircraft. Those intercepted phone conversations we've heard the Ukrainian security chief and the Ukrainian president talking about this evening that are intercepted. They say between separatists and what we're told here are the Russian handlers saying that some parts of the aircraft have already been looted and taken away and put in people's yard. So you have questions right now about the contamination of the crime scene, the jurisdiction of the crime scene here, which clearly is not firmly in the hands of the Ukrainian authorities. The Ukrainian president says that he welcomes international involvement, wants the Dutch and Malaysian officials to be involved in an international investigation, it's difficult to see at this point how that can proceed easily and quickly in these current circumstances -- Erin.</s>BURNETT: Nic Robertson, thank you very much. I mean, that is hard to imagine people taking pieces of this airplane to put them in their yards. Joining me now Phil Mudd, former CIA counterterrorism official, Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, and Retired General Spider Marks, a CNN military analyst. Phil, let me start with you. We don't know who is responsible. You heard Jim and Nic reporting though in terms of the allegations of the intercepted phone call that purportedly is between pro-Russian separatists and their Russian handlers. This is a war zone. It's a shocking act. Who could have done it? It sounds like he's obviously not hearing me. So let me put that question to you, General Marks, in terms of just pure capability, who could have done this?</s>GENERAL JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: The Ukrainians have the surface-to-air capabilities that the Russians have, they've been allied for a period of time. The Russians have it, the Ukrainians have it. It can reach up to 72,000 feet so it would put it in the range of the capability. Clearly this rests with -- the initial finding will be Russia's got some explaining to do. And I think we'll find that out here very, very shortly. Look, there's going to be signals intelligence, there's going to be an IR signature, infrared, and we'll be able to do some additional analysis on all of that here very, very quickly.</s>BURNETT: So intent is going to be so crucial. I know we have Phil here with us now. So Phil, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was not on its usual route, which I think is important to emphasize, there was weather. It was flying north of its regular course, near an area the FAA had warned airlines to avoid back in April because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. My question to you though is someone who has the operational ability to fire a surface-to-air missile and successfully take a jet out at 33,000 feet, is it possible this person wouldn't have known this was a commercial jet?</s>PHIL MUDD, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL: I think that's possible. What we'll find is if these missiles were transferred to somebody who knew how the fire the missile, but was not plugged into air defense systems, they might have mistaken the aircraft for something that they wanted to hit, for example, a Ukrainian military aircraft. One thing Spider said that I wanted to pick up on, the focus over the past hours has been on a sliver of intelligence. A heat signature or radar signature. There's a huge piece of intelligence we don't know, but I'm sure will be on the president's desk tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. and that is, are people talking on the radio. Do we have human sources in the Ukrainian opposition who were talking about this? There's a whole pattern of intelligence activity you'd see that might give you other signals beyond, for example, radar or a heat signature.</s>BURNETT: Mary, I want to show you the video of the plane when it hit the ground. The video we have. Huge pieces of plane debris with the flames and then huge pieces of plane debris are on the ground. What do you see that shows surface-to-air missile or what might have happened when you see the debris?</s>MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: When I see the debris, it looks like you had a mid-air explosion, either a surface-to-air missile or even a bomb on board. I'm not suggesting that here. I'm looking at that and seeing the sight like Pan Am 103 or situations like that and the wide dispersion of the debris. You find pieces that are completely intact. I worked mid-air explosions where you have like somebody's purse or handbag comes down perfectly or a passport comes down perfectly and yet other things are completely destroyed. So the randomness of it certainly suggests an inflight breakup.</s>BURNETT: On to that point, you mentioned the passports. We've seen piles of luggage completely intact on the ground. We've chosen not to show this because it's disturbing, but there are bodies that are completely intact. Looks like someone had just crumpled on to the ground. There's the luggage that shows what I'm talking about. How does a plane come down 33,000 feet and you see luggage intact. You see humans intact.</s>SCHIAVO: Well, those pieces were likely ejected from the plane. We even saw this in 2001, two of the ones in the World Trade Center. We found things that were intact, luggage, passports, and then other folk who were never found at all. This random hit or miss that suggests an inflight breakup. Some pieces were far away from the explosion and literally they just fell to the earth unburned and undestroyed.</s>BURNETT: Phil, if this was a surface-to-air missile as U.S. sources are saying that it was, would there have been any warning to the pilot, the crew, the passengers?</s>MUDD: Boy, I don't think there'd be much. I assume we'll get some of that off the flight recorder. That's one reason that taking care of the crime scene is so critical. You are going to want to make sure it doesn't get in the hands of people who either destroy it, make it disappear or alter it. But given how fast the surface-to-air missile is going and how slow that aircraft is going, that there would be much warning to that pilot.</s>BURNETT: And General Marks, the person who fired this, I mean, this has been a fear that we've heard about in commercial aviation for a long time, that terror groups or groups of militants could use surface-to-air missiles to take down commercial jets. What does the fact that this was successful say to the flying public?</s>MARKS: Well, commercial aircraft are normally not equipped at all with what's called IFF, to identify friend or foe. You can transpond whether you're civilian or you're military. So the flying civilian populous shouldn't worry about this. However, when you're in a commercial aircraft and you're in a hot spot or in an area that's in extremism for some reason certainly this capability can be on the ground. But generally, Erin, what you see is that these transporter launchers, this type of capability is part of an enterprise. Messages and radar signals are sent and transponded and transferred around so that a single rocket or missile can be launched, but the direction comes from someplace else. To have this in an individual's hand or a single kind of an entity to engage indicates that they are disconnected, that the capability still exists and certainly can migrate around. I think this is extremely rare. Clearly what the United States needs to do is put a full-court press in terms of the intel community as Phil has suggested, around this so the United States can respond immediately and very strongly in terms of stating what their belief is.</s>BURNETT: All right, well, thanks to all of you. Again, we need to emphasize we don't yet know how many Americans were on board this plane. That's just one example. We'll be talking about the missile that brought down Flight 17. What we know about what it might have been capable of doing and the flight path, and how many other planes, there were American planes, in this area. We have those pictures to show you on radar. How many planes were around when this happened, a pretty shocking picture? Our other breaking story tonight, Israel launching a major ground offensive into Gaza. We are going to be live in Gaza City tonight.