'Bodies Fell From the Sky'

So far 181 of those killed in MH17 crash have been found
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 18, 2014 2:20 PM CDT
'Bodies Fell From the Sky'
Passengers' personal luggage is collected at the site of a crashed Malaysia Airlines passenger plane near the village of Rozsypne, Ukraine, eastern Ukraine Friday, July 18, 2014.   (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

You're sitting at home when you hear a noise—and before you realize what's happening, a woman's dead, naked body comes crashing through your roof and into your kitchen. That's what happened to Irina Tipunova yesterday when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 exploded overhead. "There was a howling noise and everything started to rattle. Then objects started falling out of the sky," the 65-year-old tells Reuters. The woman's body is still inside, awaiting expert examination.

Tipunova isn't alone. Bodies and other debris rained from the sky all over the tiny village of Rozsypne. "I opened the door and I saw people falling," one 20-year-old says. "One fell in my vegetable patch." The front of the plane landed in a nearby sunflower field, and emergency workers have been combing that field and its neighbors for bodies, the AP reports. By midday about 181 had been located. In other MH17 news:

  • Russian rebels have been hiding their links to a Buk missile battery that may have shot down the plane, western defense and intelligence sources tell the Guardian. The Ukrainian interior ministry bolstered those cover-up fears by releasing a video purporting to show a rebel truck headed for the Russian border carrying a Buk missile launcher with one of its four missiles missing.
  • There's been significant speculation about why MH17 was over the area in the first place. The plane's flight plan appears to have included a well-traveled stretch of airspace used by a host of other airlines in recent days, NBC News reports.
  • Malaysia Airlines released a statement saying that the flight plan was approved by Eurocontrol. It also said that Air Traffic Control had ordered the plane to drop from 35,000 feet to 33,000 feet, and said that from now on Malaysian Airline planes would avoid Ukrainian airspace entirely.
(More Ukraine stories.)

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