A Malaysia Airlines flight with nearly 300 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on Thursday. UPDATED July 18, 2014 4 a.m.

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Maps of the Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

A Malaysia Airlines flight with nearly 300 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on Thursday. UPDATED July 18, 2014 4 a.m.

Flight Was Traveling on Routes That Were Closed at Lower Elevations

PUBLISHED JULY 18 

• TWEET

Flight 17 was flying on a route that had remained open and active at higher elevations throughout the conflict in Ukraine. It had been closed up to 32,000 feet, but the plane was traveling 1,000 feet above that. Hours before the crash, Russia had announced its own airspace restrictions near eastern Ukraine, closing below 32,000 feet the route Flight 17 would have taken through Russia.

Sources: Eurocontrol; Federal Aviation Administration

Flight control zone boundaries    Airways

Path of Flight 17

The plane was on Airway L980, which has

remained open during the conflict in Ukraine.

Airways closed hours before the crash

Crash

site

Donetsk

UKRAINE

Rostov

Zaporizhzhya

Mariupol

Dnipropetrovsk

Kiev

Odessa

Simferopol

RUSSIA

Sea

of Azov

Odessa

Restricted flight areas

before Thursday’s crash

Black

Sea

CRIMEA

By the Federal Aviation Administration

40 MILES

By Eurocontrol

Sevastapol

Before Crash, Some Airlines Avoided Ukraine

PUBLISHED JULY 18 

• TWEET

A survey of flights to Asia from Europe in the last week found that some airlines had been flying over eastern Ukraine and some had been avoiding the area.

Source: Flight path data fromflightradar24.com

Amsterdam

July 17

Paris

UKRAINE

UKRAINE

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 to Kuala Lumpur

Air France Flight 166 to Bangkok

Amsterdam

London

UKRAINE

UKRAINE

British Airways Flight 9 to Bangkok

KLM Flight 809 to Kuala Lumpur

Paris

UKRAINE

UKRAINE

Frankfurt

Lufthansa Flight 772 to Bangkok

Thai Airways Flight 931 to Bangkok

Where the Wreckage Fell

PUBLISHED JULY 17 

• TWEET

Witnesses reported that Flight 17 broke up in the air near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine. The wreckage from the crash was strewn across farmland in an area as large as six square miles. RELATED ARTICLE »

Source: Satellite image by DigitalGlobe via Google

Grabovo

Approximate region

where crash is located

Rozsypne

Pelahiivka

UKRAINE

Area of

detail

1 MILE

Crash Site Within Area of Rebel Activity

PUBLISHED JULY 17 

• TWEET

Eastern Ukraine has been roiled for months by a violent pro-Russian separatist uprising. A number of military aircraft have been downed.RELATED ARTICLE »

Source: Ukrainian Council of National Security and Defense

Kramatorsk

Recent sites

of fighting

Luhansk

Path of

Flight 17

Horlivka

AREA OF

REBEL ACTIVITY

JULY 16

Krasnyi Luch

Grabovo

Last known

location

Donetsk

UKRAINE

UKRAINE

Area of

detail

RUSSIA

25 MILES

Path of Flight 17

PUBLISHED JULY 17 

• TWEET

The plane was headed from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when radar trackers lost it.RELATED ARTICLE »

Source: Flight path data fromflightradar24.com

RUSSIA

Last known

location

4:21 p.m.

local time

BELARUS

Amsterdam

Path of Flight 17

Kiev

POLAND

GERMANY

UKRAINE

Donetsk

CZECH REP.

SLOV.

FRANCE

AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

ROMANIA

Black

Sea

ITALY

150 MILES

By The New York Times

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