President Barack Obama said Thursday that the passenger plane downed over Ukraine “looks like it may be a terrible tragedy” and his top priority is finding out whether American citizens were on board.
Obama said he’s directed his aides to stay in close contact with Ukrainian officials and offer U.S. help to determine what caused the crash. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 295 people an act of terrorism.
An Associated Press journalist counted at least 22 bodies at the crash site about 25 miles from the Russian border, where government and pro-Moscow separatists have been fighting.
Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher.
Obama press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama was on a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin when news of the downed plane broke. Earnest and the Kremlin said Putin mentioned those early reports in the call, but provided no details of what the two leaders said about it.
“The world is watching reports of a downed passenger jet near the Russia-Ukraine border,” Obama said later as he took the stage for a speech in Delaware to discuss transportation funding. “It looks like it might be a terrible tragedy. Right now we’re working to determine whether there were American citizens on board. That is our first priority.”
The rest of the phone call between Obama and Putin was dedicated to the general situation in eastern Ukraine, and recent U.S. sanctions against Russian individuals and companies.
The Federal Aviation Administration had warned U.S. pilots earlier this year not to fly over portions of the Ukraine in the Crimea region, according to notices posted on the agency’s website.
The notices were posted on April 23. The U.N.’s International Civil Aviation Organization and the aviation authorities in most countries issue similar notices for areas where unrest or military conflict creates a risk of being shot down.
The FAA had not issued any new warnings Thursday afternoon in the immediate aftermath of reports that a Malaysian airliner had been shot down over the Ukraine.
(AP)
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9 Responses
“It may be a terrible tragedy” Or it might not be? Does he mean a medium tragedy? Or a joke?
I have no more words for this man. Consistently does and says the wrong things.
Top Priority Is Finding Out If Americans Were On Board This should have been his top priority when Naftoli Frenkel HY”d who is a U.S. Citizen was on board the kidnapped teenagers. Yet this legal obligation on the Commander in Chief somehow eluded Obama.
Obama only cares about some American citizens, evidently Jews are NOT included.
I’ve never quite understood this. If there are no Americans then its not a tragedy? Then no aid or comfort is offered? Have I missed something?
THIS PRESIDENT DOES NOT CARE ABOUT ANY CITIZENS JUST PUTTING UP A NICE SHOW
Tell Obambam that there were muslims aboard the plane! Ha! Let’s see his reaction!
Fool in Chief
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC
Obama is either on drugs or suffering a terrible mental illness.
I guess it’s Malaysia airlines bad luck. 2 plains in half a year! Who wants to fly Malaysia air! bad luck? who cares what it is. their statistics are very bad!
“This should have been his top priority when Naftoli Frenkel HY”d who is a U.S. Citizen was on board the kidnapped teenagers. Yet this legal obligation on the Commander in Chief somehow eluded Obama.”
This is a baldfaced lie. The State Department was on this from the very beginning. The Israeli government contacted the US Ambassador to Israel the day after the kidnappings occurred to inform him of the situation. By Monday (probably earlier) the US Consulate in Jerusalem was in touch with the Frankel family. But the State Department could not confirm to the public that Frankel was a US Citizen because of the criminal penalties in the Privacy Act for doing so, until someone from the Frankel family signed a waiver. This was done the Wednesday after the kidnapping and the US confirmed the citizenship.
All this is in publicly available documents on the State Department web site.