HORROR AS BOEING 777 WITH 298 PASSENGERS SHOT DOWN

The world is a state of shock and mourning after a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 298 people aboard was shot down by a surface-to-air missile yesterday.

Ukrainian separatists or Russian troops are suspected to be the missile operators.

Body parts strewn through kilometres of debris, luggage littered down country roads, smouldering remnants of a passenger plane in a cornfield: the terrible carnage at the east Ukraine crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. "These poor people," says shell-shocked local resident Natalia, standing in front of her home near the epicentre of the devastation.

"Do you think they understood anything about this war in Ukraine? Even we don't understand it." In a nearby field the tail fin of the Boeing-777 painted with the colours of Malaysia Airlines lay in a meadow with some of the baggage and personal items of the 298 people on board littered around.

Dozens of brutally mutilated corpses lie among the debris. The torsos of two passengers remain strapped into the charred remnants of their seats.

In the middle of country lane a severed foot bears witness to the ferocity of the disaster.

There are no traces of any survivors.

"I don't see how anyone could have come through this," says Oleg, a separatist fighter, adding that he helped collect 13 bodies. "They were in pieces."

Eyewitnesses told AFP that there was a loud explosion and the plane appeared to disintegrate in mid-air before debris rained down. People in a village some 9 kilometres away reported finding remnants of the plane.

At least one New Zealander could have been on board a crashed Malaysia Airlines flight which is believed to have been shot down over the Ukrainian border.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials were "following up on indications that at least one New Zealand passport holder, and other passengers with New Zealand connections, may have been on board", Foreign Affairs Minister Tupa’i Murray McCully said.

"The ministry is working hard to confirm these details and make contact with the next of kin.""Our thoughts are with all the families of those on board as they wait for news. Latest reports suggest that more than 295 people may have died in the crash," Mr McCully said in a statement.

"It is important that the matter be fully investigated and we call for independent investigators to be allowed access to the crash site." The crash was a tragedy, he said, extending his condolences on behalf of all New Zealanders to the families of those on board.

"I had just gone to sleep at around 1600 (1am NZ time) when I heard an enormous bang," Katya, 64, said. "It was like an earthquake."

Her son-in-law Alexander, 43, points at blackened burn marks on the fence around his farm that was scorched by the flaming shards falling from the sky.

Nearby lie a landing gear and a large chunk of the plane's fuselage.

"The grapevines have also been burnt. We were very, very lucky" to have escaped unharmed," he says.

Up till now the fighting that has rocked eastern Ukraine had not affected their quiet homestead but over the past several days the rumble of fighting has reached a neighbouring district closer to the Russian border and the occasional Ukrainian fighter jet had whooshed overhead.

The first help arrived some 20 minutes after the crash happened but there appeared to be no hope of finding anyone alive.

Two fire fighters stand in a field holding a water hose and seemingly helpless before the scale of the destruction.

"Our bosses need to set up a headquarters here and tell us what we can do and then we will do it," one of them says despondently.

As night falls over the site, there are neither lights nor frantic recovery operation.

The firefighters are illuminated by the headlamps of their trucks and in the fields lie the victims of the disaster.

AIDS conference attendees were on the downed Malaysian jet. Several passengers on board a Malaysian jetliner shot down over Ukraine were world-renowned researchers heading to an international AIDS conference in Australia.

"A number of people" on board the Boeing 777 were en route to the southern Australian city of Melbourne to attend the 20th International AIDS conference, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop told reporters in Brisbane.

Among the passengers was former president of the International AIDS Society Joep Lange, a well-known HIV researcher from the Netherlands, opposition leader Bill Shorten said in parliament.

"There are Australians who would have planned to be at the airport tomorrow night to greet friends and family - amongst them, some of the world's leading AIDS experts," Shorten said. "The cost of this will be felt in many parts of the world."

Former US President Bill Clinton will deliver an address at next week's AIDS conference, which brings together thousands of scientists and activists from around the world to discuss the latest developments in HIV and AIDS research.

House of Representatives Speaker Bronwyn Bishop called for a moment of silence in parliament to honour the victims, adding that she was scheduled to address the AIDS conference.

"I know there will be many empty spots," Bishop said. "And I think that what we're doing is mourning with all of the world and all that had been lost. And we want to see justice but in a measured way."

The International AIDS Society issued a statement expressing its grief over the news that several of its colleagues and friends were on board.

"At this incredibly sad and sensitive time the IAS stands with our international family and sends condolences to the loved ones of those who have been lost to this tragedy," the group said.