32,000 feet and below. and technically, malaysia flying at 33,000 feet, to the letter of the law, was okay. to be there. but as a pilot, i m going to tell you, i like to always have a fallback position. a way out. and if you re at 33,000 feet, and for some reason you need to descend, because of a decompression or engine loss, whatever, you re going straight into a no-fly zone. they were right on the margin of safety, anyway, and on top of that, there have been four or five shootdowns just in the past month at relatively high altitudes. so there was all kinds of evidence that this was not a great place to be, and yet there was some sort of apathy that crept into their decision-making process and, frankly, this is a commercial decision as well. it took, would take them a little built out of theit out o might cause a little more fuel burn over the course of that 12-hour flight. so in the end, i think we know
there were three, which means one of them would be able to pinpoint the target, be able to really thoroughly examine what it is, identify this is a commercial airline? well if it was working in three, in a three platform, as we call it, a battery of air defense systems, there s going to be one radar and a couple of shooters, which also have their own radars. that s still under contention. i know the general, my good friend who s currently the nato commander and head of european command, is gathering up evidence to see exactly what they can find happened on the ground. if there are other european allies who saw anything from intelligence platforms. that s a long way off and he s gathering that intel now. if it did shoot as part of a battery it could have known what it was shooting at. i suspect it was an independent launch, my contention. they did not know what they were firing at, and they hit what they thought was a military plane filled with ukrainian soldier, and instead, they got
and cooperation in europe, they are there today. a little more flexibility than they had yesterday, but still even though a smaller team there of them, but they seem to have more mobile than yesterday, it s reported. germany is urging russian president vladimir putin to pressure these rebels to let the investigators in even further. malaysia airlines issued, too, its latest list of the 298 people 11 nations aboard the flight when it was shot down out of the sky over eastern ukraine. most of the passengers come from the netherlands. there was one american as well. international observers at the crash site say they have been hearing gunfire and explosions this morning. witnesses say some human remains put in body bags and put to the side of the road. accusing pro-russian reshls removing more than three dozen bodies as well as destroying evidence, they say, the ukrainian say. and heavy fighting, about 60 miles from the field of debris and wreckage there. chris cuomo, co-host o
we continue coverage of that crashed malaysian jet and reports rebel gunmen are keeping investigators from the crash site of flight 17, at least some of them. and pressuring vladimir putin to let the investigators in. malaysian airlines issued its latest list of the 298 people from 11 nations who were onboard the flight when it crashed. most of the passengers we know came from the netherlands. there was one american onboard as well. international observers at the crash site say they have been hearing gunfire, explosions this morning and witnesses say some human remains are being put into body bags and moved to the side of the road. the ukrainian government is accusing pro-russian rebels of removing more than three dozen bodies and destroying evidence. let s bring back chris cuomo, the co-host of cnn s new day, live from the crash scene in eastern ukraine. chris, we spoke to you about half an hour ago. what have you noticed on the ground there in the last half hour? report
let s talk to cnn aviation analyst mary xwauv mary schiav. when you hear from chris is saying, the pro-russian rebels are allowing villagers to come in, allowing pictures to be taken but keeping investigators out. what does that say to you? clearly, in my mind, christi, what s happening on the ground is, and they re taking advantage of their presence, their position on the ground. they are establishing themselves as in control and i would say they re protecting a crime scene so that the evidence doesn t go to somebody else. the larger story here clearly is, what s the international outrage about this? how is the united states going to take a leadership position and call putin for what he is? clearly, he s responsible for this. this is a war that he could stop. and clearly, from an intelligence guy s perspective,