A Malaysian passenger aircraft carrying 295 people on board has gone down in Ukraine, and some early reports indicate it was shot down.

It crashed after being shot down in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, according to an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister.

Anton Gerashenko, the adviser, says on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit Thursday by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, the Associated Press reports.

Malaysia Airlines said on Twitter that it “has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace.”

Unconfirmed reports said 280 passengers and 15 crew onboard the plane were killed in the crash.

The commercial Boeing airliner was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, the source told the Interfax news agency.

The aircraft involved is understood to be a Boeing 777 with flight number MH17, which departed from Amsterdam at 12.14am local time, 15 minutes later than scheduled, according to flight records.

It was expected to arrive in Malaysia at 6:10am local time, but did enter Russian airspace when it was expected to, a Russian aviation source told Reuters.

The Interfax report said the plane came down 50 km (20 miles) short of entering Russian airspace. It “began to drop, afterwards it was found burning on the ground on Ukrainian territory,” the unnamed source said.

The plane appeared to have come down in a region of military action where Ukrainian government forces are battling pro-Russian separatists.

A separate unnamed source in the Ukrainian security apparatus, quoted by Interfax, said the plane disappeared from radar at a height of 10,000 metres after which it came down near the town of Shakhtyorsk.

A spokesman for Malaysian Airlines confirmed “an incident” involving one of its flights and is expected to release a statement shortly, Sky News reported.  – Agencies