Bodies, debris and burning wreckage of the Boeing 777-200 were strewn over a field near the rebel-held village of Hrabove in the Donetsk region, about 40 kilometres from the Russian border, where fighting has raged for months.
The aircraft appeared to have broken up before impact, and there were large pieces of the plane that bore the red, white and blue markings of Malaysia Airlines - now familiar worldwide because of the carrier's still-missing jetliner from earlier this year.
The cockpit and one of the turbines lay at a distance of a kilometre from one another. Residents said the tail was about 10 kilometres farther away.
Rescue workers planted sticks with white flags in spots where they found human remains.
There was no sign of any survivors from Flight MH17, which took off shortly after noon on Thursday from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 283 passengers, including three infants, and a crew of 15.
Malaysia's prime minister said there was no distress call before the plane went down and that the flight route was declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
Officials said more than half of those aboard the plane were Dutch citizens, along with passengers from Australia, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, the Philippines and Canada.
The home countries of nearly 50 were not confirmed.
Some journalists trying to reach the crash site were detained briefly by rebel militiamen, who were nervous and aggressive.
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