Ukraine admits missile may have shot down plane

Ukraine's chief of air defences has admitted that the Russian airliner which crashed in the Black Sea, killing all on board, might have been unintentionally shot down by a missile fired by Ukrainian forces during military exercises.

"On the basis of the preliminary conclusions of the experts, the cause of the air crash could have been the unintended destruction of the plane by a missile during exercises,'' General Volodymyr Tkachov told a news conference.

But he stopped short of confirming that a Ukrainian missile was to blame.

The Tu-154 airliner went down on October 4 off the Black Sea coast, near the Russian city of Sochi, after an explosion on board. All 78 people on board, most of them recent Russian immigrants to Israel, were killed.