Malaysian Plane Crash: Ukraine Rebels Claim Possessions of Data Recording Devices

Separatist rebels, who control the area where the Malaysian airline plane crashed yesterday said they had recovered "most" of the plane's black boxes and were considering what to do with them. Ukraine, whose investigators have no access to the area, has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and insisted it was not its military. U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile downed the plane, but could not say who fired it.

For the first day in months, there was no sign of fighting in the area, though there was no official word of a cease-fire. But access to the area remained difficult and dangerous. The road from Donetsk, the largest city in the region, to the crash site was marked by five rebel checkpoints running document checks.

The area has seen heavy fighting between government troops and pro-Russia separatists, and rebels had bragged about shooting down two Ukrainian military jets in the region just a day earlier.

Ukraine accused the rebels of shooting down the Malaysia Airways plane. The rebels denied it and accused government forces of the same; President Petro Poroshenko denied it as well.