Hours later, a video surfaces on YouTube of smoke rising over a rural landscape and a picture is uploaded to Twitter of a Dutch woman's passport, taken from the scene of a plane crash. Social media sites have been hit with a number of videos and pictures of flight MH17 crashing and of the wreckage site, which remained open for the public to access - and photograph. One photograph tweeted from the site showed the passport photo of 60-year-old Jolette Nuesink, from the Netherlands, who had been on board the plane with her husband, Peter, and their two children.

The woman's brother-in-law, Sander Essers, told media: "I lost my brother, my sister, my nephew and my niece." He heard the news about the crash on the radio and scrambled to find more information from authorities at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. He said his nephew was a 17-year-old student and his niece was studying medicine in the Dutch city of Groningen. Mr Salim, the student who posted the video of passengers on board the flight before take-off, was completing a PhD in psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, his brother said, and was heading home to spend time with his family. Several of the videos uploaded after the disaster were presumably shot by Ukrainians and have attracted international attention.

Shortly after the crash, two videos were uploaded to YouTube from an account called Novorossia Novorossiisk. This footage has been used extensively in news bulletins worldwide. The first video was titled "Snowy Plane Crash" and was shot from a street in Ukraine. It shows a thick plume of dark smoke unfurling across the sky as passers-by stop to discuss what has happened. It appears to have been filmed after a second video uploaded by the same user, which shows flames and thick smoke erupting from the wreckage. While there is no commentary beyond the video title that translates to "Air Crash", the footage begins shortly after the plane crashed from an estimated cruising altitude of 10,600 metres.

Another early clip captured the smoke beginning to swirl out from the crash site as debris fell from the sky. The trajectories and landing pattern of these earth-bound objects could be particularly useful for those attempting to identify exactly what kind of weapon damaged the plane. Geologist and meteor specialist Professor Phil Bland told The ABC cameras could be useful to triangulate where a falling object might land. While the following clip was shot by a citizen rather than from a static scientific location, it could be useful to analyse where the plane may have been shot.

Residents at the scene of the crash told the New York Times several of the falling objects were bodies, many only partially clad with clothes burned or torn off in the descent. One local, who the Times identifies as a separatist rebel would only share his first name, Sergei. “It was horrible. We were in shock,” he said. A harrowing clip zooms in on bodies but also shows remarkably intact and undamaged passports and tourism books, as well as a book of children's stickers. Most of the passengers on the flight were from the Netherlands. Six were from Britain, 28 from Australia, 11 from Indonesia, three from the Philippines, four from France, four from Belgium and one from Canada.

The Australians on board came from all over the country. They included nine from Queensland, seven from Western Australia, nine from Victoria and one each from Canberra and NSW. Sister Philomene Tiernan, from Sydney, Nick Norris and three of his grandchildren, from Perth, and Melbourne couple Albert and Maree Rizk, were among those killed. Victorian Premier Denis Napthine said the flight also included a number of Australian permanent residents who were travelling on foreign passports. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the event was a "terrible tragedy". He told Parliament Australia would seek a binding resolution through the United Nations Security Council for an impartial investigation with full access to the site, debris, black box and ‘‘all individuals who might be in a position to shed light on this terrible event”.