I don't go there often, admittedly, but I do remember most of my CDG/LHR/FRA trips to go back through Ukraine. It might have been a jetstream/seasonal thing.
It is increasingly likely now that the separatists did shoot it down, with equally increasing likelihood that they used a BUK system either stolen from the Ukrainian military or, and I fear that's the case, on a courtesy loan from Putin.
Theories abound already, including one which seems to indicate an Ukrainian military transport was flying nearby bringing relief to ground troops and which the separatists might have thought they were targeting.
That, of course, entails a certain level of intelligence which, by any definition of the word, this hodgepodge group of russophiles is clearly unable to provide on their own...
I have $10 saying they never find the CVR/FDR.
This is absolutely, shockingly, disastrous. There is no excuse for any of this.