Speculations are emerging about what caused Malaysian Airline Flight 17 to crash, and one of which said only a group armed with advanced military and technological capabilities could shoot down a Boeing 777 from a 30,000 feet altitude.

The question of what type of weapon that took the airplane down could be a key question to solving the mystery of what happened, when 298 passengers and crew - among these 80 children - became what look liked innocent victims in the conflict between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists.

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A senior U.S. official told CNN that a radar system spotted a surface-to-air missile system tracking the Boeing 777 just before the plane went down. Another system spotted a heat signature at the exact time the plane was hit.

"U.S. is now analyzing the trajectory of the missile to pinpoint where the attack came from," the official said to CNN.

Until now the big question is whether the separatist rebels in Ukraine would be able to shoot down a plane as it happened and if they at all have weapons like a surface-to-air within their arsenal. Something many believe is highly unrealistic. Even if the rebels might have some missile system at hand, these will probably be shoulder mounted systems, which are limited to hitting targets within a range of 15.000 feet.

The facts make military analyst come up with another possibility; a more sophisticated missile system like the surface-to-air SA 11 hit the commercial airplane. According to reports, only a professional army has access to such weapons, which include the Russian and the Ukrainian armies.

No doubt that answering the question of what shot the plane down will be crucial to the investigation of the of the crash. Whether the plane was shot down on purpose or crashed by accident remains to be seen.

TagsRelatives, missiles, Boeing 777, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17