Yes, it's very strange.  The separatists could fire a thousand of those missiles and they probably wouldn't hit a commercial flight.

The alternative is that someone staged a black flag operation. Which is more unlikely? We can only speculate at this point.

some pictures:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/07/17/passenger-plane-carrying-shot-down-adviser-ukrainian-official-says/m1sQJvByNCi7Vn5ncwEAjL/picture.html?hootPostID=5c298360b5d180349b0a284d72f65e55

So tragic for all the passengers of that plane and now the 24 hour news network will go into full "let's speculate to fill air-time mode" drowning the actual facts in a sea of "what ifs".

Some black boxes have been recovered already, in due time we'll know... smth, if not all. For now we don't even know if it's been actually shot down.

As for the media... well, it didn't give a two craps about thousands died in that conflict. Just few days ago 2-3 thousand military men from Ukrainian army south group has been caught in a pocket suffering 100-200 casualties dead, god knows how many wounded and desperetely trying to escape it, a dozen or two even managed it to Russian terriotry, 6 still on life support, probably more to come. Did anyone report that? But 295 killed in an air crash is obviously a big deal, pardon for being heartless.

RIP

Ive seen images and videos, graphics stuff. Awful.

It had to have been shot down, either that or the engines exploded in mid-flight. The radius of bodies found suggest the shooting.

No, the media didn't report that but it has been covering the conflict extensively for months. Also people are dying in Gaza right now , so that story was getting the most coverage lately. And before that, it was the ISIS takeover of Iraq. These are pretty big stories where many have died as well. 

Months is a bit too long for a conflict that's 2-3 months old, media interest has died in a first month of the conflict, interest to ISIS since that mass execution is almost dead too with some bumps here and there that usually doesn't make to the headlines of the top media. Thankfully I have no language barrier to follow anything from Ukraine directly from the ground, and some bits of Iraqi war thanks to Russian-speaking Syrians. Can't say anything about Gaza, not following.

Id bet the ukrainians did it, their military both sides is incompetent. probably though it was "the other sides support"

Add to that ramming in the air (yeah, just heard this version from one of the wintesses, of course, have no idea how legit this is, sounds ridiculous).