WASHINGTON, July 18 - U.S. President Barack Obama expressed his "outrage" about the downing of Maylaysian Airlines flight MH17, calling the incident, which killed 298 passengers and crew en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The president, in a Friday statement, said that the crash victims included one U.S. citizen and underscored the need to take urgent action to contain the crisis that has developed in eastern Ukraine.