Family just missed downed Malaysia Airlines flight
QMI Agency
First posted: Friday, July 18, 2014 07:12 AM EDT | Updated: Friday, July 18, 2014 10:27 AM EDT
A woman who just missed boarding the MH17 flight that was reportedly shot down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday says she and her family have been "given a second chance."
"Like, I am shaken. I don't even know what to do and I feel physically sick," Amsterdam's Izzy Sim
told Fox News. "I am just thinking that I feel like I have been given a second chance and hopefully (the new flight) will get there safely and I will see my family again."
Sim, her husband Barry and their infant child were told there were not enough seats on the plane for them and were switched to a later flight on another airline,
reports the Telegraph newspaper.
All 298 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed.
U.S. officials told Reuters that Washington strongly suspected the Boeing 777 was downed by a sophisticated surface-to-air missile fired by Ukrainian separatists backed by Moscow. Russia and Ukraine pointed fingers at each other.
Photos Thursday showed dozens of bodies strewn about the wreckage.
Sim told Fox that she cried in the taxi on the way to the airport when she heard the news about MH17.
Her husband suggested it might have been more than luck that changed their travel plans.
"There must have been someone watching over us and saying 'You must not get on that flight," he told the Telegraph.
Barry and Izzy Sim are pictured with their child in this screengrab from the
Telegraph’s video.
Family just missed downed Malaysia Airlines flight | World | News | Toronto Sun
Family in 'shock' after losing members in both Malaysian Airlines tragedies
QMI Agency
First posted: Friday, July 18, 2014 09:37 AM EDT | Updated: Friday, July 18, 2014 10:06 AM EDT
An Australian family who lost their son and daughter-in-law when Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared in March has learned their step-granddaughter was killed when flight MH17 crashed over Ukraine on Thursday.
"We are all shaking our head in shock," George Burrows
told the Brisbane Times.
George and his wife Irene lost their son Rodney and his wife Mary when MH370 disappeared in March.
Now the couple is reeling from the news of the loss of Maree Rizk.
Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crashed over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people on board. Rizk was returning from a holiday with her husband, Albert.
"They were fantastic people. Albert was one of the guys who was always the life of the party," George Burrows told the Brisbane Times.
Ukraine blamed Russia-backed separatists for the tragedy, alleging they shot the flight down with a surface-to-air missile. Russia, meanwhile, pointed the finger at Ukraine.
Family in 'shock' after losing members in both Malaysian Airlines tragedies | Wo
Bodies rained down on Ukraine village after plane disaster
Anton Zverev, Reuters
First posted: Friday, July 18, 2014 01:18 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, July 18, 2014 03:03 PM EDT
ROZSYPNE, Ukraine - First came the loud explosion that made buildings rattle: then it started raining bodies.
One of the corpses fell through the rickety roof of Irina Tipunova's house in this sleepy village, just after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 exploded high over eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists are fighting government forces.
"There was a howling noise and everything started to rattle. Then objects started falling out of the sky," the 65-year-old pensioner said in front of her grey-brick home.
"And then I heard a roar and she landed in the kitchen, the roof was broken," she said, showing the gaping hole made by the body when it came through the ceiling of the kitchen in an extension to the house.
The dead woman's naked body was still lying inside the house, next to a bed.
About 100 metres (330 feet) from Tipunova's home, dozens more dead bodies lay in the wheat fields where the airliner came down on Thursday, killing all 298 people on board.
Still visibly shaken by her experience, Tipunova said: "The body's still here because they told me to wait for experts to come and get it."
Another local resident in her 20s who refused to give her name said she ran outside after hearing the plane explode.
"I opened the door and I saw people falling. One fell in my vegetable patch," she said.
RED ROSE AND PLASTIC SHEETS
It was not only bodies that fell from the sky. Chunks of metal, pieces of luggage and other debris came crashing down to the ground in this agricultural area about 40 km (25 miles) from the border with Russia.
The front of the plane fell in a field of sunflowers about one km (1000 yards) from Tipunova's home. Debris, bodies and body parts were scattered for miles around.
Rescue workers say they have found most of the corpses, some of them largely intact, others mangled. Some have been piled together but others lie where they fell, the place identified by sticks placed in the ground with white cloth attached.
Some of the corpses have been wrapped in almost transparent plastic sheets, the corners held down with small mounds of soil or stones. Pairs of uncovered legs poke out from under some of the sheets, and at least one had a red carnation on top.
Among the dead were many women and children, including a boy of about 10 still lying beside the cockpit, his small body covered by a plastic sheet.
Much of the scene was in chaos 24 hours after the plane was brought down. Abandoned shoes lay all around, with boxes of tablets that spilled out of a medical cabinet, empty suitcases and articles of clothing strewn over the fields.
In an effort to clean up some of the carnage, body parts have been washed off the pot-holed road where they fell to the earth, along with parts of the fuselage and wings showing the red and blue Malaysia Airlines logo.
Emergency workers, few in numbers on Thursday, had arrived in force by Friday, setting up base in two large tents. Journalists and local residents wandered largely unimpeded through the ashes and charred wreckage.
Rebel fighters in combat fatigues watched the proceedings nervously. Kiev has accused them of shooting down the plane, but they have denied this and are pledging not to prevent an international investigation going ahead.
The constant sound of mortar fire and shooting in the distance served as a reminder of the conflict raging between the separatist rebels and the government forces who are trying to quell their three-month-old revolt against rule from Kiev.
Bodies rained down on Ukraine village after plane disaster | World | News | Toro
Ajax man dies in Ukraine plane crash
JENNY YUEN and ANGELA HENNESY, Toronto Sun
First posted: Friday, July 18, 2014 10:39 AM EDT | Updated: Friday, July 18, 2014 06:42 PM EDT
AJAX - The last time Alexandra Anghel spoke to her brother Andrei was right before he boarded Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
The 24-year-old Ajax man and his girlfriend were among the 298 people killed aboard a Malaysian airliner brought down in eastern Ukraine Thursday, the Toronto Sun has learned.
“I said, ‘Please be safe, kiddo, I love you,’” Alexandra Anghel, 26, said at the family’s Ajax home Friday. “He promised he would be OK and we’re all worrying for nothing. That he’s just going on vacation and will have a great time.”
Andrei Anghel, a University of Waterloo graduate, had been studying in Romania, his sister said.
Anghel’s parents – Anca and Sorin – contacted Malaysia Airlines and confirmed their son was aboard the ill-fated flight, she said.
Anghel had been planning to go hiking in Bali with his German girlfriend, Olga, who was also aboard the jetliner, Alexandra said. The couple met in school and had been dating for over a year.
“I just talked to him before he got on the flight at the airport and he was so excited to go,” she said. “They’d been planning it for so long and he was just so happy about it.”
After the trip, Andrei had planned to come home Aug. 26 to Ajax and spend some time visiting his sister in Edmonton before he went back to school in Europe.
“He kept saying we’d Skype or FaceTime sometime soon and it never happened,” she said.
And while Alexandra is 10 days less than two years older than Andrei, “he’s been taller than me since Grade 6. Ever since then, I was little sister.”
According to Andrei’s Facebook page, he was studying general medicine at Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca, about 450 kilometres northwest of Bucharest. He graduated from the University of Waterloo in 2012 in biomedical science and had a stint working as a lab assistant at the Canadian Phycological Culture Centre at the school. Before that, he attended Ajax High School.
“Even when he was in high school, he did one of those volunteer trips to Costa Rica and went to the jungle with them and help the families,” Alexandra said.
“He was just really happy, he loved life and everything about it and wanted to change the world, wanted to be a doctor.”
Following news of Anghel’s death, University of Waterloo President Feridun Hamdullahpur issued a statement.
“The entire University of Waterloo community is shocked and saddened by the tragic passing of Andrei Anghel,” he said. “I offer my heartfelt condolences to his family members and friends at this extremely difficult time. This deplorable act has rocked the world’s scientific and research community. Our thoughts are with the families, friends and colleagues of all of those who died in this tragic event.”
According to a Russian media outlet, the headquarters of the university in Cluj-Napoca hoisted a black flag — a symbol of the school expressing condolences.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said he visited the Anghel family Friday morning to “express my deepest sympathies and to let them know they are in the thoughts and prayers of all Canadians during this time,” he said in a statement.
“Andrei represented the best that Ajax and Canada have to offer,” Alexander said. “The Canadian government is ready to provide assistance to Ukrainian authorities with the investigation. This is an egregious act of terror with an unacceptable human toll.”
Premier Kathleen Wynne gave her own condolences through social media.
“So sad to hear Andrei Anghel from Ajax was on the Malaysian flight. Our thoughts are with his family during this tragic time of sorrow,” Wynne said on Twitter Friday.
Alexandra flew home from Edmonton Thursday night to be with her family after she learned of the tragic news from a friend.
“They were messaging me on Facebook, asking me if they were on that flight,” she said. “I said the last I heard he would message me when they got to Bali, maybe they had a stop somewhere. She seemed really urgent about it and I knew something was wrong.”
Alexandra said she remembers hearing news about the Malaysia flight going down, but thought it was in relation to the Flight 370, which had disappeared on March 8 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
After speaking with her parents to confirm the flight times, the airline confirmed her brother was a passenger on Flight 17.
“For sure, I hope someone pays for what they did — there were 300 other people that died — but it’s still not going to bring my brother back,” she said, wiping away tears. “Unless you can bring me my brother home in one piece, smiling, so we can go long boarding. I hate talking about him in the past (tense).”
Ajax man dies in Ukraine plane crash | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun
