A Malaysian airliner reportedly with 295 people on board has crashed in Ukraine near the Russian border, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It has been reported that it appears to have been shot down by a surface to air missile, possibly mistakenly.
According to a Reuters correspondent: from The Guardian,
Dozens of bodies were scattered around the smouldering wreckage of a passenger jet that crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, a Reuters reporter said.
An emergency services rescue worker said at least 100 bodies had so far been found at the scene, near the village of Grabovo, and that debris from the wreckage was scattered across an area up to about 15km (nine miles) in diameter.
Broken pieces of the wings were marked with blue and red paint – the same colours as the emblem of the Malaysian airline which lost track of a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was carrying almost 300 people.
That website is being updated rapidly.
Thoughts and sincere sympathies go out to relatives and loved ones of passengers and crew of MH17.
UPDATE
Malaysia Airlines report that there were 173 Dutch, 44 Malaysian (including 15 crew and 2 infants),
27 Australian, 12 Indonesian (including 1 infant), 9 United Kingdom, 4 Germany, 4 Belgium, 3 Philippines, 1 New Zealand, and 1 Canadian residents on board.
20 passengers’ nationalities are unknown. There were reportedly some Americans on board who could have boarded with passport other than USA's (dual citizens).
Hhmmm...is there a correlation between this latest tragedy and MH371? I would avoid air travel on Malaysian Airlines.
ReplyDeletemike ~ I don't think there's any link except for the unfortunate Airline involved. There might be something astrological I guess.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like a very odd coincidence - what odds the same Airline would be involved in 2 major crashes within a few months of each other?
Coincidence, and terrible tragedies - both.
Anonymous (Kidd) ~ Hmmm - not as rare as I'd have expected - thanks for the information. The examples you've quotes form kind of cluster in themselves : all in a just over 10 year span. Let us hope we are not at the start of another such clustering.
ReplyDelete