Putting a face on the MH17 tragedy

7/21/2014

With the feverish pace of tragic events in this world and the condition it is in, it can become easy to go "numb inside". Almost to the point of losing empathy for the victims, and loved ones of these near daily heinous acts.

Sometimes we need to "put a face" on such tragedies to personalize them, rather than think of them as far, far away from our own little bubble.

The victims of the Flight MH17 tragedy

From left, Mo, Otis and Evie Norris, who died along with grandfather Nick Morris

The tales of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 cover the emotional spectrum — from the heart-wrenching tragedies of those who boarded to the fortunate few whom fate kept away.

They included a family that lost two loved ones in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 last March — and then lost two more in Thursday’s disaster.

There was the luck of a British family who agreed to be switched off the flight because it was overbooked — and the sheer misfortune of a flight attendant who died after swapping shifts with a co-worker.

One passenger even felt something was amiss: He posted a video to Instagram of people boarding and wrote that he was “nervous.”

All told, 298 people — including 80 children — fell from the sky in the missile strike, their bodies scattered over a war-torn patch of Ukraine.

‘Gentle, clever and beautiful kids’

They are the most innocent victims of Flight 17.

Some 80 children — including siblings Mo, Otis and Evie Maslin — were killed when a missile struck the flight over Ukraine.

“Anything that leads to innocent children being shot out of the sky is not where we should be heading,” the Australian siblings’ aunt, Natalia Gemmell, told the Perth Now news site.

‘ANYTHING THAT LEADS TO INNOCENT CHILDREN BEING SHOT OUT OF THE SKY IS NOT WHERE WE SHOULD BE HEADING.’

 - Natalia Gemmell, Victims' Aunt

Mo, 12, Otis, 8, and Evie, 10, were flying back to Perth, Australia, with their grandfather, Nick Norris, 68, after a vacation.

Norris had joked to relatives before about how eerie it was to be taking Malaysia Airlines, which lost a jetliner in March.

The kids were headed back for the start of school, while their parents, Rin Norris and Anthony Maslin, stayed in Amsterdam for a little alone time.

Gemmell recalled Nick Norris, her father, as “a great man” and her nephews and nieces as “gentle, clever, beautiful kids.”

She said she felt fortunate she got to tell her father “I love you” one last time.

“I spoke to him just before he caught the plane to find out when he was leaving and told him I loved him and told him I’d see him when he got back,” she told Perth Now.

Indiana U. student was a ‘star’

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Karlijn Keijzer, 25, was a star member of the Indiana University rowing team.Photo: Indiana University

Dutch-born Indiana University student Karlijn Keijzer was “a bright star” at her school who wanted to “make the world better through science,” her dean said Friday.

The 25-year-old member of the rowing team just finished her fourth year at IU.

“Karlijn was, by all accounts, a bright star in the IU constellation, a gifted student and athlete, and a talented researcher with a passion for making the world better through science,” said Larry Singell, dean of IU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Just before leaving for a short summer vacation, Keijzer was working on a computer simulation of an anti-cancer drug she hoped would also be able to help treat people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Keijzer taught an introductory organic chemistry class as well as a higher-level course on biochemistry and biosynthesis.

The researcher was also “unquestionably the leader of the best boat we had that year,” said her rowing coach, Steve Peterson.

Humanitarian was heading on vacation with family

Globe-trotting humanitarian Tessa van der Sande was taking a break from her goodwill work to spend some quality time with her family in Indonesia.

But they never made it.

She and her parents went down with Flight 17 — and friends of the 27-year-old Amnesty International worker from the Netherlands said her loss will be felt far and wide.

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Tessa van der Sande, 27, was a member of Amnesty International.

“Our thoughts go out to all who lost loved ones to flight #MH17, including friends & family of Tessa van der Sande, an @amnestynlcolleague,” Amnesty UK tweeted Friday.

The hazel-eyed brunette was a seasoned traveler who had lived abroad in Sudan and France.

She also took her activism to social media — posting a picture with a huge white banner saying “Free Pussy Riot,” the feminist punk-rock group based out of Moscow.

Her hobbies included snorkeling, and she posted a picture online of herself with a giant sea turtle.

Pilot texted wife right before takeoff

The pilot of the downed Malaysia Airlines flight texted his wife before takeoff to tell her he’d be home soon.

Capt. Wan Amran Wan Hussin, 49, who had been with the airline for 25 years, sent the message to Meriam Yusoff via the messaging app WhatsUp before takeoff from Amsterdam on Thursday.

A few hours later, his wife got a call from a local TV station and learned of the crash.

She immediately put on the news reports and realized that it was her husband’s flight home.

The couple have two young boys, 8 and 10 years old.

Family pets also among the dead

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Quinta, a dog belonging to Nicole Nootebos, was in the cargo hold of Flight MH17.

Human lives weren’t the only ones lost in the tragic Malaysia Airlines shoot-down Thursday.

Two dogs — including a black and white English shepherd named Quinta— and nine birds were stored in Flight 17’s cargo area.

“We will miss our dog terribly,” Quinta’s owners — members of a Dutch family that recently relocated to Kuala Lumpur — posted on their blog.

Quinta was caged and riding in the cargo hold, according to the jet’s cargo manifest revealed on Friday.

The other canine, which weighed 44 pounds, belonged to a German-shepherd kennel in the Netherlands. Its ultimate destination was Manila in the Philippines.

Four pigeons and five other types of birds also perished aboard the doomed plane.

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