Once again, Malaysia Airlines has figured in yet another controversial situation as one of its planes has been reported to have gone down during a flight, leaving all passengers on board -- all 298 of them -- dead.
"A Malaysia Airlines passenger jet crashed in a rebel-controlled part of eastern Ukraine on Thursday, spurring swift accusations from Ukrainian officials that 'terrorists' shot down the aircraft," CNN reported.
"The Boeing 777 with 298 people aboard fell from the sky near the town of Torez in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine," the news source quoted officials as saying. "A top Ukrainian official said the plane, which was on the way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was flying at about 10,000 meters (nearly 33,000 feet) when the missile hit."
Once again, there were no survivors from this year's second mishap involving the troubled carrier. Save if you consider married couple Barry and Izzy Sim, who nearly lost their lives on the said flight, as such.
The pair, including their baby, were supposed to board MH17. "In a twist of fate, the couple were put on a later flight with the airline KLM, due to the Malaysia Airlines flight being too full. The change saved their lives," Mashable noted.
The couple, who are from Scotland, are understandably thankful for the change in their fortunes.
"There must have been someone watching over us and saying 'you must not get on that flight,'" Mrs. Sim told The Telegraph. "We are very loyal to Malaysia Airlines and we always want to fly with Malaysia Airlines. But do you know what, at this moment we are so glad to be on that KLM flight rather than that Malaysia Airlines flight."
Mr. Sim also expressed his thoughts about their brush with tragedy. "In my mind lightning never strikes twice in the same place so I am still philosophical that you get on the flight and you go about your life," he said. "I know my wife doesn't feel like that. Probably the last thing she wants to do now is fly, especially to Kuala Lumpur."
The Sims are not the only ones who managed to avoid the disaster. Newlyweds Juan Lovel and Simone La Posta from Adelaide, Australia were also able to avoid being casualties on MH-17.
"We flew into KL from Amsterdam on the MH-17 flight, the day before, so it's a bit surreal to think that, you know, one day later and I wouldn't be standing here talking to you right now," La Posta was quoted by The Advertiser as saying. "We originally had our itinerary to be on that flight, but then we changed it thinking we'd be too jet-lagged for work on Monday."
"Then there was another chance we could've been on that flight - when we got to Schiphol Airport on Wednesday to check in, they'd overbooked that flight, so we were on standby and we only found out literally a minute before the boarding closed that we were actually going to be leaving that day," she added.
"It's surreal, just glad to be home ... at the moment, seeing all the images it's a bit hard to process it really," Lovel said.
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