The pair were joining a group tour designed for single parents and their children. Petra’s sister-in-law worked for a travel agency and had suggested travelling via Vietnam, because it would be cheaper and a shorter haul, but that itinerary was fully booked so they decided to fly via Kuala Lumpur with Malaysia Airlines.
Petra, an energetic, outgoing person who was involved with elderly care groups, had just started her own business called The Helping Hand. She had founded the venture because she noticed that more and more of the elderly were opting or forced to stay in their own houses rather than move to a retirement home. To be able to survive at home this age group needed a little help with a variety of matters, varying from a friendly chat in order to combat loneliness to assistance with filling in their tax returns. Petra was also the driving force behind a group of friends who called themselves the Golden Girls. Every Wednesday night they would come together for a fun evening, a drink of wine and a meal. The four of them had been friends for eons.
After his parents’ divorce, Gary had moved from Rotterdam to Maassluis with Petra, about twenty kilometres away. Gary visited his dad every weekend and the two of them would talk incessantly about football; they were both loyal supporters of the Rotterdam football club Feyenoord. They would go to matches together as much as possible.
Gary himself played football and was goalie for his local club in Maassluis. He was really looking forward to this holiday and, when the plane prepared to taxi onto the runway, he sent the selfie and a message to his father: ‘Here I go.’ Now he and his mother were well underway.
Cor Schilder and Neeltje Tol were born and bred in Volendam, a small and attractive Dutch fishing village popular with tourists. They had gone to school there, grown up and fallen in love there. Young and dynamic, the couple ran a flower shop, simply called Neeltje’s Flowers, in a shopping mall in the village. They worked hard, taking only two weeks off every year to go on a well-earned holiday. This year they had booked for Bali. Cor loved Malaysia and Indonesia and had spent many a holiday in Asia.
The couple had just bought a new house in the village; life was good and their futures looked bright. It was the peak of the holiday season and they had put up a sign in the shop window that morning that they would be back in two weeks, wishing all their customers a wonderful holiday. Then they had taken off for Schiphol.
Apart from fishing, nearly everyone in Volendam was involved in music, either as a singer, musician, producer or as simply a vendor of records and CDs. Through some strange quirk of genetics, just about everyone in the village could sing and most were gifted with wonderful voices. Musical talent had run for centuries through these families and almost every Volendammer could play some instrument or other. There were many local bands.
Cor was drummer in a band called Vast Countenance and sang the backing vocals under the stage name Cor Pan. Neeltje was the band’s most devoted fan, always up the front and cheering them on at every performance. The group were about to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary and were working hard to produce a new CD, practising whenever they could for a special concert to be held in October.
Cor loved life, but his favourite pastime was lazing in a hammock with a beer and a cigarette. He was also a practical joker, known for his corny humour and silly gags. Always up for a laugh, he had taken a snapshot of Malaysia Airlines MH17 as he and Neeltje waited at the gate. His friends had teased him about the disappearance of Flight MH370; Cor decided to go along with their tease and posted the snapshot to his friends just before boarding.
The caption that accompanied his photo read: ‘In case it goes missing, this is what it looks like.’
Chapter 14
Ukraine, 17 July 2014
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 had left Amsterdam Schiphol almost three and a half hours ago and the crew were busy serving lunch. The plane was well into Ukraine territory, taking the shortest flight path over Eastern Europe before flying on to central Asia and over the Bay of Bengal and Thailand before reaching its final destination, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Outside the oval windows, above the clouds, the sky over Ukraine was a perfect blue. From that height the situation on the ground below looked incredibly peaceful, and no one would suspect that blood was being shed and a war was raging on the ground. Some thousand feet above them Singapore Airlines was cruising leisurely a minute behind them, and Air India was also just minutes away. Together with Malaysia Airlines, some 150 other aircraft were using this same air corridor every day.
It had been smooth sailing from Amsterdam, but now Captain Eugene Choo, glancing at his radar, noticed a small patch of bad weather ahead. In the cockpit with Choo was First Officer Rahim.
The forecast had been for thunderstorms in eastern Ukraine, so when it became evident that MH17 was on course to fly into the storm, Choo intended to ask the air traffic controller if he could divert from his flight route. It was standard practice to deviate from a route if there was good cause, but a plane needed permission from the air control centre to do so.
However, before Choo could call in to ask for permission to bypass the storm, a communication came in from one of the air controllers at the flight control and information centre at Dnipropetrovsk (commonly known simply as Dnipro), asking if he could perhaps take his aircraft to a higher altitude.
Flight MH17 up to now had been flying at flight level (FL) 330, equivalent to 33,000 feet. The controller asked him to take his plane to flight level (FL) 350—35,000 feet—but Choo declined. His reason is not clear, but it may have had to do with the detour that Choo was planning. The air traffic controller did not ask for an explanation.
It was a busy day in the skies above Ukraine and there were several other aircraft in the area at the time. The Singapore Airlines flight was still trailing behind MH17 so, to give both planes some leeway, the controller felt the need to direct one of the two to fly higher. Singapore Flight 350 let Dnipro control centre know that taking the plane to a higher altitude did not present a problem.
The airspace below 26,000 feet had been closed for civilian aircraft as a result of the Notices to Airmen that had been issued on 1 July and later, on 14 July, the Ukrainian Air Traffic Service (UkSATSE) applied restrictions to airspace in eastern Ukraine, banning flights below 32,000 feet. Any aircraft flying at or above the assigned airspace was considered to be safe from insurgent air attacks.
Captain Choo at this stage put in his request to divert around the storm: ‘Dnipro, Malaysian one seven, okay, start to two zero miles to the left of track due to weather?’
The answer came immediately: ‘Malaysian one seven, roger.’
It was almost 1300 hours UTC (Universal Time Coordinated). At Ukrainian ground level it was around four o’clock in the afternoon.
Five minutes later MH17, having made its way around the bad patch, was back on its original flight path. But now Choo, feeling the need to make up for lost time, asked the air controller if the altitude at FL340 was free. This would take the plane up another thousand feet.
‘Malaysian one seven, is flight level three four zero available?’
With Singapore Airlines 350 flying at almost the same altitude, the controller refused the request. He had just been able to give the two planes some room and allowing MH17 to fly higher would cramp both planes’ airspace.