After trying to locate MH17 for almost thirty minutes, RND control centre informed Dnipro that everyone at Rostov was by now rushing around on high alert, desperately trying to figure out what had happened.
Igor Girkin was one of the first to mention on social media that the separatists had managed to down yet another Ukrainian plane: ‘In the vicinity of Torez, we just downed a plane, an An-26. It is lying somewhere in the Progress Mine. We have issued warnings not to fly in our airspace. We have video confirming. Residential areas were not hit. Civilians were not injured.’ The post came just thirty minutes after MH17 went missing.
It was almost dinnertime in the Netherlands. People were lighting the barbecue or returning home from work. It had been a beautiful day and everyone appeared to be looking forward to a warm and relaxing evening ahead.
Many missed the extra news bulletin at 5.35pm with its special report, but not the mother of Hans van den Hende. She and her husband, Ko, watched the TV news with mounting shock and disbelief. A passenger plane that had left Schiphol airport earlier that day had likely crashed near the Ukraine–Russian border; there were reports that it may even have been shot down. When they saw it was Malaysia Airlines MH17, they knew. If this were true, their son Hans, his Malaysian wife, Shaliza Dewa, and their three beautiful children—Margaux, Marnix and Piers—had apparently crashed. The two elderly people sat in front of the television, stunned as the news was relayed again and again.
All around the Netherlands phones began to ring. Confusion erupted, and hearts broke.
Anthony Maslin and Rin Norris, still holidaying in Amsterdam, landed in a hell beyond hell as realisation settled in that they had not only lost Rin’s father but also their three precious children.
In Amsterdam, Samira Calehr had just finished buying the socks she had promised her son Shaka when her phone rang. It was her friend Aan. ‘Where are you?’ he screamed. ‘The plane crashed!’
Jan Slok, Gary Slok’s father, was driving home when he heard the news that a plane had crashed en route to Kuala Lumpur. He knew in an instant it was the flight his son and his ex-wife, Petra, were on.
In Bali, Christine, fiancée of the friendly giant Willem Grootscholten, received a phone call at her guesthouse. She dropped the phone, collapsing in grief to the floor.
Robert Crolla was home alone. His wife had left for Bali the previous day, his daughter, Fleur, was holidaying in France and his son, Regis, had left for Bali that afternoon to join his mother for a holiday before he began university. Robert was looking forward to a peaceful evening when a telephone call came in from a sister-in-law. The plane Regis had boarded late that morning had crashed.
The news hit especially hard in the Netherlands. Two-thirds of the passengers on Flight MH17 were of Dutch or of dual-Dutch nationality. When the national news broadcaster NOS announced what had happened, night had already fallen in Australia and New Zealand. The relatives of those returning home on MH17 were asleep and unaware of the heart-rending news that would change their lives forever. In the morning they would awake to a world that had turned alien in a blink.
Word of the disaster spread quickly across the internet. It was too early to point the finger, and no one knew yet what exactly had happened. The Dutch as a nation aren’t very prone to speculation; the people of the Netherlands, digesting the news in a state of horror and disbelief, waited for the facts to be revealed. As news agencies scrambled to collect data about the downed plane and the circumstances under which it had so tragically crashed, everyone involved held their breath, in anticipation of what would happen next.
The Dutch news broadcast lasted for more than two hours. Bit by bit the information trickled in. The first footage came from CNN and the images of the dismal smoke plumes rising from the Ukrainian countryside left little hope that anyone could have survived.
In Kuala Lumpur, family members and friends of the passengers of flight MH17 started arriving at the airport expecting to pick up their relatives. The plane had been due to touch down at 6.10am. But the plane didn’t land, and over the next hours, as they waited, it became apparent that something was dreadfully wrong.
That morning Martijn van Nielen had been driven to Brussels airport by his father to board his flight to Paris. But after landing at Charles de Gaulle, his plane had been delayed for hours. It appeared something was wrong.
He was told there were many delays on the route to Kuala Lumpur: a plane had apparently vanished while flying over Ukraine. There wasn’t much additional information. Ultimately his plane took off hours later for Kuala Lumpur, where he expected to be met by his brother, Stefan. At Kuala Lumpur he discovered that Stefan’s plane had not yet landed. Thinking his brother had encountered the same delay that he had, Martijn waited in vain for Stefan to arrive.
As the news spread in Malaysia, anxious relatives tried to find out what had happened to their loved ones and family members. Initially Malaysia Airlines used its Twitter account to announce the news to the public: ‘Malaysia Airlines has lost contact of flight MH17 operating from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on 17 July 2014. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace. For latest update, please follow our Twitter account @MAS.’
Heartbreaking scenes of sobbing relatives arriving at the airport—reminiscent of the aftermath of the MH370 disaster just four months before—dominated the news. Some people had not heard about the tragedy and arrived at the airport expecting to pick up their loved ones. Instead they were told that their family members would never arrive at Kuala Lumpur airport.
Tirso Pabellon waited at the airport. He was confused because his younger sister, 54-year-old Irene Gunawan, was supposed to be arriving along with her Indonesian husband, Budy, and her two children, Darryl and Sherryl. They were on their way to attend the annual family reunion in her hometown of Pagbilao. Tirso saw the plane had disappeared from the arrivals board, but it had not landed. There were disturbing but persistent rumours that it had crashed.
Ad van Nielen frantically tried to call his youngest son, Martijn. He did not want the boy to be alone when he heard the news, but Martijn wasn’t answering his phone.
Not everyone was certain that their families were actually on the missing aircraft, and families and friends could be seen roaming Kuala Lumpur airport, frantically seeking information and confirmation. But the desks at the airport were mainly empty. Grieving families soon started to demand to see the passenger list, but no employees from Malaysia Airlines were to be found anywhere.
Furious relatives waited for hours at the arrivals hall, unable to speak to officials from Malaysia Airlines. Some grieving relatives tried to push their way into the operational areas but were met by security guards. Police guarding the area then had to call for calm as the now hysterical families began demanding that the flight manifest be shown to them. Everybody appeared struck not just with horror but with sheer disbelief that Malaysia had lost yet another aircraft. ‘I am shocked by reports that an MH plane crashed. We are launching an immediate investigation,’ Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, said on Twitter.
Robert Crolla managed to get a phone call through to his wife on Bali. A plane has crashed and Regis is on it, he told her. She didn’t understand until she turned on the TV in the hotel room. He kept trying to phone his daughter but her phone was busy.
Sixty-eight-year-old Yasmine Calehr had travelled from her home in Texas to Malaysia. She had once lived on Bali for years with her Indonesian husband and still owned a villa there that looked out over the rice fields and palm trees. Because she lived in the US and her grandsons lived in the Netherlands, they would travel to the villa every year to spend a vacation together. Yasmine had left Houston hours ahead of her grandsons, Shaka and Miguel who travelled from Amsterdam. The plan was for her to be there well ahead of them to meet them when they landed at Kuala Lumpur. Their brother Mika would arrive a day later.