Russia was still considered to be the motherland by many Ukrainians living on the eastern borders with Russia. They were in no way keen to sever their ties; they still spoke Russian and were loyal to Moscow. The Ukrainian southern peninsula of Crimea had, not so long ago, been a part of the Soviet Union and it was home to more than a million ethnic Russians. Crimea had been gifted to Ukraine in 1954 by former leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. Russia still treated it as part of its empire and, although it officially belonged to Ukraine, the peninsula had its own parliament and its own government controlling its agriculture, public infrastructure and tourism. As Yanukovych made his way to speak to the Russian president, no one could have predicted that the February 2010 elections would be the last Ukrainian election that Crimea participated in as part of the local elections for their own parliament.
In the east of Ukraine, where Yanukovych had been born and bred, the Russian language had long dominated in government and the media, and when Ukraine became independent there were no Ukrainian-language schools in Donetsk. During the 2010 elections, voters in both the eastern and southern provinces of Ukraine had strongly supported Yanukovych. Two years after his election he had rewarded those voters when his government enacted a law decreeing that any local language spoken by at least 10 per cent of the population to be declared an official regional language within that area. Within weeks, Russian was declared a regional language in several southern and eastern provinces and cities. The law allowed the use of minority languages in courts, schools and other government institutions in areas of Ukraine and was used mostly in Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions.
Little could Yanukovych have known as he headed to Moscow that what he was about to do would eventually lead to disaster in more ways than one. Within the year, a small village called Hrabove near Donetsk, very close to his birthplace, would become the scene of one of the worst civilian airline incidents in postwar Europe.
Chapter 3
17 July 2014
The flight’s fifteen crew members—two pilots, two copilots and eleven flight attendants—had made their way past Renuka earlier that morning. As they hurried by and entered the airbridge, a couple of them had quickly waved their farewells to her. Most of the Muslim Malaysia Airlines staff were heading home to celebrate Eid with their families. An important religious holiday observed by Muslims worldwide, Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting.
Flight attendant Sanjid Singh Sandhu wasn’t supposed to be on Flight MH17 but had managed to swap shifts with a colleague at the last minute. Shifts were often exchanged for various reasons and it was quite a common practice among air crew members. It did not go against airline guidelines and, as long as the required number of crew were on board to assist, nobody minded.
Sanjid was looking forward to spending time with his wife and their seven-year-old son, Hans. He had been in Amsterdam for three days and his mother had promised to cook his favourite dishes to celebrate the end of Ramadan. No one called Sanjid by his birth name; everyone called him Bobby. The name had been given to him by his childhood nanny who loved Bollywood movies, especially one called Bobby. The name had stuck throughout his life.
Bobby took his job very seriously. Airlines look for friendly people who can memorise a lot of information and keep a cool head under pressure. His day began before the first passenger boarded the plane and would continue throughout the entire flight. To get a position with an airline, potential flight attendants must interview for the job, pass a medical exam, and work their way through a rigorous schedule of instruction and performance reviews. Bobby had done just that, but he was well aware that there were many more flight attendant applicants than positions. Only a select few made it through the entire process and were hired by the airline, but it was worth all the hard work because the job offered unique benefits. His family could fly domestically and internationally at minimal cost, so long as seats were available. Also, it wasn’t a five-day, nine-to-five schedule, and this made it possible to synchronise his flights with his wife, who also worked for the airline.
Bobby’s wife, Tan Bee Geok, was a flight attendant, but she was not on MH17 today. The couple had had a narrow escape four months earlier when Tan had swapped shifts on Malaysia Flight MH370. When that plane disappeared from the skies with everyone on board, Tan had been devastated, but at the same time she had felt very fortunate at the twist of fate. It had been a close call and had brought home to both of them how perilous the airline business could be. But Bobby was flying home in the knowledge that his wife was safe and waiting in Malaysia for her husband to arrive.
The senior captain on MH17 was Chinese-born Eugene Choo Jin Leong, who lived in Seremban with his family. After he stepped on board that morning he had gone through his checklist. It contained the details of the flight, and so far the procedures had been standard.
After Captain Choo and his crew boarded the plane, he’d gone through his checklist again with his first officer. It included flight details such as the weather, the number of passengers on board and the list of other crew members he’d be working with that day. His first officer then performed a general inspection of the aircraft inside and out to make sure everything was in good order. The walk-around outside was done before each flight to check for leaks, bird strikes or anything else unusual. The ramp area was busy with tugs, baggage carts, fuel trucks and belt loaders. It could be a hazardous place, particularly with bags and freight going up the belt loader and into the holds. But it was a standard procedure, and after this walk-through the pilots met up in the cockpit again and made sure all the instruments and controls were working properly. When they were finished, they had waited for the ‘all clear to proceed’ order to come in. The take-off had been fifteen minutes late but otherwise it had been smooth sailing.
Choo’s wife, Ivy Loi, and his two sons, Melvic and Scott, thirteen and eleven years old, were waiting for him to arrive home. He was flying the first part of the twelve-hour trip together with his first officer and copilot, 26-year-old Muhamad Firdaus Bin Abdul Rahim. During the second part of the flight, Captain Wan Amran Bin Wan Hussin and his first officer, Ahmad Hakimi Bin Hanapi, were scheduled to take over.
The primary reason for having two captains on every long-haul flight is safety. Obviously, if something were to happen to the captain, the plane must have another captain who can step in. Additionally, the second captain provides another opinion on important decisions, keeping pilot error to a minimum. Long-haul flights are simply too arduous for a single captain to fly the whole route, so all major airlines provide a double cockpit crew.
In keeping with his usual routine, Captain Wan Amran had messaged his wife shortly before take-off. He had been piloting Boeing aircraft for more than twenty years and knew that his wife liked to know when he was leaving.
Wan Amran had big plans for this coming year. He was making preparations to perform the hajj, the symbolic pilgrimage to Mecca made by millions of Muslims of different ethnic groups and cultures from across the world to praise Allah and ask for forgiveness for their sins. Performing the hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims and must be carried out at least once in their lifetime. He was already forty-nine years old and would turn fifty in September, so he had decided he could not wait much longer to perform this sacred duty; he must go before he was too old. And after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, he had realised just how short life could be. Flight MH370’s captain, Zaharie Amad Shah, was Wan Amran’s best friend, and Wan had been devastated by the news.