All 298 people on board were killed, including 192 passengers from the Netherlands
Passport copy of ethnic Indian flight steward Sanjid Singh Sandu.
Kuala Lumpur: Swapping shift with a colleague cost ethnic Indian flight steward Sanjid Singh Sandu his life.
41-year-old Sanjid had switched his shift with a colleague on the ill-fated Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur which was shot down over Eastern Ukraine on Thursday.
All 298 people on board were killed in the crash. According to his distraught father Jijar Singh, Sanjid's mother had planned to cook her son's favourite dishes upon his arrival in Penang, Malaysia.
"My son spoke to me over the phone just before his flight. I didn't know that would be my last conversation with him. What has happened has happened," Jijar, with tears flowing, told reporters at his house in Penang.
Malaysia Airlines employees chat at the check in counter at Kuala
Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, on Saturday. (Photo: AP)
Jijar and his wife received the news from their daughter-in-law, who is also a flight stewardess at Malaysia Airlines, the Star newspaper reported.
He said Sanjid, fondly known as Bobby, was his youngest child and only son.
Flight MH17 took off from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport shortly afternoon on Thursday and was supposed to land in Kuala Lumpur at about 6.10am local time here on Friday.
Flight tracking data indicated that the plane was at its cruising altitude of 33,000 feet when it disappeared.
A Malaysia Airlines employee is silhouetted behind a sign showing
closed check in counter, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport after
the airlines Flight 17 crashed in Ukraine, in Sepang, Malaysia, on
Saturday. (Photo: AP)
The Boeing 777 is believed to have been shot down 50km from the Ukraine-Russia border.
See Photos: Malaysia Airlines MH17 shot down
Watch Video: Malaysian Airlines MH17 passenger list
( Source : reuters )
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