MH17 crash: Lucky escape for Scottish couple

London, July 18: A Scottish couple "loyal" to Malaysia Airlines escaped by the skin of their teeth when they were told that there were no seats available on flight MH17 to Kuala Lumpur, and were forced to switch to another airline. MH17, which crashed in Ukraine Thursday killing all 298 on board, is believed to have been shot down.

Barry Sim and his wife Izzy, along with their child, were keen to take flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur as they always preferred to fly Malaysia Airlines. But Thursday, when they were told about the non-availability of seats, they took a KLM flight instead, an airline they usually disliked.

"There must have been someone watching over us and saying 'you must not get on that flight'," Izzy said.

"We are very loyal to Malaysia Airlines and we always want to fly with Malaysia Airlines," she said.

Sim, who has a dislike for KLM airlines, chose it over the MH17 since his wife had told him of another possible crash similar to the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that went missing enroute to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur March 8.

"At this moment we are so glad to be on the KLM flight rather than that Malaysia Airlines flight," Izzy said.

According to Malaysia Airlines, of the 298 people on board, 154 were Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians, including 15 crew members, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine British, four German, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one Canadian, while the nationalities of 41 others were yet to be identified.

IANS