MOSCOW, July 18 (RIA Novosti) – Malaysia Airlines plan to transport the relatives of those killed in the plane crash in east Ukraine on Thursday to the site of the accident, French newspaper Le Figaro reported Friday, citing a representative of the airline's European office.
Malaysia Airline’s regional senior vice president of continental Europe, Huib Gorter, said the relatives of the victims, the majority of whom, at 154 people, were Dutch, would be delivered to the MH17 crash site by plane from Amsterdam, but did not specify the time of the flight. He also did not say whether the airline would carry only relatives living in Europe.
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near the town of Torez in the Donetsk Region on Thursday, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board.
The plane carried nationals of at least nine countries. Besides the Dutch, there were 45 Malaysians including the crew, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians and nine Britons. Germany and Belgium each had four citizens on board, while Philippines had 3 and Canada, 1. The nationality of 41 others remains unverified, according to the latest airline information.
Ukraine has closed its airspace in eastern Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv and called for an international investigation. Both Kiev authorities and militia leaders promised to ensure the safety of specialists working in the region that has been mired in conflict since April.
Kiev blamed independence supporters in the turbulent Donetsk Region for downing the passenger plane with a surface-to-air missile. Militia forces said they had no missile systems that could hit a target flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters.
Ukrainian authorities and Malaysia Airlines are investigating the incident. Various international observers, including the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) and Interpol experts, also intend to join the investigation.
ABC News reported that the United States had sent investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to the crash site.
