![malaysia-12[1]](https://www.gingkoedizioni.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/malaysia-121.jpg)
I stop flying Malaysian Airlines more than 10 years ago after an appalling flight me and my wife took from Hong Kong to Australia. We were mistreated on board by the flight personnel, there were delays and we spent a night in a filthy hotel outside KL provided by the airline (it was full of maggots and worms). I sent two letters of complains to the managers of Malaysian Airlines but I never got any kind of answer.
A small indication of the fact that basically the people in charge in Malaysia don’t care much is the fact that they did not change the number of flight number MH17 which is still flying from Amsterdam to KL. Any other airline in the world would have changed this number out of respect for the victims’ relatives but apparently they don’t mind.
By the way this number is considered very unlucky in some countries of the Mediterranean – like Italy – also considering that flight MH17 was shot down on the 17 of July. The origin of this superstition seems to have Roman roots, where on the graves they put VIXI (I lived) whereas by moving the letters you can get XVII. In Naples it stands for Disgrace or Accident with the maximum of unluckiness on Friday (for MH17 it was a Thursday).
The Boeing 777-200 departed Amsterdam at 12.14am local time bound for Kuala Lumpur, 15 minutes later than scheduled, according to flight records. It should have arrived in Malaysia at 6:10am local time, but did not enter Russian airspace when it was expected to. Considering that 2 more aircrafts were shot down in the same month the managers of the Malaysian Airlines should have considered to re-route their plane, Quantas, Korean Airlines and Lufthansa and several others did it already spending 5 more minutes of fuel in exchange of additional safety for their passengers, but they did not. True that Ukranian authorities said that was no problem at 10.000 mt. altitude, but should an airline trust Ukranians authorities who had two airplanes shot down during the previous weeks? And where was IATA by the way, such kind of decisions should not be left to single airlines, IATA should force them to change their route.
Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 fell to Earth near the town of Grabovo, about 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border. The passengers on the flight included 154 Dutch, 27 Australians, 38 Malaysians – including 15 crew, 11 people from Indonesia, four Germans, four Belgians, three from the Philippines and one Canadian. I feel very sorry for all the people, many children among them, who lost their life in such tragedy as well as for the other disappeared with jet MH370 which is still lost at sea.
Malaysia Airlines is the only carrier still flying over Syria- for instance MH4 from Kuala Lumpur to London.
Dear Angelo, superstition goes a long way. Let’s not forget that the MH plane started operating 17 years ago. In any case, the root of the question is: who has the damned right to shut down a civilian aircraft full of innocent people, when the transponder is sending clear signals identifying it as a ‘non-hostile plane’? And what are we going to do now? We can’t help but feeling hopeless and helpless, as usual, and praying for the victims.
Who and why, dear Paola, yes. And who had the right to steal the plane to Beijing? Or do we have to believe that the first event was accidental? And that nobody knows where the plane is? I prefer to consider the strong power of superstition and coincidences, just to fall asleep calmly, believe me. In any case, I agree with Angelo: change the number of the flight and the next time steer clear of crisis/war areas, please! Our world is full of madmen, often too intelligent. Why take the risk, especially carrying hundreds of innocents?
Thank you, Paola. I do agree with you, no one has the right to shoot down a civilian aircraft but apparently the drunkards that pushed the button – thinking perhaps that it was a Ukrainian military plane – though otherwise. I don’t think that they checked the transponder nor they checked with a pair of binoculars which kind of aircraft it was. Besides Malaysian airline I think that also IATA is to be blamed for this tragedy: they shoot down two planes a in the past 3 weeks, why IATA did not issue instructions to all airlines to re-route their aircrafts?