The sister
and father of a Malaysia Airlines worker due to fly on MH17 were left
reeling with shock when they heard about the massacre – but unbeknown to
them, their loved one was safe and sound, because she’d given up her
seat on the doomed flight to another passenger.
Nina
Corder, from Toledo, Ohio, spoke of the hours of agony she went through
with her father when they heard about the horrifying missile attack.
Ms
Corder said her father had called her last Thursday to tell her the
chilling news that her sister, Wani Hashim, had been killed.
Relieved: Nina Corder thought that her sister had died on MH17 - but she'd given up her seat at the last minute
She told Fox 5 Vegas: ‘My dad started shaking. He was like, “I don't know what to do. You need to do something.”’
Ms
Corder, who works in downtown Toledo, said that she tried for several
hours to get
clarification on exactly what had happened, and whether her
sister was safe.
She tried her sister’s cell phone over and over again, but to no avail. ‘I just started crying,’ she said.
But after several attempts, to her astonishment – and joy – she got through and her sister answered.
‘I picked up my phone and I dialed her again and then I heard her voice say, “Hello!”’, Corder said.
It
turns out that the flight had been overbooked so Wani changed her plans
and flew to Paris instead, where she prepared for a meeting in London.
After
the plane crashed in eastern Ukraine, she immediately sent her sister a
text. It said: ‘I gave up my seat for another passenger. OMG, I nearly
took that flight.’
The family are incredibly grateful, but are all too aware that someone else perished instead of Wani.
Corder added: ‘I think it's not her time. It's just a miracle.’
Meanwhile,
bodies of the dead from the downed Malaysia Airlines plane have arrived
in Holland to be received by a nation in mourning.
Doomed: MH17 is seen taking off from
Schiphol Airport last Thursday - a short while later it was shot down in
a missile attack over eastern Ukraine with the deaths of all 298 people
on board
Two
transport planes, one Dutch and one Australian, flew in to Holland's
Eindhoven airport from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv carrying 40
coffins.
They
touched down to the sound of tolling bells just before 3pm UK time and
were greeted by Dutch king Willem-Alexander and queen Maxima as well as
by Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte.
Relatives of the 298 people, including 10 Britons, who died aboard flight MH17 were also at Eindhoven.
Waiting
at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport was Barry Sweeney, father of Newcastle
United football fan Liam Sweeney, who was on board MH17 on his way to
see his team play in a pre-season friendly in New Zealand.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
(2nd left) and Dutch ambassador to Ukraine Kees Klompenhouwer (left) lay
flowers in commemoration of the 298 MH17 victims at the Dutch embassy
in Kiev
Devastating: Debris and bodies from the flight were scattered over eight square miles of countryside
He
told ITV News that the grieving families 'need closure' through the
return of the victims' bodies and their burials. He also spoke about how
it feels to walk in his son's footsteps, making the same journey to
Amsterdam just six days after his son.
To
mark the arrival of the bodies in Holland the Union flag and Dutch flag
were being flown at half-mast over Downing Street in London.
It is the Netherlands that has bore the brunt of the tragedy, with 193 Dutch lives lost, including many children.
Even
as the planes were flying to Eindhoven, news came through of further
violence in the Ukraine, with reports that two Ukrainian military
fighter jets had been shot down about 20 miles south of the MH17 crash
site.
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