If you remove the politics of what happened, the fundamental truth is that close to 300 people lost their lives.
Following this report, anyone with a vivid imagination can visualize what it might have been like on board.
At cruising altitude, the pilots might have been addressing the cabin, giving them details of the flight. Crew members would have been fully activated to do the first rounds of service. For the business class section, this could be the post take off drinks and nuts. Passengers would have taken off their seat belts, some would have been in the lavatories. Some watching the inflight entertainment.
The impact was sudden. The pilots must have, for a split second, noticed a streak go past the nose of the aircraft followed by a blinding flash of light. They must have experienced a force that jolted them to the right side of the cockpit. Then the fragments that sliced through the fuselage would go through their bodies and kill them.
In the seconds after, the force of the impact would also tear the cockpit right off. The report said at one point that the cockpit and business class sections separated from the rest of the plane. At another point it only mentioned the cockpit.
Either way, the crew members would have been sucked out as they were not belted down. The frigid cold and thin air would have shut their breathing down fast. Passengers in the lavatories would have had the same fate. Passengers in their lie flat seats would have witnessed the separation of the front of the plane. Many would have been tossed about like crumpled paper, causing critical injuries. But they would have been able to register in their heads that they were about to die. But death was not as immediate for them as it was for the technical crew.
The people at the back of the bus would have had slightly more time to react, although the report does not mention this. The report does not take into account a previous news story about the body of a passenger that was found strapped to his seat with an oxygen mask around his face. Some passengers had time to put the mask on them. They knew they were in trouble. There would have been screams. People desperately grabbing each other before being pulled apart. People unbelted violently falling into each other. For them though, the free fall, the smashing of the trolleys and other things within, fire, all would have made it impossible for them to survive.
All the safety videos they have watched through years of flying would have done no good.
There is no dignity or sense in dying like this. And worse yet there is no accountability. The report hints to the fact that the Ukrainians did not warn of the safe flight levels within the conflict zone. The carrier also may not have taken extra precaution over an area that had in the previous week, seen planes downed.
I really feel for MH because I have always found their staff to be outstanding. And I have family that works for the airline. They knew some of those that died in the tragedy. They witnessed how some coffins were so small because they only had a single body part of what used to be someone they ate, laughed and had conversations with.
This should not have happened.
#MH17 #malaysiaairlines #boeing #777
