Malaysia Airline's Flight Code MH17 Retired

21st Jul 2014

To give respect to the hapless victims of the ill-fated plane, Malaysia Airlines has decided to retire its flight number effectively July 25.

The B777 airliner, bearing the flight number MH17, was the second aircraft of the Malaysia Airlines that met a tragic accident while in flight. In March 8 this year, Malaysia Airlines' flight 370, also a B777 jetliner, mysteriously disappeared while on its way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. The aircraft remained missing until now along with its 239 passengers on board 12 of whom were its flight crew.

MH17 was scheduled to arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 10 pm local time from Amsterdam. However, when it flew over the Ukrainian air space above the country's troubled eastern region, it went down, believed to have been hit by a surface-to-air missile.

The plane was carrying a total of 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board including 193 Dutch nationals who were supposed to spend their holiday in the Southeast Asian nation.

The airline official has announced earlier that the frequency of their service between Amsterdam and Malaysia will stay unchanged despite the incidence. It clarified, however, that it will follow a different flight path this time as approved by Eurocontrol, the body tasked to determine flight paths for passenger aircraft flying over European air space.

In a related development, the flight's black box was already retrieved by the rebels and was turned over to the local government of Donetsk, the city at which it has a jurisdiction of the crash site.

The remains of all 298 victims were accounted for and were already moved to a nearby refrigerated train for eventual repatriation back to Amsterdam.