Too bad

Malaysia Airlines crash: Family who lost
two members on flight MH370 have lost
two more on MH17
Son and step-granddaughter of
couple died in separate Malaysia Airlines
disasters

An Australian family has tragically been
hit by both Malaysia Airlines tragedies,
having now lost four members through
flight MH370's disappearance and flight
MH17 being shot down over Ukraine.
Irene and George Burrows, from Bileola,
Queensland, were still mourning their son
Rodney and his wife Mary after their
plane vanished without a trace over the
southern Indian Ocean in March, and will
now have to grieve for their step-
granddaughter Maree Rizk and her
husband Albert who were aboard MH17.
The couple were travelling home from a
holiday in Europe when the plane was
shot down, according to the Sydney
Morning Herald, with all 298 people on
board perishing in the tragedy.
A recording of conversations between a
man identified by Ukrainian media as a
Russian military commander and a rebel
fighter has emerged this morning, in
which they are reportedly heard
discussing the downing of a jet over
eastern Ukraine shortly after MH17 fell in
between Krasni Luch in Luhansk region
and Shakhtarsk in the neighbouring
region of Donetsk.
In one of the calls a man going by the
name Bezler can be heard saying: “Just
now a plane was hit and destroyed by the
miners group.”
In a post on Russian social media site
Vkontake, Igor Girkin, also known by the
nom de guerre Strelkov, the commander
of the pro-Russian Donbass People's
Militia, is reported to have claimed that
his forces shot down a plane in the
Donbass region of eastern Ukraine at
5.50pm (GMT+4), shortly before reports
emerged the passenger jet was missing.
Video: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17
crash
According to a translation obtained by
The Independent, he allegedly wrote: “We
warned [sic] not to fly in our sky.”
Kiev has branded the event an "act of
terrorism" and demanded a UN
investigation, while Russian president
Vladimir Putin has insisted it would not
have happened if the Ukrainian
government had agreed to a ceasefire.
Nine Britons died in the crash, along with
54 Dutch passengers, 45 Malaysians, 27
Australians, 12 Indonesians, four
Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos
and one Canadian.