PUTRAJAYA, July 19 ― Penang-born Nur Shazana Mohamed Salleh was a lively chatterbox with a winsome smile who had harboured dreams of flying around the world while a student at the Tun Fatimah all-girls boarding school in Johor.
The 31-year-old realised her life-long dream when she became a flight attendant with Malaysia Airlines (MAS) after graduating, a former schoolmate shared today when met at the Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin mosque here.
The dream-turned-reality ended last Thursday when an anti-aircraft missile took out the Boeing 777 Nur Shazana was on, along with 297 others as they flew over restive Ukraine towards Kuala Lumpur.
Thirteen years after graduating, 30 of Nur Shazana's schoolmates who hailed from around the country met again in a sombre reunion to pray for her and the other cabin crew and passengers aboard Flight MH17.
“She's a lively person, carefree, she's talks a lot. She's close to everybody,” Nik Azizah Nik Amrah, also 31, told reporters here at a special Muslim prayer recital for Nur Shazana.
The Malacca-born who had organised the prayer recital said it was a way for the schoolmates to share their sorrow together and to remember Nur Shazana.
“This is our way we show our grief towards her, so may God bless her and rest in peace.”
A friend of MH17 crash victim Nur Shazana Mohamed reads the Quran at the ‘Majlis Bacaan Yasin and Tahlil’ organised by her close friends at the Tuanku Mizan Mosque in Putrajaya, July 19, 2014. ― Picture by Yusof Mat Isa
Nik Azizah remembered Nur Shazana as a prankster and spoke fondly of the five years spent in the same dormitory where they ate, slept, studied and prayed together for five years until 2000.
Fellow batchmate Nurul Akmal, 31, said Nur Shazana was a “very cheerful and friendly” person who was active in sports.
“We always remember her smile. It's the most beautiful smile,” she said.
Another Tun Fatimah alumnus who only wanted to be identified as Hazwanim said she had travelled from Seremban to the mosque here in remembrance of Nur Shazana.
“She will be dearly missed... I think most of the teachers liked her also,” the 31-year-old said.
Filzah Nadzirah Hamzah, a few years younger than Nur Shazana, described her as a happy person with a “positive” attitude that inspired everyone else in school.
Nur Shazana was part of an all-Malaysian 15 member crew on the ill-fated Flight MH17.
While leaders start fault-finding over the plane crash, Nik Azizah acquitted MAS of any blame.
“To MAS, we know it's not your fault, just happened to be at the wrong place, wrong time,” she said, and urged the airline staff not to give in to despair.
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