KUALA LUMPUR, July 23 — It was a long overdue vacation for 68-year-old Yasmine Calehr and she was looking forward to spending two-weeks with her three grandsons in Bali, Indonesia.

She lived in Houston, the boys in Amsterdam, making for complicated travel arrangements.

Yasmine left Houston, Texas a day ahead of the boys. The plan was to meet them on the popular Indonesian island on July 18.

But on her last leg of her journey, things quickly took a turn for the worse when she was told that the plane the boys were on, had been shot down.

Two of her grandsons, Shaka and Miguel Panduwinata, aged 19 and 11 respectively, were on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. Mika, the third grandson, aged 16, did not make the flight because it was full, and was scheduled to leave the next day.

Excitement over a vacation not meant to be

“They were very much looking forward to seeing their grandmother and vacationing with her for a few weeks” the boys’ uncle, Harun Calehr told The Malay Mail Online over a series of emails.

Yasmine too had been looking to the holiday eagerly.

“My mother is the primary caregiver of my dad who is 78 and has dementia and parkinsonism. She had been taking care of him 24/7 over the last 1 ½ years and was also in some serious RR need,” Harun said.

The lawyer based in Houston said eldest, Shaka, also Yasmine’s favourite grandchild, had just finished his first year of college majoring in textile engineering.

Miguel meanwhile, had just graduated from elementary school.

“He had just obtained a go-kart diploma. His dream was to become a formula 1 race car driver,” he said.

The two boys were among the 298 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines plane which was shot down over Ukrainian air space late July 17. No one has claimed responsibility as pro-Russia separatist and Ukraine blamed each other.

Calehr last saw his nephews in Houston during Christmas break last year.

The news of the crash has hit the family hard.

Harun is now in Amsterdam, with his sister and mother.

“They are deeply shocked, in a haze, and numb. As far as the investigation is concerned, everyone is deeply disappointed about the facts on the ground in Ukraine.

“Such inhumane attitude for the remains of the deceased. The fact that we feel, that Malaysia Airlines did not act as a reasonable prudent operator by flying over the airline corridor due to the fact that this was an active war zone,” he said.

This is despite the plane was flying over an approved route by the International Civil Aviation Organisation and several other airlines were also flying on the same path. Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines had more flights on that route, than did Malaysia Airlines, according to a report from Der Spiegel, a German magazine.

Frustration over MAS’ reaction to the tragedy

Calehr said  the airline’s ground staff in Singapore were “ callous and insensitive” when they told his mother ‘Sorry, it’s not our fault’, hours after the news broke.

Calehr also said that family members from all over the world have flown to Amsterdam after the news and needed to be put up in five hotel rooms but he claimed the airline staff are “already nickle and diming us, and complaining to us about the five rooms”.

He claimed the airline staff had told them they had to check in and check at noon every day and they were not provided with food vouchers, which he was told, were only for the airline staff.

Developments

Five days since the attack, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte confirmed the first bodies from the MH17 attack will be flown tomorrow to Eindhoven, in the southern Netherlands, where their identification could take months.

He told journalists after the bodies arrived in Ukraine’s Kharkiv from a rebel-held territory.

Once at Eindhoven, the bodies will be taken to the Kaporaal van Oudheusden military barracks in Hilversum, around 100 kilometres away, he added.