MH17 pilot's son pays tribute to crew
Right after reading the names of all the crew members, he said, "Thank you for serving our nation. We will miss you."
VIJFHUIZEN - Although the childhood of an 11-year-old boy changed completely after the death of his father, pilot Captain Eugene Choo Jin Leong in the MH17 tragedy, the guidance he learned from his late father is still not forgotten by Scot Choo.
On Wednesday (July 17), Scot, who is now 21 years old, stood proudly in front of thousands during the 10th commemoration ceremony of the MH17 tragedy which was filled with emotions and tears, to read out the names of his father and the crew members who perished in the crash.
He walked to the stage at the National Monument MH17 at Vijfhuizen Park, near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, holding the name list and started to read the captains names - Wan Amran Wan Hussin, followed by his father’s name ( Eugene Choo), Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi and the other 12 names of the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) cabin crew.
Right after reading the names of all the crew members, he said, "Thank you for serving our nation. We will miss you."
Recalling the tragedy, he said that although it has been ten years since his beloved father perished in the tragedy, he felt like it just happened yesterday.
"Yes, it's already been ten years, which seems like a long time, but it also seems like just yesterday. It feels like he never left us, and we can feel his presence and his guidance for the future.
"But, of course, we have to move on. It's normal, generally. But we will forever keep him in our hearts, and we will be thankful for the lessons he taught me throughout my childhood. Forever grateful,” he told Bernama after the ceremony.
Recalling his childhood without his father, Scot, who is looking forward to pursuing and emulating his dad's legacy, said it was difficult because he was very young when the incident happened.
"I was just an 11-year-old boy, and as I grew older, I slowly tried to learn more about what happened, and it gave me quite a bit of a shock ; now I’m okay,” said Scot, who has completed his degree in aerospace engineering.
Meanwhile, his mother, Ivy Looi, who thanked the Netherlands government for their good job throughout the last ten years, said she had moved on from the disaster.
His elder brother Melvic,who is a pilot with Air Asia, also attended yesterday’s 10th commemoration ceremony of the MH17 tragedy.
Most of the passengers were Dutch, but there were people from 17 countries onboard the Boeing 777 jet, including Australians, Britons, Malaysians, and Indonesians.
The Boeing 777 was shot down over eastern Ukraine after taking off from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members onboard on July 17, 2014.
On Nov 17, 2022, the Hague District Court in absentia sentenced two former Russian intelligence agents, Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinskiy, along with a Ukrainian separatist leader, Leonid Kharchenko, to life in prison after finding them guilty on charges of causing the crash of MH17 and the murders of all 298 people on board.
Another Russian, Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted of the same charges. - BERNAMA
