Shot Down: The Powerful Story of What Happened to MH17 over Ukraine and the Lives of Those Who Were on Board

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It was mid-summer, 17 July 2014, and the height of the school holidays in the Netherlands. Everyone in the country appeared to have booked a flight for today. There was a huge shortage of ground personnel at the airport, so it was all hands on deck to get the passengers through transfer, check-in and down to the gates on time to catch their planes.

Renuka Manisha Virangna Birbal had begun her shift earlier that morning at the transfer counter. She worked for one of the companies that helped dispatch passengers at the Netherlands’ main airport, Schiphol. Appointed to various carriers, today she was working as ground staff for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. The night before Renuka had stayed up late, thinking that she would be able to sleep-in the next day. It was supposed to be her day off, but she awoke early in the morning to the sound of her phone. It was incredibly busy at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and she had been rostered on at the last moment. Despite having had only a few hours’ sleep, Renuka didn’t really mind: she would return to bed when she got back to her apartment later that day.

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