Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash: Grieving Australian couple who lost daughter visit crash site

George Dyczynski wears a shirt bearing an image of his daughter Fatima, as he walks through wreckage during his visit to the crash site of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
George Dyczynski wears a shirt bearing an image of his daughter Fatima, as he walks through wreckage during his visit to the crash site of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
George and Angela Dyczynski walk near wreckage of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, during their visit to the crash site near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), in Donetsk region on July 26, 2014. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
Angela Dyczynski sits on a piece of wreckage of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
George Dyczynski wears a shirt bearing an image of his daughter Fatima, as he walks through wreckage during his visit to the crash site of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
George and Angela Dyczynski sit on a piece of wreckage of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, during their visit to the crash site near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), in Donetsk region on July 26, 2014. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
George and Angela Dyczynski walk near wreckage of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, during their visit to the crash site near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), in Donetsk region on July 26, 2014. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
Jerzy Dyczynski (right) and Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski from Australia react as they arrive on July 26, 2014 at the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 to look for their late daughter Fatima, near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo), in the Donetsk region. -- PHOTO: AFP

GRABOVE, Ukraine (AFP) - An Australian couple who lost their daughter in downed Malaysian flight MH17 visited the crash site in rebel-held east Ukraine on Saturday, the first relatives of victims to arrive at the scene.

Jerzy Dyczynski and Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski's 25-year-old daughter Fatima was one of 298 victims killed when the Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight was shot down on July 17.

"She was full of life," Rudhart-Dyczynski said about her only child at the site.

She said that her daughter, an aerospace engineering student, used to want to be a pilot.

Dyczynski wore a white T-shirt with a portrait of Fatima, who was making her way to Australia to see her parents on the doomed flight.

The couple broke down in tears as they walked among the wreckage and scorched earth and laid a large bouquet of flowers on part of the debris.

They had arrived on a minibus at the separatist-held zone, ignoring their government's safety warnings.

Dyczynski was quoted by Australian media earlier saying he was hoping to find their child alive.

The MH17 tragedy has touched a nerve in Australia, which had 28 citizens and at least nine permanent residents aboard the flight.

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