Family of MH17 crash victim reflects on coping with tragic death of wife and mother, five years on
- Chinese-Malaysian family were left bereft after mother-of-three Lee Hui-pin died while working as a flight attendant on doomed Malaysia Airlines plane
- Her husband and eldest daughter tell how they have tried to come to terms with their loss, and how justice is yet to be served
Wong Kin-wah remembers clearly that terrible night five years ago. He and his children had made one of their regular video calls to his wife earlier in the evening, bidding her goodnight before she boarded her flight in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was July 17, 2014.
Wong then tucked all three kids into bed, finished his work for the night and was about to go to sleep when his in-laws called to tell him: “The plane crashed.”
Wong immediately went online to check his wife’s schedule. MH17 – the same flight. He spent the whole night at home, watching the news, his mind blank. In the morning, Malaysian television announced the names of the victims. Everyone on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 – 283 passengers, mainly Dutch, and 15 crew members – perished when the plane was shot down by a missile over Ukraine en route to Kuala Lumpur, including Wong’s wife, Lee Hui-pin.
Five years on, justice has remained elusive for the victims’ relatives. For Wong’s family, life will never be the same.
Wong, a gentle and reserved man, struggles to find the words to describe his beloved wife. His Facebook profile picture is a family photo taken nine years ago on a trip to Cape Town, South Africa, before the birth of their third child, his wife smiling sweetly by his side and their two children looking a little camera-shy.
Wong and Lee were high school sweethearts who met in the same class at their school in the Malaysian state of Kelantan. “We went out pretty often and I just started to grow attached to her and have feelings for her,” Wong recalls.
