Australian couple first relatives to visit MH17 crash site

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.