Saved from disappearing with MH370, co-pilot fated to perish with MH17

The grandfather of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH17 co-pilot Ahmad Hakimi Hanafi has accepted that the latter was fated to die in the aircraft last Thursday.

Daud Abdul Kadir, 80, said Ahmad Hakimi once told him how grateful he was to have escaped from being a victim of the missing MH370 flight of March 8, as he was supposed to be on duty in that aircraft at the time but was saved by a last-minute change of duty for him.

However, he said, it was fated for his grandson to have died in the MH17 crash in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine on Thursday.

"When he came to visit me some weeks after MH370 went missing, Ahmad Hamiki told he should also have been involved in piloting that plane," Daud told reporters when met at his house in Kedai Melor, here, today.

MH17 carrying 298 passengers and crew members from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Donetsk, on Thursday, believed to be shot by a surface-to-air missile.