Dutch man amazingly avoids both doomed Malaysian Airlines flights

A Dutch cyclist has unbelievably avoided being on both tragic Malaysian Airlines flights MH17 and MH370, after being originally scheduled to fly on the two doomed aircraft.

Maarten de Jonge, a cyclist with the Terengganu Cycling Team in Malaysia, was supposed to be on flight MH370 - which is still missing - back in March on his way to a race in Taiwan. Maarten switched flights however, as he was keen to avoid stopover which would have been necessary on that route.

MH370 went missing on March 8 and sparked a massive international search after the plane disappeared less then an hour after take-off from Kuala Lumpur on its way to Beijing.

Maarten de Jonge

227 passengers and 12 crew members were on board, with the plane thought to have come to an end about 2,000kms west of the Australian city of Perth.

In what seems to be a crazy set of circumstances de Jonge confirmed to his website that he was also due to board MH17, which was believed to have been shot down by Russian separatist rebels near Hrabove in the disputed Donetsk region of Ukraine.

The wreckage of flight MH17

The flight, which took-off from Schiphol Airport Amsterdam headed for Kuala Lumpur, is rumoured to have been downed by a surface-to-air missile. The crash killed all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board - including Dublin women Edel Mahady.

The death toll involved makes MH17 the sixth-worst disaster in aviation history.

Writing on his website Maarten said: “How happy I am for myself and my family that I was on this flight and did not take it the last moment; my story is ultimately nothing compared to the misery in which so many people are paid.”

When asked if he was nervous of flying again de Jonge simply stated, “I have been lucky twice.”

Hat tip: Buzzfeed and Maarten de Jonge on Twitter.