Firstly I should say that my thoughts are with the families and friends of those who were involved in the Malaysian Airlines MH17 (and indeed MH370) crash. And this blog isn’t about making light of what happened – just an alternate view as you would have read everything there is to know about the crash from mainstream media outlets.

Many of you may be familiar with the Final Destination movie franchise. The basic premise is that you can’t cheat death. A group of teenagers decide they want to de-plane just before a flight and the aircraft they were due to fly on explodes. The rest of the movie involves ‘death’ following each of the group as they each die in a series of grisly freak accidents.

Now I read that one of the flight attendants, due to fly on MH17, had swapped his shift with a colleague at the last minute. His name Sanjid Singh. In a bizarre twist it is now revealed that his wife, also a flight attendant, had done the same thing in reverse for flight MH370. So the wife cheated death only for death to take her husband.

I saw an interview on TV showing a couple, with baby, at Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport, who said they had a bad feeling about MH17 and changed to another flight. Hopefully ‘death’ will let them continue their lives as normal.

20th July Update: I just read about Dutch professional cyclist named Maarten de Jonge. He was booked on both MH370 and MH17, but made a last-minute change in each case, due to a scheduling conflict.

I wonder if anyone keeps statistics related to those who, by chance or choice, avoid such disasters? If you know of anyone who did and then continued to live into old age, please let me know.