Australian family loses members in MH370, MH17 tragedies

In a cruel twist of fate, an Australian family who lost two of their members in the MH370 crash learned on Friday that two more from their extended family were on the ill-fated Malaysian plane shot down over Ukraine.

Irene and George Burrows of central Queensland are still mourning their son Rodney and his wife Mary who were on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 over the southern Indian Ocean.

The Burrows have now learned that their step-granddaughter Maree Rizk and her husband Albert, from Sunbury near Melbourne, were among the Australians killed on flight MH17. The two were returning home from a month-long holiday with friends in Europe, ABC News reported.

The Boeing 777 was carrying 298 people, including 28 Australians, when it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over rebel-held territory in Ukraine. The plane was en route to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, from Amsterdam.

Image: People pay homage outside the Embassy of Netherlands in Kiev, Ukraine.