Parents of MH17 passenger: “We believe our daughter is alive.”

For the families of the 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, the past week will have been devastating. Heartbreaking. Impossible.

As the names of those on board the flight were slowly revealed in the hours after the crash, loved ones slowly had their worst fears confirmed. But for this couple from Perth who still haven’t heard anything about their 25-year-old daughter – and so they are holding out hope that she has somehow survived.

And yesterday they travelled to Ukraine to search for her.

25-year-old Fatima Dyczynski  was in the process of moving from Germany to Perth to start a new life in the same country as her parents, when MH17 was shot down from the sky.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said that heartbroken relatives on those on board MH17 would be “ill-advised” to travel to the war-torn country, but Dr Jerzy Dyczynski and Angela Rudhart-Dyczynsk say that it is something they have to do.

The couple told the Daily Mail Australia: “Every day we believe she is still alive. We believe our daughter is alive and we’re going to look after her.”

“We know it’s a dangerous place but we have to go because she is our daughter.”

According to The West Australian, the couple holds hope that Fatima is still alive because her phone continued to ring after the crash. “We believe that Fatima could be alive – this is why we’re going on this trip,” Fatima’s mother explained.

Ms Dyczynski was an aspiring astronaut, and was moving to Perth to start an internship with IBM. She had recently graduated from a Dutch university as a telegenic aerospace engineer, and has also founded a start-up company developing a method to create tiny satellites that would have the capacity to connect mobile phones to space technology.

Ms Dyczynsk and her parents’ applications for Australian residency were in the final stages of processing when she got on the flight.

This week those applications were granted.

The Dyczynskis are reportedly close friends of former talkback radio host Howard Sattler, who wrote a blog post about the devastated parents’ trip.

Sattler wrote that Fatima Dyczynski could have been “our first female astronaut.”

“Jerzy and Fatima’s mother Angela [are] clinging to a sliver of hope that their daughter may have survived this horrific event and may be among the 16 aboard whose bodies have not yet been found,” Sattler explained in his blog post.

“She may have been catapulted into the sky, still strapped to her seat and if it had remained intact it could have cushioned the impact of falling to ground from such a great height.

“The freezing temperatures encountered by anyone exposed to the atmosphere at over ten thousand metres could have caused the brains of any survivors of the initial blast to “hibernate”, at the same time countering the heat generated by the explosion, he says…”

“Jerzy Dyczynski is praying for a miracle,” Sattler writes. “It is the only thing that is keeping him breathing and upright.”

The grief – and the ability to cling to even the faintest sliver of hope – of these parents is perfectly understandable.

Our thoughts are with them, as they are with every family who lost someone on board MH17.

To leave a message of condolence book for the families of MH17….

In the wake of the horror of MH17, the Australian government wants all of us to know that a condolence book has opened up where we can each leave a message of love and support for all those families who have been personally affected. Copies of these messages will eventually be given to the families.

Sometimes, in your darkest hour when life has brought you to your knees it is the smallest kindnesses from strangers which keep you going. Knowing that other people care can get you through the next hour of grief.

Two minutes of your time. The link is here.