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Jack ran to catch his flight home. His parents wish he hadn't
Meryn and Jon O'Brien heard the words no parent should ever hear after their son Jack boarded doomed flight MH17 on his journey home to Australia. Eight years on, a verdict in the murder trial has been handed down.
Published 17 November 2022 5:51am
Updated 18 November 2022 7:54am
By Tys Occhiuzzi
Source: SBS News
Image: Jack O'Brien was one of 38 Australians who died when flight MH17 crashed in 2014. (Supplied / O'Brien family)
Jack O'Brien is running late. CCTV footage shows the 25-year-old emerge from the check-in area at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, rushing to get to the plane.
"He kind of skips because he's moving from just a walk," Jack's father Jon O'Brien says.
"He's realised, 'I really need to hurry' and it's like he's skipping into a faster pace. And that just kills me even thinking about that because he's hurrying to get the plane."
Jon's voice starts to break.
"He wanted to come home, and that just underlines that he wasn't able to come home."
He wanted to come home.- Jon O’Brien on his son, Jack
It took a long process for Dutch authorities to allow the families of the victims of flight MH17 to access airport footage from 17 July 2014, say Jon and his wife Meryn.
They describe the experience of sitting in a small room, going through hours of tapes alongside an Australian Federal Police liaison officer. They finally come across 12 snippets of Jack, who was on his way home to Sydney from a seven-week trip through Europe, flying first from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
But he wouldn't make it.
All 283 passengers - including 80 children - and 15 crew were killed when the plane was shot down over conflict-hit Ukraine. Thirty-eight of them were Australian residents or citizens.
Jon and Meryn O'Brien with a photo of their son Jack. Source: SBS News / Tys Occhiuzzi
"The final picture of him was turning a corner and then running down the last corridor to get to the plane," Jon says.
"They're the last pictures of Jack alive."
Meryn says she doubled over when she watched the footage.
"I just thought, 'why didn’t you fall over? Why didn't you break your leg or something?'"
The trip of a lifetime
Jack O'Brien was always an introvert, his parents say.
Jon says he could be outgoing and loved his sport, but he was fundamentally a thoughtful person who liked time by himself. They say throughout university he came to know who he was and wanted to experience life.
"He'd just turned into a really nice person," Meryn says.
Jack was the big brother to his sister Bronwyn. Source: Supplied / O'Brien family
"There's pictures of him in Red Square," Jon says. "It’s hugely ironic."
Three of the four men who have been on trial over the MH17 disaster are Russian. They all deny involvement.
Jack O'Brien in front of St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow. Source: Supplied / O'Brien family
Meryn describes the marathon court case beginning with the names of the accused being read out in court.
"And then the prosecutor read every single name of the victims," she says, unable to continue.
The couple also saw the national monument near the airport where Jack was last seen, as well as the reconstruction of the front of the plane, which Jon describes as "sobering".
The couple were "gutted" to hear about Russia's invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
"All those wrongs and injustices inflicted on the 298 people in MH17 have now just been magnified, and so many other people have been drawn into that suffering," Jon says.
People gather at the national MH17 monument in the Dutch village of Vijfhuizen on the fifth anniversary of the disaster. Source: AP / Frank van Beek
"A common thread in all the visits is, yes, it’s always painful and it’s always emotional, but there’s also comfort in connecting with other families. So we actually look forward to that aspect of it," Jon says.
Tried in absentia
For Meryn and Jon, the fact that the three Russian nationals and one Ukrainian separatist are being tried in absentia - they are still at large - remains important.
"We've had pretty realistic expectations and I think most of the families have as well," Meryn says.
"It's a thorough, meticulous process with reams and reams of evidence that’s been weighed up."
Jack on a family holiday in Vietnam. Source: Supplied / O'Brien family
"And that stands in such contrast to the lies and deception and misinformation that's been peddled by the Russian Federation about MH17 over the last eight years."
Australia and the Netherlands both hold Russia responsible for the crash. An investigation by the Dutch Safety Board in 2015 found a Russian-made missile was responsible for downing the plane.
In 2016, an international team of criminal investigators said evidence showed the missile was fired from a field controlled by Russian-backed separatists. Four years later, a Dutch-led joint investigation team named four men it alleged were involved in bringing the missile to the area and issued international warrants for their arrest.
Russia has denied involvement, with the Russian foreign ministry saying the joint investigation was "biased and politically motivated".
The Russian firm that manufactures the missiles said the model used was no longer used by Russian forces and its own investigation showed it had been fired from Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Russia does not extradite its own citizens.
People will hear the truth, and that will be stated definitively for the whole world to hear.- Jon O’Brien on the MH17 trial
Asked how she’s feeling about the trial ending, Meryn’s lip trembles before she answers with one word: "Apprehensive".
"The thing about grieving is that Jack is either in the foreground or the background," she adds.
"We're busy getting work done and getting ready for this trip, but every now and then you stop, like just now, and think what it’s actually about."
"At the centre of it is Jack. He's coming to the foreground again."
Jon says the "central fact" is that Jack isn't with them anymore.
"The trial matters, telling the truth matters, but it's not complete justice."
"Complete justice for me would be that Jack gets to live his life."
Update: The verdict of the District Court of the Hague was handed down on 18 November. for shooting down flight MH17 - two Russians and one Ukrainian. A third Russian was acquitted.
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