ABOVE: How a shortage of seats on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 saved the lives of a British family
Sometimes, the most mundane travel headache changes everything.
Izzy Sim and her husband, Barry, were supposed to fly with their newborn baby from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur Thursday.
They were booked to fly aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 but were bumped to another airline because a seating shortage kept them off the Boeing 777.
They instead booked a later flight with Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, or KLM, the national Dutch airline.
Hours later, MH17 was downed by a suspect missile attack over Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers aboard.
‘I’m shaking, I don’t know what to do,” Izzy told CBS News after hearing the news later that day. “I feel physically sick. From The Hague to the airport I was just crying.
“I’m feeling like I’ve been given a second chance.”
The attack Thursday afternoon claimed victims from nearly a dozen nations – including vacationers, students and a large contingent of scientists heading to an AIDS conference in Australia.
U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile from pro-Russian separatist territory in eastern Ukraine brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, but could not say who fired it.
READ MORE: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: More than 180 bodies found at crash site
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