Plane crash widow: Missing plane changed my husband
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Of the 298 victims aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, 43 were Malaysian, including all 15 members of the flight crew.
Madiani Mahdi's husband, Mohammad Noor Mahmood, was a member of Flight 17's cabin crew. On Saturday, in a house full of grieving family members, Madiani showed CBS News the last texts they exchanged.
"We always fly together," she said. "I met him on Amsterdam flight, MH16."
They were both flight attendants for Malaysia Airlines and met five years ago on that same Kuala Lumpur-Amsterdam route.
They fell in love, and two years ago Zulika was born.
In March, when Flight 370 never landed, it sent shockwaves through their company and strengthened their marriage.
"He changed a lot after 370 happened," Madiani said, "changed for a better person, better husband, very loving, caring. It's like a wake-up call for airline crew, Malaysia airline crew, that if we go for flight it doesn't mean that we are come back."
On Thursday, that's exactly what happened.
She doesn't know whether she'll fly again.
Hours after she'd learned her husband's flight had exploded over Ukraine, she sent another text.
"I say, 'After landing, call me,'" Madiani said.
Even though at that point, the plane was gone.
"I don't know," she said. "I just, I say, 'I will wait for you.'"
"I'll wait for you," she wrote, just because that's what she'd always done.
