Australian foreign minister says there were 27 Australians on board Malaysian airliner

10:36, 18.07.2014 1 min read

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has said that there were 27 Australian citizens on board the Malaysian passenger aircraft that crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, the Australian media have reported.

Bishop also noted that over a hundred people on board the Boeing 777 were on their way to the southern Australian city of Melbourne to attend the 20th International AIDS Conference.

According to some reports, among the passengers was former president of the International AIDS Society Joep Lange, a well-known HIV researcher from the Netherlands.

Bishop said they were scheduled to continue flying to the western Australian city of Perth after stopping in Kuala Lumpur.

As reported, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft carrying 298 passengers from Amsterdam (the Netherlands) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17.