TRENTON, N.J.
The only American identified so far as a victim of the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine lived in New Jersey as a child and returned to the Netherlands when he was 5.
Quinn Lucas Schansman, 19, had dual Dutch-American citizenship.
His grandfather, Ronald Schansman, was visiting a relative in Woodbury, New Jersey when his son called him to tell him of his grandson’s death.
“You go through all the phases of mourning,” Schansman told Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV on Friday. “At the moment, it’s just mourning. And of course anger.”
He told the TV station his grandson was studying international business in Amsterdam and was flying to meet his father, stepmom, brother and sister for a family vacation to Bali. The TV station said Quinn Schansman’s father had worked at the Dutch Embassy in New York City in the 1990s.
Schansman told NJ.com that his grandson “was a big boy, very lively, and we’ll all miss him.”
The newspaper said the teen’s family had lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey before returning to Holland.
The teen’s great-aunt, Elizabeth VanArdenne, told the newspaper she was shocked.
“It’s a horrible thing that happened to a young boy,” she said. “And why? Because of power, and people fighting over it.”
The Malaysia Airlines passenger jet was shot down in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people aboard. The victims came from 13 countries and all walks of life. They included an acclaimed AIDS researcher from Amsterdam, a nun and teacher from Sydney, a Dutch senator and a World Health Organization spokesman.
