King Willem-Alexander, second left, Queen Maxima, third left, and Prime Minister Mark Rutte, third right, observe a minute of silence during a ceremony to mark the return of the first bodies of passengers and crew killed in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Ukraine at Eindhoven military air base, in Eindhoven, Netherlands, Wednesday, July 23, 2014. AP PHOTO/PHIL NIJHUIS
THE HAGUE—Planes carrying more bodies recovered from the MH17 crash site in Ukraine were flown to the Netherlands on Thursday, a day after the first of the 298 dead arrived.
Two planes carrying a total of 74 coffins landed at Eindhoven in the south of the country, from where they are to be taken to a military barracks in Hilversum, near Amsterdam, for forensic examination and identification.
The coffins will be given the same military honours as the 40 coffins that arrived on Wednesday.
They will be placed in individual hearses as during the ceremony Wednesday, a Dutch national day of mourning.
The Netherlands lost 193 citizens in the crash, and is also heading the investigation of the other dead from a total of 11 countries.
Dutch police said that 80 forensic experts from Germany, Belgium, Britain, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Malaysia were helping 120 Dutch with the task of identification, which could take months.
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