Andrei Anghel: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Andrei Anghel has been identified as the sole Canadian killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine.

The 24-year-old was studying to become a doctor and traveling to Bali for a vacation when the plane was struck by a surface-to-air missile. His family describes him as a happy and ambitious young man who was devoted to medicine and the sciences.

Here’s what you need to know about him.

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1. His German Girlfriend Was Also Onboard

Andrei’s father, Sorin Anghel, told The Star that his son was traveling to Bali to vacation with his girlfriend, whom his sister identified as a German woman named Olga. The couple had been dating for one year and planned to hike in Indonesia to celebrate finishing the end of their second year of med school.

Anghel met his girlfriend, also a medical student, at Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj, Romania.

Sorin recalled visiting his son there in May to celebrate Anghel’s 24th birthday. He told The Star:

I lived there for 30 years and I went there and he showed me around, things I didn’t know existed in that town. We had a fantastic time.

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2. His Sister Isn’t Angry at the People Who Killed Her Brother

Andrei’s sister Alexandra, 26, spoke to CBC about her brother. The two were born in Romania before moving to the Ajax area of Canada in 1998. Alexandra, who also goes by Lexi, described her brother as “always happy, smart, and destined for big things”.

She told CBC she “doesn’t harbor anger towards the person or persons who may be responsible for the crash because it won’t bring her brother back.”

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3. He Hoped to Cure Cancer

Anghel’s father described his son as an ambitious young man:

He loved people. He wanted to do research and find a cure for cancer.

His work history, listed on his LinkedIn page, includes being a laboratory assistant at Canadian Phycological Collection Centre, a photo lab technician at Walmart, and a crew trainer at McDonald’s.

Anghel’s skills from his LinkedIn page are listed below.

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4. He Volunteered at a Seniors Residence

Anghel went to Ajax High School from 2004 to 2008 and received honors in biomedical science from the University of Waterloo in 2012. According to his LinkedIn page, he was an avid academic who planned “to learn and bring new knowledge to the world.”

On LinkedIn, he describes a project he worked on from January 2012 to April 2012. It was a final-year paper on synthetic biology, in which he focused on research conducted by the James Craig Venter Institute.

Anghel spent a majority of his schooling studying the differences in medical treatment between men and women, according to CBC Toronto. An essay he wrote in 2013 dealt with the biases in male and female treatments in the medical sphere.

Ajax’s mayor, Steve Parrish, reached out to friends and family on Friday:

Andrei grew up in Ajax and was studying abroad in Romania to become a doctor. We extend our heartfelt condolences and sympathies to the Anghel family, who still live in Ajax, and all those affected by this senseless act.

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5. He Was an ‘Avid Artist & Explorer’

Sorin describes his son as an avid artist and explorer. In Anghel’s summary on his Linkedin page, he describes himself as “passionately interested in the science of living things, always questioning. Why do cells strive for life? What defines life?”

Andrei’s father had little hope once he heard a plane had gone down over Ukraine, reports the National Post:

We got the information that the flight was shot down and we knew that he took that flight so we just assumed. Later we got the confirmation, from actually Durham police came here and they gave us the official.

Anghel was one of 298 peopled killed on Flight 17.