Two aircraft with the first bodies of the victims of the MH17 plane crash in Ukraine landed at Eindhoven Airport on Wednesday, where they were met by bereaved families and members of the Dutch royao family.

A Hercules plane of the Dutch Royal Air Force and an Australian Boeing C-17 brought an estimated total of forty bodies from Kharkov to Eindhoven. And the bodies will be transferred to Hilversum for identification.

At Eindhoven airport a short mourning ceremony took place, attended by hundreds of relatives and among others King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher.

Five minutes before the arrival of the aircraft the church bells in the Netherlands started to ring. After the ceremony in Eindhoven a trumpet blare was followed by a nationwide national minute of silence.

The Dutch Railways also held a minute of silence with trains standing still, as well as the taxis, bus companies and other local transport companies. People stopped their cars and in stores, the music went off the wave.

Air traffic at Eindhoven Airport was shut down from 3.45 p.m. until 6.00 p.m., while air traffic over whole of the Netherlands was stopped for thirteen minutes around the arrival of the planes with the bodies. Also, at the national airport Amsterdam Schiphol no aircraft could land or leave during this period.

The bodies were moved to Eindhoven, because the Netherlands leads the identification of the victims of the disaster. Now the coffins with bodies are riven in a convoy to Hilversum, where the victims will be identified in the Corporal Van Oudheusden barracks.

The roads between Eindhoven and Hilversum will be temporarily closed for the transportation.

According to specialists the identification can happen quickly sometimes, but in some cases it will take months. A total of 298 people, of which 193 are Dutch citizens, died in the plane crash last Thursday.