Friends, family mourn NSW plane victims (AAP)

View CommentsAP The fifth NSW victim of the Malaysian plane disaster has been identified as Victor Oreshkin.

It had been more than a month since Sydney man Victor Oreshkin embarked on a European holiday and his loving parents were ready to welcome him home.

The Oreshkins waited and waited but their devoutly Christian son never walked out of the arrivals hall at Sydney airport.

Instead, the life of the man in his 30s came to a tragic end the previous night in air space over pro-Russian-held territory in eastern Ukraine.

As Mr Oreshkin's absence became worryingly clear, his parents received the earth-shattering call from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), a friend of the family told AAP.

Their son, the "well-loved and quiet" man who devoted his spare time to Lidcombe's Slavic Evangelical Pentecostal Church, was another NSW victim in the MH17 plane disaster.

"Vic you are dearly missed," the Oreshkin family said in a statement on Sunday.

"This is not goodbye but farewell.

"Our beloved son, brother, uncle, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend. You will eternally be in our hearts."

The Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam was shot down from about 10,000 metres, killing 298 people, including at least 36 Australian citizens and residents.

Pastor Alex Minchenko from the Lidcombe Slavic church said Mr Oreshkin's body had still not been found.

"He was really loved by everyone, so it was a big shock for all of us," Mr Minchenko told AAP on Sunday.

Mr Oreshkin had posted on social media last month that he would visit Germany and Lithuania during his five-week trip to Europe.

Tributes have also flowed for 25-year-old Jack O'Brien, a Carlingford fitness instructor, who died on the flight.

"Jack had an insane passion for life and improving the lives of everyone around him," his friend Matthew Lohin posted on Facebook.

Sydney nun Sister Philomene Tiernan, 77, who taught at the exclusive Kincoppal-Rose Bay School, was heading home after a sabbatical in France when she boarded the doomed flight.

Fellow nuns and emotional students attended a remembrance mass at St Mary's Cathedral on Sunday alongside Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Governor-General Peter Cosgrove.

After expressing his sorrow at the loss of one of the church brethren, Sydney Bishop Peter Comensoli said the "downing of MH17 was not an innocent accident, it was the outcome of a trail of human evil".

Former teachers from the NSW Illawarra region Michael and Carol Clancy are also believed to be among the dead.

A memorial ceremony is expected to be held in Wollongong on Monday night for the couple, who were aged in their 60s.

Meanwhile, Lithgow residents are mourning the death of the vibrant young teacher Emma Bell, who grew up in the NSW Central Tablelands town.

Ms Bell, aged in her 20s, was returning to the Northern Territory to her teaching job at a remote indigenous school in Arnhem Land, where she had been for 18 months.

According to the latest count based on the Malaysia Airlines passenger manifest, 38 people living in Australia were killed in the crash.

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