KUALA LUMPUR – Today, March 8, marks the 7th anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines’ flight MH370 that went missing under mysterious circumstances while enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
How and why a sophisticated Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers of different nationalities and 12 crew vanished from the radar screen without a trace remains an enigma till today, with the extensive search never seen before in aviation history.
In remembering the ill-fated flight, Bernama revisited the incident and interviewed some of the next-of-kin in Malaysia who find the lack of closure on the episode to be disappointing.
“I feel exactly like how it had been seven years ago when I was 17, ... things are pretty much the same, but we are doing ok,” the daughter of Andrew Nari – the chief steward on the ill-fated flight – said to Bernama.
The brother-in-law of Goh Sock Lay, the chief stewardess on board, told Bernama that the family did not want to talk about the incident as they felt sad each time they recalled the tragedy.
Family members of passengers have also moved on and felt that there is nothing more to talk about regarding the tragedy.
Even the conspiracy theories have abated. The initial theories, such as hijacking and diversion of the plane to US Military base on the Diego Garcia atoll, seizure of control of the aircraft from the pilots via remote methods, and catastrophic systems or airframe failure – are all have yet to be proven.
However, the aircraft’s flaperon that washed up on the beach on Reunion Island a year later pointed to the fact that the Indian Ocean is the final resting place of flight MH370. However, there is no way to pinpoint the exact resting place of the aircraft in the vast ocean.
Australia, China, and Malaysia ended a fruitless US$150 million (RM614.32 million) search across a 120,000 sq km area in the Indian Ocean in 2017. Subsequently, Houston-based group Ocean Infinity also failed to locate the aircraft and its search ended in 2018.
The Malaysian Transport Ministry had said that it has yet to receive any credible evidence to initiate a new search. Till the aircraft is found and the mystery surrounding its disappearance is deciphered, the MH370 call sign will remain an enduring mystery of aviation. – Bernama
