MH370: Four years on, the embers of hope still flicker

For all of four hours on Saturday March 3, 2018 much of the aviation world’s focus was on the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of MH370. As in previous three events, the next-of-kin are constantly asked about moving on and putting the past behind them. The united response is quite universal – “…we do the best we can, but what we want is to see proof.”

I would say I'm carrying on with life but not really moving on

The next-of-kin hang on to the latest sliver of hope – especially after the private effort to continue the underwater search that holds a little promise the aircraft will be found; if indeed its final resting place is in the deep and vast seabed of the Southern Indian Ocean.

Amid the uncertainty and desire for resolution, lawyer Grace Nathan, whose mother Anne Daisy was MH370 passenger, finds drive and energy to lead the effort to hold the MH370 memorial, this year for a fourth time.

"I would say I'm carrying on with life but not really moving on. So, you know, we get up every morning, we go to work, you know the routine."

"But, at the same time like when I was planning this event for the past few weeks, I’d wake up every morning and every time I type it, the fourth annual MH370 remembrance, I’d be like four years? It’s like a slap in the face. I cannot believe it’s been four years because everything that happened on March 8, 2014 might as well have happened like, four hours ago, four days ago."

Sharing her sentiments is management consultant K S Narendran from Chennai whose wife Chandrika Sharma was a passenger. He wrote "Life After MH370: Journeying Through a Void' after the market was flooded with books on the tragedy based on accounts of journalists and experts who could only sympathise but not fully empathise the real thoughts and feelings of the N-O-Ks.

"I’m still trying to figure out what moving on means. Four years is a long time. Some parts of those four years have been rather difficult. But what I’m realizing is that there’s still a life ahead, and that life ahead is important to put one’s energy behind because not everybody is gifted."

"As you know some are no longer with us and I think the memory of people that are no longer with us should spur us on to make something of the life that’s still left with us."

Meanwhile, the chief of the erstwhile Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) Datuk Sri Azharuddin Abdul Rahman is banking on the renewed vigour coupled with better equipment being deployed by the private search team to take the effort to its next level.

He said while previously there was only one undersea AUV (autonomous undersea vehicle) scouring the seabed, there is now multiple AUVs to handle the task. This search was carried out after an agreement on a 'No Cure No Fee' basis in January for a period of 90-days.