MH370: Seven years on still no closure

IPOH: Tomorrow marks the seventh year Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished without a trace leaving many questions on what actually happened to the ill-fated plane unanswered and passengers' family members in limbo.

Some family members and next of kin of passengers on board the plane are still hoping for a miracle to happen while there are also who choose to leave everything in God's hands besides praying that the authorities will eventually unravel one of aviation history's greatest mysteries.

Maira Elizabeth Nari, the daughter of flight MH370 chief steward Andrew Nari said although many years have passed, there was nothing she could do and whatever the situation is, life must go on.

"I feel exactly like how it had been seven years ago when i was 17, but...things are pretty much the same but we are doing ok," she told Bernama.

The brother-in-law of the flight chief stewardess Goh Sock Lay who declined to be identified, when met at his house in Kampung Tawas here recently, said that family members did not want to remember the incident anymore.

"It has long been forgotten by our family. Nothing else to talk about as it is a sad thing to remember," he said.

He said Goh's husband who is now working at a glove factory in Seremban had not returned to his hometown for quite a while now and only contacted family members through phone calls to say hello.

Family members of another MH370 passenger Tan Ah Meng in Kampung Kanthan, Chemor here also shared the same sentiment about the tragedy.

"My family and I have forgotten the incident, there is nothing to say," said the family's representative who also said that both of Tan's parents had died a few years ago.

Meanwhile, aviation expert Prof Dr Mohd Harridon Mohamed Suffian said no new clues to the fate of the plane had emerged so far, and the situation was likely to upset many.

However, the Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) test pilot said there were several reference cases, where the wreckage of the plane were found after several years of disappearance, adding that it was not wrong for any party to continue the search for the Boeing 777.

"For example is the wreckage of a Piper plane which was discovered in Michigan, USA after 21 years it went missing and the wreckage of a Learjat plane that was found in New Hampshire, USA, three years after its disappearance.

"In such cases, search efforts were conducted on a large scale and in detail, but the wreckages were only found until after a few years later. This shows that there is still hope," he said.

MH370, with 239 people on board, took off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on the evening of March 8 in 2014, headed for Beijing, China, vanished from the radar screen about two hours after its departure.

It was reported that the Transport Ministry has yet to decide on launching a new search mission for the MH370 flight as there had not been any new credible evidence to initiate such a process.

A source from the Transport Ministry told Bernama that the government would make an important announcement on the tragedy soon.

-- BERNAMA