I remember waking up with a red eye. It had something to do with my contact lenses. March 8th was a Saturday. I don’t work on weekends. So I took my time. I checked my phone for breaking news that happened in the middle of the night. I saw a tweet on a missing MAS aircraft bound for Beijing. I brushed it off, thinking they would find the aircraft soon.

Like any other Saturday, I took my time with my morning shower. Two weeks earlier my friends and I made plans to spend the weekend in Janda Baik. I made a mental note to get mosquito coils, mineral water and plenty of food for the trip.

After my shower I sat in front of the TV with my iPad. I saw more mentions of the #MH370 and how the flight had reportedly landed in Nanning. But none of the tweets were confirmed. On TV, I saw my colleagues reporting on the missing aircraft.

"This must be serious" I thought to myself.

I read a bit more on the missing aircraft. Flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200ER. I am quite familiar with this particular aircraft, having travelled to Paris once a year for the past 3 years.

I love the Boeing 777, a wide body alternative to the 747 that I once flew to London. I know which seats I like and which I don’t. (Rows 14, 15, and 16 are good. These are the seats located in front of the wings, before the engines, so it’s a little quiet). I also like the entertainment system. It is not state of the art, but it keeps me entertained on long haul flights.

I wanted to know more. I called my friends who are pilots at AirAsia and MAS. The first few calls didn’t go through.

"Maybe they are on duty" I thought to myself.

The more I looked at the Twitter, Facebook feeds and the news on TV, the more I became restless. There was no single confirmed report that the aircraft had safely landed in Nanning.

It was a bright Saturday morning. It was one of those normal Saturdays, where people go out, visit waterfalls, and go to malls.

Little did I know, ‘normal’ would be a foreign concept for the next 1 month.

Around half past 10, I received a call from RA, a pilot with MAS. I asked him, where the aircraft was. He said nobody knew. It has been more that 4 to 5 hours since the 9M-MRO was scheduled to land in Beijing.

I asked whether anybody at MAS had said anything. He said ‘No’. He also said, MAS staff talked about it but nobody came up with a plausible explanation as to why it was still missing.

I asked him for numbers of pilots or people that I could call to know more about the aircraft. I asked him what was his personal opinion on the matter.

RA then said ‘Maybe it has crashed’.

I could feel this huge lump in my throat. I held back the tears. I said goodbye and put down the phone.

My other friend texted me numbers of people I could call, pilots and MAS employees. I Googled the DCA and sent the screen cap of the Director’s number to my colleagues via Whatsapp.

The night before, on Friday, I sent my best friend, FI to the LRT station. He was on a late night flight to Japan via Seoul or Incheon. I remember him telling me that he will be flying Korean Air. Some of his colleagues, on the China Southern Airlines’ 9.30pm flight. I checked his Whatsapp and saw he was last active a few minutes earlier.

It was around 11.30 when I changed into a blue jumper and left for the office.

rizal

When I got to the office, my colleagues were already calling people up, trying to understand what was happening . We were glued to the TV whenever there was a press conference.

We looked for stories to tell. Of the passengers, family and friends of the passengers. Some of us broke down when we saw heartbreaking statuses of family and friends of those on board flight MH370 on Facebook and Twitter.

I interviewed a few people off air, off record and on air. We all did. The editorial decision was to not compare the MAS flight to that of Air France 447 or Asiana Airlines 214. We do not want to associate flight MH370 with grim incidents.

We journalists, live and die with the news. We want to report, to craft sentences properly so the message gets across well. Breaking news made us feel alive.

But on that Saturday, it was not easy and it never got any easier for the next 30 days or so. We said every word carefully so as not to mix facts with fiction.

I stayed on until 9.30 pm before I finally left for home.

I sat in front of the TV for the next few hours. I was looking for any good news on Twitter and Facebook.

It was a quiet Saturday night. I don’t know if it was a normal Saturday night.

I think I fell asleep at around 1 or 2 in the morning. I think none of my colleagues and myself, got enough sleep. Our minds were still trying to process what had happened.

Do you remember what you were doing on March 8th?