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Ocean Infinity” is lighting up new rays of hope for relatives of the 239 passengers who went missing on flight MH370 10 years ago in the Indian Ocean.
“Ten years have passed, a decade of waiting and looking forward, and it is natural for us to want to know what happened and where our loved ones are. Ten years have passed, and my emotions are still raw. I attended this event hoping to find a common voice with the families of the other victims. I hope they will be steadfast and strong to overcome the pain and continue to patiently wait for the results of the upcoming search,” said Intan Maizura Othman, wife of pilot Mohd Hazrin Mohamed of the ill-fated flight MH370.
“Every year that passes, it gets a little better, because we know there is nothing we can do but wait for a search to resume to find the plane, but we still have to move on with our lives. I want to find MH370 so that my husband’s disappearance is no longer a mystery and perhaps serve to prevent a similar incident in the future,” said Jacquilita Gonzales, wife of pilot Patrick Gomes.
“We have been standing by the families and loved ones of the victims since 2017 and have organized events like this every year to help them gain strength and overcome their pain and loss. Everyone here today shares the same hope for new research in the search for MH370,” said Tanvir Ahmed, a member of the organizing committee of the NGO Lives Not Numbers.
The above are the shares that VNA reporters in Kuala Lumpur recorded at the memorial ceremony for the victims on the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of the ill-fated MH370 plane. With the theme “MH370: 10 years gone by”, the ceremony was jointly organized by non-governmental organizations in Malaysia in a solemn and warm atmosphere with the participation of Transport Minister, Anthony Loke at a shopping center in the suburbs of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
Still the handshakes of sharing, still the tight hugs that cannot be expressed in words, still the seemingly strong eyes that will burst into tears right after... the relatives of the 239 passengers on flight MH370 began the memorial service like that.
“Whether it is ten years, twenty years or even longer, if we are still alive, we will not forget our loved ones, nor will we stop searching for the truth,” they wrote messages to their loved ones and put them in a memory box to look back on in the years to come.
Next to the display area of the plane wreckage, the organizers designed fences with the names of the 239 victims on them, hoping that when those attending the event find the names of their loved ones, they will be able to ease some of the pain they have kept hidden for so long. At the ceremony, the victims' families also shared commemorative films, poems, and songs that recorded their emotions over the years, and then lit 239 candles in memory.
On March 8, 2024, a decade after the fateful night of March 8, 2014, there was still no news about the fate of the 239 people on board the Boeing 777 that disappeared without a trace after departing from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at 12:42 p.m. The plane's last known location was in the Indian Ocean west of Perth, Australia, announced by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak in March 2014. About a year later, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, then the Director General of the Department of Civil Aviation, declared MH370 an accident under international aviation regulations, with all 227 passengers and 12 crew presumed dead.
"Good night, MH370" – was the radio message sent from the cockpit of Malaysia Airlines flight at 1:09 a.m. on March 8, 2014.
The disappearance of MH370 will go down in Malaysian history as the darkest period in the country’s aviation industry and the mystery has drawn global attention, with numerous aviation investigation agencies and experts assisting. The massive search effort, which became the most expensive operation in Malaysian and world history, involved 82 aircraft and 84 ships from 26 countries over 1,169 days of searching the ocean floor, covering 232,040 square kilometres in the Indian Ocean, but was called off in January 2017 with almost no trace of the plane found.
In 2018, the Malaysian government signed an agreement with seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity to resume the search, but it was still fruitless and had to be stopped after 5 months in May 2028.
The scant evidence the search has produced has not shed light on the disappearance, with only three pieces of debris found on a beach in the Indian Ocean confirmed as being from MH370. The decision to end the search was a difficult and almost unbearable one for the families of the missing passengers and crew, whose pain and anguish over the past 3,600 days remains unspeakable.
Now, returning after 5 years of inactivity, at the event, “Ocean Infinity” issued a “No Found, No Fee” message to restart the search with many proposals to localize the search area with the use of underwater robots. Listening to the plan of “Ocean Infinity” at the ceremony, Minister Loke expressed hope to have a direct working session on the search plan of “Ocean Infinity” soon, and affirmed that the Malaysian government will continue to cooperate to find the truth.
The Minister pledged that the Ministry of Transport will make every effort to get the Cabinet's approval to sign a new contract with "Ocean Infinity". Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim also left open the possibility of reopening the search for the plane. The Prime Minister affirmed: "If there is convincing evidence that the search needs to be reopened, we will certainly be ready to reopen it".
“Ocean Infinity” is lighting up new rays of hope for the relatives of the 239 passengers. Whether there will be a satisfactory end to this sad tragedy or not is still the question that the whole world is searching for and hoping for.
