Relatives of the deceased react to the news of their deaths
Any hope of finding survivors aboard the missing Malaysian Airlines plane ended yesterday with the announcement that flight MH370 had almost certainly crashed into the southern Indian Ocean with no survivors.
In a statement given by the Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, it confirmed the death of all 239 people aboard the flight for the families of passengers and crew who have waited 16 long days for answers. The statement may have given then the fate of their loved ones but it has shed no light on why the plane disappeared and diverted so far from it’s planned route on the 8th March 2014.
At least ten aircraft are avidly searching a huge area of the southern Indian Ocean, about 2,500km south-west of the Australian city of Perth. More ships have been dispatched from Australia and the US is offering a specialised device to help locate aircraft flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
Prime Minister Najib told a press conference last night that new analysis of satellite data showed the last known position of the aircraft was over a remote area of the ocean where there were no possible landing sites. He said,
“It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that according to new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”
He went on to say: “For [families] the past few weeks have been heartbreaking. I know this must be the most heartbreaking of all,” he added. He urged the media to give the families space and let them grieve.
The conclusions were made by UK aviation investigators and satellite company Inmarsat. On Monday, the Malaysian prime minister said Inmarsat had been able to shed further light on the plane’s flight path by performing further calculations on the MH370 data “using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort”.
The new calculation involved crunching far more data and that engineers spent all weekend looking back at previous Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flights.
They compared the satellite data from those flights with flight MH370 and were able to work out that it went south.
As far as the engineers could tell, the plane was flying at a cruising height above 30,000ft.
Inmarsat gave the AAIB the new data on Sunday, it said, which had to be checked before it could be made public.
Malaysia Airlines informed relatives of the news about half an hour before the public statement. Many saw it first via text message though the company said that others were told in personal briefings and phone calls.
The message read: “We deeply regret that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived.”
Following the statement, distraught relatives of Chinese passengers attacked Malaysia for announcing the crash and loss of life without direct proof, and for wasting the best chance to rescue those on board.
In a statement of their own, they said the airline, Malaysian government and its military had “continually and extremely delayed, hidden and covered the facts, and attempted to deceive the passengers’ relatives, and people all over the world”.
That had not only devastated relatives but “misled, delayed the research and rescue, wasted a lot of man power, and material resources and lost the most valuable rescue opportunity. If our 154 relatives lost their lives because of it, Malaysia Airlines, the Malaysian government, and the Malaysian military are [their] killers.”
Investigators have indicated that the Beijing-bound flight was deliberately diverted just as it prepared to leave Malaysian airspace, turning west and re-crossing the Malay peninsula. Communications systems were disabled or stopped working at about the same time but they say they have not ruled out any possible cause of the Boeing 777s mysterious disappearance.