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MALAYSIA-CHINA-AUSTRALIA-AVIATION-MH370
MH370 families hope for answers from official report
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, July 30, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Relatives of people aboard
Flight MH370 said Monday they hoped a long-awaited report into the plane’s
disappearance might give them answers about one of the world’s most enduring
aviation mysteries.
The family members were being given the official investigation team’s
report in the morning at the Malaysian transport ministry and were set to be
briefed by officials, and it was due to be released publicly in the
afternoon.
The Malaysia Airlines jet vanished in March 2014 with 239 people — mostly
from China — on board, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
No sign of it was found in a 120,000-square kilometre (46,000-square mile)
Indian Ocean search zone and the Australian-led hunt, the largest in aviation
history, was suspended in January last year.
US exploration firm Ocean Infinity resumed the hunt at the start of this
year on a “no find, no fee” basis, using high-tech drones to scour the
seabed. But that search was called off after failing to find anything.
Malaysia’s new government, which took power in May, has pledged total
transparency and says the final report by the official safety investigation
team — a 19-member body which includes international investigators — will
be released unedited.
Arriving at the transport ministry to receive the report, Nurlaila Ngah,
whose husband Wan Swaid Wan Ismail was an MH370 crew member, said she was
hoping for a “solid answer” about what happened that could give relatives
some closure.
“In the airline industry, tragedies happen but there are clues as to what
could have happened,” she told AFP. “It makes no sense if they (the
investigators) say there are no hints as to what could have happened.”
But Calvin Shim, whose wife was a stewardess on the flight, was sceptical
the report would tell families anything new after more than four years of
fruitless searching.
“I do not expect any fresh revelations from this report,” he said. “The
black box has not been found. The plane wreckage has not been found.”
He said however he hoped the government would try to find new clues and
consider resuming the search.
Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found, all of them on
western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-metre wing part known as a
flaperon.
There have been a host of theories about why the plane disappeared, ranging
from an accident to a hijacking or even a terror plot.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0925 hrs