KUALA LUMPUR: Relatives of passengers on a Malaysia Airlines plane that mysteriously vanished 10 years ago pushed for a new search on Sunday, as they spoke of enduring grief and the struggle to find closure.

Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 aircraft carrying 239 people — 227 passengers and 12 crew — disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

More than 150 passengers were Chinese nationals, but the plane has never been found despite the ‘largest search’ in aviation history. Some relatives came from China to attend the remembrance event.

About 500 relatives and their supporters gathered on Sunday at a shopping centre near the Malaysian capital for a “remembrance day”, with many visibly overcome with grief. They lit 239 candles, one for each passenger lost on the flight.

239 candles lit before 10th anniversary of mysterious disappearance of flight MH370

‘MH370 is not history’

“The last 10 years have been a nonstop emotional rollercoaster for me,” Grace Nathan, a 36-year-old Malaysian lawyer whose mother, Anne Daisy, 56, was on the flight, said.

Speaking to the crowd, she called on the Malaysian government to conduct a new search. “MH370 is not history,” she said.

Liu Shuang Fong, 67, from China’s Hebei province lost her 28-year-old son Li Yan Lin, who was also a passenger on the plane. “I demand justice for my son. Where is the plane?” said Liu, who flew to Malaysia for the event.

“The search must go on,” she added.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke told reporters as far Malaysia was concerned, “it is committed to finding the plane... cost is not the issue.”

He told relatives at the gathering that he would meet officials from Texas-based marine exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which conducted a previous unsuccessful search to discuss a new operation.

“We are now awaiting them to provide suitable dates and I hope to meet them soon”.

Ocean Infinity’s search in 2018 ended after several months of scouring the seabed without success.

Malaysia, China and Australia earlier had ended a fruitless two-year, A$200 million ($130.46 million) underwater hunt in January 2017. The search that covered 120,000 square kilometres in the Indian Ocean found hardly any trace of the plane, with only some pieces of debris picked up. Considered the biggest search in aviation history, the operation was suspended in 2017.

The plane’s disappearance has long been the subject of a host of theories — ranging from the credible to outlandish — including that veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah had gone rogue.

A final report into the tragedy released in 2018 pointed to failings by air traffic control and said the course of the plane was changed manually.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2024