Advertisement

‘There’s no conclusion’: Grief and anger from MH370 families over final report

MH370 disappeared during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014.

MH370 disappeared during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014. Photo: AAP

Families of MH370 victims have reacted in grief and anger to a final report from the Malaysian government that reportedly reaches “no conclusion” on one of the world’s biggest aviation mysteries.

Families of MH370 passengers were briefed by Malaysian transport authorities in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, prior to the report’s release to the public later in the day.

The final report fails to reach any conclusions, according to ABC reporter David Lipton, who spoke to victims’ families attending the briefing.

The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 veered off course and disappeared over the Indian Ocean with 239 people onboard, including six Australians, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.

Anger from victims’ families

Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul was on board, said the Malaysian government only offered on Thursday to fly her to the briefing for families – too little notice for a mother-of-two with a full-time job.

Danica Weeks’ husband Paul was on board flight MH370. The Queensland mother-of-two says the search must continue. Photo: Facebook

“Unfortunately I’m not there today. A few of us, international families, have been unable to make it in that time frame so I’m very angry about that,” Ms Weeks told AAP.

Ms Weeks said she was eagerly awaiting the report and hoped it would be thorough, including containing the plane’s manifest. But she was ultimately pessimistic.

“It’s what we’ve been asking for for so long, but I’m not holding my breath,” she said.

Earlier this month, Malaysia’s transport minister Anthony Loke vowed that “every word recorded by the investigation team will be tabled in this report”.

“We are committed to the transparency of this report,” he said.

“It will be tabled fully, without any editing, additions, or redactions.”

‘They need to keep searching’ 

Aviation experts and victims’ families have called for the search MH370 to go on.

“The search should continue. I think it’s very unfortunate that the search has been abandoned twice,” Monash University aviation expert Professor Greg Bamber told The New Daily.

I cannot see how the report is going to have any definitive answers given that the search team has not found the wreckage of the plane or the black boxes, which would help to identify the causes.”

The four-year search for MH370 ended in May after Ocean Infinity failed to locate the plane while scouring 125,000 square kilometres of the Indian Ocean.

Malaysia had signed a “no find, no fee” deal with American company Ocean Infinity to resume the hunt after the official search – led by Australia, Malaysia and China – was called off in early 2017.

There has been speculation Ocean Infinity could resume the search as it remains in waters off the Western Australian coast doing work for Woodside Energy.

Ms Weeks, who moved from Perth to Queensland after the tragedy, said the search had to go on as the crash might have been due to a problem with the Boeing 777 model.

“They need to keep searching – that’s a given. I understand that without new information, you’re throwing the dice and hoping it’s there,” she said.

“It’s a matter of elimination. It’s got to be somewhere.

“They can’t just push it under the carpet and say ‘that’s it’.”

What really happened?

While theories about the cause of the plane’s disappearance have swirled in the past four years, it is now widely believed that MH370 was deliberately hijacked by its pilot.

Some experts say that if the report tries to argue otherwise there could be broad implications for the integrity of international air crash investigations, and for the new Malaysian government.

“There is a view around that one of the pilots may have hijacked the plane, but we can’t say there’s a consensus. We just don’t know,” Professor Bamber said

“Pressure should be put on the Malaysian government in particular to continue the search, possibly supported by other countries.”

The former Malaysian government “did not respond in a transparent or ethical way” after the disappearance of the MH370 four years ago, according to Professor Bamber.

“I hope that the new government in Malaysia will behave much better and will, following the report release, start the search again to try to find it,” he said.

“It’s one of the greatest mysteries of aviation.”

-with AAP

Stay informed, daily
A FREE subscription to The New Daily arrives every morning and evening.
The New Daily is a trusted source of national news and information and is provided free for all Australians. Read our editorial charter
Copyright © 2024 The New Daily.
All rights reserved.