Malaysia abandons search for flight MH370

Relatives of missing passengers vow to continue to resolve mystery

Relatives of passengers on board flight MH370 said on Friday they won’t give up their efforts to resolve the mystery of the missing jetliner even though the Malaysian government has disbanded the search team.

Jiang Hui, the representative of Chinese families of passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, told the Global Times on Friday that the call to disband the search team shows the Malaysian government’s “passivity” in solving the mystery.

“Relatives will not give up searching for the flight and the missing passengers even if they stop searching for us. We may find a solution ourselves, but it will be complicated,” Jiang said.

“No matter how hard it is we will continue to search for our family members,” another relative surnamed Hu said.

Many of the relatives called on the Chinese government to make an official statement supporting the continued search.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang had said on August 3 this year that China hopes that the Malaysian side can respect the legitimate rights of the families of the Chinese passengers onboard, take their legitimate demands seriously and continue to properly handle the follow-up matters.

Jiang said disbanding the search team violates clauses of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and some of the relatives will seek a consultation with the ICAO.

During its 42nd meetings with relatives of the missing passengers in Beijing on November 14, the Malaysia Airlines Flight representatives set Friday as the date the search team would disband. As of press time no official confirmation was released.

According to the Star Online, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke, said that the government may at sometime resume the search for MH370. “If there are credible leads, we are open to resuming the search,” said Loke.

Relatives on Friday handed over debris consisting of five small parts of the plane found off Madagascar to the minister at his office in the administrative capital Putrajaya outside Kuala Lumpur, according to an AFP report on Friday.

Only three confirmed fragments of MH370 have been found so far, all of them on western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-meter wing fragment, the AFP report said.

Flight MH370, which was carrying 239 passengers most of whom were Chinese, disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. It triggered the largest hunt in aviation history.

Other than the few fragments, the jet was never found in the 120,000-square-kilometer Indian Ocean search zone. The Australian-led search was suspended in January 2017.