Family members of the passengers onboard the disappeared Malaysia Airlines jet have come here for answers even as they continue to mourn for the missing
KUALA LUMPUR: Demands are growing for Malaysian authorities conducting the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to reveal ‘hidden’ details relatives of the passengers are convinced they have.
More relatives of Chinese passengers arrived here from Beijing today and immediately vented their anger at government officials.
The message the families have brought is one of despair and fury and the accusation that the search operation for the Beijing-bound plane that disappeared on March 8 March with 239 people on board has been riddled with misinformation and secrecy.
On arrival today, they immediately made their intentions known at a press conference, unfurling a banner which accused the Malaysian government of speculation and “trampling on innocent lives”.
Chanting “Tell us the truth”, they said they wanted Prime Minister Najib Razak to apologise for what they regard as misleading statements.
Ten planes and eight ships are looking for remains of the airliner in a vast area of the Indian Ocean.
Some relatives of the 153 Chinese passengers on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have refused to accept the Malaysian account of events and accused the authorities.
The several dozen family members who travelled from Beijing today, after landing in Kuala Lumpur held a news conference at a hotel holding up banners that read “We want evidence, truth, dignity” in Chinese, and “Hand us the murderer. Give us our relatives,” in English.
Their designated representative, Jiang Hui, said they wanted the Malaysian government to apologise over the initial handling of the disaster, as well as for Najib’s earlier statement that indicated the plane had crashed with no survivors.
He said they were upset that the conclusion had been announced “without direct evidence or a sense of responsibility”.
He said the group wanted to meet airline and government officials face to face. The relatives have previously expressed anger at officials during regular briefings by Malaysian officials at a hotel in Beijing.
Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Saturday that the search for survivors would continue.
“The hardest part of my job is to see the families,” he said. “I’ve always said we are hoping against hope that we will find survivors.”
For a second day on Sunday, Malaysian officials cancelled their daily update on the search operation.
Officials here have concluded that, based on satellite data, the missing plane flew into the sea somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. So far no trace of it has been found.
A Chinese and an Australian ship failed to identify debris from the missing flight after their first day in a new search area, about 1,850km west of Perth, on Saturday.
Chinese patrol ship Haixun 01 and Australia’s HMAS Success both retrieved objects but none was confirmed to be from flight MH370, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) said in a statement.
Some of the objects have been very small, and officials have cautioned that they may be sea junk.
Aircraft involved in the search have so far reported seeing a number of objects of various colours floating in the sea in the new area since Friday but poor conditions have hampered recent search efforts.
An Australian vessel carrying a US device known as a “towed pinger locator” is due to join the search in the coming days.
The device is designed to detect any ultrasonic signals – “pings” – from flight recorders and can operate up to a depth of about 6,000m.
But the search area is huge – covering some 319,000 sq km – and time is running short. The flight recorders’ batteries are expected to run out in about a week’s time.
The current search area is about 1,100km north-east of the previous zone. Officials said the focus changed after radar data showed the plane had been travelling faster that previously thought, thus burning more fuel. This would reduce the possible distance the aircraft travelled south.
The new arrivals are being carefully shielded from the media, according to the BBC. Blue-shirted volunteers could be seen chaperoning the relatives to and from meetings.
“There are security guards dotted around their hotel, and at the airport this morning a welcoming party, including a local politician, was left standing as the families were whisked away from a hidden exit,” the news outlet reported.
With no sign of flight MH370 or its passengers, the worn faces of their relatives have become the most visible symbols of this mystery and their frustration won’t be easy for the authorities here to deal with.