Flight MH370 five years on: a wife’s plea to keep searching

By MiNDFOOD

Michelle Gomes, daughter of Patrick Gomes who was the in-flight supervisor onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, comforts her son Rafael Gomes during its fifth annual remembrance event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 3, 2019. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Lai Seng Sin
Michelle Gomes, daughter of Patrick Gomes who was the in-flight supervisor onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, comforts her son Rafael Gomes during its fifth annual remembrance event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 3, 2019. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Lai Seng Sin

On the fifth anniversary of the plane’s disappearance, Malaysia is open to reviving the search for the missing MH370 flight.

Malaysia’s government says it will consider resuming the search for a missing Malaysia Airlines flight if parties interested in the hunt come forward with viable proposals or credible leads. This as families of passengers mark the fifth anniversary of the plane’s mysterious disappearance.

The flight which disappeared without a trace over the South China Sea devastating the families of 239 people aboard, saw many distraught family members travel to Malaysia desperate for answers.

Despite an international search effort above and below water only a few small pieces of debris from the plane have been found, discovered after they washed ashore in the Western Indian Ocean. Five years on, and still no closer to the finding the missing plane, families of missing loved ones have come forward with a plea for authorities to keep searching. 

Speaking to Sunday night’s 60 Minutes, Danica Weeks – whose husband Paul boarded flight MH370 which disappeared – said she had never given up hope of finding answers, to somehow explain to her sons Lincoln and Jack – now eight and six – what happened to their father and why he never came home that fateful day. 

“This isn’t just about 239 people on a Boeing 777,” Danica Weeks told 60 Minutes. “This is about eight million people every day that get on a flight. Wives, husbands, family members off for holidays, workers that get on a plane and we don’t know what happened,” News.com.au report.

Weeks has made an impassioned plea to the Malaysia Prime Minister to keep searching.

“I’m not giving up … my biggest fear is if I don’t find out what’s happened. That’s my burden, but it shouldn’t be theirs. They’re smart boys, just like their father, and I know they’ll want to find out what happened. We all need closure.”

New search?

Anthony Loke, Malaysia’s transport minister, said on Sunday the government was prepared to reward firms searching for MH370 under a “no cure, no fee” agreement, meaning payment would be made only if they located the aircraft.

“If there are any credible leads or specific proposals … we are more than willing to look at them and we are prepared to discuss with them the new proposals,” Loke told reporters at a Kuala Lumpur event marking the fifth year of MH370’s disappearance. 

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