Chinese families of Malaysian flight MH370 victims urge new search after experts say plane could be found ‘within days’
- French aviation insiders say their research shows renewed hunt could find Malaysia Airlines jet, which disappeared almost a decade ago
- The announcement prompts relatives of missing Chinese passengers to call for more efforts using latest information and technology
The pair said the plane’s transponder was turned off and that the U-turn it took away from the flight path could not have been carried out by autopilot.
Jiang Hui, whose mother Jiang Cuiyun was on the flight, told the Post that searching for the missing plane had always been the family’s “core pursuit”.
“There are now new technologies that can pinpoint new positions. I think they are all worth a try,” he said.
But Song Chunjie, a relative of another victim, said it was useless for individual experts to call for a search.
On the evening of March 8, 2014, the Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 people on board – including more than 150 Chinese nationals – left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing then vanished from radar screens about two hours after its departure.
Massive search operations involving several countries were conducted in the southern Indian Ocean, but neither the plane nor its wreckage was found.
But the families have never given up hope and the pursuit of the truth.
Their demands include compensation, an apology, psychological help as well as a fund to continue the search.
Jiang said he had not yet heard any results from the case and would check with the court again after the holidays.
“Our slogan for the 10th anniversary is still ‘reboot the search’,” he said.
For nearly a decade, Jiang has helped organise families on the social media platform WeChat, talked to the media and pushed for progress in finding the plane. He has even visited search teams in Australia and travelled to Mauritius, Madagascar and Réunion to look for debris.
He has studied plane crashes and mechanical failures, sharing his knowledge on social media and reaching out to the relatives of crash victims.