“We have lost contact”, the phrase that haunts the families of passengers on flight MH370, 10 years after its mysterious disappearance

The disappearance of flight MH370 of the Malaysian airline Malaysia Airlines celebrates its tenth anniversary this Friday without having solved it one of greatest mysteries in the history of aviationalthough the few existing clues suggest that it crashed in the Indian Ocean.

There were no official events to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the tragedy of the Boeing 777 on which 239 people were travelling, although thirty relatives of the victims demonstrated in Beijing in front of the Malaysian embassy to demand answers. For 10 years two words have haunted them: “We have lost contact.”

This is what the airline told Li Eryou. His son Yanlin was on board.

“For years I’ve been wondering, what do you mean, ‘we’ve lost contact’? It seems to me that if you lose contact with someone, you should be able to reconnect with them,” Li told the BBC.

He and his wife, Liu Shuangfeng, farmers in a village south of Beijing, have struggled to make sense of what has become this great mystery in aviation history.

Some relatives gathered this Friday in Beijing shouted slogans such as: “Malaysia, give me back my family member” and “We will not accept a reconciliation until we see our relatives.”

The Australian government took advantage of the anniversary to announce that it is willing to provide aid to Malaysia decides to resume the search for the plane, that disappearedIt’s 40 minutes after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Canberra’s offer comes after Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday during an official visit to the Australian city of Melbourne that his country was willing to reopen the investigation into MH370 if there is “a compelling case”.

Some relatives of the victims, who organized a commemorative demonstration in Malaysia last Sunday, welcomed with optimism the possibility that the searches will resume, since They want the plane to be found and explained what happened.

How Flight MH370 disappeared

The disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 has been explained through several unproven hypotheses ranging from a probable crash in the Indian Ocean due to a technical failure to a possible crash caused by the pilot.

They were traveling on board 153 Chinese, 50 Malays (12 people were part of the crew), seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French, three Americans, two New Zealanders, two Ukrainians, two Canadians, one Russian, one Dutch, one Taiwanese and two Iranians.

March 8, 2014, less than an hour after it started a routine night flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijingthe pilot said goodnight to Malaysian air traffic control.

Flight MH370 disappeared when someone in the cabin left Malaysian airspace and entered Vietnam. manually turned off the communication system and the transponder signal was lost.

Soon after, the plane changed course manually -not mechanically or on autopilot- when you do it a sharp turn to the left and turns back in a southwesterly direction over the Malay Peninsula, then turns again and finally leave the radar zone.

According to the official investigation, the plane flew another 6 hours or so towards the Indian Ocean until, presumably, it ran out of fuel and fell into the water, somewhere in the ocean.

The available tests are so far 27 pieces recovered from the beaches of Réunion, Mozambique, Mauritius, South Africa and the island of Pemba (Zanzibar), only three of them “certainly” belong to the device.

Research conducted by Malaysia, China and Australia between 2014 and 2017 covered approximately 4 million square kilometers of sea surface and 120,000 square kilometers of seabed in the Indian Ocean, and a second attempt in 2018 by the company Ocean Infinity They were unable to locate the plane.

However, the US-based Ocean Infinity, as well as the American Deep Sea Vision, have shown their interest in carrying out new research. based on a new analysis on the possible location of the plane, reports the Australian network ABC.