The latest search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared 12 years ago in one of aviation’s greatest enduring mysteries, ended in January without yielding any results, Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said on Sunday.
The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Two-thirds of the passengers were Chinese, while the rest included Malaysians, Indonesians and Australians, as well as Indian, American, Dutch and French citizens.
Despite multiple searches, including the largest in aviation history, neither the plane, nor the passengers nor the black boxes have ever been found.
The latest search, which began in December, covered an area of around 15,000 square kilometers, but the efforts “have not yielded any findings confirming the location of the plane wreckage,” Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said in a statement.
Exploration company Ocean Infinity, based in Britain and the United States, led the search that concluded on January 23.
The families of the Chinese passengers published an open letter on Sunday (12th anniversary of the flight’s disappearance) criticizing the lack of information they received during the latest search.
“We understand the difficulties of the search,” the relatives said in a joint open letter to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, in which they thanked him for the initiative.
“However, since January 15 of this year, the families have not received any further search instructions.”
“Over the past two months, we have repeatedly contacted the Malaysian Ministry of Transport through Malaysia Airlines and the Chinese government, but have not received a response,” they said.
In an attempt to locate the aircraft, Ocean Infinity deployed autonomous underwater drones capable of diving to depths of up to 6,000 meters (20,000 feet).
The company conducted previous unsuccessful searches in 2018, as did Australia for three years until January 2017.
In their letter, the Chinese families add that “for 12 years, we have received virtually no genuine psychological support.”
“We ask for little: just to be seen, heard and treated as individuals with emotions and dignity.”
The families are expected to be received by China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday, as they do every year, before visiting the Malaysian embassy in Beijing to deliver the letter to Anwar.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
