They have criticised the move by the Australian government not to extend the search despite recommendations from investigators, who said the search should expand to a 25,000 square kilometre area north of the current 120,000 sq km area, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
“Obviously it’s another kick in the guts for the families,” the daily quoted Danica Weeks, a MH370 widow.
Weeks husband, Paul, was one of 239 passengers and crew on the plane which disappeared in the early hours of March 8, 2014, while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
“They have to find it. It’s not just about us. It’s about the aviation industry as a whole. And if we don’t find out what happened to this plane, it could happen again.
“The new information was credible and Malaysia should take over and continue the operation if Australia was unwilling,” she said, referring to the recommendation by the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB), the agency which is leading the three-country search effort.
So far, the three governments – Australia, Malaysia, China – have dismissed the recommendation made in the ATSB review of the search which has been going on for almost two years.
The countries agreed to terminate the search as scheduled after the scan of the current 120,000 sq km area was completed unless credible evidence about the “specific location” of the aircraft is found.
“We’ve had so much hope and then each time we’ve got the hope up and it’s been washed away,” Weeks was quoted as saying by the Herald.
Another family member, Chinese national Jiang Hui, whose 72-year-old mother Jiang Cuiyun was on the flight, has been a vocal representative for Chinese families and has just returned to Beijing from a two-week trip to Madagascar and Mauritius, where he joined in the search for washed-up debris from the plane with seven other relatives of victims from China, France and Malaysia.
“The search cannot stop. I remember the three governments all told us the search would be continuous, would not end, and would not be given up on. It is a promise to all families, and to the international community,” Jiang said, according to the Herald.
He added that the ATSB owed families an explanation as to why the original search area had come up empty, and what new information prompted them to define a new search area.
Of the 227 passengers on board MH370, 152 were Chinese nationals and six were Australian. The Malaysians on board comprised 38 passengers and 12 crew members.
Yesterday, it was reported that investigators now believe the wreckage is likely somewhere along what is called the “seventh arc” – a line calculated from when the plane made its final contact with a satellite before it ran out of fuel and went into the sea.
However, Australian transport minister Darren Chester said the search has stretched the ability of technology and global experts and has been the largest ever undertaken.
“The information that they had available to them and the work they’ve done has indicated that they’re in the vicinity of where the aircraft went down,” he told Sydney radio station 2GB.
“Now, obviously, if we don’t find the aircraft in that 120,000-square-kilometre search area, we are open to the criticism that you had looked in the wrong place.
“However, saying if it is not there it must be somewhere else is a pretty obvious assumption to make,” Chester was quoted as saying by the Herald.