MH370: The families haunted by one of aviation’s greatest mysteries

Li Eryou’s son Yanlin was on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Boeing 777, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, disappeared on 8 March 2014. Mr Li and his wife, Liu Shuangfeng - farmers from a village south of Beijing - have struggled to make sense of what happened. The biggest and most expensive search operation ever mounted lasted four years but failed to find any trace of the missing airliner.

Thousands of oceanographers, aeronautical engineers and amateur sleuths have pored over the fragmentary data from the flight. For the families of those on board these have been 10 years of inescapable grief. Yanlin was one of 153 Chinese passengers on the flight. He was returning to China for a visa appointment when the flight disappeared.

He remembers shouting out at the Indian Ocean, telling Yanlin he was there to take him home. The couple, now in their late 60s, live in a rural part of China’s Hebei province. Around 40 Chinese families have refused settlement payments from the Malaysian government. They have filed legal cases in China against the airline, the aircraft manufacturer and other parties.

On display were a few battered pieces from the plane, the only physical evidence ever to be recovered from it. There were parts of the wing, corroded from their long immersion in the sea, with the surprisingly flimsy-looking internal honeycomb structure exposed. Blaine Gibson has found more pieces of MH370 than anyone else. He dresses in the style of Indiana Jones and has used the proceeds of his family home in California to fund his love of travelling.

He has a personal goal of visiting every country in the world. Mr Gibson: “The first piece of this plane is just going to be found by someone walking on the beach” The parts that were found were all discovered 16 months or more after MH370 vanished. They washed up on various East African beaches. Analysis of the prevailing currents in the southern Indian Ocean showed they were likely to have come from where MH370 was believed to have crashed into the sea.

Serial numbers on some parts were matched with records held by the manufacturer. Until the flaperon was found, the only evidence for the plane turning back on itself was data from military radar in Malaysia and Thailand. No other Boeing 777 has ever crashed in the Indian Ocean. The search, involving 60 ships and 50 aircraft from 26 countries, lasted from March 2014 until January 2017.

The lack of hard information has fuelled many theories, some quite wild, about what happened on board MH370. It was resumed in early 2018 for five months by a private US-based company called Ocean Infinity, using underwater drones to scan the seabed. French journalist Florence de Changy has written a meticulously researched book on MH370, one of more than 100 published on the case. Experts recreate sharp turn the Boeing 777 made over the South China Sea.

They conclude that this could only have been done manually by a skilled and experienced pilot. The fact that this was done just as MH370 was moving from Malaysian to Vietnamese air space suggests to them that the pilot was trying to conceal the manoeuvre. There are other theories - that everyone on board was knocked out by hypoxia, lack of oxygen, after an undetected depressurisation. But the difficult manoeuvres, followed by continued, steady flight south for seven hours, make these very unlikely.

Neither pilot had any history that could explain such an action. Malaysian government criticised for its confused handling of the initial response. The last operation by Ocean Infinity ended in mid-2018. The company has offered to resume the search on a no-find, no-fee basis, but needs the government’s approval.

The current transport minister, Anthony Loke, sought to address this by attending the 10th anniversary event in Kuala Lumpur, and promising the families he would do everything possible to find the missing plane. He announced that he was now discussing with Ocean Infinity the possibility of resuming the search later this year. Retired British aerospace IT specialist Richard Godfrey believes he has now pinpointed a much smaller search area. He has used innovative analysis of short-wave radio test transmissions made routinely by ham radio enthusiasts.

This should allow a more concentrated search by the drones, making several passes over the same area. Families say they are encouraged by the latest promises made by the transport minister. But they remain wary. Their hopes have been raised many times before.

I just want the plane to be found,"" Ms Gonzalez says. At least then I can let my husband rest in peace. Right now, I have not done anything for him, you know, to give him a memorial. At the commemoration a large board had been put up, on which people could write messages, of hope, of sympathy, or of grief.

Li knelt down to write a message to Yanlin in large Chinese characters, and then sat in tears, looking at it. Your mum and dad are here to bring you back home. March 3rd, 2024.

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