Malaysia Airlines has come under fire again overnight after it sent a text message to the families of those missing on flight MH370 “confirming” there were no survivors.
Prior to a press conference given by the Malaysian Prime Minister, some of the relatives of those on board had been briefed in person but others read the news they feared most in a text message sent by Malaysia Airlines.
In a swift few sentences the message confirmed that the search for any survivors was now over and authorities had concluded that their loved ones had certainly perished.
“Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived,” said the SMS. “As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia’s Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean.”
While some have been outraged at the seemingly callous delivery of sensitive information, the airline has released a statement to explain its actions.
“Malaysia Airlines did not ONLY send an SMS. The message was conveyed to all families face to face by our top management at the hotels,” read the statement. “SMS and phone calls were made to those who are not in hotels via our family support centre. We wanted to ensure that all families are informed via all channels.”
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak leaving the late-night news conference held in Kuala Lumpur overnight.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak leaving the late-night news conference held in Kuala Lumpur overnight.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak leaving the late-night news conference held in Kuala Lumpur overnight.
The heartbreaking text message was followed shortly by an announcement by the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in a late-night news conference held in Kuala Lumpur, 17 days after it mysteriously disappeared.
The Malaysian PM confirmed that officials now believed Flight MH370 “ended” in the Indian Ocean, without any survivors.
Flight MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur in the early morning of March 8 but failed to arrive at its final destination in Beijing and is now believed to have went down in the Southern Indian Ocean, somewhere around 2500km southwest of Perth.
The crash conclusion comes from new analysis information by British satellite firm Inmarsat, which provided satellite data, and the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).
Inmarsat and the AAIB “concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth,” Mr Razak said.
None of the Boeing 777’s 227 passengers and 12 crew on board are believed to have survived the flight as the determined final location is too far from any possible landing site.
A confusing relay of information has plagued the investigation into what happened to the Malaysian Airlines flight and some family members are unsurprisingly angry with the authorities.
Some of the families gathered together in Beijing to accuse the Malaysian Airlines and military of “delaying” and “deceiving” the public and “wasting a large quantity of human resources and materials and lost valuable time for the rescue effort”.
Even since the announcement speculative theories still continue to circle around the missing plane. With no wreckage, no official justification as to why the flight’s transponders were shut off, and no explanation why the plane changed course and ended up thousands of miles from its destination it may be a long time before the families get any real answers.
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