Relatives of MH370 victims commemorate 10 years since plane disappeared

About 500 relatives of MH370 victims and supporters gathered at a shopping mall near Kuala Lumpur for a "day of remembrance", with grief evident in many people's eyes.

Relatives of MH370 victims commemorate 10 years since the plane disappeared, photo 1 — Grace Nathan, a relative of one of the missing victims on flight MH370. Photo: AFP

Some were from China, home to nearly two-thirds of the passengers. “For me, the past 10 years have been a roller coaster of emotions,” said Grace Nathan, a 36-year-old Malaysian lawyer and daughter of a 56-year-old passenger on the flight.

Speaking to the crowd, she called on the Malaysian government to launch a new search. "MH370 is not history," she said.

Liu Shuang Fong, 67, from Hebei province, China, also lost her 28-year-old son, Li Yan Lin, who was a passenger on the plane. "I demand justice for my son. Where is the plane?" said Liu, who flew from China to Malaysia to attend the memorial service, and called for the search to continue.

Responding to the media, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said "Malaysia is committed to searching for the missing plane and cost is not an issue".

At the memorial service, he said he would meet with executives from Texas-based ocean exploration company Ocean Infinity, which conducted the previous unsuccessful search, to discuss a new exploration operation.

"We are now waiting for them to give us a suitable time and I hope to meet them soon," he said. Ocean Infinity's 2018 search ended after months of unsuccessful scouring the seabed.

An earlier Australian-led search covering 120,000 square kilometres of the Indian Ocean found little trace of the plane, apart from some small debris. Billed as the largest search in aviation history, the operation was called off in January 2017.

The disappearance of MH370 has long been the subject of many theories - from the credible to the outlandish - including that veteran pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah went rogue.

A final report into the tragedy, released in 2018, pointed to errors in air traffic control and said the plane's route had been changed manually.

Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 239 people, disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane was never found.

Ngoc Anh (according to AFP)

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