Today marks the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Among the 239 people on board was Paul Weeks, a Kiwi whose absence left an indelible void in the life of his wife, Danica.
Ten years on, she says she has a renewed hope in news of a fresh mission to find the Boeing 777.
Reflecting on the day she realised she might never see her husband again, she said, “That feels like yesterday. It does obviously bring up a lot of emotions. We need to find this plane. We need to find them, not be left in this limbo.”
Her husband Paul was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on what was supposed to be a routine six-hour flight. However, just an hour in, the aircraft vanished from radar over the South China Sea, sparking a multinational search that became one of the largest in aviation history.
Former Malaysia Airlines chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya confirmed the early loss of contact with MH370 on March 8, 2014, with military radar last tracking it crossing the Malay Peninsula.
Despite extensive efforts covering 4.5 million square kilometres of ocean, the whereabouts of the plane and its passengers remain largely unknown.
'We know where it is'
Peter Foley, from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, expressed a deep regret over the unsuccessful mission. He said, “It's desperately sad for the families, but it's also desperately sad for people like me and the thousand-odd other people who were involved in the search. We failed. I don't think we've nailed it quite yet, but we know where the aircraft is; it's just a big area.”
But now, on the anniversary of its disappearance, American company Ocean Infinity has proposed a new search to the Malaysian government, a proposal that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim seems inclined to support.
The company stated: “We now feel in a position to be able to return to the search for the missing aircraft. We hope to resume the search soon but, until then, the families share the same grief.”
Weeks responded to the news with a mix of surprise and gratitude, “It's so heart-wrenching when you can't tell your children the truth.” Upon hearing about the renewed mission, she said, “I didn't know that. Ocean Infinity has always been there, and they have held us in their hearts for a long time. That's fantastic news.”
'We will always wonder'
Grace Subathirai Nathan, daughter of MH370 passenger Anne Catherine Daisy, also shared her hope for answers.
“There is not a moment I do not think about where my mother is,” she said. “We have to be prepared to find out, but I think that only once we know what happened can true healing begin.
"No matter how much you try to move on, it will never go away because we will always wonder.”
As the world commemorates a decade since MH370's disappearance, the agony for families like the Weeks remains palpable. Danica Weeks said the ongoing mystery underlined the need for answers, not just for closure, but as a testament to the lives, like her husband's, that vanished without a trace.
She said all she really wanted was the chance to finally say goodbye.
SHARE ME