On 8 March, families at Beijing International Airport were waiting for their loved ones at the meeting point. The flight was supposed to have landed at 6:30am local time. The flight arrival information board was updating itself, flights from all over the world were landing in one of the busiest airports, one after another. However, one flight's status showed DELAY – MH370, from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Beijing 6 o'clock in the morning in March the sky is still dark. Saturday 8 March, after a week's hard work, most people were still in bed during this time. But the family members were waiting at the meeting point of Terminal 3; these people, like the rest of us, couldn't wait to see their loved ones coming out from the meeting point gate.
The flight did not arrive on time at 6:30am, a big red DELAY was still showing on the information board. Half an hour later, people who were waiting for MH370 started to discuss among themselves on the delayed flight.
Mr. Wang was waiting for her daughter, who was studying in Malaysia. He was talking with Mrs. Li, whose father went on a trip to Nepal with other friends and was returning to Beijing via Kuala Lumpur. "International flights are often late, each time when I pick up my daughter, I've have to wait for extra hour", Mr. Wang said to Mrs. Li. "Well, this is my father's first time travel overseas with friends. They do not want to transit another flight at Guangzhou, so they have chosen Malaysian Airline to come back to Beijing directly", said Mrs Li.
As time goes by, people waiting at the meeting point for all incoming flights come and go, but it is only those waiting for MH370 were still there. Till 8:00am the flight status remained as "DELAY". It was only later on, we knew the news that MH370 was lost contact.
Shocked
After I heard this devastating news, I was shocked. I am not related to any person on MH370, but I felt so sorry for those people who were waiting for their loved ones to arrive safely, moreover I regularly travel between Australia and China, often via KL.
From midday on 8 March the Chinese and Vietnamese navy and Ocean rescue were searching in South China Sea. There is a lot of 'rubbish' in the South China Sea and each time these searches found anything where MH370 lost contact, the Malaysian Airline denied it was anything from that aircraft.
After that rumours started to spread, such as the aircraft was hijacked or it crashed into the China South Sea. Those waiting for Flight MH370 had to suffer from all these rumours while praying for their awaited ones to come back safely. They would rather believe the plane was hijacked than crashed – this way the passengers might still be alive.
However, after 18 days of suffering the Malaysian government finally announced the flight had crashed, even though they couldn't provide any evidence to support that claim, rather based on the deduction from the AAIB (Air Accidents Investigation Branch).
The missing flight MH370 is a mystery in our human history, and it is very sad and very hard to believe the aircraft crashed. My wish was the aircraft had landed in some unknown island in the south Indian Ocean, and that the passengers were waiting for the authorities to save them and bring them all back safe and sound.
The best we can do is to keep praying that we might find the full truth of what happened to flight MH370.
Oscar Duan is from China, he has an accountancy degree from University of Hertfordshire (UH) International campus in Malaysia, and has undertaken further accountancy studies in Australia for accreditation here. He is married to Heyley.
Oscar Duan's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/oscar-duan.html
