Untold Stories of Malaysia Airlines MH370

8/11/2019 Untold Stories of Malaysia Airlines MH370

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8/4/2014 Lost: Untold stories of Malaysia Airlines MH370

http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/2014/mh370-special/index.html#Chapter-1 1

Lost

Untold stories ofMalaysia Airlines

MH370


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Chapter 1

Homeboundworkers andholidaymakers


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"I promised him I will be waiting forhim at the train station in Dingzhou"- Zhang Jing, wife of Zhao Peng. Zhao, a construction worker from China, was heading back to Dingzhou city

after a year working in Singapore. The couple are pictured above in their wedding snapshot.

N 2013, Zhao Peng and Wang Yongqiang left China for Singapore. They got jobs

as construction workers for Chip Eng Seng Corporation, a mainboard listed

company which builds Housing Board flats.

On March 7, 2014, when their one-year contract ended, the two men headed back to

Dingzhou in Hebei province.

Sturdy brick houses line the streets of Dingzhou's dusty villages, thanks to men like

Zhao and Wang. Since the 1980s, fathers and sons have left the wheat and corn farms

in droves to work overseas. The money they remit from doing construction and

carpentry work in South-east Asia and Africa has allowed their families to build

homes stocked with modern amenities like refrigerators and video cameras. These

houses are the envy of those who have chosen to stay behind, tending to the farms that

surround the villages.

Notices and posters are plastered on the walls of many of Dingzhou's villages, offering

middlemen services for those interested in going abroad. In Lujiazhuang village of just

3,000 people, 500 men are said to be working overseas, making the village Hebei's top

exporter of labour.

Instead of flying to China from Singapore, Zhao and Wang took a five-hour bus ride to

Kuala Lumpur International Airport to catch a flight to Beijing on March 7. It wascheaper, by a few hundred dollars.

It had been a long day.


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The friends, who had met in China while undergoing training for their construction

jobs, had set off at noon and it was another long wait before they could board the

plane. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was scheduled to take off only at 12.35am on

March 8. From Beijing, it was another three-hour train ride to Dingzhou, a city of 1.2

million people.

At 10.30pm, Zhao, a thin, tanned young man with a toothy smile, called his wife in

Anjiazhuang village.

"He sounded happy that he was coming home after so long," Zhang Jing later recalled

about their video call. "He wanted to talk to our son but he was already sleeping and I

didn't want to wake him up. I told him you will get to see him soon anyway'," she said.

"I promised him I will be waiting for him at the train station in Dingzhou."

Zhao, 25, a junior high school graduate, had worked in other cities in China, including

a stint as a cook in Beijing. Going to Singapore was the first time he had travelled so

far from home. He was planning to spend time with his wife, one-year-old son and

parents before setting off for his next overseas job. He was also hoping to find work for

his father and younger brother.


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Construction worker Zhao Peng, seen here with his wife, Zhang Jing, came to Singapore a year ago to

work for Chip Eng Seng Corporation. He was returning to Hebei on board Malaysia Airlines flight

MH370.

A new wedding ring for his wifeWang Yongqiang, 30, Zhao's friend, missed his family, especially his wife of seven

years and their five-year-old daughter. Wang's family live in Majiazhuang village,

about 5km from Zhao's home. The family house is made of bricks with a high black

and orange gate. A large dog roams the neat courtyard.

The only son and the family's main breadwinner, he was known among villagers to be

mature, filial and sensible.


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He and his wife, Yang Rong, were matchmade. He fell in love with her at first sight.

Her first impression of him was that he was tall. "My family was initially concerned

because his family circumstances were not very good, but when I met him I felt that

we were a good fit," she said. "He was very good to me and we never quarrelled in our

seven years together." He always gave in to her, she said.

Life had been hard for Wang. His mother, racked by a painful illness, had committed

suicide about four years ago by drinking pesticide. An aunt had also killed herself the

same way a decade ago, to escape poverty. His father, a fishmonger, suffers from a

bad back and has difficulty walking.

The financial burden of his father's medical bills and the school fees of his daughter,

who recently enrolled in kindergarten, nudged Wang to give up his life as a farmer,where he earned less than 2,000 yuan (S$400) a month. As a construction worker

overseas, he could take home 7,000 to 8,000 yuan a month.

His brother-in-law, Tang Liming, 35, who lives in nearby Tangjiazhuang village, said

Wang decided to go to Singapore as he felt "it was safer and had rule of law".

Wang asked his wife what she wanted from Singapore. She said that anything was

fine. He got her a gold ring with a flower design. It came in a red box and cost him

1,800 yuan. He was so happy with the ring he couldn't wait to get home to show it to

her he sent her a photo of it a week before he flew back.

"Tell all our relatives I am coming home. I can't wait to see everyone," he told his

family in a phone call before he set off.


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(Left) Brick houses line the streets of villages in the city of Dingzhou, China, the hometown of Zhao

Peng and Wang Yongqiang. (Right) Pictured is the front door of Wang's home in Majiazhuang Village inDingzhou in Hebei province. -- ST PHOTOS: ESTHER TEO

Wang Weihong, 31 (left), whose brother, Wang Yongqiang, was a passenger on Malaysia Airlines

MH370. With her are their relatives. -- ST PHOTO: ESTHER TEO


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Chinese worker Feng Dong (top) from Lianyungang told his mother he will be home in time to celebrate

his 21st birthday on March 9. Feng posted a message: "Haven't been sleeping well for the past few

nights. It's going to be another long night," on his QQ account (bottom) before boarding MH370. --

PHOTOS: INTERNET

See you in smoggy BeijingElsewhere at the airport that Friday night, other passengers of MH370 started

streaming in. There were 227 passengers waiting to board the flight. Among them

were 153 from China with eight from Dingzhou, all having worked in Singapore.

There were also 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four

French nationals and three Americans.

The oldest was 76-year-old Chinese calligrapher Liu Rusheng who was in Kuala

Lumpur for a cultural exhibition with 23 other feted Chinese artists; the youngest was

two-year-old toddler Wang Moheng from Beijing. His parents and maternal

grandparents had taken him on a holiday to Malaysia to escape Beijing's pollution.

His father, Wang Rui, 35, was a graduate from the prestigious Tsinghua University

and worked for the Boston Consulting Group, while his mother Jiao Weiwei, 32,

worked in a Chinese software company. Other families from Moheng's day-care centre

were also on the trip but they took a different flight home. Their parting words to the

Wangs in Kuala Lumpur: "See you in smoggy Beijing."

The Chinese capital was French teenager Hadrien Wattrelos' second home. The 17-

year-old moved to Beijing from Paris with his family after his father, a senior executive

at a French cement and building materials company, was posted to China.

He was travelling with his mother Laurence, 52, his sister Ambre, 14, and his

girlfriend Zhao Yan, 18. They had spent four days at a beach resort in Cherating in

Malaysia - a nice break from the chilly spring weather in Beijing. It was back to school

for Hadrien and his girlfriend, a French passport holder. They were students at the

French School in Beijing.


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Hadrien's father had missed out on the holiday because of a work trip to Europe. But

he was flying back from Paris on the same day to meet his family in Beijing. Hadrien's

older brother, who lived in France, did not join them.

Malaysian couple Norli Akmar Hamid, 33, and Muhammad Razahan Zamani, 24,

didn't mind the idea of a smoggy Beijing. The couple, who got married in 2012, had

chosen the Chinese capital for their long-overdue honeymoon, and their first plane

trip. But just weeks before the vacation, she suffered a miscarriage.

Malaysian couple Muhammad Razahan Zamani and his wife, Norli Akmar Hamid, were heading toBeijing for their honeymoon. -- PHOTO: FACEBOOK

They decided to go ahead with the trip, thinking it would be a good break. They

picked Beijing because it is the hometown of Norli Akmar's favourite star, singer Leon

Lai. She wrote in a Facebook post before leaving for the trip: "Leon Lai, wait for me."

Another photo showed one of her cats trying to sneak into her luggage.


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Also boarding the plane that night were Chen Wei Hoing, 44, who had a renovation

business, and his wife Tan Sioh Peng, 43. They were going for a one-week holiday in

Beijing and had promised their elder son Eric that they would be back in time for his

15th birthday on March 21.

A week before, Eric had posted a note to his parents on his Facebook page: "My

birthday is coming, hope dad and mum could make it back in time to celebrate for me.

Even if you are going to be late, I will still wait."

Eric and Elvin, 11, were used to their parents travelling. "They loved to travel and they

could travel up to five times a year. They had been to Korea, Thailand and many times

to China," said Eric.

His mother's last words to them before she left home for the airport were "Be good and

listen to your grandparents". Said Eric: "My dad told me to work hard and earn

enough money so that I can travel to see the world when I grow up."

Chapter 2

Smooth takeoff,then silence


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"Good night Malaysian three seven

zero." Last message from the cockpit of MH370 to Malaysia air traffic control, recorded at 1.19am on March 8, 2014

alaysia Airlines steward Mohd Hazrin Mohamed Hasnan, 34, had missed

the company bus so his wife drove him to Kuala Lumpur International

Airport on the night of March 7. "We had the usual conversation and Mohd

Hazrin held my hand and kissed it," Intan Maizura Othaman, also 34, who is

pregnant with their second child, later recalled.

"'I love you' were his last words."


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Together with five other stewards and four stewardesses, Mohd Hazrin was on duty on

the red-eye flight MH370, scheduled to depart at 12.35am and arrive in Beijing at

6.30am.

MH370 was a relatively new Boeing 777-200ER, part of a family of long-range wide-

body twin-engine jet airliners built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The plane had

clocked more than 53,400 hours since it was delivered in May 2002, and had been

given a clean bill of health after a maintenance check-up on Feb 23, 2014. Malaysia

Airlines flew the KL-Beijing route twice a day.

After MH370 went missing, the flight was renamed MH318. Passengers are seen here en route toBeijing on March 17, 2014. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

In the cockpit that night was Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah , 53, a father of three who

had been with MAS for 33 years and had more than 18,000 flight hours under his belt.


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Seated on his right was first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. The younger man, who

was engaged to be married to a pilot from AirAsia, joined MAS seven years ago. He

had clocked 2,763 flight hours and it was his first flight on a Boeing 777 as a fully

approved pilot.

It was not a full flight - the Boeing 777 was configured to carry 282 passengers but

there were just 227 on board. There were enough empty seats for some passengers to

spread themselves out and enjoy more space.

Among those on board were vacationers in T-shirts, business executives with laptops

safely switched off, construction workers heading home to China and two Iranian men

who kept a low profile. Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, 19, and Delavar Seyed

Mohammadreza, 29, were seeking a new life in Europe, on stolen European passports.

Clear skies, good nightAccording to flight communication transcripts released later, the plane was on the

ground at 12.25am. This was when the cockpit made its first contact with KL air

traffic control with the words "Delivery MAS370. Good morning." Pilots say that

typically, communication before and during take-off is handled by the first officer.

A minute later, at 12.26am, air traffic control handed the flight over to ground control

as the plane moved away from its gate, or what is known in the industry as "aircraft

pushback".

The plane was designated Runway 32 for take-off. At 12.40am, the control tower gave

the green light for departure and bade MH370 "good night".

MH370 kept up constant communication with air traffic controllers as it climbed.

Experts say there was nothing out of the ordinary in the chatter, based on the

transcript.


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Between 12.42am and 1.19am on March 8, KL air traffic controllers continued to

guide the flight on its path. In the cockpit, the pilots would have been listening in to

other conversations between air traffic controllers and other flights in the vicinity.

This is standard procedure so pilots know who is flying above, below and nearby.

A screen onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH318 shows the plane's flight path as it cruises over the

South China Sea from Kuala Lumpur towards Beijing, at approximately the same point MH370 lost

contact with air traffic controllers. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

At 1.19am, MH370 was somewhere over the area where the Gulf of Thailand meets the

South China Sea, travelling at 542 miles per hour at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

As it prepared to enter Vietnamese airspace, the final instruction came from

Malaysian air traffic control. "Malaysian three seven zero contact Ho Chi Minh 120

decimal 9. Good night," said KL. This was to tell Captain Zaharie and his co-pilot to

switch to the designated radio frequency for Vietnamese air traffic control.


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Five seconds later, someone from the cockpit of MH370 responded: "Good night

Malaysian three seven zero." Pilots say that under normal circumstances, it would

have been the co-pilot signing off.

1.19am was the last time anyone on MH370 spoke to air traffic controllers.

Ho Chi Minh air traffic was standing by to receive the Beijing-bound plane. The usual

drill is for pilots to call the new set of traffic controllers within a few seconds after

leaving the first set, but when the skies are busy and air traffic controllers are talking

to other flights, they wait and then try again.

Sometimes, pilots forget and air traffic controllers attempt to make contact. The

communication gap can be up to three to five minutes, say those in the industry.

That night, air traffic controllers in Ho Chi Minh failed to get a response from

MH370. They called on other flights near MH370 to call out, but no one got a reply

despite a flurry of radio calls.


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Just pings in the darkAt 1.31am - 12 minutes after the final contact with Malaysian air traffic control -

Malaysian civilian radar sights the flight heading north-east across the Gulf of

Thailand.

At 2.15am, Malaysia's military radar picks up an unidentified blip - later confirmed to

be MH370 - north-west of Penang. But this was shockingly far off its intended route.

The authorities also discovered something else sinister related to the plane's

communication systems, namely the transponder and Aircraft Communications

Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS).

The transponder, a device in the plane which transmits data on location, altitude andspeed to ground radar, was deactivated - most likely manually and deliberately - at

1.21am. Pilots say this is easily done with several clicks of a knob.

ACARS is a digital datalink allowing pilots to send simple short text messages

transmitted through radio signals and satellites. It also sends data about engine

performance to its manufacturers and automatically generates data on the technical

condition of the plane. The messages are sent out by a plane every 30 minutes. To stop

ACARS from transmitting data by radio, a series of cockpit switches must be flicked in

sequence and some computer input is needed as well.

The last radio transmission from MH370's ACARS was at 1.07am. At some point

between that transmission and 1.37am, when the next transmission was expected, the

system was also shut down maybe even deliberately switched off in order to hide the

plane's position.

The tricky part about ACARS is its satellite transmission. To deactivate it, one has to

get to an electrical panel that is not easily accessible. Investigators say this function

was not switched off in MH370. It also explains why the plane continued to receive

and respond to checks from a satellite once an hour.


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Satellite data showed that the electrical system of MH370 was still functioning more

than six hours after it lost contact with air traffic control.

London-based Inmarsat, which operates 10 satellites in geostationary orbit about

35,780km above Earth, said on March 14 that its network had picked up "routine,

automated signals" from MH370. Satetllite "pings" were received from the missing

plane as late as 8.11am on March 8.

Investigators calculated that based on the final "ping" from the plane and a stationary

satellite, the plane had been flying in one of two air corridors stretching as far as

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to the north or a southern one in the southern Indian

Ocean around western Australia.

It was later determined that the plane flew along the southern corridor, and that its

last position, at past 8am on March 8, was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of

Perth.

By that time, if still in the air, the plane would probably have been almost out of fuel.

Chapter 3


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Controlling thechaos

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"It's only confusion if you want it to beseen as confusion."- Malaysian Defence and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein at a press conference on March 12

ALAYSIA'S top leaders were at a strategy huddle in the Janda Baik

highlands at the border of Pahang and Selangor on the Saturday morning

of March 8.

They were discussing their gameplan for two upcoming by-elections in the country

and other political matters. Prime Minister Najib Razak was chairing the session and

the group included Defence and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein,

his cousin.


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An emergency message from the military top brass interrupted their meeting: A

Malaysia Airlines plane was missing, enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239

people on board.

Soon, more worrying updates arrived from the military, the national carrier and the

Transport Ministry.

Hishammuddin hurriedly left the retreat for the Sama Sama Hotel, next to the Kuala

Lumpur International Airport in Sepang. Stricken-faced officials had been huddled in

meetings since early morning. Hordes of journalists had by then also gathered there.


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Flight MH370 has "lost contact"Malaysia Airlines MH370 was scheduled to touch down at Beijing Capital

International Airport at 6.30am on March 8, but there was no sign of it. Many of the

relatives who were waiting for the passengers thought it was a routine plane delay.

The arrival board, after all, read: Flight delayed.

But as the clock ticked away and officials at the airport had no answers to their

queries, anxiety and unease grew.

Their worst fears were confirmed only at 7.24am. In a terse, four-paragraph

statement, Malaysia Airlines broke its silence on what would turn out to be one of the

world's biggest aviation mysteries: MH370 was lost.


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"Malaysia Airlines confirms that flight MH370 has lost contact with Subang Air

Traffic Control at 2.40am, today (8 March 2014)," said the statement.


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A newsflash on the screen caught his attention: Malaysia Airlines plane disappears on

its way to Beijing. A dreadful thought crossed his mind: Is my grandson on this flight?

Zhao Peng had finished his one-year contract as a construction worker in Singapore

and was flying home that day.

In nearby Anjiazhuang village, the wife of Wang Yongqiang, another Singapore-based

worker, also heard the news. She ran to a neighbour's house, crying hysterically that

the plane had disappeared. Within hours, she, her five-year old daughter and sick

father-in-law made their way to Beijing.

Thousands of miles away in Kuala Lumpur, the family of MAS chief stewardess Goh

Sock Lay, 45, received a call at 8am. "We had always feared about this moment but we

never talked about it," said her sister-in-law Choi Chew Heong.

Chasing false leadsCNN was among the first to break the news that MH370 had gone missing, at about

8.20am. Within seconds, every other media outlet around the world was rushing out

stories on it.

Social media, too, went into overdrive. At around 10am, news started to circulate on

Facebook that the plane had actually landed in Nanning, another city in China.

At 11.14am, MAS held its first news conference at Kuala Lumpur International

Airport. Flanked by officials including Malaysia's aviation chief, a solemn-looking

MAS chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya repeated that MH370 had lost

contact with Subang Air Traffic Control at 2.40am.

The last contact with the plane was over the South China Sea area, he said. He added

that MAS was trying to verify news that the aircraft had landed in Nanning. It later

proved to be false.

In practically all plane mishaps, the crash site is known. But MH370 was no clear-cut

airplane tragedy. Disturbingly, the plane or its debris could not be found.


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Later that Saturday, a report quoted the Vietnamese navy as saying that the plane had

crashed into the sea near Vietnam's Tho Chu island. This was also dismissed by the

airline after checks.

The world thought it was a step closer to tracking down the aircraft when news

emerged that evening that a Vietnamese search team had spotted two oil slicks and

column of smoke in the sea off southern Vietnam. Again, it turned out to be a false

lead as tests later showed that the oil slicks were not from MH370.

In the days and weeks that followed, more speculation emerged, along with purported

sightings of the plane by people from Malaysia, Indonesia and even the Maldives.

Each time, distraught families saw a glimmer of hope, only to be devastated when the

sightings turned out to be nought.

Confusion and contradictionsAdding to the confusion over the missing plane were the inconsistent and at times

contradictory statements from the Malaysian authorities.

In the early days of the search, there was confusion with little known about themissing plane. Officials who suddenly found themselves thrust into the spotlight

struggled to keep up with questions from the journalists who packed the press

conferences.

Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's chief civil aviation regulator, made one

notable stumble when he referred to Italian football star Mario Balotelli in explaining

why Iranian passenger Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad had cleared Malaysia's

immigration using an Austrian passport with a Caucasian name.

"Do you know a footballer by the name of Bartoli (sic)? He's an Italian. Do you know

what he looks like? Balotelli," he told reporters on March 10. He was forced to clarify

later that he had used Balotelli as an example to point out that race and nationality

are two different things. Balotelli was born in Italy to Ghanaian parents.


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Hishammuddin, 52, the point man coordinating the search and chairing the regular

media briefings, admitted it was physically exhausting and emotionally draining.

"I hardly sleep because of the time zone. Information comes from different time zones.

Information in real time is a roller-coaster of sorts for me," he later said. "Before I

intend to sleep, someone says they found oil slicks, the next day, it turns out negative.

Subsequently, when I want to retire to bed, they say a life jacket was found. When I

wake up the following day, it is said the information is negative."

A meeting room near the media centre in Sama Sama Hotel was converted into a crisis

management centre where officials and experts gathered for meetings, usually chaired

by Hishammuddin.

Hishammuddin Hussein delivers a statement on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 during a

press conference at the Sama Sama Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. -- PHOTO: REUTERS


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Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (right), Hishammuddin Hussein (left) and military officials finalising

a statement on MH370 on March 24, 2014. -- PHOTO: MALAYSIA PM PRESS OFFICE


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Hishammuddin Hussein shows two maps with corridors of the last known possible location of MH370 as

he addresses reporters at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 17, 2014. -- PHOTO:

REUTERS


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Those within these hectic circles told The Straits Times that the first meeting was

usually held at 9am and attended by technical experts. Meetings continued all day,

with Hishammuddin chairing another five or so throughout the day. The meetings

grew larger as more experts arrived from around the world to try to help solve the

mystery of the missing plane.

Besides coordinating the search, the flow of information also had to be managed.

Communications were managed by teams from the Prime Minister's office,

Hishammuddin's office, MAS as well as communications specialists engaged for the

crisis. Information was put out via social media including behind-the-scenes

photographs, statements and televised broadcasts.

Hishammuddin himself had a four-person communications team which gave him

regular updates. He updated his personal Twitter account while the official Twitter

and Facebook were managed by two social media managers. The team also prepared

the briefing package for the daily press conferences.

To stay focused, Hishammuddin kept only one mobile phone with him and did not

carry a tablet. His phone was used only to receive updates, and rarely did he make

phone calls.

An insider said they also worked on getting discipline and focus into the messages put

out to keep all spokesmen consistent. Hishammuddin was also briefed to remain

serious and to stay on the message. He and the others were strongly advised not to

evade questions with a "No comment", and preferably not to answer "I don't know"

without making the effort to find out the answer.

The situation improved somewhat after the chaotic first few days - but not enough to

appease grieving family members, especially those from China, who were frustrated

by the lack of progress as the search stretched into days, then weeks.


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Chapter 4

From tension totheories, anguishto anger


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"We want proof, we want our families,we want the truth."

Chant of angry family members of Chinese passengers, at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur on March 30,

2014

HE Metropark Lido Hotel in Beijing was once a gleaming symbol of China

opening up to the world. Established in 1984 and nestled in a posh north-

eastern suburb surrounded by international schools and American

restaurants, it is one of the first expatriate, Western-operated hotels in the capital.

As China's development sped ahead over the last three decades, its lustre has dimmedand its marble-and-mahogany trimmings, once the height of foreign luxe, now looked

slightly dated.

But in March 2014, the four-star hotel became world-famous as ground zero of the

tragedy of missing flight MH370.

It was the holding place for the 500 relatives of the 153 Chinese passengers onboard

who streamed into Beijing from all over north-eastern China.


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A neighbourhood security patrol cycles pass the Metropark Lido Hotel where relatives of Chinese

passengers on MH370 are put up by Malaysia Airlines as the search continues for the missing plane. --

PHOTO: AFP


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Relatives of passengers on MH370 console each other before a meeting with airline officials at the

Metropark Lido Hotel in Beijing on March 20, 2014. -- PHOTO: AFP

The Chinese were the biggest group among the 239 people on board the KL-Beijing

flight. Many of the passengers were Beijingers, but a good number hailed from the

north-eastern provinces of Hebei, Shandong and Jiangsu. They would have taken

train trips, some for up to 10 hours, to return home from Beijing's airport.

Instead, their families made the train ride out to the capital in panic after the plane

went missing on March 8. Most travelled light, not expecting that their stay would

extend, as it did, to a month, and counting.

Malaysia Airlines booked out Lido Hotel and four other hotels nearby to house the

family members. Each family is entitled to two hotel rooms, and MAS covers all three

meals if they eat only at the hotels' restaurants, which almost all do. In the first week

of their stay, MAS also gave 31,000 yuan to each family as spending money.


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The families' main holding room is a ballroom on the hotel's second floor. For much of

March, its entrance was ringed by a pack of camera-wielding media who thrust

microphones into every exiting relative's face.

Inside, a cloud of cigarette smoke hangs over the door as mostly male relatives chain-

smoke in an area to the right. A table is laid out with water, tea and coffee. The main

ballroom has hundreds of chairs; at the back, a care station manned by volunteers

from a Taiwanese Buddhist association has supplies of biscuits and kumquats.

In the first week, the ballroom was a humming hive of activity as MAS set up stations

to help families process their passports and visas to travel to Malaysia.

In between angry meetings with Malaysian and Chinese officials that usually devolved

into chaos, relatives took headshots at a makeshift photobooth, filled out paperwork,

or sought legal advice from lawyers from the Bejing Legal Association.

But as the wait dragged on with no answers, the ballroom became emptier. In late

March, about 50 families travelled to Kuala Lumpur. Some among those who live in

Beijing have gone home, and some just stay in their hotel rooms.

Although their number has dwindled, the families have become more organised. A

representative committee has sprung up, with a Weibo page, media spokesman, and

professionally-printed T-shirts and banners.

They communicate through a WeChat group and show remarkable unity. A daily

prayer time precedes each meeting with officials. The lights are dimmed, and at the

front of the room, candles in the shape of a heart are lit. To a song whose lyrics say

that "the world is full of beauty and hope," pictures flash across the screen of messages

that the families have written to their loved ones, missing for a month now.

"Come back, come back, come back," they say.

What happened to the plane?


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Intense speculation on what could have happened to the plane has added to the grief,

anger and confusion.

In the initial days, speculation was rife that MH370 could have been the target of a

terrorist attack after it emerged that two passengers had used stolen passports to

board the plane. But it lost traction after it turned out that the duo from Iran were

more likely to be illegal immigrants seeking a new life in Europe.

An Interpol panel shows a photograph of two Iranian passengers who boarded MH370 using fake

European passports. -- PHOTO: AFP


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Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, pilot of MH370, with his flight simulator. -- PHOTO: FACEBOOK

Attention then turned to the hijacking theory after Malaysia said it was looking intothe possibility of foul play as evidence suggested the plane was deliberately flown

hundreds of miles off course, with its communications system shut down.

MH370 pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid came under

scrutiny. Revelation that the pilot had a flight simulator built in his home fuelled this

theory.

Some were quick to jump in to offer explanations on how the plane could have flownfor hours undetected by radar. MH370 could have hidden in the shadow of another

aircraft, said one theory. Or it could have hugged the terrain in some areas that are

mountainous to avoid radar detection, said another.

Others, however, jumped to the defence of the pilot and his first captain.


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Experienced Canadian pilot Chris Goodfellow raised the possibility that a fire broke

out on board MH370 and the pilot was trying to save the plane by making a sharp left

turn to land on the Malaysian island of Langkawi. But the flight crew might have been

overcome by smoke, and the aircraft continued flying on autopilot until it ran out of

fuel, he said. Another possible scenario: The fire could have destroyed the controlsurfaces and the plane crashed.

Adding to the mix was Stanford computer science student Andrew Aude's theory that

a fuselage crack could have led to rapid decompression and damage to the structure of

the aircraft. A slow decompression of the plane could have rendered all on board

unconscious, hence no alert was raised, he reckoned. But almost as soon as a new

theory surfaced, it was debunked as quickly by detractors.

"MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean"At a dramatic news conference on Saturday, March 15, Malaysian Prime Minister

Najib Razak announced that the plane appeared to have been flown deliberately

onwards for hours, veering sharply off-route at roughly the same time that its

communications system and transponder were manually switched off.

Automated satellite communications continued until 8.11am, he revealed, deepening

the suspicion of foul play by someone in full control of the cockpit.


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Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak at a press conference on March 24 where he announced that

MH370 had ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Satellite data now placed the jet anywhere on one of two huge arcs a northern one

stretching into Central Asia and a southern one swooping deep into the Indian Ocean,

he said.

The search in the South China Sea was called off.

With no conclusive word on the fate of MH370, the loved ones of passengers clung on

to the hope, however slim, that the plane could have landed somewhere, somehow.

But on March 24, a Monday, reporters were told at about 9.15pm that Prime Minister

Najib would be making an announcement at 10pm. In fact, the hastily-arranged press

conference started a few minutes before the stated time.


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Dressed in a dark suit and speaking slowly and clearly, Najib said that further analysis

of satellite data showed the plane's last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean

with no possible landing sites.

"It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to

this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean," he said.

Najib's statement offered little closure or consolation to the loved ones of the

passengers. In fact, it opened further floodgates of anger and grief.

Prior to his announcement, the MAS had called or sent text messages to relatives

informing them what Najib was going to say.

The text read: "Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any

reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none on board survived. As you

will hear in the next hour from Malaysia's Prime Minister, we must now accept that all

evidence suggests the plane went down."

But that did little to prepare them for Najib's announcement. Emotions erupted when

he read out the prepared statement at the press conference which was beamed live to

the relatives at Beijing's Metropark Lido Hotel. Some cried hysterically and others

smashed chairs. Some fainted and had to be carried away in stretchers. It was

pandemonium.


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"Why were they hiding the truth? Why did they not tell us everything earlier? Don't

they have children?" one man shouted. Another woman said: "The way they told us the

news is too cruel... They should come out and talk to us... Malaysia is too cruel. Tell

the world for us!"

Anguish quickly turned to anger.

How could they assume the plane had crashed when more than two weeks of search

had failed to locate even a scrap of the plane, questioned the relatives. How dare they?

We want to see real evidence, not some analysis on paper based on satellite data , they

demanded.

The day after Najib's announcement, hundreds of relatives in Beijing marched to the

Malaysian Embassy and staged a protest there. Wearing identical T-shirts

emblazoned with the words "MH370 come back safely", they held placards that read

"MAS, you owe us an explanation", and chanted "Stop lying to us!" and "Return us our

loved ones!".


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The consensus among the families was that there was a cover-up or conspiracy of

some sort by the Malaysian government. Earlier in the day, they had issued a

statement accusing the Malaysian government, its military and MAS of being the "real

executioners" of their loved ones.

At the same time, the Chinese government also ramped up criticisms against Kuala

Lumpur over its investigations into the incident. Tension over the missing plane was

threatening to spill over to the diplomatic front.

Observers say the families reacted that way because of the unique psyche of the

Chinese people who have a deep mistrust of their government. This helps explain why

many relatives still believe that the Malaysian government is not coming clean on the

missing plane. Many Chinese also believe in taking things into their own hands and

also in the law of the jungle only the fittest, as well as the loudest, wins.


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Chapter 5

The search out atsea


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U

"We're not searching for a needle in ahaystack. We're still trying to define

where the haystack is." Hishammuddin at a press conference on March 31

P IN the air in an Australian P-3 Orion search plane, the four orange objects

bobbing on the southern Indian Ocean looked tantalisingly like remnants of

life jackets.

It was a "promising lead" and got searchers excited on March 30. But after the objectswere retrieved and analysed, they turned out to be nothing more than fishing

equipment. "They have nothing to do with the missing flight," said a spokesman for

the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

Another day, another sighting, another false alarm. Where had MH370 vanished to?

The search has been unprecedented in terms of global assets and intelligence. At the

height, 26 countries, close to 60 ships and some 50 planes were scouring more than2.24 million square nautical miles - four-fifths the size of the United States - for the

missing aircraft.


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Vietnamese Coast Guard vessels and Navy ships at a local naval base from a fishing port at Phu Quoc

island on March 12, 2014, in the early days of the search. -- PHOTO: AFP


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Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott visits Pearce Base in Perth on March 31, 2014. -- PHOTO:

REUTERS

From satellite giant Inmarsat to the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB)

and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), air crash and other

experts descended on Kuala Lumpur to unravel the mystery.

Yet, nothing. The few "credible" and "promising" leads have yielded no information

other than how the sea is littered with trash.

The search has swung from the South China Sea to the Andaman Sea to the Bay of

Bengal to, finally, the cold and inhospitable southern Indian Ocean.

On March 8 when the plane disappeared, the Malaysian authorities mobilised all its

resources to hunt for the plane in the last known location over the South China Sea.

Fifteen air force aircraft, six navy ships and three coast guard vessels were despatched

to the sea.


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Given that the plane had disappeared as it was crossing over into Vietnamese airspace,

Vietnam was also prompt in offering help. It sent two navy boats from Phu Quoc

island as well as two jets and one helicopter from Ho Chi Minh City.

Singapore was also quick to send a C-130 Hercules aircraft, joining countries such as

the United States and the Philippines in offering air assistance early on. Overnight

searches, however, turned up nothing.

By Day 2, six countries were already involved in the search. Singapore increased its

asset deployment with the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) sending its missile

corvette, frigate, Sikorsky S-70B Seahawk naval helicopter and its submarine support

vessel, the MV Swift Rescue. The search focused on an expanded area in the South

China Sea and the west coast of Malaysia.

Search operations became more complex on the third day, after revelations that the jet

had turned back across the Malaysian peninsula and could have ended up in the Strait

of Malacca. As officials widened the scope of the search from 20 to 50 nautical miles,

the massive multi-nation search effort grew.

Eyeballing the specksDespite the technological capabilities of the planes and ships involved in the search,

Straits Times photojournalist Desmond Lim discovered that the actual searching was

very much dependent on good old human eyeballs.

He joined the RSAF C-130 aircraft on its mission and reported: "The vastness of the

seas was overwhelming...We saw some vessels in the seas, but at about 500 feet

(150m) up in the air, we were circling too high up to be able to tell whether they weresearch-and-rescue boats, or just traditional Vietnamese fishing boats. They often

appeared no bigger than a speck in the sea of blue. Even the lone tankers cutting

through the waters on the horizon were hard to spot.


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Personnel from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) scanning the seas about 140 nautical

miles north-east of Kota Baru, Kelantan, for any signs of of the missing plane. -- ST PHOTO:

DESMOND LIM


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Oil slicks are seen in the sea about 140 nautical miles north-east of Kota Bahru, Kelantan, but they

were later established to be not from the missing plane. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND LIM

"The loud droning and constant vibrations from the jet engines began to take its toll

on the servicemen, hours into the operation, as they took shifts to scan the waters.

Some took a quick shut-eye, and other stepped in to fill the gap. Many were visibly

tired after a few hours of intense concentration. A servicemen was asked by his partner

to take a break, but he waved him off, signing to him with his hands saying: 'Later.

Ten more minutes.'

"Some were seen clutching white vomit bags, apparently nauseous from the constantstaring at moving objects and the circling of the plane. The crew took turns to have

lunch - cup noodles and biscuits. No one seemed to mind the simple meal as they

wolfed it down and quickly headed back to their posts, seemingly aware of the urgency

and importance of the responsibility on their shoulders."


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The Orion has been doing heavy lifting in the search taking place some 1,800km west

of Perth. The four-engine turboprop aircraft was introduced for anti-submarine

warfare in the 1960s and is still used by many countries for maritime patrol. It can

sustain the six-hour transits to and from Pearce air base north of Perth, with about

three hours left to spare for the search.

Straits Times journalist Tan Hui Yee joins the Royal New Zealand Air Force on a P3K2 Orion before

setting off to search for the missing plane. -- ST PHOTO: TAN HUI YEE


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A pre-flight briefing is conducted for the crew of Royal New Zealand Air Force. -- ST PHOTO: TAN HUI

YEE


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Experts reckon most parts of the plane would have sunk to the seabed or been

dispersed by the tempestuous currents by now. But they are hoping with the help of

oceanographic models to locate the wreckage by tracing floating debris back to its

origin. "We are still hopeful that we will find something because we've got to find

something eventually," said navigator Brent Collier. "But it's very hard work."

The plane is hooked up with some sophisticated equipment radar and cameras

linked to on-board computers, cylindrical shaped saltwater-activated smoke buoys,

"sonobuoys" with hydrophones that allow crew to detect sound underwater and global

positioning system (GPS) buoys.

On their search missions, the men comb their assigned areas meticulously, poring over

the patch of ocean strip by strip, lawnmower-style. It is an intense, methodical andgruelling process. One man peers into the sea through a special distortion-free

window, ready to photograph any suspicious object. Another glues his eyes to radar

readings and real-time images captured by a camera under the nose of the plane. Two

pilots, meanwhile, take the Orion up rapid ascents to scan the ocean with radar, as

well as quick descents to allow visual scans.

The camera zooms in on a suspicious item bearing circular shapes on the surface. The

chatter on the plane's radio system picks up a notch. The plane dips its wing, circlingaround for a closer look. A sergeant jumps up from his seat by the window and quickly

retrieves a smoke buoy. He shoves the cylinder through a special hatch in the floor,

into the sea below. Next, he hauls out the GPS buoy while the plane whirls round

again. A blast of cold air enters the cabin as a colleague pulls open the plane door.

"Now, now, now!" someone calls out through the radio system. He hurls the buoy into

the water, near the object so that the search authorities can track its location through

GPS.

Later, while scrutinising its photograph, he mutters to a colleague: "You know what it

looks like to me? Landing gear lights."

The latter replies: "Naa, they won't be able to float." He thinks it is fishing equipment.


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No matter. All significant sightings are recorded with their locations and reported

back to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

A search for the long haulIt is a search that could carry on for years. "The search has been vastly complicated by

the long delays in searching in the wrong areas," said Assistant Professor Terence Fan,

an aviation expert at the Singapore Management University. "Any debris from the

airplane would likely have been swept far away from the point of impact in the sea" he

added.

Funding will be an issue, said Ravi Madavaram, an aviation analyst with consultancyfirm Frost & Sullivan: "The estimate is that a 45-day search costs about US$5 million

to US$10 million. It is possible that China will continue to fund programmes to find

the missing plane. However, this is dependent on hope more than on reality."


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A section of the screen showing the southern Indian Ocean to the west of Australia, at the

headquarters of satellite communications company Inmarsat in London. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A South Korean officer wears a Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 search and rescue team patch on his

sleeve at RAAF Base Pearce near Perth on March 31, 2014. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Jacques Astre, president of industry consultancy International Aviation Safety

Solutions and a former United States Federal Aviation Administration official, is not

even 100 per cent convinced the right places are being scoured.

"The signals - satellite 'pings' from the plane that were picked up by Inmarsat - are

usually sent from aircraft to provide engine monitoring data to the airline and

manufacturer," he said. "My understanding is that the airline did not subscribe to the

service but the aircraft still transmitted a signal without the engine monitoring data.

In essence the aircraft was sending an empty message."


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What Inmarsat engineers "cleverly" did was to use the empty transmissions to track

where the aircraft could have been when the transmissions were made, Astre said. "To

do that requires quite a bit of mathematics and most probably certain assumptions

that may or may not be correct such as speed, altitude and direction. That may also be

why they have not yet found the aircraft and why any assumptions may have to berefined further," he said.

He added: "The investigation is far from complete... We need to know if all the

surrounding countries gave investigators all the information they have. And we need

to prove a northern route was not used, not just dismiss it altogether."

Aviation and air crash experts have no doubt the search will continue for as long as it

takes to find MH370 but the intensity could be scaled back, they said.

H.R. Mohandas, a former pilot who teaches aviation at Republic Polytechnic, said:

"The search is challenging given the location and tough conditions but it will go on in

the interest of aviation safety."

It may take many months and even years to find MH370 and even then, there is no

guarantee the truth will ever be known.

Chapter 6


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Still waiting, stillhoping

"We will continue searching, and we willkeep investigating, and we will nevergive up until we find out what happened

to MH370." Hishammuddin at a press conference on March 31


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ON March 8 when MH370 disappeared, a post on the Chinese microblogging

site Weibo went viral. It read: "This is air control calling MH370, please

respond if you hear this. Please maintain your flight altitude, and stay on

your path. We will clear the path for you, everyone is happy to make way for you to

land first. The weather is clear and bright. It's 5 deg C in Beijing, dear passengers,please put on more clothes. And remember to give your loved ones a warm, big hug."

One month, endless tears and countless prayers later, MH370 remains lost.

Malaysia has vowed to continue with the search for as long as it takes. "We want to

find answers. We want to provide comfort to the families and we will not rest until

answers are indeed found," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on April 3

when he toured the search base in Perth, Australia.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has also promised his support. "It is a very

difficult search, the most difficult in human history, but as far as Australia is

concerned we are throwing everything we have at it."

Why the flight went missing is being criminally investigated by the Malaysian

authorities. They have said the focus is on the cabin crew and pilots as all 227

passengers have been cleared of any involvement in the disappearance. The theoriesthe police are working on are hijacking, sabotage or someone with personal or

psychological problems.

But even if plane debris is located, answers on how the jet ended thousands of

kilometres off course may never be found. The 30-day lifespan of the battery-powered

signal from the cockpit voice recorder is expected to expire on April 7. The recorder

could reveal what decisions were made by those at the helm of the plane and why. The

flight data recorder, which contains operational information on flight path and speed,for example, is also expected to expire soon.


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The prime ministers of Australia and Malaysia, Tony Abbott and Najib Razak, vow to continue the

search. -- PHOTO: AFP


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The US Navy's Bluefin 21, an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), joins the search on April 4, 2014.

-- PHOTO: REUTERS


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A relative of a Chinese passenger watches the news at a hotel in Beijing on April 3, 2014. -- PHOTO:

AFP


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Some families have quietly accepted that their loved ones will not be coming back.

Malaysian teenager Maira Elizabeth Nari, who touched many with her tweets about

her father Andrew Nari, the chief steward on MH370, wrote: "God loves you more

daddy... God loves them more."

Reacting to news that the plane is presumed to have crashed, Sarah Bajc, the

girlfriend of American passenger Philip Wood, said: "I still feel his presence, so

perhaps it was his soul all along."

Australian Irene Burrows, the mother of passenger Rodney Burrows who was

travelling with his wife Mary, told the media: "I can only hope that whatever

happened, it was very quick and they didn't know." Irene, who is in her 80s, said: "I

want some wreckage to be found but I hope they leave the plane where it is. That is

their final resting place. I would like the wreckage to be out there because that would

mean Rodney and Mary aren't too far from home."

But some are still hoping against hope. Feng Zhiliang, whose cousin Feng Dong, 21,

was a passenger, said: "Until it's clear what happened we still have hope that our

families will return home safely."

The wives of Chinese construction workers Zhao Peng and Wang Yong Qiang can't

accept their loss.

Zhang Jing refuses to give up hope on her husband Zhao. "Unless they show me

concrete proof, I will not believe that the plane has crashed," she said in Beijing on

April 4, her voice choked with tears. "I don't want to think about what could have

happened to the plane. I just want to stay focused on hoping for the best."

Yang Rong clings on to her mobile phone where photos of her husband Wang are

stored. There is also a photo of the ring he had bought for her in Singapore, and which

she might never get to wear. She revealed that he got it because she had lost her

wedding ring in the year he was working abroad.


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She was upset about this but he had told her: "If you didn't lose it, how can I buy

something else for you?"

The mobile phone of Yang Rong holds photographs of her husband, Wang Yongqiang, who is missing,

and the ring he had bought in Singapore for her. -- ST PHOTO: ESTHER TEO

Supervising Editor: Sumiko Tan

Story: Ong Hwee Hwee, Ong Sor Fern, Esther Teo, Carolyn Hong, Rachel Chang, Tan Hui Yee,Karamjit Kaur, Joyce Lim, Jermyn Chow

Design: Derrick Ho, Michelle Chen, Isaac Soh

Graphics: Lin Zhaowei, Mike M Dizon, Chng Choon Hiong

Videos: Ng Kai Ling, Shawn Lee Miller, David Gan, Neo Xiaobin, Reuters, The Star/Asia News Network

Photographs: AFP, Reuters

Copyediting: Hayati Ismail, Grace Sung


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Copyright 2014 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Co. Regn No. 198402868E. All rights

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Untold Stories of Malaysia Airlines MH370