Time to be accountable for our actions, says family of MH370 passenger
With
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 missing for more than a month now, anguished families of the passengers and crew are still seeking answers on what happened to their loved ones.
Below is a letter sent to The Malaysian Insider by one of the families:
Azrai Izet Mohamad has been missing his wife Fadzillah Mat Rahim for the past 34 days. In her absence, he has had to manage their four children on his own. Fortunately, he has the support of the people close to him during this trying time.
On March 8, 2014, Fadzillah was asked to fly to Beijing by her employer, Freescale Semiconductor. She pleaded with her superior to be excused from the trip as she did not have the heart to leave her family for a whole month. Her boss persuaded and told her that she could return after a week's stay in Tianjin.
Azrai and his children have not heard from Fadzillah since dropping her off at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The flight which was supposed to land at the Beijing International Airport at 6.30am on March 8, never made it to the Chinese capital city.
Afterwards, Azrai found himself on an emotional rollercoaster ride filled with tears, hopelessness, pain and anger.
Did the jetliner crash? Did it make an emergency landing? Was it hijacked?
As families of the other passengers gather to meet officials from Malaysia Airlines (MAS), they soon found out that the aircraft bearing the registration 9M-MRO had gone missing from the commercial aviation radar some 45 minutes after take-off.
Now, after a series of false leads, Azrai is demanding answers to some of the questions that have kept him from being able to sleep.
In an article uploaded by astroawani.com, Azrai asks:
1. Who is responsible for the passengers' safety?
2. Who is responsible for the safety standards of the aviation industry in Malaysia?
3. Who is responsible to safeguard the airspace of the country?
And he has the right to ask these questions.
As it turned out, the Boeing 777 jetliner was found to have made a turn-back off the coast of Kelantan after both its ACARS and transponder were deactivated.
Like the rest of MH370 passengers' families and next-of-kin, Azrai has been attending numerous briefings held by the authorities. He has learnt about "pings", "IGARI", "turn-back", "Inmarsat", "sonobuoy", "Diego Garcia", "stolen passports", etc.
He knows that 26 nations have been working round the clock in assisting Malaysia during the search and rescue operation which has seen vessels scouring the South China Sea, Strait of Malacca and the Indian Ocean.
He has been informed of credible leads and objects spotted by satellites in the southern Indian Ocean near Perth, Australia.
Yet, Azrai has remained silent – ever since news of the tragedy broke, his heart yearns for some answers.
The Malaysian authorities have not been transparent in answering questions such as the cargo manifest. They have not been able to explain why it took them three long hours to notify Boeing of the missing aircraft. They have not been able to justify why a non-hostile aircraft was allowed to travel across the peninsula heading towards the Andaman Sea from 1.30am to 2.15am.
But some Malaysians were quick to criticise Azrai. They felt that he should accept everything that has happened as fate and that he should display patience in facing the trials and tribulations in life. Malaysians, they suggest, must rally behind the authorities which have been fortunate enough to rope in experts from all over the world to find the ill-fated steel bird.
What they don't know is that Azrai Izet Mohamad is not an impatient individual.
A person such as Azrai accepts God's will but at the same time, wants us human beings to be accountable for our actions, lest another tragedy such as this will strike again due to our ignorance. – April 11, 2014.