Relatives of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 are confused over the conflicting statements being made by officials from Malaysia and France on Thursday over the plane part found in Reunion Island.
While Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak had confirmed that the flaperon was indeed from the missing jet, Paris Deputy Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said more tests are needed to conclude that it was from the airplane bound for Beijing that disappeared on March 8, 2014. Because of the wordplay, the kin of the passengers do not know whom to believe in, reports CNN.
K.S. Narendran, whose wife Chandrika Sharma was one of the 239 people whose fate remain unknown, says, "I didn't hear fact. I didn't hear the basic. I heard nothing, and so it leaves me wondering whether there is a foregone conclusion, and everybody is racing to the finish."
But for Sondra Wood, whose son Philip was a passenger, she has accepted the reality that the plane may never be found, although it is likely in the bottom of the ocean. "At this point at least we don't have to wonder, or guess, or fruitlessly hope that they could still be alive," Wood told CNN.
Razak said that with the confirmation, he hopes that even if it is tragic and painful news, it would bring certainty to the family of the passengers and crew of MH370.
Along with Razak's confirmation was the admission by Daniel O'Malley, spokesperson of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), that the first drift computer modeling the agency made was seriously flawed, which explains why the search for the missing jet in the western coast of Sumatra was fruitless.
There was a mistake in the way wind data was transferred into that model which made the Sumatra prediction off by thousands of miles, reports Daily Beast. Upon discovery of the flaperon, the ATSB reverse-engineered the first model in distance and time which validated the area where the ongoing search is should be 1,000 miles west of Perth, Australia.