MH370: Malaysian police drag away relatives as missing flight anger boils
Malaysia Airlines pilot's flight simulator shows a data log was deleted a month before his plane disappeared, authorities say
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| Malaysian police forcibly removed family members who tried to unveil a protest banner. Photograph: Edgar Su/REUTERS
Relatives of passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines plane were bundled away from journalists on Wednesday as they protested at the lack of information, underlining their growing frustration and anguish after 11 days of waiting.
Malaysian police forcibly removed the handful of Chinese family members after they tried to unfurl a banner reading, "Give us back our families" just before a briefing by officials in Kuala Lumpur began. Two were carried from the room, still shouting.
"They give different messages every day. Where's the flight now? We can't stand it any more," one woman cried.
Another told reporters: "We don't need the Malaysian government to take care of us. What we need is the truth."
More than 150 Chinese citizens were among the 239 people on board when flight MH370 vanished early on 8 March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Many relatives have flown to Malaysia to await further news, while others have gathered in Beijing.
Malaysia Airlines has said it has sent trained caregivers, including psychologists, to support them. But confusing and contradictory briefings from the authorities, and the lack of progress in the search, have angered and disheartened many family members. "There is no information. They can't answer anything," complained one man in his 50s as he left a meeting at the Beijing hotel where families are waiting.
Investigators have admitted that time has broadened rather than narrowed the search for the Boeing 777.
"One of our main priorities is how to manage emotions and how to appease families. We are sending a high-level team to Beijing to explain what we are doing," Hishammuddin Hussein, the acting transport minister, told the press briefing. "We do understand their concerns and are trying our very best. It's heart wrenching."
Malaysian officials have said they believe the plane was diverted deliberately, but that they are not ruling out any possible reasons for the decision to turn it off course.
Authorities told reporters that analysis of captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's flight simulator showed a data log had been deleted on 3 February and that experts were trying to retrieve the deleted material. A US official said the FBI had been called in to help with trying to recover the deleted data. The pilot had used his simulator for some years and showed it in aYouTube video he posted demonstrating to people how to tune their air-conditioning to save electricity.
Hishammuddin added: "Passengers, pilots and crew remain innocent until proven otherwise. For the sake of their families we ask you to refrain from any speculation that might make an already difficult time even harder."
He said that all countries with citizens on board had responded to requests for background information, except Russia and Ukraine, and that no relevant information had been found.
The transport minister also said reports of a possible sighting of the plane on 8 March over a remote island in the Maldives had been ruled out by military officials there. Twenty-six countries are searching 2.24m square nautical miles of land and sea for the missing jet, stretching from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Malaysian officials have urged countries on the plane's potential path to reanalyse their military radar data in the hope of narrowing down the area. On Tuesday, they said they had received more radar information but could not disclose details as it had come from other countries.
"Personally, I hope it has been hijacked and she is still alive," said Wang Yongzhi, from Beijing, whose wife was returning from a business trip when she boarded the flight. "I hope maybe she can call me, and ask me to come to pick her up in Malaysia.
"But from a practical, scientific point of view I know it has been quite a long time. Probably bad luck outweighs the good."
He said relatives of passengers should focus on the key issues: "Where is the plane? Where are our relatives? Who is helping to do the search?"
Wang said relatives would feel more confidence if people gave them more details of what was happening, noting it would be more useful to know what techniques were being used in the search rather than simply how many ships and aircraft were involved.
He was concerned that while experts were working on the investigation, "they are coming from their own professional perspective – like the blind men touching the elephant".
His son Wang Le said: "I hope [all the countries] can put their political interests behind them and make saving and searching the priority."
His mother is an extrovert who is fond of dining out but also loves drinking coffee and reading novels. When they discussed his future, "she encouraged me to go to other places to work and to go out to travel and enjoy myself - not just stay in one place," he said.
Relatives of the German victims of the Air France flight that crashed in 2009 have written an open letter to the families, expressing their "sympathy and compassion in these days of utmost anxiety".
Their letter, posted on the Facebook page of a group set up by relatives after a US crash in 1994, added: "We are completely dismayed about the vague and partially contradicting information policy by the Malaysian government.
"As MH370 is an international flight and booked by passengers from various countries you as families should feel entitled to approach your respective national governments to put pressure on the Malaysian military and civil authorities to speed up the investigations and to care for quicker release of findings."
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