Indonesian parents of Firman Chandra Siregar cry in Medan, Indonesia, on March 9, 2014.(Photo: Dedy Sahputra, EPA)
Story Highlights
- When the plane is located, the airline will set up a command center
- Airline has told relatives to prepare passports for travel
- The first flight will be Monday for relatives who want to travel to Kuala Lumpur
BEIJING — After spending Saturday in a desperate wait for a plane and news that never came, relatives of Chinese passengers said Sunday that Malaysia Airlines staff were providing more information about search efforts, and had told them to prepare passports for a future visit to the plane's location, once that is established.
At 3 p.m. local time, Ignatius Ong, a representative of Malaysia Airlines, said at a press conference in Beijing that search and rescue were "still unable to detect the whereabouts of the missing flight."
In the last few hours, the airline has been telling relatives "to expect the worst," Ong said.
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When the plane is located, the airline will set up a command center either in Malaysia's Kota Bharu, or in Vietnam, depending on its location. A response control center will be activated as close as possible to the incident area, he said.
The airline plans to send two family members for each missing passenger to Kuala Lumpur, or another destination if closer to the plane's location. The airline is working with Chinese authorities to get passports for relatives who lack them, and with the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing to get entry visas for Malaysia.
The first flight will be Monday for relatives who want to travel to Kuala Lumpur, and arrangements will continue for those who decide to wait in Beijing, Ong said.
More than 100 anxious relatives and friends of passengers have gathered at the Beijing Lido Hotel, where the airline has supplied rooms.
"The airline people are better now than they were Saturday, they give us more information about the plane, provide some things we need and always escort us," said Zhang Hongjie, 44, whose wife Zheng Ruixian, 42, was on the flight.
"She's passionate, loves her job as an insurance saleswoman and loves traveling," Zhang said of his wife.
After his wife returned from a holiday in Malaysia Saturday morning, Zhang had planned to take her out for a fancy lunch to celebrate her birthday.Instead, Zhang and his daughter, 18, spent an agonizing day at the hotel awaiting word about the missing flight from Kuala Lumpur that should have touched down at 6:30 a.m.
Their daughter returned to their Beijing home Saturday night. "She is very sad and anxious," said Zhang, who remained at the hotel to be closest to any developments. "I will definitely go that place, when the plane is found," he said. Zhang has no passport, but heard that help would be given to process one quickly.
Relatives expressed frustration and anger Saturday with the lack of news and information from the airline. A long-delayed afternoon press conference yielded no more than had a morning one by the airline's head office in Malaysia. On board were 239 passengers and crew from 14 nations, including 153 from China, 38 Malaysians and three Americans.
"Malaysia Airlines just announced the same news four hours later than other media. They have done nothing else, and we can't find anybody to explain," complained a man in his 20s, who, like most family members interviewed Saturday, declined to give his name. "I can't endure that," he said. "They are not being responsible towards us relatives. I feel very nervous now."
Among the Chinese passengers on board were a group of artists, including celebrated calligrapher Meng Gaosheng, returning home after a cultural exchange in Malaysia to spread the Chinese Communist Party's "China Dream" through calligraphy and painting, reported the Beijing News. Two colleagues from Huawei, China's largest smartphone manufacturer, were returning from a work trip, said the China News Service.
On Friday night, Zhang, a worker at the Beijing railway bureau, received the last text from his wife saying she was going through security at Kuala Lumpur airport. They last spoke on Thursday, when Zhang wished her a happy birthday, and she reminded him of the cost of international dialing, suggesting they use text messaging instead.
Saturday morning, Zhang's daughter read news online about the plane's disappearance, and they rushed to the Lido Hotel. "I'm worried about my daughter, there's no way she will accept this result," he said.
Last year, Zheng took her daughter, their only child, to Singapore, but this year Zheng joined a group tour alone, to ensure the girl stay focused on studying for China's college entrance exam in June, Zhang added.
Alerted to the tragedy by colleagues at China Life Insurance, the state-owned giant where Zheng also worked, Hu Qianyu made his way to hotel Saturday. Hu, an employee at the claims settlement department, hoped to confirm family details and other background information with relatives of the dozens of passengers on flight MH370 that Hu said held China Life travel or life insurance.
"This is a complicated case as it's an international flight," said Hu, who noted compensation for death on a domestic Chinese flight would range between $98,000 and $130,000 per person. The government's China Insurance Regulatory Commission will tell firms the amount to pay in this case, he said.
"Many relatives said don't talk about money with me, it's too early," he said
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