World
MH370 went missing 10 years ago. An Indonesian family hopes it can be found
Medan, Indonesia – Herlina Panjaitan has not changed her mobile phone number since her son, 25-year-old Firman Chandra Siregar, went missing 10 years ago.
Siregar, an Indonesian, was a passenger on MH370, the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared 40 minutes into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the early hours of March 8, 2014 and was never heard from again.
It is important to 69-year-old Panjaitan that her number remains the same, just in case her youngest son tries to call her.
“That was the number I used at the time and that is the number Firman has for me. I still hope he will call and ask me to go and pick him up, wherever he is,” she told Al Jazeera.
Panjaitan had travelled to Kuala Lumpur from her home in Medan, Indonesia with her daughter-in-law and grandson the night before Siregar departed for Beijing, so the family could spend some time together before he started his new job with an oil company in China.
Before he left for the airport to catch the late-night flight, Panjaitan helped her son pack his belongings, including a bag filled with warm clothing for Beijing’s freezing winter.
The family took photographs together, with Siregar beaming as he played with his nephew.
The pictures now hang on the wall of the family’s home in Medan, which lies on the other side of the Strait of Malacca facing Malaysia.
“I told him to be careful and call me when he got to Beijing,” Panjaitan said. “There was no feeling that anything was about to go wrong.”
The next morning, Panjaitan got a call from her daughter who worked at the Indonesian embassy in Mexico to ask her if she had heard the news about MH370.
“She just said that she had heard that it had lost contact with air traffic control,” she recalled. “I didn’t know what to think.”
Panjaitan and her family immediately rushed to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) where the families of the 239 passengers and crew on board were briefed on the plane’s mysterious disappearance.
“That is when I started to believe that it had really gone missing,” she said.
Ten years since it took off from KLIA, the plane’s fate has become one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.
No one has been able to say with any certainty what happened to the Boeing 777 after Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah signed off from Malaysian air traffic control with the words “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero”, and prepared to enter Vietnamese airspace.
According to satellite data, rather than continuing on to Beijing, the plane dramatically veered off course, flying back across northern Malaysia and skirting around Indonesia, before heading south towards the deep waters of the Indian Ocean.
Panjaitan said that she called Siregar’s mobile phone after she heard the news and that it had rung several times but that no one had answered.
Two weeks later, then Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced the plane had “ended” its journey in the remote southern Indian Ocean.
‘The best child’
Siregar, a graduate of Indonesia’s prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology, was the youngest of five children – three boys and two girls – and Panjaitan says he was “the best”.
“That doesn’t mean my other children aren’t amazing,” she explained. “One works as a prosecutor and another is a diplomat, but Firman was just the best child and my other children understand what I mean when I say that. He was so handsome, so well-behaved, so respectful and so kind.
“He never gave me any trouble as a child, and he knew what to do and what not to do without me telling him.”
Before he went to Beijing, Siregar had introduced his mother and family to his girlfriend and her parents, who had travelled from Bandung to meet Panjaitan and her husband Chrisman.
“They said they wanted to get married and I was happy that he’d found his life partner,” she said.
Six months after the plane went missing, Panjaitan and her husband went to Bandung to meet Siregar’s girlfriend and gave her their blessing to move forward with her life.
“We said that if she wanted to get married in the future, she should do it,” Panjaitan told Al Jazeera. “She didn’t say anything, just cried. And we cried too, it was just so sad.”
Many theories, few answers
Endless speculation has filled the void left by the failure to find MH370.
Some claim Captain Zaharie engineered a sophisticated murder-suicide plot to deliberately crash the plane into the ocean.
Others suggest that the plane was hijacked, deliberately shot down, or suffered a technical malfunction that cut off its communication systems and incapacitated the pilots leading to its eventual crash.
None of the claims has been proven.
Searches have proved fruitless, including a significant underwater and air search across an area of 120,000sq km (46,332sq miles) that cost $147m and was led by an Australian team in conjunction with Malaysia and China.
The Malaysian authorities have also launched several investigations that culminated in a 495-page report that was finally released in 2018. It found that while foul play was likely, it was not possible to say who was responsible.
Last week, ahead of the 10th anniversary, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim reiterated that Malaysia was prepared to reopen an investigation if new evidence emerged.
Malaysia’s transport minister, Anthony Loke, has also said that he has plans to meet US marine robotics company, Ocean Infinity, to discuss a new proposed underwater search.
Panjaitan said that her family welcomes any renewed investigation.
Some fragments from the plane have washed up on East African beaches, including a flaperon that forms part of the wing, but there has been nothing more substantial.
For Panjaitan that leaves room for hope.
“If it crashed, why haven’t they found it? It is a huge plane. What is important is that, alive or not, we still have hope that they will be found,” she said.
“Hopefully Firman is alive, and we can go and pick him up wherever he is. When I see him again, the first thing I will do is give him a big hug.”
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The past 48 hours in Tel Aviv have been unlike anything seen before, a leading security analyst has said, as sirens blared amid missile threats following Operation Epic Fury and U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran.
“We are facing a biblical event — nothing less,” Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute, told Fox News Digital, speaking from his shelter in the city.
Like many Israelis, Michael said he had spent hours in reinforced rooms during the ongoing barrage, adding that he was “very experienced in this.”
“But this all requires time and determination, and I do hope that Trump will also have them both,” he said, speaking shortly after the president released a video message stating that the military operation would continue “until all of our objectives are achieved.”
Explosions from projectile interceptions by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system over Tel Aviv. (JACK GUEZ / AFP via Getty Images)
“Trump is the only one who can make the change — and that change will impact the entire region and the international order for years to come,” Michael added.
As of Sunday, Tel Aviv remained under a state of emergency following Iranian missile attacks that caused casualties and widespread damage.
According to The Associated Press, Iranian missile and drone strikes have killed approximately 11 Israeli civilians and wounded dozens more in retaliation for the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran.
Shrapnel from missile impacts damaged at least 40 buildings in Tel Aviv, and authorities reported at least one death in the area from falling debris.
The Philippine Embassy in Israel confirmed the death of a Filipino national after a missile strike hit Tel Aviv on Saturday.
TOMAHAWKS, B-2 STEALTH BOMBERS AND ATTACK DRONES POUND OVER 1,000 IRANIAN TARGETS IN 24-HOUR BLITZ
People take shelter as Iran launched missiles and drones towards Israel following the US-Israeli attacks. ( Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“We enter our shelter once the siren is heard and stay there until the Home Front Command announces that we can leave,” Michael said.
“Usually, it is about 20 to 30 minutes — unless there are further sirens during our stay. Since yesterday morning, it has happened around 30 times.”
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog also visited an impact site in Tel Aviv Sunday, delivering a message of resilience.
“The people of Israel and the people of Iran can live in peace. The region can live in peace. But what undermines peace time and again is terror instigated by this Iranian regime,” Herzog said.
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Israeli emergency service officer walks past building debris at the scene of a Iranian missile attack. (Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP via Getty Images)
Following the reported killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and roughly 40 senior Iranian officials, Iran formed a provisional leadership council.
Iran named Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, President Masoud Pezeshkian and Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i to lead roles.
“The Supreme Leader did not complete the necessary groundwork regarding his own succession,” Michael added.
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“Pezeshkian will face very troubling challenges due to their heavy losses, severe disruptions to control and command systems, and the massive bombing and attacks across Iran, including Tehran,” he said.
“Even if this regime doesn’t collapse, it will never be able to reconstitute itself, recover or return to its previous position,” Michael added.
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Israeli minister Gideon Sa’ar said Europe “does not have unified position” on what role it should play in Iran as European ministers sought to establish a joint approach Sunday.
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As Israel and the United States conducted a joint military strike on Iran, leading to the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Europe was kept on the sidelines.
EU member states did not participate in the operation and, in some cases, they were not informed prior as it is customary among strategic allies.
Asked whether Israel sought to keep Europe on the margins, Sa’ar said internal divisions within EU member states had kept them out of critical exchanges of operational details, unlike the United States, which the minister described as his country’s greatest ally.
“In Europe, you have all kinds of approaches,” he told Euronews. “You have countries like the Czech Republic which is strongly supporting this operation and then you have Spain, which is standing with all the tyrants of the world.”
On Saturday, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez was among the most critical voices in Europe, suggesting the US-Israeli strikes on Iran risk plunging the region into total war.
“We reject the unilateral military action of the United States and Israel, which represents an escalation and contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order,” Sánchez said Saturday. The Spanish PM reiterated that message on Sunday.
“We urge for de-escalation and call to respect international law in all conflicts,” Sánchez added. “You can be against a heinous regime, like the Iranian regime, while also rejecting a military intervention that is unjustified, dangerous and outside of international law.”
Sa’aar said Israel considers the operation “fully justified” citing the right to self-defense from a regime that “has called for the destruction of Israel” and lashed at the Spanish prime minister for sending an “anti-Israeli, anti-American message.”
“Read the statement, they are standing with Iran!” he added.
When asked if any of his European counterparts had manifested an interest in joining the military operation or provide support on the ground, Sa’ar said he held multiple exchanges with European ministers over the weekend and suggested that “if others want to join, they will know have to convey the message.”
On Sunday, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen appeared to back regime change in Iran in line with Israel and the US, saying that the “risk of further escalation is real. This is why a credible transition in Iran is urgently needed” in comments on Sunday.
Sa’ar told Euronews said the strategic strikes and the elimination of Khamenei alongside top regime commanders could “create the conditions to weaken the regime enough to allow the Iranians to take their future into their own hands”.
“The future leadership of Iran should be determined by the Iranian people through free elections. Our only requirement is that whoever comes to power in Iran must not pursue the destruction of Israel,” he said.
Watch the full interview on Euronews from 8pm CET
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