On March 8, 2014, flight MH370, carrying 239 people (including 153 from Chinese mainland and 1 from Taiwan), went missing on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, calling it "the biggest mystery in aviation history". In the past decade, many families of missing passengers in China have not given up on promoting the search and seeking justice through legal channels.
March 8, 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the MH370 incident on Malaysia Airlines. According to Dongfang.com, on the evening of February 28, the reporter contacted Jiang Hui, the representative of the Chinese family of the missing passengers, and learned that the Chinese family members of some of the missing passengers will go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the near future to participate in the family briefing organized by the Malaysian side. According to Jiang Hui, Malaysia's transport minister will also attend the meeting, and the Malaysian side will hold a press conference at the same venue after the meeting, "which they took the initiative to propose, and there may be major announcements, (because) there was no such link in previous years."
10 years on, what are the latest developments in this matter?
*。More than 40 passengers' families filed a lawsuit.
More than 110 family members have been reconciled.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a former Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft, went missing on March 8, 2014 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, with a total of 239 passengers and crew on board, including 154 Chinese passengers. On January 29, 2015, the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia announced that MH370 had crashed and presumed that 239 people on board had been killed. On November 27, 2023, this air transport damage liability dispute case was heard in the Chaoyang District People's Court of Beijing**.
It is understood that a total of more than 40 passengers' families filed a lawsuit, and the cases were heard separately in the Chaoyang Court in Beijing from November 27 to December 6 last year.
According to the lawyer of the passenger's family, there are five defendants in this case, namely Malaysia Airlines, also known as Old Malaysia Airlines, Malaysia International Airlines*** also known as Singapore Malaysia Airlines, Boeing of the United States, aircraft engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce of the United Kingdom and Allianz Insurance Group of Germany. In terms of litigation claims, the families of more than 40 passengers are different, but they mainly focus on two points, one is to find out the truth about the loss of MH370 through the trial of the case, and the other is the issue of compensation. It has been learned that the biggest difficulty in the trial of this case lies in ascertaining the truth of the incident.
Zhang Qihuai, a lawyer for the family members of the passengers of flight MH370, said that this time, we proposed that the defendant was the responsible party, and the defendant was the responsible party, so he had the obligation to provide evidence to prove that he was not responsible. At present, the inability to adduce evidence, or the insufficient or incomplete presentation of evidence are the huge holes left in the trial of this case.
It is understood that the amount of civil compensation filed by the passenger's family is between 10 million and 80 million yuan, and the amount is different because of the different circumstances of each family, and a large part of the compensation fee is solatium for mental damages, and the highest amount is 30 or 40 million yuan.
It is also understood that in addition to the families of more than 40 passengers who filed a lawsuit in Beijing Chaoyang Court, the families of more than 110 other passengers have reached a settlement with the five defendants and signed a settlement agreement, receiving between 2.5 million and 3 million yuan.
According to the Metropolis Express, this time, the core of the family's appeal is still "finding someone". Many family members of Malaysia Airlines missing people have never given up in the past 10 years of waiting. There is a father who has been charging his son's phone bill, looking forward to one day ** can get through ......
Look for. There are fragments of wreckage, there are reports of accidents.
But what about the whereabouts of the plane?
For 10 years, various speculations about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 have been plaguing the world.
In May 2018, the search was announced. In July of the same year, Malaysia** released an 822-page investigation report, saying that it was still unable to determine the true cause of the flight's disappearance.
Malaysia** published a report in 2018 showing that after the transponder was turned off, the plane suddenly made a sharp turn and turned back under human manipulation.
The Malaysian Air Force's primary radar showed that after MH370 entered Vietnamese airspace, the aircraft made a sharp left turn and flew back over the Malay Peninsula. It made a sideways turn near Penang (the captain's hometown), flew northwest across the Strait of Malacca and then flew into the Andaman Sea in the Indian Ocean, where it disappeared from radar.
On December 12, 2022, MH370 "Splinter Hunter" Brian Gibson and technical expert Richard Godfrey jointly released a report saying that it was basically confirmed that the metal plate that Madagascar fisherman Tatali picked up on the beach and was used as a "washboard" by his wife for 5 years was the left landing gear trunnion door part of the MH370 passenger aircraft, and its damage can prove that the landing gear was in a lower state when the passenger plane touched the sea level.
On December 14, 2022, according to reference sources, citing British media reports, the wreckage of the landing gear door of Malaysia Airlines MH370 was found on the island of Madagascar.
According to the report, this indicates that there was a pilot in working condition until the flight was terminated, which means that the crash of MH370 may have been caused quickly and deliberately, as pilots usually do not lower the landing gear when the plane has to make an emergency landing on the surface.
Earlier it was also reported that the captain of flight MH370 may be suffering from depression.
Red Star News reported last month that a recent study has brought to the surface a new area that had not been searched before. At the end of December 2023, two experts called on Australian and Malaysian authorities and the U.S. seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity to launch a new round of searches, claiming that the mystery of flight MH370's disappearance could be solved within "10 days" if a search were conducted in the area. The study was carried out jointly by two experts, one of whom was Jean-Luc Marchand, a former researcher at the European Commission's Aviation Project** and the European Space Agency; The other is Patrick Blair, a former French Air Force pilot and Air France captain with 44 years of aviation experience.
"Based on underwater measurements, we determined that the impact zone was about 4,000 metres deep and was south of Broken Ridge," Bräley explained. We believe that the wreckage of MH370 is located on some sort of submarine plateau (relatively flat highland) in the area."
Newly proposed search area (green) * Red Star News.
Malaysia Airlines for the past decade.
Two major air crashes, once on the verge of bankruptcy.
Just four months after the MH370 incident, Malaysia Airlines shocked the world with another crash – on July 17, 2014, flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
As a result, Malaysia Airlines' safety reputation, which had already fallen to the bottom, was once again hit hard and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), between 2009 and 2013, an average of 517 people died each year due to commercial aviation accidents. The air crash of one Malaysia Airlines airline in one year exceeded the death toll. In August 2014, the 77-year-old airline's share price had fallen 85% from its peak in 2012.
On 1 September 2015, the new Malaysia Airlines, Malaysia Airlines***MAB, was officially put into operation, and after the restructuring, the airline laid off 6,000 employees, reduced the size of its fleet and reduced the frequency of long-haul flights, in an attempt to rebuild its brand image.
But three years on, Singapore Malaysia Airlines is still in the red. Malaysia** has led Air France, KLM and Japan Airlines in negotiations to acquire intentions, but these attempts have failed.
Then, the pandemic hit, transportation was disrupted, and airlines around the world were on the verge of bankruptcy and layoffs. The "dying" Singapore Malaysia Airlines was a blessing in disguise and survived until the time when demand exploded after the epidemic. The company recorded its best single-quarter results in 20 years in Q4 2022, with a net profit after tax of 114.6 billion ringgit (about 17..)RMB400 million) and successfully raised a full-year net loss from 16 in fiscal 2021RM500 million, narrowing by 79 to 3RM4.4 billion.
At the same time, Malaysia Airlines ***MAB) also restructured its debt and became Malaysia Airlines Group***MAG). "Our cash flow is positive every day. Mag Managing Director Datuk Captain Izham Ismail said.
As of the end of October 2023, Malaysia Aircraft Carrier Company still has a cash balance of 5.2 billion ringgit (about 7.9 billion yuan). Datuk Captain Izam Ismail said the balance will be used as an investment to enhance Malaysia Airlines' products and services, such as new aircraft seats and higher quality in-flight catering.
*: National Business Daily, Oriental Network, CCTV News, Red Star News.