MH370 crash: Family members of victims express disappointment that Malaysia ending search operations

On Thursday morning, Prahlad Shirsath received an email from Malaysian authorities that the MH370 search operations will end at the end of the month.

Shirsath’s wife Kranti was one of the five Indians who died aboard the flight that went missing while flying over the South China Sea. It was going from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. In all, 239 passengers died on March 8, 2014. The five Indians have been identified as Kranti Shirsath, Vinod Kolekar, Chetana Kolekar, Swanand Kolekar and Chandrika Sharma.

While speaking to DNA, Shirsath said, “This is the fifth or sixth search operation to find the remains of the flight. Every time a new search operation begins, I become hopeful, but at the end the hope turns into disappointment.”

Malaysian authorities had earlier on Thursday announced that search operations would come to an end on May 29. The current search operation has been led by the American firm Ocean Infinity was started in January this year and it was supposed to end of April. However, operations got an extension twice before the Malaysian authorities made it clear that they weren’t interested in prolonging it any further.

The decision to conclude the search operation was conveyed to the relatives of the missing passengers via email on Thursday morning.  Shirsath’s family also received the mail stating that the search operation is already in its final week. 'Ocean Infinity which started in January has ended in April, unfortunately without any finding," the email stated.

According to Shirsath, they have been receiving weekly updates about the search operation for the past four years. “Malaysian authorities have been contacting me and sharing the search operation status on a weekly basis. However, none of it has been positive,” Shirsath told DNA.

Though May 29 is likely to be the last day of the search operation of the missing flight, Shirsath stated that he will continue to hope for some news about the flight.

He said, "After four years of search operation, the mystery of the missing flight has not been solved yet. Now the authorities are stating that they will end the search but there should be some logical end to this mystery. We should at least know if it was an accident or it was some conspiracy."

Earlier this year, Shirsath received the death certificate of his wife from the Malaysian government but he still wants the government to pursue the search. "There are several people flying across the world and each one of them carries the risk of dying during the travel. For such people at least, the authorities should find the reason of disappearance of the flight so that they can then work on the solution to avoid such incidences in future," Shirsath said.