On the flight back to San Francisco, I watched MH370: The Plane That Disappeared. It was a Netflix documentary series about the Malaysian Airlines flight that went missing on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
(Sidenote: Watching a documentary about a missing plane with real-life turbulence in the air was a unique experience. When Youali saw my choice of “in-flight entertainment,” she shook her head with disapproval.)
This was the most prominent aviation mystery in the twenty-first century. All 229 passengers and 12 crew members on board a Boeing 777 vanished.
While the technical aspects of the story were fascinating, what struck me the most was the interviews of the surviving family members.
A Malaysian woman had to explain to her two children why their father, a flight attendant on board, hadn’t come home from work. A French man lost his wife and two daughters. A Chinese man never saw his mother again.
Despite significant search efforts and expert analysis, the most basic questions remain unanswered today. What happened? How?
I can’t imagine not knowing the whereabouts of someone I care about for more than a few days. The next of kin of these 239 families have lived through the hell of unknowing for almost a decade.
How many times have they asked, “why?”