Search harder, say grieving MH370 relatives

Relatives of Australians on board MH370 have called again for the search to be resumed following an inconclusive report.

Jeanette Maguire is still waitingt for answers about the disappearance of her sister and brother-in-law, Cathy and Bob Lawton. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Relatives of the Australian passengers on board MH370 have called again for the search to be resumed following an inconclusive report delivered by Malaysia’s ­Office of Transport.

Danica Weeks, whose husband, Paul, was on a work trip when he boarded the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight, said the 495-page report had left her feeling “deflated and frustrated”.

“I feel like a mouse in a wheel, going around in circles,” Ms Weeks told The Australian.

“I had been hopeful the report would shed some new light on everything and give us some ­answers but it hasn’t really told us anything new.”

Some 4½ years after ­receiving the almost implausible news her husband’s plane was “missing”, Ms Weeks said it was up to the Malaysian government as the airline’s owner to find the aircraft.

“You can’t just put your hands up in the air and go ‘Oh well, so sad’,” she said. “I don’t get to walk away from it, so how can they? There’s still 239 people missing and a Boeing 777. They still have to do something, they still have to be accountable.”

Jeanette Maguire’s sister and brother-in-law, Cathy and Bob Lawton, were also on board MH370, heading off on a holiday to Beijing with friends Rodney and Mary Burrows.

Ms Maguire said the report was not the last chapter in the unsolved mystery, and families would accept nothing less than the plane’s recovery.

“That’s why we have to keep looking. It’s the only evidence they have,” she said.

“It would be nice if all countries invested something into the search. It’s up to everybody to keep aviation safe.

“If we know what happened here, we will learn something and make the necessary changes.”

Since losing her husband, Ms Weeks has moved across the country from Perth to the Sunshine Coast, with her two sons, aged five and seven.

She has returned to fulltime work out of necessity after being unable to sell the family’s Perth home without a death certificate.

“It’s surreal,” Ms Weeks said. “It still feels like yesterday that Pauley walked out the door. I had high hopes for this report. Since the change of government in Mal­aysia, we’ve actually had some communication and it’s felt like they are making more of an effort.”

Australian next of kin were extended an invitation from Malaysia Airlines’ family support centre to travel to Kuala Lumpur to ­attend yesterday’s briefing on the report.

But the carrier agreed to cover their fares only 48 hours before the report’s release, which left Ms Weeks no time to make arrangements for her sons and pets.

Members of the Burrows family confirmed they had also received that invitation “at short notice” but declined.

Ms Weeks said yesterday’s report would not be the end of the nightmare.

“This can’t be the end of it. It can’t be the final report,” she said.

“Some things have been clarified but it doesn’t tell us what ­happened and that’s what we most want to know.”