By Elayne Savage, PhD
It's the not knowing that is so excruciating.
How can Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with 239 on board suddenly disappear from radar and yet continue to fly seven more hours? How can it be that all the worldwide sophisticated technology cannot locate it? It's hard to accept it just vanished into thin air en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
It's not the first time planes have disappeared and some have never been found. (See story and statistics link below.)
There have been at least a dozen theories and many distractions, but only a handful of hard facts.
I admit I have been riveted by the mystery of it all. However, the intrigue of the disappearance of the plane is overshadowed by my awareness of what the relatives of missing passengers must be going through.
Speculation after speculation abounds in the media: that the plane could have landed on various airstrips, that there was an explosion or fire, that it was hijacked, it was a pilot suicide mission, or following in the shadow of another plane. And on and on. How painful it must be for relatives when false hope is fueled, only to have one theory replaced by another.
The worst possible scenario of course is that we never find out what really happened.
It's the not knowing that is so excruciating.
Many of us have experienced this kind of turbulence in our lives if we find ourselves waiting for news after an accident or a surgery. "Did our loved one survive?" "Are they going to be all right?" "How will this affect me?"
I can't help but think of acquaintances who have experienced the agony of not knowing and lack of closure when a loved one has disappeared without a trace. And the hope kept alive that they are alive and will somehow find their way back. The pain of living with that is hard to imagine.
For me, the closest I can come to imagining this kind of pain is from my own experience in the 1950's when I was 12 years old.
It Gets Personal
Whenever there is a news story that is punctuated with so many question marks and long waits for news, I relive the agony of the 'not knowing' – the endless waiting for information.
I know what it's like to wait and wonder. Each time I hear about another tragedy where information is slow in coming or speculation runs rampant, I’m reminded of my own experiences. It is the same each time for me. I go through the same process of waiting and wondering. I relive the 'not knowing' — the seemingly endless waiting for information that I experienced when I was 12 years old.
The thought that something might be wrong begins as a whisper. As the hours drag by, a cloak of fear takes over.
Just like that day in 1954 when my father, my younger brother, Lee and I waited hours for my mother's "we arrived safely" phone call. And it never came.
As we waited for the call, we watched the Evening News. We heard a Braniff DC-3 crashed in an Iowa cornfield. It couldn't be their plane, we told ourselves. They were flying United.
Finally my Dad started making phone calls. For hours we waited for some answers to find out if indeed they were on that Braniff flight.
Turns out they were. There was to have been a long layover in Des Moines for the second leg of the trip from Omaha to the Mayo Clinic. Apparently my mother learned a Braniff flight would be leaving sooner for Rochester and she and my grandmother were able to book tickets on it. What she didn't know was that it was a 'puddle-jumper,' stopping in several cities along the route. And of course she had no idea the plane would be heading into a fierce thunderstorm.
Neither my mother nor grandmother had identification with them. My mother was finally identified at the morgue in Mason City Iowa from the inscription on her wedding band. (I wear this ring every day — always aware that it survived the plane crash.)
Another impediment to identifying them was not everyone on the plane died in the crash.
It's the not knowing that is so excruciating.
Late into the night, we learned they were dead. But a part of my 12-year-old mind wouldn't believe it. For years I kept imagining there must have been a terrible mistake in identification . . . and they would return home someday.
Finding Answers 40 Years Later
Forty years later my brother Lee Raskin began some research to learn what really happened that August 22nd day. The official report reads, “Strong downdrafts forced the plane to the ground." There is even speculation the plane was caught in a small tornado.
Forty years after the crash I learned not everyone died. Seven people survived, including the stewardess. The pilot and co-pilot were killed.
Why did the pilot disregard the warning to not land in Mason City? Did they not hear it? Did they figure it was safe to land? We will never really know exactly what happened in the cockpit that day.
And in a way, I guess we are still waiting. Just as the relatives of passengers on Flight 370 may be waiting for answers for a very long time.
When these kinds of tragedies occur it really doesn't matter what the media speculates happened or where and how far the debris might be scattered.
For the surviving families it is scattered over a lifetime.
© Elayne Savage, PhD
Do you have a story to share about your own experience of waiting for news? What was the situation? What was it like for you? How long did you have wait for some kind of closure? Are you still waiting?
Have you, too, been intrigued about the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370? Have you, too, become overwhelmed by so much speculation and false information?
I'd love to hear your story. You can post in the comments section in the box below
or by emailing me at [email protected]
Here's a link to a reliable source for a summary of plausible scenarios: TheAirSafe.com News
http://www.airsafenews.com/2014/03/four-plausible-scenarios-for-malaysia.html
And here's a link to the story of my personal experience with the long wait to hear whether someone I love is alive or dead. And my journey to some closure.
http://bit.ly/SYkMJv
Here’s a link to statistics on missing aircraft:
http://www.ibtimes.com/beyond-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-6-other-planes-disappeared-were-never-found-1561738
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aerial_disappearances
Until next time . . .
Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking relationship books published in 9 languages.
You can order books and CDs directly from my website:
http://www.QueenofRejection.com/publications.htm
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