Husband of wife who disappeared on missing Malaysian Airlines speaks us

The spouse of a woman who went missing on the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on March 8, 2014, has expressed his “suffering” since her disappearance.

Prahlad Shirsat was serving as a social worker in North Korea when he found out his wife Kranti was on the doomed flight that was set to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers on board. “I was preparing to meet her at the airport when I saw a report on the television about an aircraft that had vanished. “I verified the flight number and it was correct,” Shirsat stated. He promptly journeyed by road to China with help from authorities in China and North Korea.

After a week in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur without any updates, Shirsat went back to India to reunite with his sons. Almost 11 years following the disappearance, Malaysia’s government revealed in December 2024 a possible new search for MH370.  The preliminary agreement includes the US exploration company Ocean Infinity, yet Shirsat, whose spouse Kranti was among those on board, continues to doubt its validity.

“These news reports keep coming but unless and until something happens on the ground, this can’t be trusted. And personally I have lost trust in the Malaysian government,” he says.

“Not knowing (what happened) is very painful,” Shirsat adds. “I meet people, and when they find out that my wife was on board on that flight, they ask me what had happened. But unfortunately I have no answers.”

As a coordinated effort, Malaysia, Australia, and China began the first search for MH370 in 2014. In the southern Indian Ocean, the search spanned 120,000 square kilometers until being abandoned in 2017 without finding anything. In 2018, the U.S. exploration company Ocean Infinity made another fruitless search effort.

Shirsat, who had been closely monitoring news about the search operations, ceased getting information from the Malaysian authorities after the unsuccessful searches. During the first three years, he attended yearly events in Malaysia and kept in touch with the families of other passengers, including five Indians.If Ocean Infinity discovers significant MH370 wreckage, it will earn $70 million under the new deal, which was announced in December 2024.

Shirsat, however, remains deeply distrustful of such initiatives.

“For the next three years nearly, I was hoping there will be something positive. I think within the first month itself the authorities had declared that everyone on board was presumed dead. Hopes were limited after that, most of the hope came from conspiracy theories,” he said.

Shirsat criticises the Malaysian authorities’ handling of the incident, particularly their response time.

“The plane took off at midnight and took a U-turn soon after, but the government only found out about it in the morning,” he alleges.

He questions the lack of detection across multiple countries’ airspace. “We have systems in every country, to detect even missiles coming towards the country. A plane passed through the airspace of many countries and nobody knows?”

Despite the ongoing uncertainty, Shirsat said his family has found a way forward.

“I would definitely say we have moved on. We have accepted the situation. Acceptance is the best thing,” he said.

His elder son has recently completed an MBA from Canada, while his younger son is pursuing Chartered Accountancy.

Yet the emotional burden remains uniquely his to bear. “People come and sit with you and talk to you. But after we’re done, the topic is finished for those people. But I carry it, I live it. And you cannot explain it in words,” Shirsat added.