黑料社

BANGKOK 鈥� For two years and more, it has been a lost ship, a metal container carrying 239 souls that simply disappeared one late Asian night never to be seen again. And now, the search for the remains of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 likely will become a thing of memory, too.

With Friday鈥檚 announcement that the meticulous ocean search for the missing jetliner will be suspended 鈥� in effect, called off 鈥� one of this decade鈥檚 most tantalizing unanswered questions is headed toward becoming, in effect, a cold case.

鈥淚 am not surprised it鈥檚 coming to an end without any answers,鈥� Tony Wong, a businessman in Kuala Lumpur, said Monday.

鈥淧eople are slowly forgetting the incident,鈥� he said. 鈥淣o one will ever know the truth.鈥�

The truth may be out there. The problem is, you have to know where to look. And that鈥檚 been precisely the problem all along.

The Boeing 777-200ER vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Investigators believed it turned back west and then south before dropping into the Indian Ocean west of Australia, where the search has been concentrated.聽The Malaysian government has concluded that it was deliberately steered off course. Conspiracy theories, unsurprisingly, still abound in the vacuum of facts: Was it blown up? Steered into the sea? Diverted to a remote airstrip somewhere? Abducted by aliens?

For a long stretch, it seemed the world鈥檚 biggest loose end 鈥� a global obsession for weeks, a niggling unsolved riddle for years. And behind the epic tale were the lost souls and the families they left behind, which expected maximum effort and, to hear many relatives tell it over the long months, a successful resolution.

READ: Officials to decide whether to extend search for Flight 370

They were not happy at the news that the search was being suspended. To varying degrees, they have accused investigators and searchers and the governments overseeing them of disingenuousness, incompetence and nefarious political agendas.

In China, relatives have roundly denounced the decision. They still don鈥檛 seem ready to think about the finality of it all.

鈥淭hey are actually just playing with words,鈥� Hu Xiulan, the mother of a Flight 370 passenger, said Monday. 鈥溾�楽uspension鈥� means termination to us. We strongly demand a re-investigation into how the plane went missing, and there is no excuse for the suspension of the search.鈥�

The decision to suspend the search, which has endured through damaged equipment and punishing weather, was made jointly by the three countries conducting the operation: Malaysia, Australia and China, which lost the most people in the aircraft鈥檚 disappearance. Together, they already have spent $135 million searching a 46,300-square-mile area.

The governments were delicate in their language Friday 鈥� they did not say outright that they were ending the search. But there is a general sense that it is unlikely to continue unless specific new evidence is found to suggest a particular location. And the search in its current incarnation will not end immediately; it could last into the winter months, officials have said.

Finding the plane would not just bring emotional closure to families. It also would hand investigators and the airline industry crucial information and tools to understand why Flight 370 might have gone down and how similar occurrences might be prevented.

A critical mass of actual wreckage beyond the few confirmed pieces that have turned up would also convey a sense of competence that we humans can go out and find our lost stuff in the depths of our oceans. Which in many ways, despite complex oceanographic models, we still can鈥檛.

鈥淲e can send spacecraft to Jupiter and Saturn and Mars to see their surface, but we can鈥檛 send a craft to the bottom of the ocean to look at our own surface,鈥� Western Australia University oceanographer Charitha Pattiaratchi said.

The pressure on authorities, he said, suggests that a breather from the search might actually be the best approach.

鈥淚t鈥檚 probably good to pause and then take stock of things,鈥� Pattiaratchi said. 鈥淭hey can try again if there鈥檚 some better data or better technology.鈥�

READ: Oceanographer says Flight 370 could be north of search area

In the meantime, the world goes on. The increased pace of the news cycle, the unremitting parade of minor violence and major cataclysm, pushes us away from this singular puzzle and into the more recent sad and lethal spectacles of Orlando and Nice, Dallas and Munich, Baghdad and Kabul.

It is so much, sometimes, that we might fail to remember one fundamental point in the story that was, and is, Flight 370: The world we call home swallowed a giant airplane and the people aboard it and, 871 days later, we have absolutely no idea what became of them.

There is an expectation, fueled by a modern world filled with technology and accomplishment, that if we want something enough, if we throw enough money and resources at it, there鈥檚 nothing we can鈥檛 do. And when that narrative of expectation is interrupted by something as strange and terrible as the unresolved disappearance of a giant metal machine, it doesn鈥檛 go down easy.

鈥淚t鈥檚 all a big fabrication, a big cover-up,鈥� said Sakinab Shah, the eldest sister of senior pilot Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah. 鈥淭hings just don鈥檛 add up.鈥�

Then she said something that echoed many people鈥檚 comments in the first days after the disappearance, when the modern world鈥檚 best machines and algorithms were brought to bear to find that plane and there were high hopes it would be found.

鈥淲ith modern-day technology,鈥� Shah said, 鈥渉ow can there be a mystery?鈥�