DUBAI // A businessman has flown from Dubai to Beijing to comfort his young nephews, whose parents were passengers on the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight that has been missing since Saturday.
Mohan Mukherjee, 40, travelled to the Chinese capital with his mother Uma and father Malay, so the family can be close to Mirav and Miles, aged 9 and 2, who are being looked after by their maternal grandmother.
Muktesh Mukherjee, 42, an Indian-born Canadian, and his Chinese wife Bai Xiaomo, 37, were among 239 passengers and crew on flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The Boeing 777 lost contact with civil aviation ground controllers two hours after it took off from Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am on Saturday. The search for traces of the plane continues, with Malaysia denying that its efforts are in disarray after China said the hunt was chaotic.
The Mukherjees are among hundreds of anxious relatives across the world who fear the worst.
“We’re just trying to cope and we’re all trying to stay strong for the children of my brother and sister-in-law; they are what is keeping us going,” said Mohan, who runs an IT business in Dubai and has lived here for more than seven years.
“It is a very difficult time for all of us but we are managing. We have the family around, so we are getting through this.”
Muktesh was vice president of China operations for the US company Xcoal Energy and Resources and was heading back to Beijing with his wife.
He usually visited Dubai once a year, Mohan said, although his last visit was in 2012.
Their parents also live in Dubai, where Malay, who is well-regarded in the steel industry, set up a consultancy a few years ago.
Conflicting reports about the plane’s last known position have added to the family’s grief.
“We are as much in the dark as the other families are,” Mohan said.
“Right now we have not heard anything more than what is being reported and we go by what is in the news. Although Malaysia Airlines has given us some news.”
The strain has extended to other relatives also in Beijing.
“We are all in a state of flux; we don’t know what to think or feel,” said Milan Mukherjee, an uncle who landed in Beijing from India a day after the plane’s disappearance.
Relatives are shaken because this is the second air tragedy for the family.
Mohan Kumaramangalam, Muktesh’s maternal grandfather, was killed in a plane crash in Delhi in 1973. Mr Kumaramangalam was a federal minister in the late prime minister Indira Gandhi’s cabinet.
“All this makes it even more difficult to deal with this news,” said Manoj Kumar Mukherjee, another uncle, who lives in Kolkata.
But it is on the missing couple’s two young children, Mirav and Miles, that the family will focus their attention.
“Handling the children is the challenge because they are so young,” Manoj said.
“What do you say to them? It is very difficult for the family because there is little information and no concrete conclusion can be drawn, even after so many days. The family wants and needs to be together now.”
rtalwar@thenational.ae
