MH370: Nine months on

An unfinished movie

At 2:40 on March 8, after changing direction several times, flight MH370 appeared for a fleeting moment on radar in the northeast of Aceh Province in Indonesia. Shortly afterwards, it entered airspace that wasn't covered by radar.

"Good night Malaysian three-seven-zero," was the last message from the cockpit.

Ju Kun, 33, had been in the movie industry for 15 years. In 2002, he arrived in Beijing and set about achieveing his ambition to get into the movie business. With his outstanding kung fu skills and a persistent personality, he gradually became a renowned director of martial arts movies. After flight MH370 disappeared, the Hong Kong director Karwai Wong, who worked with Ju on The Grandmaster, and actress Zhang Ziyi expressed their hopes and prayers for Ju and the other missing passengers and crew on social media.

In 2005, he met his future wife, Cheng Liping, during the filming of Fearless in Shanghai.

Ju often complimented her wife in front of his friends, saying he was convinced that she would change his life.

In 2008, they married and later Cheng gave birth to their first child – who will be 6 this year. They had a second son in 2012. To his children, Ju was a hero. They called him "Ultra man", and are still asking when their father is coming home.

The tragedy has turned Cheng's world upside down. She hates attending parents' meetings at her son's school, especially when she has to fill in the "father's information" section of the enrollment form.

Yan Jieyuan, 32, had been waiting for Ju to arrive in Beijing so the pair could sign a contract with an investor for a new movie. "It would have been the first time Ju had been producer and director of a movie," Yan said, admitting that he secretly still expects Ju to return and work on the movie with him.

Living in memories

The friends and relatives of those missing on flight MH370 still find it difficult to accept the fact that the flight "ended" in the waters of the southern Indian Ocean, west of Perth in Australia.

Now, the only thing they can do is to collect scraps of information about the errant plane. Some of the bereaved are bonding, including Bai Shuanfu and Cheng Liping who have become friends in adversity.

The day before her ill-fated flight, Hou told Bai that she would be home soon, and that no beauty scenery in the world could compare with their home.

If she could turn back the clock, Cheng would rewind to 2005, the year she met Ju. Now she can only commemorate her husband by looking at photos and the medals and trophies he won for his movies.

On the vast ocean, vessels from 26 countries and regions, including China, Malaysia, Australia, the United States, and Vietnam, are still searching for traces of flight MH370. The initial search area has been constantly enlarged, from the Thailand Bay, to the Strait of Malacca and then the southern Indian Ocean. The scale of the international operation is unprecedented.

The search for flight MH370 is ongoing, not even stopping for the Christmas holidays. Recently, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau released a computer-generated map of the ocean floor in the area of the search.

At 5:30 am on March 8, Bai and his daughter arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport to wait for Hou, who had been away from home for two weeks. When MH370 failed to arrive as scheduled at 6:30 am, their lives changed forever.

It's now more than nine months since flight MH370 went missing, but Bai has never stopped waiting for his wife to bring back the souvenirs from her trip to Nepal. "I believe it's a temporary separation, and I am prepared to wait my whole life for her to return," he said.