Wanita Malaysia Klaim Lihat MH370 di perairan Kepulauan Andaman
Malaysian Woman Claims to Have Seen Missing MH370 in the Water Near Andaman Islands
Editor : Ismail Gani
Translator : Novita Cahyadi
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KETIKA puluhan pesawat terbang dan kapal dari 26 negara terus mencari puing-puing yang diduga dari pesawat MH370 yang hilang, hari ini, seorang wanita Malaysia mengaku telah melihat pesawat Malaysia Airlines di perairan dekat Kepulauan Andaman pada hari pesawat tersebut menghilang.
Dia begitu yakin pada sesuatu yang dilihatnya pada pukul 14:30 waktu setempat pada Sabtu, 8 Maret, beberapa jam setelah MH370 dilaporkan hilang, dia juga telah melaporkan hal itu kepada polisi.
Dan dia mengakui mendapat cemoohan atas pengakuannya tersebut, termasuk dari seorang pilot yang mengatakan pesawat itu sulit untuk dapat dilihatnya di tengah samudera yang luas.
Tapi ibu dari 10 anak bernama Latife Dalelah, 53, bersikeras ia melihat benda berkilau seperti pesawat terbang di atas air ketika ia berada di pesawat terbang dari Jeddah ke Kuala Lumpur. Itu sekitar satu jam setelah pesawat yang ditumpanginya terbang melewati kota Chennai, di selatan India.
"Sepanjang perjalanan saya menatap keluar dari jendela pesawat karena saya tidak bisa tidur selama penerbangan," katanya kepada New Straits Times seperti dilansir Mail Online.
Pada in-flight monitor menunjukkan bahwa pesawat sedang melintasi Samudera Hindia dan dia telah melihat beberapa kapal kargo dan pulau-pulau - sebelum dia melihat benda berkilau keperakan.
"Saya coba melihat lebih dekat dan terkejut melihat apa yang tampak seperti ekor dan sayap pesawat terbang di atas air," katanya.
"Saya bangunkan teman-teman lalu cerita tapi menertawakan saya," tambahnya.
Reaksi yang sama datang dari seorang pilot yang mempertanyakan bagaimana mungkin seorang yang berada di pesawat di ketinggian sekitar tujuh mil di atas permukaan laut bisa melihat sesuatu seperti perahu atau kapal dari tempat begitu tinggi.
Tapi Dalelah ngotot: "Saya tahu apa yang saya lihat... Saya yakin bahwa saya melihat pesawat. Saya tidak berbohong. Saya baru saja pulang dari ibadah umroh."
Saat itu dia berpikir yang dilihatnya adalah pesawat tenggelam. Ketika ia mencoba untuk memberitahu seorang pramugari apa yang telah dilihatnya, dia malah dianjurkan untuk tidur.
Ketika pesawatnya mendarat di Kuala Lumpur pada Sabtu (8/3) pukul 16 waktu setempat dia mengatakan kepada anak-anaknya tentang apa yang dilihatnya. "Mereka bilang bahwa pesawat MH370 hilang," katanya lagi.
´Anak menantu, seorang polisi, yakin bahwa saya telah melihat pesawat terbang dan meminta saya untuk mengajukan laporan polisi pada hari yang sama."
"Banyak teman-teman saya satu pesawat yang semula ragu, tetapi mereka mulai percaya sekarang bahwa kita tahu pesawat (MH370) berbalik arah dan memasuki Samudra Hindia."
Badan koordinasi operasi pencarian MH370 masih berharap untuk menemukan para penumpang masih hidup, setelah otoritas di Malaysia menyisir area pencarian seluas 600.000 kilometer persegi.
AS AIRCRAFT and ships continued to search for debris which might be that of the missing flight MH370 on Friday a Malaysian woman on a flight across the Indian Ocean claimed to have seen an aircraft in the water near the Andaman Islands on the day the the jet disappeared.
The Kuala Lumpur wife is so convinced about what she saw at 2.30 in the afternoon of March 8, several hours after MH370 had been reported missing, that she has filed an official report with police.
And she admitted that she had received scorn about her account, including from a pilot who said the aircraft she was on would have been too high for her to have seen anything on the ocean below.
But mother of 10 Mrs Latife Dalelah, 53, insisted she saw a silver object in the shape of an aircraft on the water as she was flying from Jeddah to Kuala Lumpur. It was about an hour after her aircraft had flown past the southern Indian city of Chennai.
´Throughout the journey I was staring out of the window of the aircraft as I couldn´t sleep during the flight,´ she told the New Straits Times.
The in-flight monitor showed that her plane was crossing the Indian Ocean and she had seen several shipping liners and islands - before she saw the silvery object.
´I took a closer look and was shocked to see what looked like the tail and wing of an aircraft on the water,´ she said.
´I woke my friends on the flight but they laughed me off,´ she added.
The same reaction has come from a pilot who questioned how anyone flying at about seven miles above sea level could see anything like a boat or ship from so high up.
But Mrs Dalelah insisted to the paper: ´I know what I saw. I am convinced that I saw the aircraft. I will not lie. I had just returned from my pilgrimage.´
A large part of what she thought was an aircraft was submerged, she said. When she tried to tell an air stewardess what she had seen, she was told to get some sleep.
When her plane landed at Kuala Lumpur at about 4pm on that Saturday she told her children what she had seen. ´That is when they told me that MH370 had gone missing,´ she told the paper.
´My son-in-law, a policeman, was convinced that I had seen an aircraft and asked me to lodge a police report the same day.
´Many of my friends on the flight doubted me at first, but they are beginning to believe me now that we know the plane (MH370) turned back and entered the Indian Ocean.´
The agency co-ordinating the exhaustive search operation for MH370 still holds out hope of finding people alive, as authorities scramble to cover the massive 600,000 square-kilometre (230,000 square-mile) search area.
