'Please don't give up on my son'
The mother of Perth man Paul Weeks, who was aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, says the torment of not knowing what happened to him is even more unbearable one year on from the plane's mysterious dis- appearance.
Prue Tomblin has urged the world not to forget her family and the families of the other 238 people aboard, who are desperate to know the truth about the Beijing-bound flight that vanished mid-air a year ago on Sunday.
She told her family's heartbreaking story as Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament yesterday that he could not promise the Australia-led search of the Southern Indian Ocean for the missing flight would maintain its intensity of the past year.
Ms Tomblin, 58, said that the family knew nothing more of the plane's fate than what emerged soon after it disappeared on March 8 last year - that someone turned off its tracking systems and changed its course.
"I think it's more unbearable now than it was a year ago because we're just totally in limbo," she said.
"You just don't know what to feel, what to think. You stumble through the days thinking how can this be possible?
"It's why we need everyone to not let this die because if it can happen once, it can happen again."
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Mr Weeks, 38, was starting a new job as a project engineer at a goldmine in Mongolia.
A candle burns as relatives of Chinese passengers from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Source: AAP
Ms Tomblin said she found it unbelievable no trace of the jet had yet been found and feared information was being withheld and covered up.
"When expert testimony starts to tell you all's not above board, well it just makes us feel absolutely desperate," she said.
In January, Malaysia officially declared that Flight MH370 was an "accident" and that all 239 passengers and crew had died.
Sir Tim Clark, chief of the world's biggest airline, Emirates, voiced his concerns in November that MH370 was being given up as lost as part of an international cover-up, questioning the lack of debris found.
Ms Tomblin said the past year had been a "living hell" for her and the rest of Mr Weeks' family, including his wife Danica, their two children, Lincoln and Jack, and his 30-year-old brother Peter, a Perth-based lawyer.
She and Peter Weeks were the first of the family to move from Christchurch to Perth in 2011 for a better life.
Later that year, Mr Weeks and his family joined them.
"Everything seemed so perfect - now he's gone," Ms Tomblin said.
