Story highlights
Lee Khim Fatt promised his two children he'd bring their mother home
His wife, a Malaysia Airlines flight attendant, has been missing for three weeks
With little information from authorities, he turns to media for updates
He wants to give his children answers, but has none
The children keep asking when their mother is coming home.
Lee Khim Fatt doesn’t know what to tell them.
It’s been more than three weeks since his wife, a flight attendant on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, disappeared along with 238 others when the jet vanished mid-flight.
“I told them mummy’s going to take a bit longer to come home this time, and I even promised them I’m going to bring her home,” Lee says.
His eyes fill with tears as he explains his plight. It’s a promise he’s not sure he can keep.
“I really don’t know where she is now,” he says, “and now I am not sure whether I could bring her home.”
Lee and his wife, Foong Wai Yueng shared a happy life together, raising their 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son.
They met 20 years ago when she was just 19. He was her first boyfriend. Without her, Lee says he’s lost his direction.
An 18-year Malaysia Airlines veteran, she loved to fly around the world.
The destinations were different, he says, but her returns home were always the same.
“Every time she came back, definitely she got something for the kids,” he says. “This is what she loved to do.”
Quest for answers
Dozens of anguished relatives Sunday demanded that Malaysian authorities provide them with evidence of the fate of their loved ones aboard the missing Boeing 777.
“We want evidence, we want truth and we want our family,” they chanted at a news conference outside a Kuala Lumpur hotel.
While many of the passengers’ families are staying together in hotels, Lee remains at his home waiting for information about the missing flight.
On Sunday, the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 turned up fresh potential clues as an Australian aircraft spotted four orange objects in the water. But investigators haven’t yet confirmed whether the objects were from the airliner, which officials believe went down in the southern Indian Ocean.
Lee said he hears from Malaysia Airlines just once or twice a day, by phone or text message.
He’s angry at how the airline has handled the ordeal. Even though his wife was part of the cabin crew, he says he gets more information from the media than the airline. He watches the near-daily press conferences on television.
“The airline management only call us or have some briefing with us, you know, and then they tell us the same thing again as what the press conference told,” he complained.
His frustration has led in part to his decision to hire a Chicago-based law firm. They’ve filed a petition on his behalf, seeking records from Boeing and Malaysia Airlines.
Amid the confusion, Malaysia said it has done its best with what it has.
“History will judge us as a country that has been very responsible,” Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s acting transportation minister, said.
The waiting for the families has not been easy. Lee wants the truth about what happened to MH370. He wants something to tell his daughter, when she asks what happened to her mother. Most of all he wants his wife to come home.
“Of course I’m still hoping for god’s miracles,” he says.
Families turn grief into action
CNN’s Steve Almasy and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.
