KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 1 — Nine months have passed since Malaysia Airlines’ flight MH370 flew off the radar without a single tangible clue, weighing heavily on the lives of the families and friends of the 239 people aboard.

While the rest of the world looks forward to new beginnings in 2015, the families and friends are caught up in a sort of Groundhog Day, grasping unverified theories that the jetliner, presumed lost in the deepest depths of the southern Indian Ocean, is being kept in a secret location with its human cargo intact.

“I don’t know what else to do,” said Lokman Mustafa, older brother of Suhaili Mustafa, an engineer with Freescale Semiconductor who had boarded the red-eye flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing that went missing in the early hours of March 8 last year.

Suhaili, 31, is the youngest of four children, and “the apple of their mother’s eye”, according to her brother.

“My mother still holds on to hope that my sister is around... but sometimes it is as if mother has accepted she is lost; other times she prays for Suhaili’s safe return.

“Without anything concrete, I can’t reason with my mother and I can’t fault her for believing in conspiracies,” Lokman told Malay Mail Online.

His baby sister had been a pillar of strength for their 60-year-old mother, Rohana Mohd Lazim.

“They do everything together... they were best friends... Suhaili took care of our mother’s every need,” Lokman added.

A multi-nation search team, led by the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau have been mapping the sea bed of the world’s third largest body of water, which covers some 55,000sqkm and is almost 6,000m deep.

Despite the latest technological equipment chipped in by the multitude of countries that include sophisticated aircraft and satellite communications firms, no trace has been found nor any physical clue to indicate how the plane mysteriously diverted from its eastward flight path to Beijing, towards the west and south over the Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed after running out of fuel over 1,000 miles to the southwest of Australia’s eastern coast.

With no development after so many months, some of the kith and kin have found comfort in a host of theories including one that suggested the jetliner was possibly shot down by the US military near Diego Garcia, a British island in the Indian Ocean that the US allegedly uses as an intelligence and air force base.

Lokman said he now concurs with whichever theory has found favour with the social circle he is with at the moment.

“If one person says the plane was hijacked, I just agree with them... and if someone else says that my sister is no longer in this planet, I also agree to it,” he said.

The despair was intensified when another MAS aircraft, MH17, was downed in Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17 killing all 298 people on board, he added.

“But at least we know they all died... it doesn’t take away the pain or it is any less, but at least we know,” he said.

The year ended with news of another Malaysian brand name airline vanishing from the radar in the early hours of December 28, bringing with it the nightmare of Flight MH370 all over again.

In an eerie replay, an Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore lost contact with air traffic control mid-flight over the Java Sea.

“I really hope they don’t have to go through what we are facing... the wait has taken a toll on all of us,” said Lokman.

The fate of the AirAsia plane was confirmed just over 48 hours later when Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency found debris and bodies in the waters 160km southwest of Pangkalan Bun in central Kalimantan, Indonesia.

For wife of MH370 in-flight supervisor Patrick Gomes, Jacquita Gonzales, time is occupied with work at a day-care her daughter runs and attending to family matters.

“Every day the thought comes and tears fall, but you’ve just got to pick yourself up right after and go on,” the mother of three told Malay Mail Online.

While Gomes’ absence has put the family through an “emotional rollercoaster”, especially during Christmas, Gonzales said having a routine has kept the family going.

“I don’t know if I want them to find the plane in the depth of the sea or just keep believing that they are safe somewhere and continue to live on,” she added.

But going on without Gomes has been tough, Gonzales said, adding that her husband had managed much of the household.

“For instance, I had called the network asking if they could make me the principal account holder because my husband is the main subscriber but they insisted that he has to call them to make the change even after I explained the situation.

“I told them if they can find him, do let me know because we would like to see him as well,” she said drily.

Both Lokman and Gonzales related that a representative of the national carrier had spoken to the families several months ago asking if they would want a death certificate to be issued.

The suggestion was, however, scuttled when more than 80 per cent of the families responded with a resounding no; they felt that by declaring all 239 were lost at sea the search might be called off.

“Some are having hard time trying to run their businesses... and the death certificate would make life easier but the government could just offer a letter explaining the problem.

“We are not going to give them that trump card so that they don’t have to feel obligated... they said the search will go on. The 239 people are still out, so we will wait this out,” said Gonzales.

“For us, the year that is 2014 is going to continue... for a long time,” she added.