KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 22 — American Sarah Bajc was to start a new life in Malaysia with her partner, Phillip Wood, but his sudden disappearance along with 238 others aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 nine months ago has thrown a spanner into that wheel.

But Bajc, who now lives in the Kuala Lumpur apartment that she was meant to live with her missing partner, has not given up hope that Wood may be alive and is pouring her energy into uncovering the truth behind the world’s biggest aviation mystery as an international search for the missing jetliner has yet to turn up any debris or clue nine months on.

“I haven’t grieved yet,” she was quoted saying by Wall Street Journal (WSJ) yesterday, which had interviewed several family members of Flight MH370’s passengers.

“I haven’t accepted that he’s dead.…I owe it to him to find out the truth.”

Before the air tragedy this March 8, Bajc and Wood were planning to shift to Kuala Lumpur, with both of them already having plans to work here. On the day of the Beijing-bound flight, the 51-year-old man was due to arrive in China’s capital city and help Bajc clear out their apartment there.

According to WSJ, Bajc recalls sobbing after receiving a March 24 text message from MAS that said MH370 had crashed.

But the following day, Bajc became “mad” as she felt that her son was right in thinking that MAS was “just trying to close the case”, reportedly saying “Anger is a motivating feeling”.

In her efforts to track down the plane and her partner’s location, Bajc had created the “Finding Philip Wood” Facebook page to solicit tips from the public and had also spoken extensively to the media.

According to WSJ, Bajc and several others had also successfully raised money through crowd-sourcing website Indiegogo to engage private investigating agency to find clues on the MH370. The firm has gone to many countries to carry out interviews, Bajc reportedly said.

Bajc also has a spreadsheet with about 300 public tip-offs on MH370 compiled, with the 49-year-old teacher sifting through these data and grading them on their credibility.

She believes that there may be attempts to cover up the truth behind MH370, but MAS has denied doing so.

Still searching and probing , Bajc wants to bring her partner back home “in whatever form that is”, WSJ quoted her saying.

She has yet to give up hope.

“Once you take hope away, it’s like turning off the siren on the ambulance—it’s an admission there’s no hope anymore,” she said. “So we have to just keep pushing.”

Bajc is not the only one. Chinese national Steve Wang told WSJ that he could not accept that the MH370 had crashed.

“I could accept [the plane] is missing, but I cannot accept it has crashed,” Wang was quoted saying. “It is still just like a dream.”

On board the ill-fated flight were 239 passengers and crew members, with 152 of them from China. Wang believes that many of the family members still feel that some of the Chinese passengers may have managed to stay alive.