Two years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished from radar screens, investigators say they still believe the missing airliner will be found. The search operation to find the plane is expected to be completed later this year, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Tuesday. "We remain hopeful that MH370 will be found in the 120,000-square-kilometre area under investigation," Najib said. If it isn't, officials said, Malaysia, Australia and China will meet to determine the next step. The plane disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard. All of them are presumed dead, but some family members say they're still holding out hope. According to Malaysia Airlines, 118 families have started legal proceedings. Last week a team of experts traveled from Malaysia to Mozambique to examine a piece of debris that may have come from MH370. The piece of debris, which came from the horizontal part of an airliner's tail, was found by an American tourist in Mozambique and turned over to national authorities. Officials haven't said yet whether that plane part matches up. Najib said the lingering questions aren't lost on officials. "We remain committed to doing everything within our means to solving what is an agonizing mystery for the loved ones of those who were lost," he said. "On this most difficult of days, our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who will never be forgotten."<br/>
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Nearly every day, the retired factory worker goes to the airline office, riding a series of buses across Beijing to hand-deliver a letter. And nearly every day, the letter says the same thing. "Tell us the truth, and get our loved ones back to us." Once she hands over the letter, Dai Shuqin gets back on the bus and goes home, back to a small apartment where boxes hold copies of hundreds of letters she has delivered over the past two years, all begging for news on her sister and four other relatives who vanished when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared on March 8, 2014. Most of the passengers on the plane, which was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, were Chinese. So across China, dozens of families are still wrestling with how — or if — to accept that their relatives are dead. Investigators believe the Boeing 777 crashed in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean, killing everyone on board after flying far off course and running out of fuel. But they have only theories to explain exactly what happened, or why. Only one confirmed piece of plane wreckage has been found, a battered, rowboat-sized wing part that washed up on an Indian Ocean island about eight months ago. Some of the grieving families have filed lawsuits, including 12 families who did so Monday. Some have accepted cash settlements with MAS in exchange for agreeing not to file suit. Many are still debating what to do. And some, like Dai, find their only solace comes in believing that their relatives are still alive. Many relatives believe the real story of MH370 has been hidden from them. They disagree on what may have happened, debating theories and trading facts and rumors. But few believe they know the entire truth.<br/>
Two years after two air crashes that left its brand in tatters, Malaysia Airlines is still a company in limbo. The loss of two Boeing 777s just months apart in 2014 triggered a much needed state bailout for the already loss-making carrier. It cut a third of its staff, grounded its Boeing 777-200s and scrapped its less profitable long-haul routes. As a result of those efforts - and low oil prices - the group says it will reach its target to turn a profit in 2018, the same year its German boss, Christoph Mueller, ends a three-year contract. But some analysts and executives question a bet on a narrow, regional business model they say could leave it struggling to compete with regional rivals. They say Mueller and his team are not paying enough attention to the airline's long-term strategy in the face of intense competition from southeast Asian rivals Singapore Airlines, Garuda Indonesia and Air Asia - particularly if the airline continues to lose pilots, engineers and middle managers. "Apart from shedding jobs, cutting its fleet size and renegotiating vendor contracts, it would appear nobody envisions what the airline might look like in 10 years' time," said Shukor Yusof, founder of Malaysia-based consultancy Endau Analytics. Malaysia Airlines was struggling with a high cost base and low yields even before 2014, but its troubles deepened after March that year, when flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. In July 2014, flight MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over Ukraine, killing all 298 on board.<br/>
The Dutch-led team carrying out a criminal investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 says it soon should determine the exact launch site of the missile that brought down the plane, killing all 298 people on board. But Fred Westerbeke, the prosecutor leading the international probe, warned Monday that completing the investigation would take much longer. He declined to name a possible finishing date. After briefing relatives of victims on the investigation, Westerbeke pledged to complete the investigation "as quickly as possible, if only because of the frustration among the families." A Dutch civil investigation concluded that the plane was downed by a Soviet-designed Buk surface-to-air missile.<br/>
A major security alert took place at London's Heathrow airport when an intruder allegedly locked himself in the cockpit of an empty airliner. It's claimed the man breached security on Saturday morning by scaling a perimeter fence, breaking through a cordon and climbing aboard a parked British Airways Boeing 747. He then allegedly fled from the cabin of the passenger jet into the cockpit and locked himself behind the bombproof doors. The high-security doors are designed to protect the pilot and co-pilot in the event of a terrorist attack or mid-flight highjacking attempt. The police are reported to have been called to the scene at 11.30 a.m. on Saturday. London's Metropolitan Police confirmed in a statement that a 38-year-old man, Louis Pedro Verdasca dos Santos Costa, will appear in court on Monday. He's charged with unlawfully being airside, and of unlawfully being on an aircraft.<br/>