Malaysia Plane: Girlfriend of Missing American ‘Cautiously Pessimistic’
Published at
The Wood Family(NEW YORK) — Not knowing what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is what pains the girlfriend of American passenger Philip Wood the most.
Twelve days after the flight disappeared en route to Beijing, Sara Bacj told ABC News she is “cautiously pessimistic” as she waits to find out whether debris found in the southern part of the Indian Ocean may be from the missing Boeing 777.
“I am prepared to find him,” Bacj said. “And I am prepared to find he is not with us anymore. I am a little less prepared to not know. The risk of not knowing is what frightens me the most.”
Search crews were deployed after two objects that may be related to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight were spotted by satellite, officials said, and described the sighting as the “best lead we have right now.”
Wood, an IBM executive, had been traveling to Beijing to help Bacj, a business teacher at an international school, move to Kuala Lumpur, where the couple planned to begin their new life together.
“My heart is in my throat,” Back said. “I don’t want it to be parts of the plane, because I have been holding out that the passengers are still alive. I believe Phillip is still alive. And if it is parts of the plane, that kind of dashes that hope.”
While no word of what happened to the jetliner has been hard, Bacj said the “horrible process” of wading through speculation and false leads has taken its toll.
“Ambiguity is a painful thing to go through. At least if you can start a grieving cycle, that cycle may last a very long time but at least you can begin it,” she said. “But when you don’t know, the wound just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Not only can it not start to heal, but it actually gets worse.”
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio