Malaysian newspapers ran striking black front pages on Tuesday in tribute to the victims of Flight MH370, which crashed in the southern Indian Ocean with 239 people aboard.
Malaysia’s biggest English-language daily, The Star, ran a stark wrap-around cover emblazoned with the words “MH370 R.I.P.” The names of the victims, rendered in small print, made up the letters of the headline. The New Straits Times’ darkened front page showed an aircraft above the words “Goodnight, MH370” — a reference to the last message from the cockpit, “All right, good night”, before the Malaysia Airlines jet lost contact on March 8.
Malay and Chinese language papers also ran front pages with black backgrounds, while The Sun, an English-language daily, changed its masthead to black.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced on Monday that latest analysis of satellite data showed that the flight, which went missing en route from Kuala lumpur to Beijing, had ended in the southern Indian Ocean. The Star said in an editorial that the relatives’ “long wait for some form of closure has finally arrived”. But it called for unsparing efforts to establish the reasons for the crash.