Royal Malay Regiment personnel prepare to carry a coffin with the remains of a Malaysia Airlines inflight supervisor Mohd Ghafar Abu Bakar, a victim of the MH17 plane crash, at the Kuala Lumpur International airport in Sepang on Sunday.

AFP

Chinese physics student Jimmy Wang had no interest in aviation until March 8, when Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing with his 58-year-old father Wang Lijun aboard.

But Wang, 31, now spends evenings in central China combing through aviation blogs for Boeing 777 technical specs, exchanging what he finds with fellow MH370 next-of-kin.

He is one of hundreds of relatives who - desperate to learn the fate of their loved ones - are channeling their grief in a cross-border, social-media-enabled, but so far frustrating citizen campaign to solve aviation's greatest mystery.

"Malaysia Airlines and others are not doing their jobs so we have to organise," Wang, who abandoned graduate studies in Sweden to be with his grieving mother, said via Skype from his home in the city of Anyang.

"I cannot live the rest of my life in questions."

Through Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo - 153 Chinese were aboard MH370 - a closed Facebook group, and Skype "meetings" of up to dozens of people, participants exchange findings, discuss the latest theories, and proposals for group action.

The group, calling itself Voice370 with some 300 members, receives and debates advice from aviation, legal and other experts, while similar groups formed after previous disasters such as the 2009 Air France crash offer support.

While some face-to-face meetings have been held, most exchanges are conducted via webcam or extensive email strings, with members voting on strategies for pushing Malaysia Airlines and governments involved in a still-fruitless search for more information.

In doing so, they juggle time zones and language barriers - "meetings" are held mainly in English, with bilingual Chinese translating for their countrymen.

"It's really quite a community," said Sarah Bajc, an American whose partner Philip Wood was on the flight.

"I feel compelled to do everything in my power to find Philip. We owe it to them."

Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. No trace has been found despite an extensive, Australian-led search in the southern Indian Ocean.

Some next of kin have sharply accused the airline and Malaysian authorities of a bungled response - its military tracked MH370 on radar after it mysteriously diverted, but did nothing - and withholding data from the public.

Yet despite their efforts, families have seen only modest success.

The government is yet to announce any findings of its investigations into MH370.

Its attention is now diverted by the July 17 downing of another Malaysia Airlines passenger jet, MH17, over war-torn eastern Ukraine, a tragedy that also ripped open emotional wounds for many MH370 next-of-kin.

"It's my father. I'm his only son. No matter what happened, we need to bring them back," Wang said. "I think if I don't do this I will feel guilty."

Malaysia Airlines jet turns back

A Malaysia Airlines plane was forced to turn back due to pressure problems inside the aircraft after being in the air for almost an hour, a top aviation watchdog official said on Sunday

Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director-general of the Department of Civil Aviation, told AFP that the plane returned to Kuala Lumpur International Airport because it was unable to maintain the correct pressure inside the aircraft.

"It was not able to maintain the right pressure differential for the comfort of the passengers. It is not a major problem," he said.

Meanwhile, the Star Online reported that the Tokyo-bound flight was 50 minutes into its journey when it was forced to return to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport after taking off at 0250 GMT.

Passengers were subsequently transferred to another plane which departed at 0515 GMT, it said.

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