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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

The mystery crashes of Malaysia Airlines

It has not been a good year for Malaysia Airlines.

Two planes down in 131 days. Flight 370 disappeared March 8 on a flight to ?Beijing, a mystery ripped right out of “Lost.”

Now Flight 17 was downed Thursday over Ukraine in a missile strike.

Still, these tragedies deserve reflection. If there is one thing we can take away from them, it’s that there is great suffering in mystery.

It is a horrible thing to lose someone. Worse still is to lose them in an unknown way. Closure is important in moving past grief, and I have sympathy for every person who lost a friend or ?family member on board Flight 370.

It didn’t help that the media covered the disappearance nonstop for weeks, exploring every little guess someone had. Nothing turned up, and while the ?affected can assume the plane crashed somewhere, they can’t be sure.

The friends and families of Flight 17 have their own kind of mystery. They know where the plane went down, but who launched the missile and why remains unknown. Blame is being thrown around, and while the U.S. believes ?pro-Russian separatists could be behind the attack, it’s still unclear.

It doesn’t help the separatists’ case that some believe they are tampering with the crash site, but their guilt is not confirmed.

It is possible we will never know exactly who ordered the missile strike, or what their reasons were. And as long as we don’t, those who knew the 298 who are now dead will ?wonder.

What hits home for us is that one of the passengers on Flight 17 was IU student Karlijn Keijzer. Her death brings us closer to the ?tragedy and reminds us that even events that happen across oceans can be felt anywhere.

The mysteries tied to these events make them more difficult to endure. They get into our heads. It’s hard to not wonder about the possibilities.

How does a plane just disappear? With all our satellites and radar, shouldn’t we be able to find it? And who destroys a passenger plane? How would they benefit?

These questions make those affected lose sleep. Mysteries frustrate us. They make us imagine crazy and horrible possibilities, throw out accusations and do ?anything we can to come up with an explanation.

The unknown can be dangerous. When we do not have an answer, our ?imaginations can get the better of us.

But pure guessing will not help. Tragedy is hard enough to get through ?without additional pain.

Moving on is only possible if you let go and keep ?moving forward. If you let yourself be consumed by something such as these crashes, it will eat at your life.

Whatever happened on those flights, we should try to move past them.

Sometimes bad things ?happen for no reason.

The world is a crazy, ?chaotic place. You can’t get too caught up in its randomness, or you’ll drive yourself crazy.

If solid proof comes out, then of course circumstances change, and we can look at these plane crashes in a ?different light.

Until then, it is useless to speculate. It will just cause more pain.

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