It took nearly 2 years to find and recover the flight recorders. Once they were analyzed, the results were shocking: the pilots flew a perfectly good aircraft into the ocean after a relatively minor technical fault. It had a major impact on pilot training and procedures across the globe.
That's why they'll keep searching for MH370. Beyond closure for the families, there's a chance that there was something in that crash that we all need to know.
Note that with AF447 we had a very good idea where it had sunk (from finding debris 36 hours after it was presumed crashed), and it still took two years to find the wreck.
MH370 is orders of magnitude harder to find, and AF447 was a huge effort.
For example, consider another flight that disappeared mysteriously over the ocean: Air France 447.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
It took nearly 2 years to find and recover the flight recorders. Once they were analyzed, the results were shocking: the pilots flew a perfectly good aircraft into the ocean after a relatively minor technical fault. It had a major impact on pilot training and procedures across the globe.
That's why they'll keep searching for MH370. Beyond closure for the families, there's a chance that there was something in that crash that we all need to know.