Early last Saturday morning Malaysia Airlines 370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing, as I’m sure everyone knows by now. I wrote a post shortly thereafter entitled “Reflecting On Airline Safety And What Really Matters In Life.”
The past week, 99% of my attention has gone towards reading about and pondering the incident, and in this community I’m sure I’m not alone. In a way it has been the “elephant in the room” for the blog. Usually I spend my time pondering stuff related to redeeming miles, which I share here, though that has been tougher the past week. But at the end of the day there’s no value I can add to the conversation regarding MH370. For that matter there doesn’t seem to be much value anyone can add. And then you have those just using this to make a political point.
Really you couldn’t write a more mysterious aircraft disappearance story if you tried. That absolutely breaks my heart, since I can only imagine what it’s like for the friends and families of the passengers. It’s one thing to have a family member involved in an incident like this, but it’s another to be stuck in limbo for over a week, with the story of what happened changing by the hour. To the family and friends of those onboard, my thoughts are with you beyond anything I can express.
If this WhatsApp message from a girl to her mom (who was a flight attendant on MH370) doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, I don’t know what will…
Or the Tweets from this girl about her father, who was the purser aboard.
While I don’t want to draw any conclusions, in a way it’s reassuring that it seems as if the incident wasn’t caused by a mechanical fault. If the computers are working properly as consistently as they do, it’s one other “constant” we can rely on for safe air travel.
We of course still don’t know what happened, though I do believe that with every incident we learn something and become safer. So rather than speculate, at this point I can just cross my fingers and hope for the best.
Thank you for posting this Ben. It is truly sad, and as aviation lovers, we can hold no bias towards the people who fly these beautiful birds, whateer their orgins.beliefs are..the ground crew who painlessly assure of our safety, and everyone in between to make the whole experience pleasurable. We can only pray and God be willing they are safe (somewhere) and that they return home to their loved ones, just as we return from each and every flight.
We flew Malaysian Airlines from Tokyo to LAX on Friday. It was creepy. It was the only part of the departure lounge with the CNN News TV turned off, the Malaysian gate was literally roped off from every other gate, and uniformed government officials were everywhere guarding the perimeter. Our passports were checked 4-5 times. This was just when they discovered that 2 passengers were travelling with stolen passports. But if there were EVER an...
We flew Malaysian Airlines from Tokyo to LAX on Friday. It was creepy. It was the only part of the departure lounge with the CNN News TV turned off, the Malaysian gate was literally roped off from every other gate, and uniformed government officials were everywhere guarding the perimeter. Our passports were checked 4-5 times. This was just when they discovered that 2 passengers were travelling with stolen passports. But if there were EVER an elephant in a room, that was it.
I totally agree, after this event the regulatory bodies should look at making these systems tamper proof to avoid the possibility of manual deactivation of the signalling/
transmission systems.
I've been reading everything I can find, too. The story certainly is the strangest, craziest airline mishap story ever. Though the information certainly does point toward something where the pilot(s) must have been involved.
I'm not sure it makes me feel any better if the incident was intentional rather than accidental. If there was an accident, we may be able to find a root cause and fix problems. If it was intentional, that is much...
I've been reading everything I can find, too. The story certainly is the strangest, craziest airline mishap story ever. Though the information certainly does point toward something where the pilot(s) must have been involved.
I'm not sure it makes me feel any better if the incident was intentional rather than accidental. If there was an accident, we may be able to find a root cause and fix problems. If it was intentional, that is much harder to protect against. At a minimum though, there should be steps taken to prevent pilots from shutting down communication systems.
I can't stop reading and fretting over this either. The news that the plane may have landed somewhere in central Asia is heartening, but the chances still seem slim, and even slimmer that the passengers are alive. But I still hold out hope.
I can only imagine how difficult it is for family members to endure the constantly changing and unfolding story. Like living a nightmare that just doesn't end.
What I hope is that the plane landed in a remote area in Vietnam where the people are safe and happy. However the chances of that aren't really fat (no rhyme intended). That "Mamaaaa" girl made the first online picture that made me cry... ;(
This is the most heartbreaking picture I've seen yet:
https://twitter.com/zaqwan01/status/442197522623127552/photo/1
I think the lack of closure is what's most troubling. Since the plane hasn't been found yet, I still hold out hope for survivors out there somewhere.