Malaysia says plane crashed. But why and howIJ
Confirmation about the fate of the Malaysian Airlines flight that disappeared over two weeks ago should have ideally brought a sense of closure, not just to the loved ones of those on board the Boeing 777 but also to the millions across the world tracking the story with keen interest. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, with several questions remaining unanswered and new ones having been raised since Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak made the announcement. On Monday, he said that it was fairly certain that MH370 had “ended in the southern Indian Ocean... far from any possible landing sites”. And that was it. No one knows yet how the airplane “ended”. Authorities have calculated that the jet, which had departed from Kuala lumpur for Beijing, was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca and its communications systems disabled. But they have no idea why this was done or what happened afterwards. All options — terrorism, mechanical failure, mentally sick passenger or pilot, or a combination of these factors — remain on the table.
To make matters worse, the authorities are now also faced with irate family members upset with them for not handling the situation with adequate care and sensitivity. Many of them feel that they were shut out of the search operations. As fresh leads appeared each day, only to turn into dead ends later, and conspiracy theories flew thick and fast, family members found themselves on a gut-wrenching, emotional roller-coaster ride every day for more than two weeks. Now as they seek to cope with the certainty of loss and death, they are also understandably infuriated by reports of how the authorities failed to coordinate among themselves. This in itself has produced yet another set of conspiracy theories, with many wondering if there was an elaborate cover-up operation.
Much of the anger has been directed at the Malaysian Government which, by most accounts, appeared inefficient, uncooperative and unwilling to accept help from other (better equipped) agencies. For instance, it is now reported that the British satellite firm, Inmarsat, which finally zeroed in on the southern Indian Ocean location, knew that MH370 had flown along one of the two “corridors” that, only later, became the focus of the investigation, within a day off the airplane's disappearance. Inmarsat, working with the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, initially shared that information with a Swiss aviation IT company, but it was not until March 12 that the Malaysian authorities were brought into the loop. The latter then sat on the information for three days before informing the public, even as extensive search operations carried on in the wrong places. Finally, on March 18, it was announced that the search area had been narrowed 2,000 miles west of Perth, Australia. Meanwhile, the Americans have complained that Kuala lumpur ignored their analysis for several days. Similarly, the French too have said that their offer to help was ignored despite their experience with the Air France flight that crashed in 2009 and was found only two years later. The Chinese, who lost the maximum number of citizens on MH370, seem to be most angry with the Malay authorities, whom they blame for not having shared all the crucial information.