How to Lose a Plane

There are several items we use on the daily that seem very easy to lose; phone, wallet, keys, maybe your watch, but how about that Boeing 777 with 227 people. Of all things I would see in my time, one was not seeing a plane of that size just completely vanish without a trace.

Some seven months ago now I remember following this story very closely and seeing the grip on the search slip right through our hands. This event really shows the importance of having quality standards to follow with the importance being on that you actually follow them! To me it sounded like a bad judgment call back on that day to not check out the situation as soon as they lost contact and the gps of the plane. That was just the first lack of adhering to standards. From what I could gather from the news reports, they waited something like 4 hours to check out the situation and then had another delay in sending out the search party. Although something like this thankfully does not happen often, when we do hit a situation like this we need to make sure that we handle it with the utmost care and use the standards put in place to deal with it. IT is very much relate to fire alarms and the drills we have every so often. Even though most cases are false alarms or drills, we have to take them seriously in the event of that one time out of a million.

After the entire beginning of this event was botched, we had created quite the task ahead of us for the search that would soon become the hardest geometry and math problem some specialists have ever had. Using what we hoped was good information from a few pings of the airplane and the range left in the Boeing 777, we had to find where in the world is MH 370. These tough calculations of course take time to get right, therefore pushing us back even further on a distinct search zone, therefore wasting valuable time, and expensive time also. Several countries spent millions of dollars aiding in the search. The next error, unintentional or not, that I see is the slow pace at which the airline decided to release important information such as the cockpit transmission or the cargo manifest and other important stats on the plane and exactly what was on it. All of these delays and bad calls and mystery behind this plane has led to a mess that someone has to step in and clean up, which may take longer than anyone ever expected.

With the way everything has unfolded through this story, it has left many to create theories on their own, even the scientists and experts. Did it actually land in the water? CEO of Emirates Airline, Tim Clark seems to not think so. In a recent article he has expressed his thoughts that the plane may have never been in the water seeing as there has not been a single piece of debris found. He states that the plane has several components that are plastic and non-absorbent and would therefore float indefinitely. If there were a crash there should be pieces all over, and if there miraculously a safe water landing, I’m sure a search plane would have seen a floating plane in the ocean.

All starting from not adhering to just a few standards in this emergency situation has caused a massive ball of miscommunication, stress, confusion, and theory. It seems as though we may never find MH 370 now. You can bet that the standards to dealing with situations such as these will be looked at, revised, and strongly enforced as well as the technical details of planes and the tracking hardware inside.  

http://flightclub.jalopnik.com/airline-ceo-knight-says-mh370-may-not-be-under-water-1647944102

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/22/who-gagged-the-search-for-mh370.html