Malaysia has come under international scrutiny over its handling of the missing commercial airliner MH370 which went missing on Saturday morning. The Beijing bound flight suddenly lost contact and had never been seen since.
I have to admit, Malaysia has done quite many embarrassing mistakes. Failing to inform that the plane might remain airborne might have wasted lots of efforts and assets. And then we have
bomohs who ridiculously claimed that the plane was hijacked by spirits, and is either in air or under the sea. And then Malaysia Airlines allowed two passengers using stolen passports to enter the plane, having no idea how they bypassed the security undetected. And how the air force in Malaysia allowed a plane to fly pass unquestioned while military radar had picked up the traces is really disturbing.
Of course, Malaysia should be strongly lambasted.
But then, think carefully. This incident is totally unprecedented. Never in the world history a plane was deliberately diverted with malicious intent, or at least that's what the preliminary investigation indicates. Having the plane transponder switched off and contact cut off, the plane smartly diverted its path and turned back to Peninsular Malaysia and moved forward to other location instead.
To say the truth, with 25 countries now involved in the investigation, I really doubt Malaysia can hide much. Maybe Malaysia can lie to the public, but they can't lie to the investigative team.
And to be honest, I don't think Malaysia needs to release all information publicly if they deem certain are unnecessary. After all, the case is categorised as a terrorism act, and releasing information to the public would alert the terrorist and probably thwart any rescue mission.
Right now I believe Malaysia has done a great job. Using information gleaned from satellite alone to locate a missing aircraft was called unprecedented and was greatly eulogised as "thinking outside of box" as the satellite information was never designed to be used to search an aeroplane. However, given the limitation of data, the Malaysia authority has only managed to narrow down to two corridors: a Northern corridor, and a Southern corridor, both seem like an unlikely corridors for the plane to manoeuvre as the Northern corridor appears to be risky and does not appear to allow a plane to fly pass undetected, while the Southern corridor literally goes to nowhere and it is a great question why would a plane would bother to fly there, unless it never planned to land and decided to drive the plane straight down to the seabed, killing everyone on board.
However, everything is speculative, and investigation is still ongoing.
Despite a multitude of flaws and contradictory remarks, I personally find Malaysia has done a decent job. After all, Malaysia, or any other countries, has never been prepared for this kind of unexpected incident, and to react a little nervously seemed appropriate to me.
However, if Malaysia did make a huge mistake where it potentially let a rescue chance slip by, then Malaysia deserves to be criticised heavily.
I also wish to point out that during a media statement, those who are not aviation experts should refrain from talking. Najib should never represent MAS to speak as he is not an aviation expert and he might not deliver the message correctly as he does not know the plane. You don't see Barack Obama releasing media statement regarding H1N1 outbreak in 2009, do you? It's WHO that made the statements, because they are the experts, and they know the best. Asking anyone who isn't an expert in that field would be adding confusion as lack of professionalism brings along contradictory or confusing remarks which will only further aggravate the already messed up situation.
I wish MH370 could be found quickly and that everyone on board is found safe and sound. However, like I have said earlier, the prospect to find a survivor seems pretty dim and to unravel the mystery behind its disappearance appears to be a difficult mission.
