Flight MH370: Lessons learned

The mystery surrounding Flight MH370 has especially highlighted the limits of modern aviation technology.

Officials know the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-220ER left the airport with no signs of distress and stopped transmitting data somewhere over the South China Sea, possibly south of Vietnam’s Ca Mau peninsula. The flight was reportedly at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, and the weather was clear. No abnormal calls were made by the first captain, who had 18,000 hours of flying experience under his belt.

What happened next remains unclear mainly because flight data are stored in black boxes (they’re most often actually orange), which go down with the plane in the event of a crash. The boxes only send out emergency signals for about a month after an incident — one of the main problems with relying on the technology.

In the first few days after the plane disappeared, the public’s expectations about what could immediately be known were largely unrealistic. But in an age when information is just a few clicks away, that inclination is hard to fight.

Despite advancements in satellites, radars systems and underwater equipment, finding anything in the deep ocean remains out of range for even the most state-of-the-art tools.

Bluefin21, an autonomous submarine sent into the ocean in April to search for debris from the plane, returned after only six hours of its planned 16-hour mission on the seabed. The unmanned underwater vehicle exceeded its maximum depth limit of 15,000 feet and its built-in safety feature returned it to the surface. Authorities are uncertain how much deeper the Southern Indian Ocean floor is. Ninety-five percent of the world’s ocean floor is unmapped. Bluefin21 was sent in to search for the plane's black box more than a dozen times.

The Southern Indian Ocean is 123,000 square miles wide, and is located far from major territories. 

Despite there being little information to report on the whereabouts of Flight MH370 or what caused it to go missing, some 24-hour cable news networks including CNN remained committed to the story — and saw their ratings jump. Before the plane went missing, CNN’s total day viewership, between Dec. 30 and March 6, in the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic, was 97,000. After the plane went missing, viewership among that demographic shot up to 196,000 between March 7 and March 26, according to the CNN show Reliable Sources.

Ratings boost aside, the network has been criticized heavily for its over-the-top “Breaking News” coverage of the missing airliner, despite having little news to report. CNN has even given in to positing conspiracy theories as to what happened to the plane, including alien abduction and being sucked into a black hole. The criticism didn’t stop the network from employing flight simulators and holograms to illustrate the scant or unconfirmed information.

The demand for answers from family members and news media has led to unconfirmed and false reports, which distracted and deviated search efforts.

One of the early speculations tossed around the word "terrorism," pointing fingers at two passengers on the plane from Iran who traveled with stolen passports. It's not known whether stolen passports had anything to do with the plane’s disappearance, but such oversights aren't actually that rare. Last year, passengers boarded planes more than 1 billion times without their passports being checked against Interpol's database of 40 million stolen or lost travel documents, according to the international police organization based in Lyon, France. Stolen passports are often used for passengers looking for better economic opportunities in other countries.

Six days after the mysterious disappearance of Flight MH370, China announced that three of its satellites had captured images of what could possibly be wreckage from a plane crash. Searchers scrambled to the scene to explore the area, but found no debris or sign of the missing aircraft.

Other false wreckage sightings turned out to be ocean debris.

In the search for Flight MH370, authorities were tipped off with numerous sightings of debris thought to be from the missing plane. Almost all turned out to be trash in the ocean, bringing attention to the massive patches of garbage in oceans around the world.

Marcus Eriksen, a marine scientist and founder of the 5 Gyres Institute, said the Indian Ocean garbage patch covers at least 2 million square miles, with no clear boundaries.

One of the largest patches, situated between Hawaii and California and known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is about the size of Texas.

This year was supposed to be "Malaysia-China Friendship Year," so-designated to commemorate 40 years since diplomatic relations were established between two Asian nations with a placid recent history and a robust economic partnership. Instead, 2014 has been marred by the almost certain demise of 239 victims, including 153 Chinese nationals, aboard Malaysian Airlines flight 370.

Protests have erupted outside the Malaysian embassy in Beijing as the outraged relatives of the missing demand answers about the fruitless search and complain of the incompetence of Malaysian officials, who have periodically released contradictory information about the plane’s whereabouts and about the survival chances of its passengers.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s home minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad, and others have accused China of “stoking the anger” of victims’ families — an apparent effort to curry domestic favor.