Missing Airliner
Like the firefighters arriving on scene after grass has grown over the foundation outlines of a burnt-down house, this blog comes to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mystery nearly ten years after the event. The Boeing 777 with 239 souls aboard disappeared from the global airline tracking systems in March of 2014. It had taken a very odd course before it vanished, leaving international puzzlement and days of live cable news coverage in its wake. At least, until the world forgot about it and found something else to obsess over.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, on March 8, 2014, destined for Beijing, China. After leaving Malaysian airspace and crossing onto the South China Sea on the expected route, the flight abruptly changed course from NNE to almost due West, crossing back over the Malay Peninsula. After a course adjustment slightly more to WNW where ground radar still tracked the flight, it disappeared from radar tracking, and the identifying flight transponders had been disabled. As was determined later using satellite telemetry, the plane had turned to a southwesterly direction for the vast emptiness of the south Indian Ocean. The Wikipedia entry on the subject provides a comprehensive overview.
On her YouTube show and Sirius/XM podcast, Megyn Kelly recently made this disaster into an episode of what she is calling the “Hot Crime Summer” series. The inspiration for reviewing the story was a recent Netflix special, which apparently had little to recommend it. For Kelly’s podcast, she interviewed William Langewiesche, aviator and journalist, who wrote the definitive long-read story (unfortunately paywalled) of the event for The Atlantic in 2019. Below is the YouTube version of the podcast:
The audio podcast is here:
As I recall from having read the Atlantic story when it was first published, Langewiesche provides a level-headed analysis that accounts for the available evidence—at least the reliable evidence, excluding some of the more other-worldly claims. The interview discussion sticks to the technical details, while also touching on the political and politico-cultural contexts of the Malaysian and Chinese governments in how they have handled the investigation: by covering up whatever they could.
It isn’t giving away too much to say that this and similar airline crashes caused by a suicidal pilot are among the largest incidents of mass murder in the world today. We also get a sense of the vast emptiness of the southern Indian Ocean, and the oceanic depths there. As a bonus is a discussion of air turbulence: the aspect of air flight that scares passengers more than anything else, even though modern airplanes can handle the bumpiness.
The story and interview make for a good listen, even if there is a bit of cross-talk probably due to a slight communication lag.
Good morning!
Re turbulence: I was on a short flight from Augusta to Raleigh one summer. The flight was mostly empty - me, a couple of flight attendants talking about one's wedding plans, a middle aged man are what I remember. We hit turbulence. I was a bit worried, looked around to figure out what to do (I don't have a lot of flying experience).
The flight attendants continued to talk wedding plans, but the look on the face of the lone man was priceless: he was smiling with just an edge of tension, soaking in the thrill, perhaps remembering flights past. The memory of the joy on his face still makes me smile.
Nothing to worry about.
I am outraged and I hope you will all join me in expressing your disappointment. A like will do. It is 10AM here and still no report from Biker Chick on her riding journey. What's up with this?