What unites the first airliner to go missing in 1931 with the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 is simple geography. As big as today’s airliners are, they are infinitesimally small in comparison to the vast, often-uninhabited places over which they fly. The Australian National Airlines flight of the plane named the Southern Cloud departed Sydney for Melbourne on March 21, 1931 but never arrived. Eighty-three years later, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing and likewise, was never seen again. In both events, mysteries seemed to multiply and unsubstantiated stories blended with likely possibilities until fact and fiction were inseparable. Much has changed… Read More…

Having nothing new to say is usually the fastest way to obscurity. That is not the case with the release Monday of the final report into Malaysia Flight 370, the Boeing 777 that disappeared along with 239 people on a flight to Beijing four and a half years ago. It took the Malaysian air accident investigators 400 plus pages to conclude it is “unable to determine the real cause” of the accident. There are however, shards of new information in the report. These buttress the theory that the loss of this airplane was due to the not-unprecedented problem of pilot incapacitation due to oxygen starvation…. Read More…

My post on Forbes.com last week suggesting the number of clues on the ground that could shed light on what happened to Malaysia Flight 370, generated much interest but particularly the suggestion that a new independent group be selected to give a fresh eyes view to the case. This idea came from Peter Fiegehen, an air traffic control specialist from Australia who also worked with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. Peter suggests a small team not previously connected to the investigation could be effective. The problem is that ICAO Annex 13 which provides guidance to air safety authorities can be interpreted in such a way that it excludes outsiders. “States… Read More…

America is often referred to as a cultural melting pot but I give the Malaysians credit; they’ve got the go-along/get-along thing down to an art. Just like Singapore, their next door neighbor, Malaysians are a mix of Indian, Chinese and Malay. Skin color ranges from dark to light and the three big religions, Christian, Muslim and Hindu are represented with sizable and well-visited houses of worship.   The downtown Holy Light Presbyterian Church in Johor Bahru at the southern most end of the country, takes up an entire city bloc with sanctuary, school, sports fields and meeting space. The nearby Hindu temple is ringed by stalls selling strings… Read More…