Posts with the tag ‘MH370’


First Airliner to Disappear is Found – 60 Years Later a Town Remembers

September 12, 2018

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…


Loss of MH370 Less a Mystery Than Headlines Suggest

July 30, 2018

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…


“Bombshell” TV Program on Malaysia 370 Fueled by Alternative Facts

May 17, 2018

In an earlier post, I accused the Australian 60 Minutes program of gender bias by excluding from its  Sunday show on the disappearance of Malaysia 370, the two women who wrote books on the subject, Florence de Changy author of Flight MH370 Did Not Disappear and me. In a lengthy broadcast claiming to feature the world’s “keenest minds”, 60 Minutes featured five men in a rousing exchange of maybes and coulda beens or what is otherwise known in the aviation community as hangar talk. Best to let the men fly this plane because what’s fueling Channel 9’s MH370 coverage is not gender bias but agenda bias with… Read More…


Why No Woman’s Voice in MH370 Discussion?

May 14, 2018

In Sunday’s New York Times, David Leonhardt writes a column in support of listening to women. Published on Mother’s Day, for this mom, it couldn’t be more timely. Leonhardt finds that women experts are underrepresented in the media, citing various studies that show they are quoted about 25 percent of the time. I noted the column and appreciated the sentiment, but that was it. I awoke on Monday to the news that Australia’s 60 Minutes program was again reporting far-fetched theories about what happened to Malaysia 370. Stay with me, these two events are linked. The theory that MH370 was hijacked by its Muslim pilots… Read More…


Australia MH370 Pilot Suicide Theory Flies in the Face of Facts

July 31, 2016

Australia’s news program 60 Minutes told viewers on Sunday that the only possible explanation for the disappearance of Malaysia 370 is “that a skilled pilot deliberately landed the 777 on the water.” Headline-making to be sure, but it’s unlikely to have gone down the way the program suggests. The twenty minute report by correspondent Ross Coulthart, rejuvenates the pilot suicide theory with the help of Larry Vance, who was a senior investigator for the Canadian Transport Safety Board during the crash of Swissair 111 in 1998. The key to the MH370 mystery, according to Vance is in the flaperon, a flight control surface located at the back of the wing…. Read More…


Independent Investigators and Malaysia 370

May 16, 2016

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…


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