Hopefully…but it’s been over nine months since MH370 disappeared without a trace. Those poor families.
I’m assuming at this point that the authorities will be looking for wreckage?
I just saw a tweet that was six hours old that said authorities had confirmed it would be out of fuel, having only 4.5 hours worth when it disappeared.
That’s what I assumed. Oh dear. 
It’s nighttime over here now, and they’ve called off the search until morning.
That’s literally true, but it’s kind of one of those spirit-of-the-law versus letter-of-the-law things. AirAsia Malaysia has something like a 49.8% share of the Indonesian subsidiary if memory serves. And the reason for having the subsidiary is to get around protectionist rules in Indonesia that strongly favor domestic airlines. It’s an expansion strategy for the Malaysian airline, nothing more.
I fly AirAsia along the Jakarta-Singapore route very frequently. The flights are kind of a pain in the ass; they leave from an unpleasant terminal at Jakarta’s airport, they are often jam-packed with people who don’t fly often (the airline’s motto is something like “Now everyone can fly!”) and who don’t understand travel etiquette, and it is pretty much a given that they’ll be late. But they’re amazingly cheap; I’ve paid as little as $50 for my ticket.
Well, that’s CNN done for the foreseeable future.
I assume CNN has been on this story (nearly) non stop for about 13.5 hours now.
I tuned in at 11:30 ET and channel surfed there about three times an hour when I have been awake.
Just how much can they talk about at this point without repeating it. And how many times can they say getting the black boxes are critical?
Floating beacons are not part of the equipment. There is some effort being spent now on developing specifications for designing & eventually certifying and perhaps even mandating such things. But it’ll be years to decades before they’re commonplace.
This one is pretty scary for me personally, since I visited Surabaya (where the missing airplane took off from) only five months ago. Flew into Surabaya, stayed for a few weeks, and then flew out of Surabaya, just like this plane did.
Sure, any plane can disappear that takes off from any location (technically), but when it took off from a city you just left, by plane, not long ago, it just really feels much more terrifying.
I had hope it and all the people would be found okay at first, but now that it’s a day later, that feeling has mostly sank.
What a terrifying end; I can barely get my mind around it.
Malaysian Ambassador Datuk Othman Hashim: “There is another matter… one I’m reluctant to…”
US Ambassador Joseph Y. Yun:…“Please.”
Malaysian Ambassador Datuk Othman Hashim: “One of our airliners, an Airbus A320-200a, was last reported in the area of the Java Sea. We have not heard from her for some time…”
US Ambassador Joseph Y. Yun:… “Datuk, you’ve lost another airliner…?”
I was under the understanding that airlines do most significant maintenance in their home airport. Maybe the Indonesian branch does it in Indonesia.
MH17’s crash was significantly the beancounters fault, unlike most airlines, they took a shortcut through an active warzone to save fuel. Where else would they skimp? Counselling for stressed pilots? Maintenance?
I think it is not racist to bring up amok culture. Even with screening, pilots have a very high suicide rate, and a thankfully rare culture of taking others with them is something to change.
Their share proportion in Thai AirAsia is about the same, but the Thai authorities take aviation very seriously. Again, I don’t know about Indonesia, but it’s pretty clear the Thai portion calls the shots up here.
Very sad. This from the Bangkok Post:
**"Nias Adityas, a housewife from Surabaya, was overcome with grief when she found the name of her husband, Nanang Priowidodo, on the list.
"The 43-year-old tour agent had been taking a family of four on a trip to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia’s Lombok island, and had been happy to get the work.
“'He just told me, ‘Praise God, this new year brings a lot of good fortune,’ Adityas recalled, holding her grandson tight while weeping uncontrollably.”**
You have implied that a Malaysian pilot is more likely to commit suicide by plane crash than a pilot of another nationality, because of a culturally ingrained tendency. If that’s not racist (and I think it is), at the very least the notion that “there is a link between the recent loss of air flights from Malaysian airlines and amok culture” is … silly.
One reason this bugs me so much is that I have a small bit of insight into what’s unsafe about flying in SE Asia. A couple of years ago I produced a journal on the subject of civil aviation in Indonesia, and as a result of my efforts someone gave me a safety training book for pilots who fly in Indonesia. I’m kind of morbid so I read it avidly from cover to cover. It consisted of stories, told in a dry and factual manner, about plane crashes in Indonesia. Pilots were to read each story and figure out why the crash occurred. After figuring out their own answer and discussing it with other pilots, they could read what the post-crash investigation revealed. Mechanical failure, bad weather, hazardous terrain, pilot error, poorly maintained runways - these things all tended to be factors. Not a single investigation implicated a suicidal pilot, despite the fact that the concept of “amok” is as closely tied to Indonesia as to Malaysia.
Further, there are a host of technical reasons why flying in Indonesia is not as safe as in some other parts of the world, related mostly to out-of-date equipment that is used for air traffic management, institutional capacity, and training. None of these has anything to do with “amok culture.”
I see what you did there!
I know an American couple who lived on one of the lesser Indonesian islands because the husband was an engineer on a big project, and the wife has told me some pretty horrible stories along those lines. (The husband is back on another island now, working on another project. I was somewhat relieved to see he was apparently not on the plane.) Thankfully, my own experiences flying within Indonesia have been uneventful.
Your second paragraph makes me doubt it was a factor, but it isn’t a bad thing to consider it.
If there are signs that point to amok as a possibility, sure. But if it’s the first thing that springs to someone’s mind, when they don’t have any special knowledge of civil aviation issues or cultural norms in the region, and we all still have zero knowledge of what caused this particular incident - well, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Having said that, I’m willing to believe it’s possible you honestly don’t have any preconceived notions/stereotypes about Asians and that I read your comment in a way you didn’t mean. Personally, I think it’s better if people don’t use “amok” as the go-to explanation for events in the region that show no evidence of that as a cause. It’s insulting even if you don’t mean it that way.
(Apologies if I’m coming on too strong. I have lived about 17 years in Indonesia and I’ve probably “gone native” a bit.)
The Bermuda Triangle has been relocated.