Malaysia plane from Malaysia Airlines' flight MH370 has been missing for 11 days. Its mysterious disappearance has left the passengers' relatives clamoring for answers and justice for their loved ones. The unsolved vanishing act of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 resulted in an international search for the Malaysia plane and especially the 239 passengers it carried. Despite the exhaustive search, there are still no signs of the Boeing 777 Malaysia plane.
It is the elephant in the room that nobody dares to speak of, but it cannot be helped. Investigators and reports are now looking into the possibility of the Malaysia plane never being found, and the passengers' relatives must unfortunately face this horrible truth.
Ric Gillespie, a former U.S. aviation accident investigator said, "When something like this happens that confounds us, we're offended by it, and we're scared by it. We had the illusion of control and it's just been shown to us that oh, folks, you know what? A really big airliner can just vanish. And nobody wants to hear that."
Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Security, Andrew Thomas, said that part of the problem in this case is that airline systems are not as complicated as many people perceive. A good example is the antiquated radar tracking technology that airports and airplanes use nowadays. It has been around since the 1950s. If you think modern aviation follows suit with technological advancements in tracking flights like modern GPS systems, then you're wrong.
Thomas said that though using a GPS might not have solved the obscure disappearance of Flight 370 in March 8, it would probably have given searchers a better read on the Malaysia plane's last known location. He added reasons as to why modern technology hasn't been approved. "There are lots of reasons why they haven't changed, but the major one is cost. The next-generation technology would cost $70 to $80 billion in the U.S.", said Thomas.
There may be a possibility of the Malaysia plane not being found at all. But with every dark cloud is a silver lining. Unwanted as this dark cloud may be, experts say the Malaysia plane's disappearance will probably pressure airlines and governments now to improve the way they monitor planes.
Malaysia Plane Flight 370 was gone after it signed off with Malaysian air-traffic controllers, and it never made contact with their Vietnamese counterparts. It's not only the relatives of the passengers who will be facing a huge ache if the Malaysia plane is not found. Courts will be bending over from the difficulty with liability issues. Having no wreckage means not finding out whether the airline, manufacturers or other parties must pay the price.
It was 50 years ago since a plane vanished without a trace. An Argentine military plane with 69 people aboard also disappeared in 1965 and has never been found, according to the Flight Safety Foundation.
The missing Malaysia plane will eventually be found, says experts, but Phaedra Hise, pilot and author of "Pilot Error: The Anatomy of a Plane Crash" have something else in thought. He said, "We know there's a chance that we may never find out what happened. Which is a little scary, isn't it?"
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