Why confusion still lingers in hunt for missing Malaysia jet

More than two weeks ago Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 vanished from the face of the Earth. While being handed over from Malaysia to Vietnam, the plane’s transponder that allows controllers to keep track of the plane was switched off.

An unprecedented search and rescue efforts commenced in the area around the flight path, with several countries contributing assets to the search. However, days of searching proved fruitless.

Due to the perennial skirmishes concerning islands or borders, most people assumed that primary radar, which is not reliant on transponders and is expected to pick up small jets, would have picked up the massive aircraft into which you could probably fit 10 fighter planes.

It took about a week for the Malaysian military to confirm that it had indeed picked up such a plane on radar. It took another week for Thailand to add that they too had tracked the missing airliner, information which could have been useful if offered a lot earlier.

Other countries either had their radar switched off or have been silent about the whole issue. Bottom line it seems these people don’t really hate one another as much as they would have us believe.

Finally, a communications company disclosed that the Boeing 777 had sent periodic pings to its satellites for seven hours after it disappeared, just like a mobile phone might periodically check in with a base tower even if no phone calls are being made.

Based on these communications the last known location of the plane was narrowed to a Northern and a Southern arc.

Australian satellites took photos of what appeared to be a section of the missing plane which seemed to even have a picture of the logo. Further mathematical analysis of the satellite information appeared to suggest the plane flew South.

On the strength that evidence and the fact that from this last known position the plane would have had nowhere to land but the ocean, the Malaysian prime minister announced that they believed that the plane had been lost and all on board had perished.

Of course up until a piece of debris that can be definitively linked to the plane is retrieved, this will remain our best guess.

Contradicting

In short after three weeks, the best information we have is that the plane was likely deliberately diverted South by someone with some aviation knowledge. Anything else has as much validity as the meme showing the plane hidden somewhere in Dandora in Nairobi.

The problem has been that the plane disappeared so cleanly. That coupled with the 24 hour news cycle has forced cable networks to advance all manner of contradicting theories.

Various experts have been trotted out to explain minutiae that are irrelevant to the disappearance of the plane. The fact that the Malaysian officials were not media savvy did not help.

The search now is concentrated in an area the size of a country, with some of the worst weather. Hopefully the wreckage will be found so that the families of the passengers can get some closure.

Dr Ondieki is a pilot with an international airline.