Image: The Guardian
Should we distrust Malaysia Airlines?
The unprecedented loss of a second Malaysia Airlines aircraft in less than six months from our skies have flyers around the world anxious about both the airline and the aircraft manufacturer, Boeing.
Let’s place ourselves back to about a year ago, where Malaysia Airlines or ‘MAS’ for short was accident-free for around ten years with the last major incident involving fatalities being on 15 September 1995, when a company Fokker 50 overran a runway at Tawau Airport, Sabah and killed 32 of 49 passengers onboard.
The company prides itself on both safety and comfort, one of only the few World’s 5-Star Airlines as awarded by Skytrax research.
When I first read about the news of recently missile-downed, separatist provoked attack on Malaysian Airlines flight 17 around midnight (Perth time) on a Friday morning, I began to question the source, Interfax — a Russian news agency. I scrolled through my Twitter and Facebook feeds as per our normal internet entangled society these days to see BBC and Sky News outlets beginning to report on such incident. This began to rattle me. I had to stay up and report the news — my first tweet in this case:
#MH17 became a trend on Twitter soon after, much like when MH370 went missing. I needed to take a day-trip somewhere to calm myself, even though still tired. I took the train down to Fremantle, away from the distraction of social media.
It hits close to home when 37 Australians fall victims to this terrible misjudgement. And 7 West Australians, the innocent faces of the Maslin children being the centre of newspapers around the world reporting on this unrealistic tragedy.
9M-MRD was named “Freedom of Space” for a short period of time
But was this Malaysia Airlines fault?
Firstly, I can see no reason to believe that this was a case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’ with the airliner also coincidentally being the same type as missing flight ‘MH370′.
Malaysia Airlines did not plan for this incident to occur but it should be said that it was not wise to fly over Ukranian airspace at the time of conflict as some news outlets have been reporting in the aftermath of the disaster.
Finally, I question the actions of those paying passengers who demand refunds for flights which they are now too scared to take, for fear that they may fall victim to yet another aviation incident (which Malaysia Airlines will be honouring for travel for dates up until 31 December). We have got to understand that in our present world, air travel is the safest form there is. You have a better chance being injured or even dying in a vehicle travelling enroute to the airport.
Also, coincidentally, the aircraft ‘9M-MRD’ was nicknamed, “Freedom of Space” — to which that definition is all but gone in the ruins of the aircraft scattered twenty kilometres wide.
9M-MRD was named “Freedom of Space” for a short period of time.
17 years to the day of the first flight this aircraft made, to its very last.
Let’s turn our attention to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 now -
I cannot speculate what has happened to the aircraft which is presumably in the ocean whose coast borders my homeland but what is being said by navigation data suggests pilot error is the blame. If this is the case, we should not feel threatened that a single, most capable person may be to blame for the loss of more, innocent lives. We are not all psychologists so I can’t delve into the mind of the pilot at the time.
Put simply, we cannot blame anything on the airline yet, until we find conclusive evidence that suggests one or more factors. Until then, expect unimaginable theories to be of dominance for the next few months, even years.
It was a Saturday morning when I heard the unflattering news of this missing plane. Again, surfing the net. There were earlier reports that I with many of my other #avgeeks were clinging onto — in that the plane had made an emergency landing somewhere remote, but this was not to be and so went on with my daily life.
It can’t be the aircraft manufacturer, can it?
The Boeing 777 is the flagship airliner currently owned by most internationally-recognised airlines in the world today, most notably Emirates and American Airlines. But, could we really lie the blame on them.
Until recently, the 777 variants (-200LR/ER, -300ER) have not suffered any major incidents involving fatalities. To date, there have been only three cases along with one incident thankfully not costing any lives. The British Airways’ 777 approaching from Beijing at London’s Heathrow Airport crash landed just short of the runway. The cause — a manufacturer problem with tiny ice crystals forming on the engines thus disabling the engines at the last critical moment.
Last year, Asiana Airlines flight 214 was coming into land at San Francisco’s main airport where it clipped the seawall and also landed short of the runway. The actions of the flight crew at the very last moments of landing cost two passengers’ lives with one also being ‘accidentally’ run over by firefighting equipment.
Asiana Airlines flight 214 caused by pilot error, the second such incident to cost fatalities onboard a 777.
What would the economical implications be for the airline if passengers start pulling out of flying with them, which has already started since MH370.
If I were to board a Malaysia Airlines flight today, I would vouch for no other.
What do you think? Comment below.
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