Lost and Not Found - The Curious Case of MH370

(This is something I wrote few months back)

“So what do you think really happened to that Malaysian Airlines?” Vijay asked as he settled down on the couch with his cup of coffee. He was meeting his school friends at an upmarket café.

“I don’t know, man! It is so mysterious! I mean, think about it. We have the technology to find historic water traces on Mars, but not enough to find one giant Boeing in our seemingly smaller earth! It is so scary!” Rhea trembled a little as she spoke those last words.

Rahul smirked self-importantly as he propped up his legs on the table. “There is no mystery, Rhea! Come on, it is common sense. The US guys shot down the plane. I read all about it in a blog and it makes perfect sense. If anyone can make an airline disappear from the face of the earth and cover it up flawlessly, it is the US. I see CIA written all over this …” - he made imaginary quotation marks in the air – “… mystery.”

Vijay shook his head disapprovingly and put his coffee down. “If US shot it down, where is the debris? They cannot hide that after an explosion. In my opinion, it is the Taliban. Apparently, these flights can shadow another flight without being detected. That is why the Indian and Pakistani military radars did not catch it. I tell you, the flight is in Afghanistan as we speak. These terrorists are perhaps planning another 9/11. God knows where.”

“That is impossible. There was no hint of distress or any sign of an explosion or hijacking. If you examine the flight data and analyze the Doppler shift in the frequencies from the satellite handshakes of the flight, it is clear that MH370 continued its flight towards south for another six hours after all communication from the airplane ceased. Presumably then they ran out of fuel. What is there six hours south of Malaysia in the Southern Indian Ocean? Nothing. So, all the signs point to a crash at the sea. There, mystery solved.” Karthik said all that in one breath.  He was oblivious to the completely baffled looks rest of the group gave him.

Rhea broke the silence. “Thank you Mr. Sheldon. That definitely did not go over our heads.” She nudged him with her elbow. “You guys are so thoughtless. Spare a thought for the passengers, people! I feel so bad about the friends and families of those passengers. No closure for them. Imagine living a life not knowing what happened to your loved ones. Not knowing if they are alive or dead.” A deep breath as everyone fell uncomfortably silent. “Anyways, did you hear that Aadi is flying to US for his MBA?” The conversation drifted to more relevant news.

Change the names in the above conversation. Change the setting. Change the country. We have all been part of this discussion. We have all adorned the roles of rationalists, conspiracy theorists, emotionalists and even aviation experts to contribute our two cents to this discussion. And why not? Here is a puzzle that has all elements of a thriller and no one seems to be able to make sense of the whats and the whys and the hows. What a wonderful, never-again, opportunity for everyone to play Sherlock. At the comfort of our living room’s ‘window seats.’

Let us take a step or two back, shall we?

What do we know?

The Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members took off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 at 00:41 MYT.

After 20 minutes, the flight reached an altitude of 35,000 feet.

After 38 minutes, the airline’s First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid made voice contact with the Malaysian Air Traffic Control (ATC). He said “All right, good night.”

After 40 minutes, at 01:21 MYT, the flight’s transponder made a secondary radar contact with the ATC.

A minute later, this transponder was switched off. 

The Malaysian military radar detected the flight at 02:15 MYT, an hour after the last primary contact. The Inmarsat – a British satellite company – received radio "pings" (or satellite handshakes) from the aircraft for six more hours, in one hour gaps. The last of these pings was at 08:11 MYT.

After that, nothing.

How much of this above information did we know on March 8?  All of it.

How much more did we learn about the disappearance since then?  None. Zilch.

How many theories about the disappearance have come out since? 100s.

You see what I mean?

All the facts – the last contact, the “pings”, the timings – were all public knowledge since the day of the disappearance. Considering its over three months past that faithful day, and taking into account all the aviation and the space technologies that man possesses, you would have expected the authorities to uncover some solid leads by now, if not the flight (or what is left of it) itself. But alas! There has been no new “credible” leads.

There are many theories though. Newspapers and TV channels all over the world commissioned experts to recreate MH370’s faith. You and I have pretended we know better than these experts and flooded our Twitter and Facebook timelines with what we thought had happened. A few smart ones among us shared a picture of an airline floating in the ocean with people standing all over it. Many donned the detective hat to write blogs with carefully plotted maps showing the airline’s possible journey. But the truth remains the same – save for the initial disappearance, there has been only opinion-based reportage and speculation on this topic. Almost all of the discussions and reports on the subject went like this – “We know nothing. Gibberish. Out of the world theories. Gibberish. We know nothing still.”

What is the harm in little speculation, you might ask. After all, there is freedom of speech and expression and what not. Well, there is no harm done. But let us reflect for a moment:

Were we really bothered about the faith of the people inside that aircraft? Most of us were, at least initially.

But did that compassion soon give way to a tinge of excitement at the prospect of witnessing firsthand an “unsolved mystery”? Again, for most of us, yes.

Did that excitement evolve into a form of entertainment after the initial days? At least for some of us, yes.

We were not in that plane. None of our loved ones were in it too. There was not even a ‘friend of friend of friend.’ So, why should we really care about all this after the stipulated mourning period of one week? Should we lose sleep over this matter? Is it more important than our next month’s EMI? Is it more important than the deck we are working on?

I don’t of course have the answers. However, when you take the flight out of the equation, then the enormity of 239 men, women and children whose existence became unknown in a short span of 60 minutes would hit you hard. The helplessness of the loved ones they left behind would make you want to run away from it all.

We have all discussed everything that could be discussed about this topic. Many times irresponsibly. 

And since I hate to end this entry on a morbid note (and since I am possibly a hypocrite), allow me to present to you five incredible theories out there that explains what happened: 

•  Aliens, time travelers or beings from another dimension hijacked the plane.
• The flight was turned “invisible” and was landed somewhere as part of research.
• A new weapon capable of making large objects disappear has been developed.
• Bermuda triangle’s counterpart in the east has been formed.
•  And my favorite - the flight never existed.