I had not intended to write any more about the 239 lives which have certainly been lost.
But I have been following the search efforts (there is no rescue mission left to perform). And the competition between Malaysia, Australia and China in the rush to show-off their capabilities and, by implication, their humanity, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
First we had Tony Abbott rushing to announce that the satellite images had been found – 4 days after they had been photographed. We had the Malaysian Minister of Defense – breaking in to his own press conference – with “Breaking News” that the Chinese had also found a satellite image. Like some cheap Indian TV station which has nothing but Breaking News. He read out a hand-written note where the dimensions of the object sighted were transcribed wrongly and he then had to issue a correction later. Then the French jumped in to show that they also have satellites. The Chinese have rushed search planes to Perth where, instead of landing at the designated military airport outside of Perth which is the centre of the search operations, they first landed by mistake at the civil airport. The ice-breaker Xue Long (which rescued the infamous Chris Turney and his Ship of Fools from the Antarctic) was diverted to the search area. Then this morning the Chinese announced the first real sightings of debris by one of their planes. The Xue Long will arrive in the area tomorrow.
(It has just been announced by the Malaysian Prime Minister that based on new analysis from Inmarsat and the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) the plane was lost in the Indian Ocean and all on board must be presumed lost. I am thankful that unlike some other politicians, David Cameron did not rush to hold his own press conference).
I have no doubt that the search personnel are performing a great job – from whichever country they come. But there is no longer any real hope for the 239 passengers and crew. There is of course an important mystery to be solved since whatever happened to MH370 has fundamental implications for air safety.
With no lives any longer at stake, the announcements and “breaking news” emanating from China and Australia and Malaysia now have a strong smell of political positioning. The announcements have been hijacked by the political establishment. I find the use of the search process for political positioning between China – which wishes to be seen as the regional power – and Australia – which is the de facto proxy for the US – and Malaysia – which is trying to avoid being seen as chaotic and incompetent – is less than edifying.
The k2p blog 