It’s the 5th day since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing. Rescue effort continues with experts from many countries including the United States, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Australia using 39 aircraft and 42 ships. The search attempts covered 27,000 square nautical miles centering the area where the jet vanished.
We live in the technology era that makes every piece of information just a click or few away. At least, that’s what we think of. However, the plane mystery has no trace of getting resolved even after 4 days. One of the reasons why the plane lost connection with radar is assumed to be technology failure. Now that the plane has been a complete mystery for 4 days, rescuing technology also failed so far. On the other hand, family and friends of people who boarded the plane are heart-broken as nobody knows the fate of 239 people on board. I really wish there was a way of conveying condolences to these people.
It is super unfortunate that such an event took place. It is bad enough to know that there are people on the other side of the world disheartened by such tragedy. However, to make matters worse, some media firms report the news with the intention to dramatize such event and to guide the viewer’s to biased assumptions. I don’t mean to pinpoint a specific media, but I just happened to come across a headline titled, “’All right, good night’: Last words of missing Malaysian passenger jet pilot …” on UK’s Daily Mail website and it leads to think about what intentions these media firms have in mind. Do they want me to assume that the pilot knowingly diverted/crashed the plan? Or do they want me to associate this with acts of terrorism? Either way, it caught my attention (which I believe, is all the media really cares about).
On the contrary of these repetitive mainstream media stories, my friend shared a blog written by a pilot with 20 years of experience. Maybe it is because I am an optimistic person, but this blog makes a lot of sense to me. The best part of it is that the blogger claimed the pilot to be a hero. How many times have you heard that comparison in the mainstream media since this event was broadcasted?
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/
This is now about two weeks from this original post, and still no one knows what exactly has happened. As it stands, the Prime Minister of Malaysia said today that data indicates it is ‘inevitable’ that Flight 370 went down in the Indian Ocean, but there was still no concrete proof or confirmation. And Malaysian Airlines is now telling the families of loved ones on the flight that ‘Flight 370 should be assumed lost in the Indian Ocean.’ I mean it’s unbelievable – imagine if that’s what you were told? That a family member on a flight missing after 2 weeks should just be ‘assumed’ to be lost in an ocean? A whole ocean? Not even a clue into which part of it? In this day and age? Mind boggling. It is amazing to me that something like this can still happen. I feel like there should be some sort of element-proof tracer installed in all aircraft (the location of which unbeknownst to all the aircraft staff) that would completely ensure that something like this could basically not go down. My heart goes out to all involved, and I also think pre-meditated judgments on the pilots should be reserved until there’s proof of wrongdoing on their end, as well. Because nowadays people are very quick to jump to conclusions without having all the facts at hand.
Nowadays, we have so much confidence in the technology we use. However, there are certainly areas that still remain mystery, just like the missing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Everyday when we and the loved ones of the lost passengers get on the news website, it is frustrating to know that nothing has been found about the flight. The government of Malaysia and all the entities involved in this incident is now under great pressure by people all over the world. This may be a good thing in pushing the progress of the search for Flight MH370. On the other hand, if this incident happened 50 years ago in Malaysia, the government would probably have devoured so much energy in searching for the flight. How did this change? It is social tools that empowered us! Right after the incident was reported, my friends on Facebook start to talk about it, my Wechat friends start to post articles related to it. Without checking the news, I already knew about the progress of the incident. This reminds me of the Sidekick phone story that Shirky mentioned in the first Chapter of Here Comes Everybody. The social tools empowered Ivan and the loved ones of the passengers to push to government to devour their best effort. It is sad to know that the passengers are still missing, but it is comforting to know that the government is putting an effort in finding the missing flight.