ASIA / PACIFIC
July 21, 2014
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
For Malaysia Airlines, disaster strikes twice
By Chris Brummitt
The Associated Press
ANOI, Vietnam — Two Boeing
777s. Two incredibly rare avia-
tion disasters. And one airline.
In what appears to be a mind-boggling
coincidence, Malaysia is reeling from the
second tragedy to hit its national airline in
less than five months.
On March 8, a Malaysia Airlines jetliner
vanished about an hour after taking off
from Kuala Lumpur, spawning an interna-
tional mystery that remains unsolved.
Last Thursday, the airline — and the
nation — were pitched into another crisis
after the same type of aircraft was
reported shot down over Ukraine.
Ukraine said the plane was brought
down by a missile over the violence-
wracked eastern part of the country.
Details are beginning to emerge.
But what’s certain is that the struggling
airline and the nation must now prepare
for another agonizing encounter with
grief, recriminations, international scru-
tiny, and intense legal and diplomatic
implications.
Amid it all, a question: Just how could
disaster strike the airline twice in such a
short space of time?
“Either one of these events has an
unbelievably low probability,” said John
Cox, president and CEO of Safety
Operating Systems and a former airline
pilot and accident investigator. “To have
two in a just a few months of each other is
certainly unprecedented.”
The first disaster deeply scarred
Malaysia and left the world dumbstruck.
How could a Boeing 777-200ER, a modern
jumbo jet, simply disappear? Flight 370
had veered off course during a flight to
Beijing and is believed to have crashed in
the Indian Ocean far off the western
Australian coast.
The search area has changed several
times, but no sign of the aircraft, or the 239
people aboard, has been found. Until then,
how the plane got there is likely to remain
a mystery.
Last Thursday, there was no mystery
over the whereabouts of the Boeing
777-200ER, which went down while on a
flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur
with 283 passengers and 15 crew
members. Its wreckage was found in
Ukraine, and there were no survivors.
Officials said the plane was shot down at
H
an altitude of 33,000 feet. The region has
seen severe fighting between Ukrainian
forces and pro-Russia separatists in recent
days.
Malaysia Airlines was widely criticized
for the way it handled the Flight 370 hunt
and investigation. Some relatives of those
on board accused the airline of engaging in
a cover-up, and there have been persistent
conspiracy theories over the fate of the
plane, including that it might have been
shot down.
There was no immediate reason to think
the two disasters to befall the airline were
in any way linked.
Cox said that to his knowledge, there
was no prohibition against flying over
eastern Ukraine despite the fighting on
the ground. He said that if the plane was
shot down by a missile, the pilot probably
did not even know it.
“A missile like this typically closes in
from behind, there is no reason for him to
have seen it,” he said.
“Given the military conflict in the
region, one has to be concerned that
identities could have been mistaken,”
Charles Oman, a lecturer at the depart-
ment of aeronautics and astronautics at
the
Massachusetts
Institute
of
Technology, said in an e-mail.
Malaysia Airlines was especially criti-
cized for the way it handled the communi-
cations around the missing jetliner, which
presented unique challenges because of
the uncertainty facing the relatives of
those on board. With the plane crashing
over land and its wreckage already
located, there will be no such uncertainty.
But the investigation will be just as
sensitive. There will be legal and
diplomatic implications depending on who
was responsible.
“The airline and the Malaysian
transport ministry took a lot of hits for the
way they handled MH370, due to their
inexperience,” Oman said. “Hopefully they
will do better this time.”
The accident will surely inflict more fi-
nancial damage on Malaysia Airlines.
Even before the March disaster, it re-
ported losses because of stiff competition
from budget airlines. Afterward, passen-
gers cancelled flights, and even though the
airline is insured, it faces uncertainty over
payouts to the victims’ families.
Chris Brummitt is AP’s Southeast Asia news
editor and directed the coverage of the Flight
370 disaster from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Pope’s visit seen encouraging Catholics in Asia
MANILA, The Philip-
pines (AP) — Manila’s
archbishop says Asia has a
special spot in the heart of
Pope Francis, who looks
forward to visiting the
region to encourage Chris-
tians, especially those suf-
fering or being persecuted.
Catholics have long been
a minority in Asia, with the
Philippines
the
most
notable exception. But the
Vatican sees Asia as a place
for strong growth for the
Catholic church. Pope
Francis will travel to South
Korea in August to beatify
124 Korean martyrs. In
January, he is scheduled to
visit the Philippines and
Sri Lanka.
Cardinal Luis Antonio
Tagle said that as a young
Jesuit, Pope Francis had
an unfulfilled wish to be a
DOUBLE DISASTER. A woman reacts after hearing about the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane that
crashed in eastern Ukraine, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia. Ukraine said the plane
was brought down by a missile over the violence-wracked eastern part of the country. It was flying from
Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (AP Photo/Joshua Paul)
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