Abdel-Moneim Said

Unlike the unfolding geopolitical events in Ukraine, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is a complete unknown, and hence all the more alarming

Two events have riveted the world and grabbed international headlines during the past two weeks. The first is the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his government and its repercussions. Moscow exploited this event to rouse the passions of the Russian-speaking minority in the autonomous Crimean region, which quickly declared its independence and desire to join the Russian Federation. The latter opened its arms wide to welcome the Crimean peninsula after which it began to set its sights on eastern Ukraine where there are other large communities of Russian origin. Numerous tributaries in contemporary Ukrainian and Russian history fed this recent chain of events that will have grave implications for European security in the short and medium terms.

In any case, these developments are widely known and they have precedents dating from the old empire of the Russian Czars and the Soviet empire that followed it. Analysts and observers, therefore, have abundant material from the history of the period between the two world wars and the subsequent Cold War period on which they will be able to rest their views and findings.

The second event, unlike the preceding, has few historical precedents to turn to and it remains a puzzling enigma, at least until the writing of this article. I refer to the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The flight was carrying 239 passengers from 15 nations, the majority of whom were Chinese. The incident took place on 8 March when the plane vanished as it was still in Malaysian airspace as it headed eastward towards China. Suddenly, all communications with the flight stopped, as though someone had flicked off the switch. The first conclusion was that the plane must have exploded in mid-air or met with a disaster of some sort. Accordingly, Malaysia, China, the US and other countries sent off teams and equipment to comb the South China Sea for the aircraft or parts of it. The action was informed by other airplane disasters that were caused by technical or human error and that set into motion searches for the missing flight and passengers, as well as for the “black box” that presumably would reveal the secret behind the disaster.

In this case, however, luck played cruel jokes on the searchers. Whenever they sighted something in the ocean that they believed belonged to the plane, closer scrutiny proved the sighting a mirage.

Eventually there emerged a number of facts that were at odds with airplane accidents. Firstly, the aircraft was a Boeing 777 powered by two Rolls Royce Trent 892 engines. One feature of these engines is that they transmit pulses that are received by the engine manufacturer’s monitoring centre. According to sources in the US government, which had dispatched vessels from its Pacific fleet to join in the search, the aircraft health reports issued by Rolls Royce indicated that the flight had remained aloft for several hours after communication with the plane was lost. Then followed an even more shocking revelation: US satellites had received signals from the plane that suggested that it had remained aloft for seven hours during which it had re-entered Malaysian airspace, heading westwards towards the Indian Ocean.

The foregoing tells us quite a few things. Firstly, the US (and the UK, via Rolls Royce in this instance) has the means that it incorporates into its manufactures, from mobile phones and computers to airplanes, to monitor and track movements. Secondly, something went wrong or is wrong in Malaysia. How could a civil aircraft have exited Malaysian airspace, then re-entered it and passed through it without Malaysia knowing anything about this? Thirdly, none of the other countries in the world that have satellite technology and state-of-the-art tracking and monitoring equipment, such as Russia, Japan and even China, came up with any information of note in this search. Such facts have fed a number of conspiracy theories. One comes under the heading of “Islamist” and was inspired by the notion that Al-Qaeda affiliates are experts in hijacking planes. This theory first gained ground when it emerged that two of the passengers had boarded that ill-fated Malaysian Airways flight using stolen passports. Airline company officials or Malaysian security had failed to check their passport numbers against the international database of stolen or missing passports. In tandem, speculation turned to other possible hijackers. Western media began to focus on flight captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and first officer Fariq Abdul-Hamid. Both have sterling career records, but simulator equipment was discovered in home of the former and a mosque was located near the home of the latter, and the latter used to pray in it. Such was the evidence.

This conspiracy theorising produced more questions than answers. What was the relationship, if any, between these two flight officers and the two passengers carrying stolen passports? Or were other unknown parties involved. More importantly, where was the plane itself, and what was the fate of its passengers? Can there be a hijack without an explosion to broadcast some mad message? Or was the plane commandeered to some unknown island and, if so, how could it have landed without this being picked up by a satellite, radar on an aircraft carrier or the crew of a fishing boat?

In other words, who would benefit from this whole business? It is not in the interests of governments in the world to create havoc in international air transport and terrorist groups only hijack planes in order to make declarations and state demands. There has been none of that.

The secret of the disappearance of flight MH370 cannot be kept pending. Perhaps it will not be resolved until the US and Boeing reveals all their information they have on the matter. In like manner, all other countries involved must step forward with the information they have on this flight and its passengers. Most likely it will take an international commission of inquiry to solve the puzzle by reviewing all the facts and posing the right questions.

What is certain is that the current mystery is very alarming because it touches a sensitive nerve in global communications. It might be even more frightening than the current situation in Europe following Crimea’s secession from Ukraine and annexation to Russia. Whether or not a new Cold War erupts, at least we know the parties involved and the addresses to which we can send messages of encouragement and/ or condemnation. The major problem with the vanishing aircraft is that there is no known address. The country from which it took off knows next to nothing about it and has appealed to the world for help. The country to which it was destined has only immense grief. Between the two — the point of origin and the destination — there are only vast and deep seas.