Ask the Pilot: MH17, the Forgotten Catastrophe
Aug 3, 2015, 4:23 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Boston
Posts: 467
Ask the Pilot: MH17, the Forgotten Catastrophe
Now in Ask the Pilot: Remains of the Day.
As Debris From Flight 370 Washes Ashore, MH17 Becomes the Forgotten Catastrophe. Plus, what took so long for those pieces to be found?
Excerpt:
I WAS IN AMSTERDAM, and the headlines of the Dutch paper de Volkskrant were screaming about last year's Malaysia Airlines disaster. This was no big surprise, given that the first pieces from the vanished MH370 have been discovered washed ashore on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. Except, the headlines weren't about MH370. They were about MH17, the Boeing 777 shot down over Ukraine last summer.
Obviously the discovery of debris from MH370 is a major story. What's a little distressing, however, is that while the flight 370 mystery has never really disappeared from the headlines, the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 has all but vanished from the news. No, not in Holland, where the flight originated and where most of the 298 victims were from, nearly a hundred of them children. But the rest of the world, it seems, long ago stopped paying attention.
In some ways this makes sense. What happened to flight 370 was and remains a confounding mystery, while the details of MH17 are at least generally known. But in most respects the downing of flight 17 is the more significant tragedy. This was the seventh deadliest air disaster in history, and one that occurred in circumstances of abhorrent malice and negligence. We all want to know what happened to MH370, and perhaps it too was the result of intentional human actions. But what about MH17? Where is the outrage? Where are the cameras? Will anybody -- any individual, government or entity -- be formally held accountable?
My money says no. It's doubtful that either disaster will ever be satisfactorily solved. The investigation into MH17 shall forever be stonewalled by geopolitics. As for MH370, although a limited number of clues can be gleaned from random wreckage, nothing can be known for sure without recovery of the black boxes, out there somewhere under millions of tons of seawater. I've predicted all along that some of the wreckage would eventually, probably, be found. The boxes, though? I reckon they're lost for good.
Why, some are asking, did it take so long for this debris to turn up? Why didn't we discover these pieces sooner, considering how extensive the search efforts were? We simply missed them, is why, and this shouldn't be shocking. In which part of the Indian Ocean MH370 crashed has always been subject to estimation. The ocean is massive, and the area most intensively searched was only one possible region. If the calculations were off, the impact point could have been hundreds or even thousands of miles from where the spotters were concentrating.
It's possible too that wreckage has been floating right past us and washing up on beaches all along, ignored. Random bits of insulation, shredded fabric, chunks of composite material, cabin furnishings and so on, would appear entirely anonymous, just more of the trash and pollution that swirls throughout the sea every day.
What an odd thing, too, for an airline to have suffered not one but two appalling tragedies, less than a year apart, about neither of which are we likely to learn the whole story.
The full version of this article is available on the Ask the Pilot blog site, here:
http://www.askthepilot.com/remains-of-the-day/
Enjoy,
Patrick Smith
As FlyerTalk guidelines require me to disclose, I am the curator and host of the Ask the Pilot site.
As Debris From Flight 370 Washes Ashore, MH17 Becomes the Forgotten Catastrophe. Plus, what took so long for those pieces to be found?
Excerpt:
I WAS IN AMSTERDAM, and the headlines of the Dutch paper de Volkskrant were screaming about last year's Malaysia Airlines disaster. This was no big surprise, given that the first pieces from the vanished MH370 have been discovered washed ashore on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. Except, the headlines weren't about MH370. They were about MH17, the Boeing 777 shot down over Ukraine last summer.
Obviously the discovery of debris from MH370 is a major story. What's a little distressing, however, is that while the flight 370 mystery has never really disappeared from the headlines, the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 has all but vanished from the news. No, not in Holland, where the flight originated and where most of the 298 victims were from, nearly a hundred of them children. But the rest of the world, it seems, long ago stopped paying attention.
In some ways this makes sense. What happened to flight 370 was and remains a confounding mystery, while the details of MH17 are at least generally known. But in most respects the downing of flight 17 is the more significant tragedy. This was the seventh deadliest air disaster in history, and one that occurred in circumstances of abhorrent malice and negligence. We all want to know what happened to MH370, and perhaps it too was the result of intentional human actions. But what about MH17? Where is the outrage? Where are the cameras? Will anybody -- any individual, government or entity -- be formally held accountable?
My money says no. It's doubtful that either disaster will ever be satisfactorily solved. The investigation into MH17 shall forever be stonewalled by geopolitics. As for MH370, although a limited number of clues can be gleaned from random wreckage, nothing can be known for sure without recovery of the black boxes, out there somewhere under millions of tons of seawater. I've predicted all along that some of the wreckage would eventually, probably, be found. The boxes, though? I reckon they're lost for good.
Why, some are asking, did it take so long for this debris to turn up? Why didn't we discover these pieces sooner, considering how extensive the search efforts were? We simply missed them, is why, and this shouldn't be shocking. In which part of the Indian Ocean MH370 crashed has always been subject to estimation. The ocean is massive, and the area most intensively searched was only one possible region. If the calculations were off, the impact point could have been hundreds or even thousands of miles from where the spotters were concentrating.
It's possible too that wreckage has been floating right past us and washing up on beaches all along, ignored. Random bits of insulation, shredded fabric, chunks of composite material, cabin furnishings and so on, would appear entirely anonymous, just more of the trash and pollution that swirls throughout the sea every day.
What an odd thing, too, for an airline to have suffered not one but two appalling tragedies, less than a year apart, about neither of which are we likely to learn the whole story.
The full version of this article is available on the Ask the Pilot blog site, here:
http://www.askthepilot.com/remains-of-the-day/
Enjoy,
Patrick Smith
As FlyerTalk guidelines require me to disclose, I am the curator and host of the Ask the Pilot site.
Aug 4, 2015, 10:03 am
#4
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: NCL
Programs: BAEC and Hilton mostly
Posts: 655
It was only a few days ago that the Russian representative on the UN Security Council vetoed a proposed investigating tribunal.
Three others abstained (Angola. China and Venezuela), and the rest - all eleven - voted for the tribunal. However, the veto wins...
Three others abstained (Angola. China and Venezuela), and the rest - all eleven - voted for the tribunal. However, the veto wins...
Aug 10, 2015, 8:08 am
#6
Join Date: May 2009
Location: South Park, CO
Programs: Tegridy Elite
Posts: 5,678
Also, kind of odd that the premise of the OP is concern over a lack of awareness/discussion about MH17...yet the majority of it discusses MH370.
Aug 19, 2015, 7:48 am
#8
Join Date: May 2009
Location: EWR
Programs: UA .5M, Vistana 1-Star owner
Posts: 992
[Removed political commentary/argumentation/characterization]
It's truly a shame [Removed political commentary/argumentation/characterization]
It's truly a shame [Removed political commentary/argumentation/characterization]
Last edited by cblaisd; Aug 19, 2015 at 6:44 pm Reason: Removed political commentary/argumentation/characterization - take such to OMNI/PR