Lest we forget the MH370 and 737 MAX 8

Malaysian Airlines plane crash

On 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was gone off radar. The scheduled flight was departed from Kuala Lumpur to the destination, Beijing. There was 12 crew and 227 passengers with 0 survivors. The cause was unknown but some debris has been identified.

The crew of the Boeing 777-200ER had last communicated with air traffic control (ATC) approximately 38 minutes after takeoff when cruising over the South China Sea. But a a few minutes later, the aircraft was gone lost from ATC radar screens.

It remained tracked by military radar after one hour, departing west from the planned route, crossing the Malay Peninsula and Andaman Sea. The aircraft went off radar range 200 nautical miles (370 km) northwest of Penang Island; in northwestern Peninsular, Malaysia.

With all 227 passengers and 12 crew assumed dead, the disappearance of the Flight 370 was the most fatal incident for a Boeing 777 and the worst in Malaysia Airlines' history. Surpassing Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down amid flying over conflict-stricken Eastern Ukraine four months time. The junction loss caused significant financial issues for Malaysia Airlines; which was renationalised by the Malaysian government in August 2014.

The conducting of search for the missing Flight 370 became the most expensive in aviation history. The focus was primarily on the South China Sea and Andaman Sea. Before analyzing the aircraft's automated communications with an Inmarsat satellite, an identified possible crash onsite was the southern Indian Ocean.

By the insufficient official information in those mourning days; immediately after the invisible disappearance; an exchange of furious criticism from the Chinese public, specifically from close families was infuriating; as the major victims on board Flight 370 were of Chinese origin.

Multiple pieces of marine debris was confirmed to be addressed from the aircraft that was washed ashore in the western Indian Ocean amid 2015 and 2016. After a three-year search across 120,000 km2 (46,000 sq mi) of ocean failed to discover the aircraft.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre heading the operation; suspended its flights in January 2017. A second search established in January 2018 by a private contractor Ocean Infinity; which also came to an end with failure to locate the aircraft after six months.

Leaning majorly towards examination of data from the Inmarsat satellite and the aircraft's final communication, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) suspected that a hypoxia event was the likely cause given the evidence, although no consensus has been reached regarding this thesis amongst investigators.

At variable stages of the puzzling tragedy, possible hijacking scenarios were assumed. Incorporating crew connection, and suspicion of the plane's cargo manifest; multiple disappearance theories regarding the flight have also been reported by the media. The Malaysian Ministry of Transport's final report from July 2018 was incomplete. Failures to attempt to communicate with the aircraft beforehand was a pity.

A lack of absence of a specific cause of the disappearance was a shame. Air transport industry safety recommendations and regulations viewing Flight 370 have been intended mostly to prevent a repetition of the circumstances linked with the loss.

Such as, high battery life on underwater locator beacons, long lasting of recording times on flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders and updated standards for aircraft position reporting over the open ocean.

Ethiopian Airlines plane crash

On 10 March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was scheduled to depart from Addis Ababa and the destination to Nairobi, Kenya. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 nose dived at a high speed and crashed in a town called Bishoftu only six minutes after takeoff. There was 8 crew, 149 passengers and 0 survivors. The cause may be due to a MCAS design flaw which is under investigation.

Flight 302 is Ethiopian Airline's most fatal incident to occur. It Surpassed the fatal hijacking of the Flight 961, resulting in a crash at the Comoros in 1996. It is also the deadliest accident to occur in Ethiopia, once again, surpassing the crash of an Ethiopian Air Force Antonov An-26 in 1982, which killed 73 passengers.

This was the second MAX 8 crises in less than five months after the Lion Air Flight 610 crash in Indonesia in October 2018. It caused a worldwide long term grounding of the jet and participation in conducting of investigation regarding how the aircraft could be accepted to operate in such a faulty manner.

Written by,

Seni Haks