I went to bed last night with a flurry of news alerts on my phone that the search for MH370 had been suspended, a polite way of saying cancelled. While this understandable after three years, it represents a colossal failure that I am still grappling to understand.
Why Can’t We Find MH370?
The internet is full of conspiracy theories concerning why we cannot find the wreckage of MH370. I will steer clear of those here. But I am genuinely perplexed that in the age of satellites and GPS a massive 777-200 can just dissapear.
An article in TIME Magazine helped me to better understand the issue. The reason we are able to explore millions of miles into space but cannot map 95% of the ocean floor is a technological barrier that has yet to be broken.
Virtually all modern communications technology — be it light, radio, X-rays, wi-fi — is a form of electromagnetic radiation, which seawater just loves to suck up.
That leaves sound, and sonar is not all that efficient. The world’s most modern submarine, Bluefin-21, was sent on multiple occasions to seek out MH370 but could only proceed to a certain depth before the pressure forced it to resurface.
And that’s not the only issue clouding the search. There is also the problem of trash.
The other issue affecting visibility is the sheer volume of junk in the ocean. About 5.25 trillion particles of plastic trash presently billow around the planet, say experts, weighing half a million tons. There are five huge garbage patches in the world’s seas, where the swirling of currents makes the mostly plastic debris accumulate.
This trash also confuses Bluefin-21 and has led to many costly searches, all of which turned out to be false-positives.
The irony is that had MH370 “vanished into space” it would have been located. Instead, the wreckage likely sits on the bottom of the ocean, beyond the detection capability of the world’s best technology.
CONCLUSION
My heart breaks for the families of the MH370 victims who have now learned the underwater search is over. I don’t see another way forward, however. It is pathetic, though, that pollution and lack of technology are the culprits.
Big fan of your writing style and blog here. But please after so many years of blogging, please don’t start with clickbait-y titles.
@Flo
I actually don’t find this clickbaity – it helps answer a question many of us have.
@Matthew
It’s not fair to label technology a culprit – it’s not like there are manmade electromagnetic pulses that are interfering with the search. We simply haven’t developed the technology to explore the ocean depths,
I don’t see this as a failure of technology.
I see it as a failing of corporate executives.
The 777-200 has plenty of satellite uplink capabilities. There’s no TECHNICAL reason it can’t report it’s position and a few vitals frequently. Owners often don’t want to PAY for anything other than “basic cable” so to speak. The more features enabled and data sent, the more it costs. Bean counters balance off saving a few bucks on this quarter’s balance sheet versus the cost and….. $320 million aircraft lost plus passengers….. needless tragedy.
Inmarsat changed the “ping” interval from 1 hour down to 15 minutes for free. If airlines had to PAY for increased resolution, they wouldn’t pay it. Automated transponders, and longer-lived underwater “pingers” to find the wreckage, are all improvements that the airlines resist. Because it’ll cut into this quarters profits.
I work for a major acoustic survey company. If the plane was there in search zone, We will find it. Up to 5000m. My company found a smaller plane. The MH plane probably was not in the search zone. They can pay tens of million more dollars to search more areas for years, but it’s not economic.
Some radar or similar tech by some place tracked that plane.
We’re Basically Blind
The above is from time.
I agree, we knew where it is, then reward just for specify company ,not for other people, some one find something, some one raise death threat, every thing gone, undercover organisation appears, too many things not interesting. this is just a covered story, dont want people to find only. so simple.