QUESTION TIME The announcement of what seemed almost the inevitable conclusion by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak that Flight MH370 had gone down in the southern Indian Ocean with no likelihood of survivors closes part one of the saga and brings some closure to long-suffering relatives and friends of those on board.

By analysing satellite data from Inmarsat using the Doppler effect, the change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to its source, investigators were able to determine that MH370’s flight path ended in the southern Indian Ocean. As there were no landing spots in the area, it has to be presumed that the flight ended with the loss of all lives.

Part two will have to continue - the search for the aircraft and whatever debris that will establish beyond any doubt whatsoever at all that the plane went down in the ocean. And that will lead on to the search for the black box which is the only hope that a definitive picture of what happened will finally be pieced together.

Without the black box, the theories of what happened to MH370 will be merely that and will continue to be unverifiable and remain within the realm of conjecture forever. But if the wreckage is indeed in the area and is pinpointed soon, then there is a good chance that the black box can be recovered as it will still be emitting signals for about two weeks more.

At the time of writing Australian aircraft have already identified debris which could be aircraft parts but ships have not been able to retrieve them to make a positive identification. Meantime, equipment to locate the black box are already being moved to the search area.

Until the mystery clears up, hopefully via the retrieval of the black box, there is bound to be conjecture and theories on what happened to MH370.

It has been established that MH370 turned back just off the coast of Terengganu and passed over Malaysian airspace before heading up towards the Andaman Sea and towards the southern Indian Ocean, an area described as among the most remote in the world.

The question on everyone’s mind is what forced it to turn back and overfly the peninsula and then head out into open sea. Where was it headed for and why? Was there trouble with the aircraft? Was it an attempted hijack?

There will be no final answers to these questions unless the black box is found for it appears like all other avenues to find out more have been exhausted.

Probably the only opportunity to intercept MH370 was when it was detected on Malaysian military data after the turnback but so far there has been no explanation forthcoming from Malaysian authorities why this did not take place.

Patching up holes

When the whole question of MH370 is re-examined as it will eventually be, this will be one of the questions that will be asked. And that will be one of the questions that Malaysia must answer and it is one of the holes that it must patch up. Is our air force sufficiently equipped to guard our airspace?

The other issue that will have to be reviewed is the ability of the pilot, or anyone else who knows how, to turn off the transponders which emit the signals for civilian radar to detect and identify  the aircraft.

After this event, it stands to reason that all aircraft on scheduled flights should have a system whereby transponders emit signals at all times and cannot be turned off during flight.

Also, there should be another system whereby the coordinates of aircraft on scheduled flights can be identified from continuous signals sent to satellites through systems that cannot be turned off. That will solve the problem of disappearing aircraft.

If not for the so-called “pings” or handshakes picked up by Inmarsat which established MH370 could have taken two possible flight corridors, there would have been no clue as to where the aircraft might have flown.

Meantime, Malaysian crisis response was put to a severe test. Initial fumbles and contradictory statements gave way to better, more clearly thought-out responses by a core group of people which included the acting transport minister, the CEO of Malaysia Airlines and the head of the Department of Civil Aviation.

If there is one lesson that needs to be taken from this, it is that too many people talking about the same thing causes confusion and even chaos at times. There is clear need to appoint an overall leader who will lead the dissemination of information and take questions.

For the relatives and friends of those on board the ill-fated flight, full closure will only come with complete answers. That will have to wait and may not even come at all. Meantime, blaming the Malaysian authorities or accusing them of hiding things, although a natural reaction, won’t help matters.

There are things that can be done to ensure that what happened in flight MH370 does not ever recur. The world and the aviation industry owe it to those on board MH370, their relatives and friends and to future travellers that they learn from MH370 and take corrective measures.

P GUNASEGARAM is founding editor of KiniBiz . Kinibiz extends its heartfelt condolences to the victims of MH370. As a mark of respect, the masthead today will be in black and white.