Flight 370 and the Malaysian Triangle

Aliens.I turned off the TV the second Erik Liljergen, a news anchor for a Fox news segment suggested the notion. But it did get to my head. I mean, where else could it have gone?The disappearance of Flight MH370 was something to chew on for many who were simply curious. Flight MH370 was a flight heading out of Malaysia that shortly disappeared somewhere in the Indian Ocean, just a little over a week ago. It was heart wrenching to the relatives of the ones who were lost in the accident, and even angering to the Chinese relatives of the incident’s victims, numbering over a hundred. They protested at the Malaysian embassy in Beijing, emotions that are always stirred when the close ones you love are lost.Malaysia’s handling of the situation has always been suspicious to the Chinese government. Refusing to disclose vital information to Chinese rescue teams such as flight paths or plane information, the Chinese government has shown frustration towards the Malaysian government in their handling of the situation. The plane carried over 100 Chinese nationals. The plane was earlier this week located to have landed in some corner of the Indian ocean, with no survivors.What strikes me as peculiar is how such a large flight plane, a Boeing 777, was unable to be located for so long in today’s society, boasting some of the best communications and location technology. The plane was also reported to have turned off course and to have had its communications system disabled.The whole situation really does seem kind of fishy, with the slow response of the Malaysian government and the inability to find anything, even with satellites, in the calm waters off the western shore of the peninsula. But with a lack of facts and a inconsistent media, something that is also prominent in the situation in Ukraine, I was unable to come to any conclusions.My mother had a high school classmate who was on the plane. She didn’t know him very well, but she recognizes his name in the news, and was immediately engrossed in the situation. To me, the whole debacle seemed relatively trivial, but it stayed on my mind. Would socio-economic ties between Malaysia and China be harmed?Terrorists? Water tornado? Turned back and hidden in a cave? We can only hope that the flight is found and that the families are consoled.An article in the New York Times that I read talked about enormous power of sophisticated search techniques using data from many different sources that could be used to find the missing plane, but even that cannot be used in this situation. We must recognize that, in spite of the enormous capabilities and ingenuity that will be brought to the mystery, the remains of the plane may never be found. But, even if it were to be found, the “black box,” inside the plane would be the only key to ever figuring out what happened. The disappearance of flight 370 reminds us that, in spite of our technological sophistication and the unprecedented achievement of airline safety and reliability, as long as human beings are involved, there is always the possibility of the unforeseen, the unexpected and the diabolically unpredictable.