So long, Ol’ Gal

By The Helicopter Hobbit

More than a month has passed since MH370 made international headlines. Along with what can be expected of an MIA aircraft, many theories over the event have been occupying illicit media space with nothing more on offer than propellants for a hot air balloon carnival.

Let us look at some facts of the matter and try and give impartiality a chance.

The disappearance replete with the preceding reciprocal heading manouvre ( now popularly called the ‘air turn back’) occurred at a most crucial moment in the aircraft’s itinerary. It was ‘released’ by Malaysian civil air traffic controllers to Ho Chi Minh Control at the reporting point known as Sigari.

The handover was acknowledged by the pilot communicating with the controllers with “Alright, goodnight”, or “Goodnight Malaysian 370”, either which essentially means the same thing and does not provide an edifying or illuminating edge to the narrative.

From this point onwards, ends all that we heard from MH370.

The people in control of MH370 were civil air traffic controllers up to the point of Sigari. Thereon, after release by Malaysia, MH370 should have checked in with Ho Chi Minh Control. But this did not happen. We know that by this time the transponder was no longer transmitting the aircraft’s identification, whether by fault or design.

A reciprocal heading was selected. The rest is recent history.

This is the dead space wherein MH370 did not fall under any controlling agency’s purview.

It was a perfect moment for everything to go wrong. If radio failure was the case, it could not have happened at a worse time when you have just been turned into nobody’s baby.

Pilots are trained to handle complete radio failure by proceeding to their destination and adhering to ETA, but with much of the journey to go, the selection of a reciprocal heading to the last known successful communications is not out of place.

The choice of home ground airspace for handling this emergency falls to logic. Yet why the eventual track to the Indian Ocean is indeterminable. To checkmate the proceedings and any possible intervention, by the time the three phases of SAR had graduated to launching actual SAR, Malaysian airspace was crossed and MH370 passed on its silent way with nothing to say to anyone.

On the other hand, if it was a commandeering of the aircraft for whatever intent, so too would this have been the best time to execute the watertight plan.

While this may appear to be grand coincidence, as with all things in life, timing is of the essence.

In a search and rescue effort off Mukah Head in 1996 for my squadron mates, the downed pilot and his crewman were right in the path of the search helicopter, not even a hundred feet overhead as they bobbed in the sea, yet they were not spotted by the search pilots.

In 2004, the downed pilot of a MiG-29 saw search aircraft many times pass overhead his location in the dense jungle but the search crew could not spot him, although the happy ending was that he was found late evening on the second day of the search.

Hence, when things go wrong, myriad factors can congeal into an irredeemable mishap should error rule the day.

Things can go terribly, horribly wrong. Else, the pilots of MH370 would have run through the Aircrew Check Lists and handled the emergency at hand, and this tragic end would not have come to pass.

Therefore, with regards to MH370 and all its attendant theories, this is really either a feast or a famine. It could be a deadly plot. Or it could be the innocent transpiration of a very tragic airborne emergency spiraling into oblivion.

Military interception

Critics who hurl accusations of military negligence should know that military radar does not provide positive control of civil aircraft unless it is transiting a military base’s zone boundary, and upon exiting the zone boundary, it is returned to civilian air traffic control.

This isn’t negligence. It is keeping to correct takeover and handover of an aircraft between controlling authorities, subject to airspace divisions.

In this respect, military radar and civilian radar are not radically different in capability for as long as air traffic control is the purpose in mind. They differ fundamentally only with regards to the boundaries of airspace and the air assets under their control.

To facilitate the narrowing of such dead space as mentioned earlier, the twain meet in the various Joint Air Traffic Control Centres in Subang and Kinabalu wherein air traffic controllers from both sides share information, coordinate traffic and the defuse conflicts.

Amidst this fact, is the consideration that the airways do meet over our major aerodromes and Terminal Areas like highways converging over an interchange, and we handle international aircraft.

We are not a continent unto ourselves, where nobody crosses over us to get from somewhere to somewhere else. As such, we cannot militarise our airspace unless an aggressor has been confirmed.

We will leave out air defense radars as they serve a completely different purpose, which is identifying intruders. The RMAF has had experience, during the communism era, with intercepting intruders.

MH370 was not an intruder. At most, it was an aircraft in trouble. Military intervention, were it an option, would have been sorrowfully limited with regard to a civilian aircraft.

An aircraft that isn’t talking to air traffic controllers on the ground of any country is not going to be able to, or want to talk with an intercepting fighter jock. Fighter aircraft escorting a runaway civilian aircraft cannot force the aircraft back to ground unless the pilot’s compliance to being shepherded is secured.

Other precedents of the kind have only ended with fighter jocks having to watch the ill-fated airliners go down to their respective ends.

To be fair, a military intercept may have extended the time frame of positive contact with MH370, but not likely to alter the course of her fate by much, especially without confirmation of unlawful interference (read as hijack).

As for shooting down the aircraft, it would be good to remember Korean Airlines KAL007 of September 1983.

Our true mirror

I have no theories to offer on MH370, conspiratory, technical or meteorological. But this I do know.

That I have dwelt in her cabin and fed off her galleys.

Wherever she may be, she is part of a larger fellowship of those who ply the troposphere. We know what it is to go where we do not rule, and how we return home only on the charities of merciful Mother Earth.

We do what we can to make our voyages seamlessly safe. We learn as much as we can about the space we traverse, we respect the timeless inhabitants thereof and live as much as possible within the bounds of their customs.

Yet, there will be times when we are overcome by the grandeur of forces beyond us and the utter frailty of our sciences and crafts.

We know though, that in her final moments discernible unto us, that she has left us more than we were prepared for. She has served as our true mirror as our faces are now unmasked, statesman and charlatan alike, in the wake of her passing by.

She has given, as all who share this firmament, more than has been given to her in these last days.

MH370, may you be where there are restful waters and green pastures. Without adieu, we bid you, So long, Ol’ Gal.

The Helicopter Hobbit is the pseudonym of a retired Major and former Nuri pilot who vents on his blog, with the fringe benefit of sharing his airborne and other experiences and perspectives. Currently he is serving as an offshore pilot in Malaysia’s oil and gas industry.