Just when you thought the Australians were the adults in the room, they go and do something like releasing this type of speculation.  And, lest there be any doubt at all, while the Australian Deputy Prime Minister said it was “highly, highly likely” these things occurred, the ATSB stressed that “its conclusions weren’t backed up by hard evidence.”

After reading this, you have to ask yourself whether anyone – any government – has learned anything from the months of missteps since March 8.  Think about it, its “highly, highly likely,” but there’s no “hard evidence.”  We suggest this is precisely the kind of thing in which professional investigators should not engage.  It’s okay to confirm that these are areas the investigation is examining, but to say its “highly, highly likely,” but there’s no “hard” evidence, is “highly, highly” irresponsible.

We note that the ATSB also indicated that the Malaysian authorities, who are leading the investigation, may not share their view.  Apparently, and, we note, wisely, both Malaysia Airlines and the Malaysian Government wouldn’t comment on the ATSB report.  Bravo!

Apart from engaging in speculation of the highest order, why is the ATSB even talking about the investigation publicly?  The Australian Government, admirably, assumed direction of the search efforts since, according to them, the initial search area was in the international waters for which they have search and rescue/recovery responsibility.  But they’re not leading the investigation and they shouldn’t be speculating about the investigation, much less doing so and, at the same time, acknowledging the absence of “hard” evidence.  We guess the logical question which presents itself is “What evidence is there, other than what we know already, that someone engaged the autopilot and that the occupants were unconscious?”

At the risk of answering our own question, other than speculating, there is no evidence.  Our advice to the Australian Government is to focus on the search, and stop making announcements about what is “highly, highly likely.”   No one knows what happened other than knowing that it’s highly, highly likely the aircraft is at the bottom of the ocean somewhere.  The only things we know, perhaps with certainty, are that the aircraft didn’t fly thru a “black hole” or get taken away by an alien spaceship.

A cynical person might question the timing and suggest their appears to be more a publicity motive associated with the timing than one of intellectual independence.

If this group truly thinks they can be of help, they should have simply provided their analysis to the Australian search authorities to let them evaluate it and proceed.  Beating a television documentary to press doesn’t really seem to compelling reason to do anything.  After all, and it’s a big “if” given the history of the search so far, if their analysis is accurate, it will withstand scrutiny, inspective of when and by whom it is released.

Once again lost in the shuffle of competing theories and analyses are the families of the passengers, the crew and, whether you agree or not, the airline itself, which is just as much a victim as anyone else.  While families and others have vilified the airline, principally because they’re an easy target, what facts are there that they did anything wrong?  We suggest…none.

Maybe the just reported analysis of where the airplane is located is correct, but unless and until the aircraft is found, we suggest that the “search” stop playing out in public statements and races to beat TV shows and be limited to the confines of the investigation.  The last time we heard about a “game changer,” it was about the “pings.”  This time CNN reports one of the experts talking about a “breakthrough piece of information,” regarding the new location.

We all know how the “game changer” turned out.  Let’s hope this “breakthrough” doesn’t end up in the same place.

The University indicates that the sounds could, just as likely, be “a natural event.”  Moreover, they can’t pinpoint the source, although the researchers believe it’s thousands of miles from the area in the Southern Indian Ocean where prior search efforts were unsuccessfully focused.

Moreover, the University spokesman indicated the search area is almost 2500 miles long and between 125 and 186 miles wide.  That’s approximately 375,000 square miles, all of it located thousands of miles from where the search has been focused.  They also indicated the sounds were possibly from whales or maybe an underwater seismic event or who knows what.

In prior posts, we have been critical of the Malaysian Government and their handling of the investigation.  They have, throughout the events occurring since March 8, taken a bad situation and made it worse.  Now, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, an Australian university manages to prove us wrong.

Maybe their underwater acoustic network, designed to pick up nuclear blasts, seismic activity or whales heard something.  Maybe it didn’t.  But for them to come out publicly and link what they believe they heard to MH 370 is irresponsible.

We have previously applauded the Australian Government for stepping up and taking control of the search.   Maybe it’s time for them to let their own institutions know that all information which might be related to the search for MH 370 should only be released by the Malaysian Government, through the Australian Government, after it has been fully, properly and completely analyzed.

We’d like to believe that if Curtin University had brought their underwater acoustic information to the Australian Government, we wouldn’t be hearing it called “Breaking News” on CNN.  We’d like to believe we wouldn’t be hearing about it at all unless it had been fully vetted and determined to be reliable.

It’s too bad that an institution of higher learning hasn’t learned anything from the Keystone Kops Komedy which has unfolded since March 8.

When I hit a drive and it heads into the rough, I know exactly where I’m going to look for it, not so much because I know it’s there, but rather because that’s where I want it to be.  So, I head towards the short rough immediately adjacent to the fairway.  I persuade myself to look for my golf ball in a location where, if I thought it through, I would know I’m not going to find it.

Recent statements by the US Navy Salvage Service, that the much heralded “pings” were not from the aircraft and the searchers have been looking in the wrong place, coupled with what continues to be a controversial Inmarsat analysis, are like my golf game.  The search efforts have focused on an area where everyone hoped they would find the aircraft and persuaded themselves they would find it, even though hard evidence supporting that possibility appears to have been absent.

Now don’t get me wrong, all the governments involved are well meaning and highly motivated.  The problem is that, in the absence of any hard evidence, they seized upon anything and everything available, and proceeded to construct elaborate analyses which have, in hindsight, lead the investigators to a dead end.  In doing so, they explained away differences in the frequencies and other inconsistencies.

The only thing we have truly learned so far is that the ocean is very big and very deep.  Little consolation to the families, whose fragile emotions have, not by design, been victimized by search authorities that are too willing, on occasion, to unqualifiedly legitimize what they are doing and why they’re doing it.

The Australians, in particular, find themselves in an uncomfortable position.  Admirably, they stepped forward to take ownership of the search efforts.  They have “institutionalized” the search by creating a Joint Agency Coordination Center.  They validated the “pings”.  They expended millions of dollars.  Despite everything, they failed, and now face the prospect of $60 to $80 million in additional search costs and possibly years of effort.

I don’t suggest that the Australian Government should not have stepped forward or that what they have been doing has been in error or even that they should regret their decisions.  But you have to wonder what they’re saying behind closed doors.

The whole investigation has become an object lesson in how not to handle an investigation.  Communications, at all levels, appears to have been nothing short of disastrous.  Transparency has been anything but.  Nothing appears to even approach being worthy of being held up as a model of how the system is supposed to work.

While we may never know where the aircraft is resting, how it got there, or why it happened, at a minimum, we should use the “sideshow” surrounding MH 370 as an object lesson to make sure that accident investigation authorities in the future get their act together.  By way of footnote, had the NTSB been running the show, it would never have become a sideshow.

Now, excuse me, I have to go look for my golf ball  . . . . .

The raw data is just that, raw data.  The analytical tools are lacking and, even assuming they had been released, nothing more would really be known except that, if Inmarsat’s techniques are assumed valid and they did the math correctly, their results are accurate.  A whole lot of assumptions.

There is no way the expectations of the families or the media could have ever been satisfied with the release of the data.  In the complete absence of any physical evidence, the investigation is, simply stated, nowhere.

Nothing that is released is ever going to satisfy the families.  The level of analysis to which the raw data must be subjected, coupled with what seems to be an analytical technique whose validity continues to be in question, presents the likely prospect that we will never have answers.

Independent experts are likely studying what has been released.  If history is any indicator, they will conclude either that Inmarsat’s analysis is valid, it’s invalid or the data released is not enough.  None of those answers brings any closure to anything.

The Bluefin is out of the water for, it appears, several months.  The search has stopped.  The controversy, sadness and anger continues.  We continue to have no answers with little, if any, prospect of that changing.

In any event, even the unscientific poll of just watching any 24 hour news network allows the most casual observer to conclude that the “story du jour”, in fact, the “story du week” is the Clippers.  After all, it’s got sports, sex, money, intrigue and everything else required of a good reality show.  The problem is that there’s finally something to really report regarding MH 370.

Last week the Malaysians, Australians and Chinese met to talk about what comes next.  We have heard reports of reviewing the “ping” data and the Inmarsat analysis, bringing in private contractors to resume the search at a cost of $60.0 million, and expanding the search area.  All of these are admirable steps.

The search, to date , based on the Inmarsat analyses, has come up empty.  The reality is that no one really seems to have had the opportunity to independently review or validate either the Inmarsat data or the methodology they utilized to do their analysis.  There have been reports that it was a cutting edge approach, but it doesn’t appear that anyone has really been able to critically evaluate it.  People are suggesting the possibility that the whole analysis is flawed and that the search is looking in the wrong place.

If you haven’t read it, The Atlantic, May 8, 2014 has an interesting article which dissects what is known of the Inmarsat analysis.  The sub-heading of just one section of the article tells the whole story “Why Inmarsats’ Analysis Is Probably Wrong.”  In examining the Inmarsat analysis and trying to validate it, the article says “Either Inmarsats’ analysis doesn’t totally make sense, or it’s flat out wrong.”

Inmarsat continues to stand by its analysis.  It’s not very surprising, since they have a pretty substantial credibility investment in it.  Taking refuge in the investigation, Inmarsat won’t give any details or answer any basic questions about their analysis or who reviewed it for accuracy.

If one is to believe The Atlantic article, investigators have been searching in the southern region of the Indian Ocean based upon a proprietary analysis by a company which seems to follow the maxim of “ipse dixit” or “it’s true because I say it’s true.”

We don’t know whether to afford the Inmarsat analysis any credibility, particularly in light of the totally unsuccessful search efforts.  Nor do we know whether the criticism leveled in The Atlantic is valid or not.  What we do know however, is that it appears we’re back at square one, or maybe square 12, or maybe square seven, or maybe…

Whether or not the involved nations, which presumably have access to everything none of us do, are in any better a position to determine where the investigation is and where it goes, remains to be seen.  We do know they don’t know where the airplane is.

Just when you would like the media to beat up on someone, that someone being Inmarsat, they’re covering Mr. Sterling’s travails and those of the NBA, maybe because we all know the location of that wreckage.

In simple language, what it all comes down to is that searchers have eliminated approximately 125 square miles of ocean floor mapped by the Blue Fin and will now try to figure out where to look next.  The involved governments have vowed that the search will continue, but other current events continue to push MH 370 further and further into the background and lower and lower on the list of items of interest to the media.

The families have been asked to go home and await further developments.  The inevitable question…. the one no one wants to ask, much less answer . . . . .  is, “Does the search get called off and, if so, when?”

The answer to this question is actually quite easy.  Either the involved governments “institutionalize” the search and make it a permanent undertaking that will end only if the aircraft is found, or they prolong the search only if there is something reasonable left to do that has not been done.  In other words, unless they determine that the analyses done so far were in error, it may well be time to call off the search.  From this perspective, the meeting this week could be a good thing.

While the search got off to a shaky start, once it got on track, there’s nothing for which any government has to apologize.  Everyone involved has given it their best.  The aircraft and all on-board are gone.  The oceans are bigger than man’s ability to master them.

Nothing short of physical evidence of the aircraft is going to satisfy the families.  Just as they are upset that Malaysian Airlines has closed the family assistance centers, they will be even more upset when search efforts cease.

We hope that during whatever search efforts continue, they find the aircraft.  But everyone has to recognize that these search efforts cannot continue forever.  Sooner or later, they have to stop.  After two months, absent some hard evidence, we suggest it should be sooner.

Although the preliminary report is very brief, it does contain a complete timeline of the flight of MH 370.  At 1:19, the aircraft made its last radio contact with controllers at Kuala Lumpur, and the aircraft was instructed to make radio contact with controllers in Ho Chih Minh, Vietnam. Three minutes later, Kuala Lumpur lost radar contact with the airplane.

At 1:38, controllers at Ho Chi Minh contacted Malaysian controllers and asked about the plane’s location, as they had never heard from MH 370.  Malaysian controllers waited until 5:30, four hours later, to contact the Rescue Coordination Center.

This delay raises a number of questions.  Did controllers follow the proper procedures in waiting four hours?  Since it appears the plane was still flying during this period, would earlier notification have made it possible to locate the aircraft?  Did the delay worsen the chances that the passengers could have been found alive?

The doctrine of negligent rescue is primarily employed where a would-be rescuer negligently does something that makes the victim’s situation worse than it would have been had nothing been done, or if the rescuer acts recklessly and wantonly.  For example, the United States Navy was liable for the death of a seaman that occurred during a rescue attempt when the Navy vessel accidently collided with the ship it was attempting to rescue, sinking it.

However, there have been situations where liability has been imposed based on a failure to act more quickly and more thoroughly.  For example, in 1986, the Coast Guard was held liable in the deaths of two sail boaters even though they never dispatched a ship to perform a rescue.  The sailboat was in peril and radioed the Coast Guard for assistance.  Through a series of miscommunications, the Coast Guard, which was assisting other vessels, assumed that civilian freighters were conducting a rescue, while the civilian vessels which could have helped, assumed that the Coast Guard had the situation under control.  Similarly, the Coast Guard was held liable in a situation where it had received a garbled call for help, and then only made a half-hearted attempt to determine if someone was in need of assistance.

At this point, there are still a great many imponderables regarding what was actually happening, both in the air and on the ground, between 1:30 and 5:30.  As a result, it is impossible to know if a negligent rescue claim will be possible much less whether one would be allowable under Malaysian law.  Further, there would no doubt be issues of sovereign immunity that would have to be sorted out.  Such matters, however, have rarely stopped plaintiffs’ counsel in the past, and it will be interesting if an effort is made to pursue these claims.

Hopefully, effective arrangements of some type are being made to communicate with the families.  While there have been reports that not all the families have internet access, there are other ways to communicate, whether by phone or in person.  Predictably, the families are upset since they will be losing what appears to be one of their principal means of comfort . . .  .  one another.

While it is a “no-win” decision by the airline to close the family support centers located in hotels and encourage the families to return home, it is, nonetheless, a rational decision.  The aircraft disappeared on March 8 and, after almost two months, we know very little more than we knew on that day.  In fact, one company suggests that the on-going search is centered about 3000 miles from where it should be focused.  While dismissed by the Malaysian Government, it nonetheless feeds the fires of distrust.

All of this being said, after two months and no airplane, it’s entirely rational to close the family assistance centers.

On March 22, there was a tragic mudslide in Washington State.  After five weeks of searching and recovering the remains of 41 victims, officials have called off the active search, leaving two families, who lost loved ones and whose remains have not been recovered, without closure.

The brother of one of the victims who remains unrecovered is quoted as saying “The amazing thing is that of 43 people who were lost, 41 were found.  So, do I have an issue?  No. Reality is reality.  We knew this day was coming sooner or later.”

Certainly, the MH 370 situation is different.  Nothing has been found despite two months of search efforts.   While those search efforts will continue, the decision to close the family assistance centers is, by no means, irrational or inappropriate.

“Reality is reality” and everyone knew this day was coming.

The fact of the matter is that of the last 20 NTSB preliminary aviation accident reports, only three have been longer than one page. They are, in fact, preliminary.

Five have been about one page.  Five have been one-half to three quarters of a page and seven have been one sentence that states “NTSB investigators use data provided by various entities, including, but not limited to the Federal Aviation Administration and/or the operator, and will not travel in support of this investigation to prepare this aircraft accident report.”

Sure, you can find longer preliminary reports.  But you can hardly say that the MH 370 preliminary report, when we still know virtually nothing about anything, should have been longer than five pages.

Plane-ly Spoken has been very critical of the Malaysian Government in this whole matter.  However, for the media to go off on them because the preliminary report is too short is, in a word, silly.  Frankly, I’m surprised that the media hasn’t pointed out the fact that the preliminary report’s margins are very generous, the text is double or triple spaced or more and the typeface appears large.  If you reduce the margins, use single spacing for the lines and double spacing between paragraphs and a more standard typeface, the report is probably less than five pages!