Calm down, Fox News. MH370 isn’t Obamacare.

Shepard Smith of the US Fox News Channel went on his show Shepard Smith Reporting and launched a scathing takedown of the Malaysian government’s allegedly inept and dishonest performance in handling the investigation of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared early Saturday morning from air traffic control radar screens en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, carrying 239 passengers and crewmembers. 

In the video, Smith called out a pattern of inconsistency, obfuscation and dishonesty on the part of investigating Malaysian agencies in handling the Search and Rescue (SAR) operations for the missing Boeing 777-200ER jetliner. Here’s the clip:

 

While a lot of what Smith raises in that short segment is true, and alarmingly so, we have a few bones to pick with the scope of his reference, and a few facts he might have overlooked. For one, even as early as Monday, March 10, the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) released this graphic showing the search area for the missing aircraft: 

While the Malaysian military might have stumbled and clumsily backtracked on its report that Flight MH370 had turned back and might have ended up somewhere in the Straits of Malacca, away from its intended flight course from KL to Beijing, the fact remains that investigators had always allowed for the search to include a much wider area than popularly reported. That the search focused first on one area and then moved to another does not indicate lying on the investigators’ part. Inefficient processing of data? Sure. But nothing so far points to a cover-up, nor a motive for why the Malaysian government would do so.

Also, about getting enough information: We can’t help but feel that Smith’s segment assumes the Malaysian authorities to be in charge of the search and rescue operations for Flight MH370. In fact, they’re not. No country is currently in charge of the search and rescue effort for Flight MH370, which led many aviation accident experts to have earlier stated that this is an unprecedented case in which the authority to set up a formal investigation and spearhead SAR efforts legitimately cannot yet be determined. Again, the Malaysian authorities might not be the most skilled operators in the world when it comes to these things, nor have they been deftly communicating their intentions or plans, but due to international agreements brokered by the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and ratified by member nations including Malaysia, they don’t have the authority to overstep their limited territorial jurisdiction.

To wit: Until the final location of Flight MH370 has been ascertained (and it hasn’t) or a crash site found (we don’t even know for sure if it did crash), Malaysia cannot have the authority obliging other countries to share any and all information relating to the aircraft in order to build up a case profile. At this point, they can’t even compel Boeing engineers to give sworn testimony on the 777-200ER aircraft if the engineers don’t want to. This also means Malaysian authorities will have to depend on the good graces of Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and other governments to voluntarily share flight tracking data and other presumably classified information. There’s no onus on any external party to give up the goods, and no one wants to be held liable should the sensitive information they share be misconstrued, misrepresented, or in any way used to the detriment of the overall investigation … or to the originating country. 

Smith berates the investigators for not providing enough accurate information quickly enough to the grief-stricken family members of MH370’s passengers, 154 of whom are Chinese nationals. And yet his indignation is self-serving to an extent: The 24 hour news cycle demands that new information be pumped out as quickly and as widely as possible, feeding news outlets (including Coconuts Kuala Lumpur, of course) with fodder with which to sate the thirst of viewers and readers and Facebook likers and sharers the world over. A situation like that doesn’t really engender an environment where all data is properly screened and vetted, and the more quickly information is put out for worldwide consumption, the more likely that somewhere, something is not going to check out. 

The Malaysian government and the agencies it has tasked with conducting the MH370 are not without their flaws, some glaring. They have been brusque in their interactions with the media and bereaved family members, and Malaysian border police should have utilised their access to Interpol’s Lost and Stolen Travel Documents database to better screen the boarding passengers, instead of allowing the two young Iranian men to hop on board Flight MH370 with stolen passports. Their snap decisions to shut down open discussion likely stems from their long history of not having anyone question their authority or ability, as this piece in The New York Times illustrates. And no, they are not old hands at crisis management of this scale. But despite the weaknesses and shortcomings of the Malaysian government, this is still a desperately earnest effort by hundreds if not thousands of men and women, from Malaysia and 11 other countries, to locate and hopefully save a passenger jet with 239 people onboard.

It’s an unprecedented mess, conducted by government agencies with not much experience and even less official authority, but it’s not a sinister plot to hide a Boeing 777’s worth of people from their families back home. 



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