Editorial: The mystery is that there is still mystery

Pilot of a Royal Australia Air Force AP-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft scans the surface of the sea during a search operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 to the west of the Malaysian Peninsula. The Australians are searching 600,000 square kilometres of the remote Indian Ocean for the missing airliner. (AFP/ ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIRFORCE PHOTO)

It is not out of line to presume that the 239 people who were aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 are dead. As of Tuesday, It’s been 11 days since the plane flew off into a mystery that has captivated people around the world.

But the biggest mystery isn’t the plane’s whereabouts; the biggest mystery is that an airliner of that size could disappear in the first place. In a world where it takes seconds on Google Maps to find a picture of the home of nearly anyone who lives in a big city, it is beyond our modern comprehension that a large passenger jet could simply vanish, given advances in navigation and communications.

On Tuesday, Flight 370 officially became the longest disappearance “in modern passenger aviation history,” according to Bloomberg News, beating out the 10-day record set by Adams Air Flight 574 that crashed off the coast of Indonesia on Jan. 1, 2007. According to the Aviation Safety Network, 102 planes have disappeared since 1948, so it does happen. We just don’t expect it to happen with large modern aircraft.

The world has speculated wildly on what could have cause the plane to vanish, ranging from hijacking, terrorism, an on-board fire or an explosion, mechanical failure, or suicide by one or both of the pilots. With new theories being created and the shot down daily, we just don’t know.

The plane will likely be found, but if it isn’t it is proof that nothing is certain in this life, even in our modern times.




