MH 370
Less than three weeks ago, it was a flight code with top of mind awareness for only a small population of mostly airline, airport and air traffic control professionals.

Today, and forever in the history books of our times, it represents a globally memorized code for a tragedy that has defied all logic, all experience, all theories, all hopes.

So too the date of March 24th. For on this day the code MH370 became scratched into the panicked hearts of those desperately waiting for news of the 239 passengers that they knew as their loved ones. The words of Malaysian officials extinguished all flickering hopes for a happy ending. While so much remained unclear, what was certain was that 239 souls were lost somewhere in the rough, expansive seas of the southern Indian Ocean.

Whether directly or indirectly, whether known by name and smile or simply as a flight manifest profile, the loss of the 239 lives linked of MH370 weigh heavily on the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of people across the globe – one global community united by shock.
How could is have happened?
What actually happened?

And why?

Working as one united force, a reported 26 countries from all corners of the world remain focused on the search for the missing aircraft, 6 nations actively participating in sea and air operations. Countless number of agencies, networks, funds and prayers are being channelled towards the hunt for wreckage, and answers. Unlimited resources have been pledged towards the search, underlined with commitments to “do whatever it takes” to find the remains of MH370. Because the world needs to find the lost 239 souls so that they can be returned home, and, somehow, the healing can begin.
And the world needs the understanding.

From a global aviation perspective, the tragedy of MH370 has been called many things. ‘Unprecedented’, ‘unimaginable’, ‘unfathomable‘. An aircraft does not simply disappear. Not in today’s day and age when we are hyper-connected each and every moment by technology than transcends otherwise natural barriers of geography, economy, and even ideology.

And yet, through the loss of communications and tracking connection to MH370, a profound connection has been established: a remarkably powerful and purposeful connection across the global aviation community, governments, and the media, with one single mission. Find MH370.

Putting corporate logos, flags, and foreign policy issues aside, the greater the count of days missing grew, so too grew the count of leaders, agencies, and other specialists entities coming on board to find MH370 across a search area of 2.24m sq nautical miles, now narrowed to 469,407 sq nautical miles. As poignantly expressed by Mark Binskin, vice chief of the Australian Defence Force, “We’re not searching for a needle in a haystack. “We’re still trying to define where the haystack is.” Determination, collaboration and prayer became and remain the modus operandi. Humanity has become the compass. The search for survivors and answers has not been about credit or conditions of cooperation, nor has it been about cost or casting blame. MH370 has inspired a new way of connecting the skies, and now seas. The ill fated aircraft has become a symbol of so much more – a symbol uniting those working, those grieving, and those watching on, as one.

For followers of the mystery of MH370, the ongoing search for clues regarding the whereabouts of the missing aircraft has exposed the depths of expertise at work in the aviation sector. From experts first operating trying to track theories in regional air spaces, to those now ready to battle the depths of some of the most hostile of the earth’s open waters, for those following the story from across the globe, the learning curve regarding global aviation systems has been as dramatic as the now predicted curve of the flight path of Malaysian carrier. Appreciation for just what it takes to bring an airplane full of passengers home, safely and smoothly, each time a flight takes off from an airport somewhere in the world, has grown.

As the spirit of MH370 permeates the hearts and minds of the world’s travelling community, for the over 3 billion air passengers estimated by IATA to fly in 2014 in this the 100th anniversary of commercial flight, looking out the airplane window at 35,000 ft will not be without a more sensitive, thoughtful, sense of wonder and wondering.

And more now than in times before, the captain’s in-flight request to ‘please fasten your seat belts’ will be taken just that little bit more seriously.

Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2014