Inside Story

MH370: Breakdown in communications?

A year on from the Malaysia Airlines tragedy, is the airline industry keeping up with modern tracking technology?

It remains one of aviation’s greatest mysteries – the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

The plane vanished on March 8 last year. And still there are very few clues about where it may have ended up.

The Boeing 777, with 239 people on board, dropped off civilian radar, shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. It was then tracked by military radar.

After all contact was lost though, quite where it ended up falls more into the realms of speculation.

At one stage the search area spanned almost eight million square kilometres, about the size of Australia, looking for a single plane.

But given the 21st century technology that’s available to the modern world, why is it that so little is known about what happened? And who should take charge in such events?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests: 

Gerry Soejatman, an aviation industry consultant and co-founder of CommunicAvia, which specialises in aviation communications technlogy.

Chris Yates, an independent aviation analyst and former Aviation Security Editor at IHS Jane’s.

Oliver McGee, an aviation specialist and former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Technology Policy.