MH370 exposes flaws of government, its inability to manage a major crisis

My article was earlier published in TheAntDaily.com on 18/3/2014

The mysterious disappearance of the MAS flight MH370 has exposed many flaws in the federal government, its departments and various agencies.

The government’s handling of the crisis has been unprofessional and shocking since the Boeing 777 with 239 people on board went missing while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.

One major flaw is the government’s sheer incompetence in coordinating the search and rescue operations (SAR) and investigations into the incident which has attracted global attention. Government-linked entities like the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), Malaysia Airports Bhd (MAB), Malaysia Airlines (MAS), Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN), Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) and the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) have been giving contradicting statements to the affected families and the media.

It seems like these government agencies, their heads, CEOs and directors are not communicating with each other to ensure that their messages do not contradict each other. When cornered and asked why it had issued inaccurate and contradicting information, the government simply blamed the people for listening to rumours and claimed the press had misquoted it. Flip-flops were the order of the day.

Even on the matter of reports from civilian and military radar systems, there were many inconsistencies, with “sometimes detected” and “sometimes not detected” answers given when the civilian and military officials were repeatedly questioned? Are they saying that the press had confused them with confusing questions? Or were they themselves too confused with their radar systems and not competent to manage a crisis of this proportion? They will certainly give all sorts of excuses to the end.

There is one serious security concern here. The military and civilian radar systems had earlier indicated that there was a possible turn-back by MH370. The RMAF chief General Rodzali Daud had said that the flight was detected by the air base radar in Butterworth, Penang, at about 2.40am. The question here is why didn’t the RMAF scramble its jets to intercept a plane which was not supposed to fly over the designated air space, reportedly situated near the island of Pulau Perak in the Straits of Malacca? 

Giving an excuse that the flight detected was merely a civilian aircraft is not a good reason for not taking any immediate action (sending jets to intercept the airliner). That was indeed a serious breach of our nation’s airspace which has been deliberately overlooked by the RMAF.

What really surprised us is that General Rodzali later denied what he had mentioned to the press earlier, claiming that he had been misquoted. Is the air force general also trying to deny the negligence of RMAF regarding the radar control and its failure to act?

If flight MH370 had been intercepted by RMAF fighter jets on that day, the aircraft’s disappearance and possible hijack could have been avoided. Such negligence is therefore not forgivable at all.

Then there was also the case of two foreigners on board MH370 who were travelling with stolen passports. The two passports were reported stolen in Thailand in 2012 and 2013 respectively, belonging to an Italian and an Austrian. It was later revealed by investigators that the stolen passport holders were ordinary Iranians who wanted to migrate. Why did they make this conclusion so fast in the first place, without looking into many other possible angles?

So, this is yet another serious security flaw on the immigration side, especially at its KLIA checkpoint. The immigration director-general could not assure the public that such a security lapse would not recur at KLIA or other airports in the country.

To many people, the case of these stolen or fake passports is not a surprise at all. It is common to read of identity cards (ICs) being stolen and later sold to illegal immigrants for a mere RM500 to RM1,000 so that they could vote in our general elections. The case of Sabah is a good example. Its population of illegal immigrants with Malaysian ICs could make up almost the whole state itself, thus outnumbering the real Bumiputeras, namely the Kadazan-Dusuns.

As if these flip-flops and comedy of errors by the government were not enough, the 1Malaysia “bomoh” emerged at KLIA with his “Laksamana Do Re Mi” kind of stunt to help find the missing aircraft. He displayed his bamboo binoculars and flying carpet rituals for the world to see. As expected, it drew flak from all corners of the country and made Malaysia a subject of ridicule.

The government deserves public and international condemnation, not only for this shocking and sad MH370 incident, but also for its massive corruption and crimes that had caused our nation to move backward.

These systemic loopholes, negligence, and corrupt and incompetent authorities have turned the country into an operational base and transit point for international criminals.