BY FLORENCE DE CHANGY
South China Morning Post
14 OCT 2017

After three years, Australia finds one certitude in its search for the airliner – it was not where authorities were so adamant it would be. One could be forgiven for seeing only an exercise in media management

It has been three years and seven months since flight MH370 vanished in the heart of a quiet night above the South China Sea. The Boeing 777 had been travelling northeast from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, where it was scheduled to land at 6.30am on March 8, when the co-pilot signed off from Malaysian airspace with the now infamous words “Good night, Malaysia 370”.

That was the last ever heard from the 239 people on board, 153 of whom were Chinese, and the last time the whereabouts of the doomed flight can be calculated with any real certainty. After 10 days of frenzied media speculation, in which the Malaysian authorities’ complete (and embarrassing) lack of knowledge of the flight’s location was broadcast across the world, Australia took the lead role in the search. That move was heralded at the time as “the pros” taking over – a confidence that in hindsight can be seen as completely misplaced given Australia’s aviation watchdog closed its investigation last week, not an inch closer to the truth. Read the rest of this entry »