소원영어센터

Malaysia can’t botch another air tragedy

Published : 2014-07-21 20:03
Updated : 2014-07-21 20:03

There
’s nothing funny
about Malaysia Airlines
losing two Boeing 777s
and more than 500 lives
in the space of four months.

That
hasn’t kept
the humor mills
from churning out dark humor
and lighting up cyberspace.

Actor Jason Biggs,
for example,
got in trouble
for tweeting:
“Anyone
wanna buy
my Malaysia Airlines frequent flier miles?”

A passenger
supposedly
among the 298 people aboard Flight 17
that was shot down
over eastern Ukraine
on Thursday
uploaded a photo
of the doomed plane
on Facebook
just before takeoff in Amsterdam,
captioning it:
“Should it disappear,
this is what it looks like.”

That reference,
by a man reportedly
named Cor Pan,
was
to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370,
whose disappearance
in March
continues
to provide fodder
for satirists,
conspiracy theorists
and average airplane passengers
with a taste for the absurd.

On my own Malaysia Air flight last month,
I
was struck
by all the fatalistic quips
around me ―
conversations
I overheard
and in those with my fellow passengers.

One guy
deadpanned:
“First time
I
ever bought
flight insurance.”

There
is,
of course,
no room
for humor
after this disaster or the prospect
that the money-losing airline
might not survive ―
at least not without a government rescue.
This company
had already become
a macabre punch line,
something
no business can afford
in the Internet and social-media age.

It
’s one thing
to have a perception problem;
it’s quite another
to have folks
around the world
swearing never to fly Malaysia Air.

Nor is
no margin
for mistakes
by Malaysia or the airline t
his time,
even though all signs indicate
that there
is no fault
on the part of the carrier.

The same
can’t be said
for the bumbling
and opacity
that surrounded the unexplained loss
of Flight 370.
Even if there
was no negligence
on the part of Malaysia Air last week,
the credibility of the probe and the willingness of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government
to cooperate with outside investigators ― t
ests
it
failed with Flight 370 ―
will
be enormously important.

As I have written before,
the botched response
to Flight 370
was a case study
in government incompetence and insularity.

After six decades
in power,
Najib’s party
isn’t used
to being held accountable
by voters,
never mind
foreign reporters
demanding answers.

Rather than understand
that transparency would enhance
its credibility,
Malaysia’s government
chose
to blame the international press
for impugning the country’s good name.

The world
needs to be patient,
of course.

If Flight 370’s loss was puzzling,
even surreal,
Flight 17
is just plain tragic.

It’s doubtful
Najib ever expected
to be thrown
into the middle of Russian-Ukraine-European politics.

Although there are still so many unanswered questions ―
who
exactly did
the shooting
and why? ―
it
’s depressing
to feel like we’re revisiting
the Cold War of the early 1980s,
when Korean Air Flight 007 was shot down
by a Soviet fighter jet.

More frightening
is how vulnerable civilian aviation
has become.

Even if this is the work of pro-Russian rebels,
last week’s attack
comes
a month
after a deadly assault
on a commercial jetliner in Pakistan.

One passenger
was killed
and two flight attendants
were injured
as at least 12 gunshots
hit
Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK-756
as it landed in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

It
was the first known attack
of its kind
and raises
the risk of copycats.

The low-tech nature of such assaults ―
available to anyone
with a gripe, a high-powered rifle
and decent marksmanship ―
is reason
for the entire world to worry.

The days ahead
will be filled
with postmortems
and assigning blame.

That
includes aviation experts
questioning
why Malaysia Air took a route
over a war zone
being avoided
by Qantas, Cathay Pacific
and several other carriers.

The key
is
for Malaysian authorities
to be open, competent and expeditious
as the investigation gains momentum.

Anything less
probably
won’t pass muster.

By William Pesek

William Pesek
is a Bloomberg View columnist
based in Tokyo
and writes
on economics, markets
and politics
throughout the Asia-Pacific region. ― Ed.

(Bloomberg)

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[3중급] Malaysia can’t botch another air tragedy

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