MH denies rumours of 28/5 shutdown

[anat0l]

The only way the public can deal with MAS as an entity is to do it with their wallets until the answers are found.

The way I read this and your point of view, irrespective of the outcome of MH370 and responsibility, you would be sooner dead than flying MH ever again.

If people "voted with their wallets" in order to hold MH account to MH370, then by lateral logic, no one will ever (or should ever) fly MH again as they have already failed in their responsibilities with respect to MH370, and if they are not directly responsible for MH370, the fact is it seems to be burned in people's minds that MH = lost an aircraft = unsafe. (A very similar argument followed and resulted in the demise of Pan Am after the Lockerbie disaster - and oh boy did people vote with their feet, amongst other supposed management issues).

I know that there are a fair few Chinese who would share your view, and would not care who in Malaysia or Malaysia Airlines ends up being collateral damage in all of this.

 

[UP4014]

I think that any airline could have the bad luck of a crazy individual or a group of terrorists to highjack it's plane so I can't blame MH for that.
I do blame the people who run MH and the Malaysian government for the poor way they dealt with everything that happened.

I'm in agreement, we can't blame an airline if terrorists got on board, but we don't know what happened.

 

[UP4014]

The way I read this and your point of view, irrespective of the outcome of MH370 and responsibility, you would be sooner dead than flying MH ever again.

If people "voted with their wallets" in order to hold MH account to MH370, then by lateral logic, .......

Twisted logic, 2 options; dead or fly MAS. That's not what I said at all.

The only way Joe public can express annoyance at a corporation is to go elsewhere as i read on this board daily over much less than fatalities. xx_ airline mucked up my J seat allocation so I'm never flying them again.

Matt

 

[UP4014]

I'd love to understand what sort of systemic issue causes an aircraft to fly a complex route, that apparently follows a path that avoids obvious alarm, that allows it to completely disappear of the face of the earth.

For me, if there were failures in systems, processes or people (as opposed to one person) then the aircraft would have been found already.

I didn't mention anything systemic. It was MAS people and systems in charge when it took off and then we don't know. The last known facts are MAS was in charge. Unless someone has updated facts these are the facts, they aren't my facts or your facts. Nobody owns the facts.

Matt

 

[medhead]

I didn't mention anything systemic. It was MAS people and systems in charge when it took off and then we don't know. The last known facts are MAS was in charge. Unless someone has updated facts these are the facts, they aren't my facts or your facts. Nobody owns the facts.

Matt

I see what you mean.

But we do know some facts after it took off. The plane turned, the plane might have flown around Sumatra (not so much fact but strong supposition) and the plane followed a certain path southwards (again based on the publicly released information, which might equal facts). I don't think MAS was in charge of those events. I don't think MAS would have agreed to those events if they were in charge. I think MAS were in charge until the plane deviated from the plan. I'm inclined to think that deviation was caused by a random nut job, rather than MAS.

In any case, I'm rather keen to burn some Enrich points.....

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I'm in agreement, we can't blame an airline if terrorists got on board, but we don't know what happened.

It may be that the airline is partially to blame for a terrorist on board.

While security is usually a government issue, we don't know what security knowledge the airline had - whether it knew of any shortcomings for example.

El Al has its own security arrangements at many international airports. If an Australian airline was flying to a high risk area and there was the potential for a security threat I would perhaps expect they have taken what ever measures are necessary to ensure the safety of their plane. (Not that I'm saying this is high risk... but there is some evidence of this with secondary security screenings for all flights to Australia and the USA.)

I don't think it is necessarily so clear. (Of course it may be in the case of MH, but if it was an act of terrorism, then there needs to be a thorough investigation.)

 

[Timba-Jet]

I didn't mention anything systemic. It was MAS people and systems in charge when it took off and then we don't know. The last known facts are MAS was in charge. Unless someone has updated facts these are the facts, they aren't my facts or your facts. Nobody owns the facts.

Matt

I not across all the details, but from what I've read, there were numerous mistakes or correct procedures not followed after the flight took off that was outside of MH control. Air traffic control in KL, then Vietnam. Military radar personnel ignoring the plane as non hostile.

MH handling post incident may not be up to scratch but that does not directly correlate to safety issues, just bad PR, crisis management etc.

 

[UP4014]

Guys and Gals, I'm not going to get into any more tit for tat posts to spare everyone the labour of reading them.

As an accident investigator myself, we need to start by sticking to what we know as fact, not what I heard on TV, read in the Daily Terror or some spokesman came out with. The two rules of what not to do are, use emotion and get emotional.

The way I look at accidents regardless of if there are no fatalities or 6 in a single event (which is the most I've been involved in) is to ask 'why' four or five times.

Purely hypothetical, example of the 5 whys.
Why did the aircraft crash in the Indian Ocean - because it ran out of fuel and was off course.
Why was it off course - because the pilot was incapacitated
Why was the pilot incapacitated - because he was hit over the head
Why was he hit over the head - someone smashed their way into the coughpit
Why did someone get into the coughpit - because they wanted to destroy the aircraft and people. Reason unknown.


There are other methods but this is the simplest anyone can use.

Matt

 

[medhead]

Guys and Gals, I'm not going to get into any more tit for tat posts to spare everyone the labour of reading them.

As an accident investigator myself, we need to start by sticking to what we know as fact, not what I heard on TV, read in the Daily Terror or some spokesman came out with. The two rules of what not to do are, use emotion and get emotional.

The way I look at accidents regardless of if there are no fatalities or 6 in a single event (which is the most I've been involved in) is to ask 'why' four or five times.

Purely hypothetical, example of the 5 whys.
Why did the aircraft crash in the Indian Ocean - because it ran out of fuel and was off course.
Why was it off course - because the pilot was incapacitated
Why was the pilot incapacitated - because he was hit over the head
Why was he hit over the head - someone smashed their way into the coughpit
Why did someone get into the coughpit - because they wanted to destroy the aircraft and people. Reason unknown.


There are other methods but this is the simplest anyone can use.

Matt

And if we follow you hypothetical exactly how is that MAS' fault? Why do we stop flying them and hope they go bust?

The other obvious problem is that you are not the accident investigator for this accident. If we follow your rule then you also have no basis for drawing the conclusion you've drawn. You've only heard on the TV that the plane took off. According to your post now, that isn't a fact that you have.

If I can't use the information from the Immarsat spokesman on TV about the satellite signal, then you can't use the information from the MAS spokesperson that MH370 took off.

 

[UP4014]

And if we follow you hypothetical exactly how is that MAS' fault? Why do we stop flying them and hope they go bust?

The other obvious problem is that you are not the accident investigator for this accident. If we follow your rule then you also have no basis for drawing the conclusion you've drawn. You've only heard on the TV that the plane took off. According to your post now, that isn't a fact that you have.

If I can't use the information from the Immarsat spokesman on TV about the satellite signal, then you can't use the information from the MAS spokesperson that MH370 took off.

It was hypothetical as is the below. It's just an example of ways of looking at it.

different version, and we can take as fact the flight left the airport as the airport logs departures for billing purposes and customs and immigration log people exiting the country.

Why did the flight crash in the Indian Ocean - the aircraft ran out of fuel
Why did the aircraft run out of fuel - the flight deck crew were unconscious
Why were they unconscious - there was a small hole in the aircraft creating a decompression and lack of oxygen
Why was there a hole in the aircraft - a part of an engine came away and entered the cargo area and severing communication lines to the outside world.
Why did the engine fail - go through maintenance history of engine.


I don't look at aircraft accidents, I look at railways. But the fundamentals are the same. You then put all the other info around it to create the timeline. In railways and many aircraft accidents it's the Swiss cheese model, plenty of things going wrong and when the holes line up it's game over.


Matt

 

[medhead]

It was hypothetical as is the below. It's just an example of ways of looking at it.

different version, and we can take as fact the flight left the airport as the airport logs departures for billing purposes and customs and immigration log people exiting the country.

Why did the flight crash in the Indian Ocean - the aircraft ran out of fuel
Why did the aircraft run out of fuel - the flight deck crew were unconscious
Why were they unconscious - there was a small hole in the aircraft creating a decompression and lack of oxygen
Why was there a hole in the aircraft - a part of an engine came away and entered the cargo area and severing communication lines to the outside world.
Why did the engine fail - go through maintenance history of engine.


I don't look at aircraft accidents, I look at railways. But the fundamentals are the same. You then put all the other info around it to create the timeline. In railways and many aircraft accidents it's the Swiss cheese model, plenty of things going wrong and when the holes line up it's game over.


Matt

I think the point is that you (and I), if we cannot use information from the TV, cannot say the aircraft left the airport. Which gets back to your original point that all we know is the aircraft left the airport. If I can't speculate, and be confused by, other public information from the TV, then I am not sure how it is valid for you to claim that the aircraft left the airport. Do you have the customs, immigration etc. logs in your possession? Yes, a factitious question which is really about saying the people who are investigating the accident do have more facts than just "the aircraft took off".

I also think there is a massive why missing from you hypothetical: Why was the aircraft over the Indian Ocean? Surely that is one of the critical Whys? Engine failure certainly does not explain how it got to be over the southern Indian Ocean in the first place. Would it have crashed if it wasn't over the Indian Ocean?

Why did it run out of fuel? It was flying in the completely wrong direction.

 

[The Rok]

It was hypothetical as is the below. It's just an example of ways of looking at it.

different version, and we can take as fact the flight left the airport as the airport logs departures for billing purposes and customs and immigration log people exiting the country.

Why did the flight crash in the Indian Ocean - the aircraft ran out of fuel
Why did the aircraft run out of fuel - the flight deck crew were unconscious
Why were they unconscious - there was a small hole in the aircraft creating a decompression and lack of oxygen
Why was there a hole in the aircraft - a part of an engine came away and entered the cargo area and severing communication lines to the outside world.
Why did the engine fail - go through maintenance history of engine.


I don't look at aircraft accidents, I look at railways. But the fundamentals are the same. You then put all the other info around it to create the timeline. In railways and many aircraft accidents it's the Swiss cheese model, plenty of things going wrong and when the holes line up it's game over.


Matt

I really hope your not an air accident investigator if that's your method?


I

 

[medhead]

I really hope your not an air accident investigator if that's your method?


I

It's a valid method - root cause analysis. The difficulty is asking why enough and asking the right why. I've also encountered problems with restrictions on looking at blame of a person. Why did they [do something really, really stupid without checking any details at all]. Apparently, I'm not allowed to say because they are complete coughs! :shock: and instead have to look for system errors.

 

[Jay Cee]

Since when is gate-to-gate IFE an intransigent safety issue? <snip>

Swissair Flight 111 comes to mind. (this line is not OP's)

<snip>

<snip>

I guess we might see something like JL where the network was completely rethought and decimated into a core, sustainable, profitable network.

The last sentence I agree with. :-|

 

[Shan Man]

Or "Process" errors, and provide a solution to dummy proof the Original "Process"

i.e No Person Alpha, this didnt happen because you dont seem to have the ability to think logically. Instead, it must have been the instructions werent clear enough! lets make the instructions clearer for all!

/offtopic Im sorry. Bad day at work with just this problem!

 

[anat0l]

I guess to try and get things back on topic (and I'm guilty of taking the tangential subthread), it is perhaps interesting or not really that such rumours have come up. The way I see it, however, is that I don't see MH really completely disappearing. I see many cutbacks but I don't see them go completely down. Considering that the government has a huge vested interest in it (as do many investment funds), the government would be more likely to see a large sharp restructure rather than completely obliterate the company (plus perhaps the government also writing off plenty of debt). Bankruptcy would be some sort of operational limbo, so to speak, but at least the Malaysia domestic market will be in need of some serious backup from other carriers (Air Asia?) if that does happen. I'm sure that is a scenario that the Malaysian Government has somewhat contemplated (as a possibly undesirable scenario), so bankruptcy may just be the "Plan C" / "no choice" / "dragged through the door kicking and screaming" option.

Maybe MH370 was another big nail in the coffin - who knows. At least for the Chinese market, it seems that way.

I guess it is more interesting whether there was any material, immediate reaction. For example, when the rumour was announced, did people en masse start hassling the airline about it, or start cancelling / rebooking their tickets to other carriers? Did Enrich members start drastically burning down their points?

 

[AviatorPJ]

..... Did Enrich members start drastically burning down their points?

This is a very good indicator to follow airline health.. IMHO....

 

[medhead]

I've looked to burn my points.

 

[burmans]

Trust in safety standards.
We don't have this problem in Australia.
Unless you count in Tiger. But there are so many other reasons not to fly with them

New Zealanders thought they had the safest airline in the world until one of their planes flew into Mount Erebus!

 

[RailFlyer]

I booked return J trip from NZ to UK with MH last week for the Mrs and myself last week using Points+Pay. Cheap but still many $$$$. If I get travel insurance will it cover me for lost $ if the airline goes belly up before I fly at the end of June?