It is now four years since we saw or heard from MH370.
Perhaps because there is a search underway in the southern Indian Ocean, thanks to a deal between the Government of Malaysia and the American company, Ocean Infinity (OI), there appears to be less cause for anger and frustration at this moment amongst the families. The air is suffused with a mix of caution and positivity when weighing the prospects of finding the plane. In the absence of overriding anger, there is a reliving of the early hours of 8th March 2014 that changed lives forever, a greater outpouring of pain, and anguish about a wait without end for answers.

I have seen the Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Investigation team’s Interim Statement released today.

In many ways this team is our hope, a body with international representation, stature and a mandate vested in it on behalf of the international community. In my imagination it is a bulwark against the whims and machinations of the political establishment, because it draws its legitimacy and its sustenance from a global Convention rather than local / national bestowal.

So I reckon it would speak with a voice that is its own, restrained in language but not guarded, and candid rather than cautious. The Statement released does not meet this expectation.

It fulfils a procedural requirement. A bland non-event. It barely whets the appetite to know what the Annex 13 team has done in the last 12 months, what it considered, what it has ruled out, what it is seized of…

It says very little about its stance vis-à-vis the suspension of search in January 2017, and the non-resumption till nearly a year after with OI signing the deal to undertake search, its role if any in the OI negotiations, what lines of inquiry, if any, is it pursuing besides waiting for the search to resume or end, what its views and plans are for debris search in the east African coastline, whether it considers a reward for information / debris as a desirable option since all publicly known information has reached a near dead-end.

There is the matter of the flaperon. It was the first piece of potential MH370 debris ever found (July 2015). Last known, it remains with France, since Réunion island is French territory, off east Africa. No comprehensive report has been made public till date from that country, or the Investigation. Shouldn’t it be flagged in the Annex 13 team’s statement?

I could go on with possible (and perhaps) unrealistic expectations. I wished the Statement reflected the team’s thinking rather than its desire for safety.
The Statement also left me reflecting on the state of play. It is obvious that in the real world, nothing is ideal or independent.

I am left wondering about the ‘independence’ of the Annex 13 Search and Investigation team. I am not sure how the International Conventions / guidelines facilitate this. Typically, the one who funds also dictates the direction and the general course of the narrative.

Its inability to access and claim the flaperon found way back in July 2015 in Réunion Island was presumably due to geo-politics and French judicial entanglements.

The Annex 13 team, of its own accord, was unable to retrieve potential debris in south-east Africa for months (Madagascar 2016) and was at the mercy of the lead country, Malaysia. Neither could it institute or prevail upon governments to roll out a concerted search for debris on the coastlines of South Eastern Africa and the islands nearby. Can it act only when potential evidence is presented to it or can it actively shape the search too?

It remains dependent on the lead country’s aviation functionaries and diplomatic corps to have working arrangements for retrieval, handling and transportation of debris.

Is it at liberty to add to its team or recast it?

The Ocean Infinity (OI) offer was at Malaysia’s doorstep rather than with the Annex 13 team. So it seems. Where does the MH370 Response team’s role / remit end and what is its relationship with the Annex 13 team?

Is the deal with Ocean Infinity on behalf of the Annex 13 team? What is OI’s accountability to the Annex 13 team? Why is its representative not on the search ship, Seabed Constructor? Who has a claim to the black box, if found?

Maybe to the veteran, wise to the ways of international dealings, these are non-issues, lazy or naïve questions. But to so many of us who watch from the sidelines expectantly, maybe a Search and Investigation 101 course will help. Perhaps in putting a fresh and updated version together, some of the yawning gaps in international protocols that go to undermine public trust will become apparent to all.

I have come to believe that at the heart of many issues that plague MH370 search and related aspects, is the reality that International Civil Aviation Organization is a monolithic international guideline generating factory that cannot regulate, enforce or punish its members. The real safeguards against governmental excess or denial that adversely impacts a search and investigation are transparency, active engagement with the public and well informed public opinion. Wisdom will dictate when such disclosure and engagement is desirable and when it can be detrimental to the investigation. A blanket gag or a procedural refuge to hide behind serves only a select few.

While on it, it may well be worth pondering why on earth do affected families not have a more active role legitimised by clear provisions, and consequences for their breach. It may be worth keeping in mind that they suffer but are not weak, they are an affected party, not incidental. They deserve participation, not patronising.

Image from AP News.

This article originally appeared on my Facebook page.