MH370 - When is it enough?

Winky, I think the factor missing from the scenario you propose if that the world is watching.  I'm sure there are many people thinking 'I could be in the same situation as those poor families and friends' and so hope that they get the answers they need.

MDS 

http://www.smh.com.au/national...-20140330-35rrs.html

This doesn't seem too promising....

The answers are in with respect to the fate of their loved ones, sadly. Nothing is likely to be discovered except perhaps some floating debris.

Air travel is incredibly safe BECAUSE they spend so much time and effort investigating crashes and accidents.

Agreed, Winky. Even if a lot of resources were thrown at this the chances of recovering the black box don't look good. 

No doubt this is true. But at some point we must reach a point of diminishing returns where the money will save more lives elswhere.

Have just watched the episode of 'Mayday' on the collision of the TWA plan and the United plane over the Grand Canyon, the investigation prompted the formation of an extensive Air Traffic Control System for the US.  Without the investigation the system may not have been conceived until later.

My thoughts are:

1) The Military or Coast Guard dollars would have been spent on exercises, now they're spending it co-operating with other nations and doing something 'real'.

2) I suspect the number one change will the the introduction of a tracking system that is independently powered and cannot be shut off by the pilot.  This will allow for aircraft traceability no matter what.

3) As for splitting up the 'further search monies' I suspect that the civil law suits against the airline and the state of Malaysia will financially compensate the families affected.

I demand a full dragnet of the entire Pacific until we find out what happened to Amelia Earhart...

Being a tad silly to make Winky's point...at some point (and I don't pretend to know what that is or if it has already been reached) it is just throwing good money after bad.

I have assiduously avoided the CNN "news orgy" on this story - what little I have seen is tantamount to beating a dead horse.

1) Yep. Some of the money would be spent anyway. This is just a training exercise for military forces.

2) That would seem to be a good (and relatively inexpensive) outcome. No need to find wreckage for that, though.

3) OK, but the search money is still spent (maybe wasted) regardless of where any compensation is sourced.

The airline industry has achieved its high levels of safety today precisely because it seeks to learn from past mistakes and failures.

The costs of the operation have almost certainly been overstated because in truth there is a cost to having search and rescue crews sitting around on standby or flying practice sorties which will not have been factored in.

In response to how a plane can just disappear it might surprise you to know that we don't even have complete blanket radar coverage of the UK yet!

Those who have pointed to the litigation angle are quite correct!

Jonathan

Not really since new aircraft come with new technologies, materials and manufacturing methods.  Old investigations therefore may not be relevant.  They'll thoroughly investigate any air accidents until the end of time.

I didn't mean the policy of investigating air crashes in general. Just this one (and any specific one where the possible gains in insight are outweighed by the rapidly escalating costs and diminshing likelihood of a useful outcome).

Also....

Due to the comparitive rarity of actual crashes, much of the reliability engineering is based on failures that do not cause crashes at all. Aircraft have many duplicated/redundant systems - most failures occur, and can be addressed without an accident occurring. Investigation into these is a key part of making our aircraft more reliable. In these non-crash cases, it is also much more likely that critical evidence is not destroyed.

The other rapidly improving area is in simulation. The likelihood of failures (both engineering and human) and their consequences can increasingly be simulated, analysed and mitigated without waiting for a plane to fall out of the sky.

It may already be the case that information gleaned from actual crashes is a only a minor part of the combined "intelligence" on aircraft systems' reliability. Crashes typically result from a number of failures aligning e.g. critical mechanical failure + poor crew response, rather than single "cause". Each of the individual failures occurs for more frequently than the critical combination.

That's a weak strawman argument and completey misrepresents what I said. I'm talking about the folly of spending huge amounts of money in specific circumstances where the chances of success are extremely remote, not about "stopping all" investment in air safety. But then you knew that, didn't you.

For all the effort on the MH370 search thus far, thay have found precisley nothing.

Who's decision should it be?

It won't be called off - this search will go on until its found. 

It will get downgraded after black box signal is past its transmitter run time,  but not called off.  

Meanwhile if they do find some identifiable wreckage,  with tidal drift back tracking it will give a more defined search area even if the black box is not transmitting.  Then don't forget it took >2 years to find the Air France atlantic crash & they had a reasonable idea where it went down. 

I fear you are correct. The cost is uncapped. Thinking of the lives that could be saved, and the lives that could be improved with that money - but that won't be, makes me sad.

which "that money" are you refering to winky.

It almost sounds as if its your personal treasure chest, or at least someone else's treasure chest.

As others have pointed out, much of the "cost" is simply utilising resources that would otherwise be on "standby" or being deployed on training exercises.

Now if another disaster occurs whilst this one is on-going, and the prospects of saving lives or revealing causes is good, then I would imagine the current resources would be re-directed, and rightly so.

Staring out the windows aircraft which are flying around in ever-increasing circles perhaps isn't the best training out there, although managing the process and logistics is likely very challenging, and I'm sure things are being learnt. Nevertheless, the spend rate is far greater during active search (and rescue?) than the background operational readiness and training spend rate. 

The money doesn't come from my personal treasure chest any more than it comes from yours. But it is tax dollars that are funding the search. Just because they aren't my own personal tax-dollars isn't reason enough for me to not care about the best use of the funds.

the "your treasure chest" was a jest, but you knew that.

Britain has sent a submarine and a surface naval ship to help with the search, and four airmen who are on exchange tours with the RAAF and New Zealand Air Force are also involved. No doubt all this can be allocated an equivalent monetary value. But, and this is the point that you seem to avoid, withdrawing any or all of these assets won't release anything (or very little) for other good causes.

I suspect that the contributions by others is somewhat similar.

I also suspect that the

I suspect that the search and rescue contributions by others is somewhat similar.

I also suspect that the contribution by Inmarsat was free of charge and that the resources they deployed could not have been transfered to some other "good cause"

Its only because of the efforts so far that the prospect of a succesful search are looking so bleak.

Unless bits of this aeroplane are found in the next four weeks (say) I think the scale of the search will be significantly reduced in general, and only stepped up if new evidence pops up unexpected.

They can never give up searching, not just for the family's but to find out what caused this and to implement improvements to the crafts safety, if needed.

As a subsidiary benefit perhaps it could also be viewed as a bit of positive international co-operation, with military kit used for a more benign purpose than usual.

Bruce