Plane search vs spending the money combatting world hunger and disease
 

I'm having a hard time with the hunt for the missing Malaysian plane. So much money, so many resources. The people are dead. they're trying to bring closure to the relatives (or garnering fame and scoring political points).... but at what cost? Even if they did find it, and they ID the corpses through dental records/whatever, then they go through the (expensive) process of removing the bodies and returning them.....they're not going to be in a fit state to be viewed by and be recognizable to their relatives, I'm not sure there's any more closure there than being told now they are dead and will never be found.

Some people die and they're bodies are never found. it sucks donkeys' balls, but nothing is going to change their deadness. this hunt is not heroic, it's stupid and a complete waste of resources. What if we put that manpower into building an orphanage/family shelter and a school with a sustainable farm in a war-torn country in Africa or -say- Downtown Detroit? there's so much good that could be done that would save more lives than are already lost.

/rant **maybe**

Let the flaming begin

No flames from this quarter. Have to agree.

No matter where the plane is, the passengers are dead. The families have to accept this. If the plane is on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, if it is covered with tarp on an unknown landing strip in Kazakhstan ... it doesn't matter. Either way, the passengers are dead. I wish the media, particularly CNN, would do the decent thing and LET GO of this story. It hasn't been a story for more than 3 weeks, it's just been a media masturbation extravagansa. It's obscene.

Clancy wrote a book about crashing an airliner into government buildings in Washington. Nobody believed it would happen. Years later, it did.

ABC broadcast a TV show about crashing an airliner into a deserted island. Nobody believed it would happen. Years later, apparently it did.

Talk about hunger. Those people have been "Lost" on a deserted tropical island for almost a month without food.

It took 121 episodes and six years to learn what happened to them. Deja Vue.

That's the media playing with the news. You determine the plane went down, everyone's dead, end of story.

The people actually looking for the plane don't give a shit about the passengers, they know they're dead. What they want is the answer to how and why the plane crashed. Boeing and the NTSB take their responsibility to explain every crash as best they can, in order to prevent more crashes, very seriously. What they can determine from the wreckage, over and above black box data, is quite amazing. But it takes wreckage and time, sometimes years.

Other nations are willing to help as best they can, because their citizens fly these same aircraft. I'm pretty sure the people flying on the other 1600 or so 777-200 and 200ERs, are curious too.

On 13 Sept 2005, a pilot ran out of gas with 10 to 15 gallons remaining in another tank. The NTSB spent a full year investigating this as discussed at
fuel calculations aren't this hard.
It is necessary so as to learn from our mistakes - even one this stupid.

They just want to prove it wasn't their fault whilst appearing compassionate :( But it's a waste of money

I disagree. They are working to save future lives by identifying the cause of this crash. If they don't find it, we will never know why it crashed and won't be able to try to prevent that type of crash in the future.

If they don't find it, then it's a waste of money. But if they do find it, it won't have been be a waste of money.

I kind of agree in principle ....but I just feel it's throwing good money after bad at this point. There are so many people dying right now who could be saved by a large injection of cash/manpower. Maybe they are the people destined to work out what happened and prevent it happening again? And it's not a new plane design, route or captain. If it was a serious problem likely to reoccur it would have occurred before now :/

And think of the experience that it's giving the searchers. They are becoming expert searchers as they run through this drill, and someday they may be looking for actual survivors and that experience might come in handy. Think of it as practice.

This is getting silly now.

mmm. that kinda helps. It's just the whole "we'll search until hell freezes over" thing. I see that the battery from the black box signal will die on Monday. I didn't realize it was still running. But after that, there really is no hurry. And the evidence of signals turned off and change of flight path suggest human involvement. Which is more tricky to prevent without first hand accounts from witnesses. Oh well, it is what it is.

No it's good business, for Boeing and the US. There's probably $31 Trillion dollars at stake over the next 40 years.

Additionally, pilots are required to have a certain number of flight hours per year to maintain their proficiency ratings. Here, we would initially deploy active duty pilots during the search and rescue phase (even to "rescue" a still signaling black box before its battery dies). Later, as the mission transitions to from search & rescue to search & recovery, the ongoing mission would fall to Reserve and National Guard pilots who's crews need proficiency flight time. It's better than having them flying around for no reason other than punching the clock; however, it still has to be done so associated costs wouldn't be redirected elsewhere anyway.

I'd want my parent/spouse/sibling/child/loved one's remains. I can't believe anyone wouldn't. It would not sit well with me that my mother was out there, somewhere.

I said it wouldn't sit well with me. YMMV

I know that many people want that Gravigr. But unless they are footing the bill personally there are other considerations. I want working wings. "Want must be your master" as we were frequently told as kids.