The media has mostly gone quiet about the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, as there has been no new information from the search efforts, and at this point, many people have given up on the thought of ever finding the plane. Still, searchers are actually still hard at work, and latest reports indicate that if the wreckage is not found in the currently targeted area, the search will be expanded to an area twice the current size.
The Boeing 777 airplane disappeared in March about a year ago, with 239 passengers on board, and hasn’t been found since. No information about the plane has surfaced since its disappearance, and many have been calling the incident one of the biggest mysteries in the history of aviation. While it’s not the first time an airplane has disappeared without a trace, the specific circumstances of its disappearing have been noted as very unusual, and the fact that the plane went missing completely without a trace in today’s technological age is very puzzling.
Currently, search efforts span an area of 60,000 square kilometers, and if the plane isn’t found in the current location, the search is going to be expanded to a 120,000 square kilometer area. This, according to reports, would cover the whole area where the plane could have gone missing with the highest probability, according to analysis by experts, but of course that’s still no guarantee that we’re going to see the plane found anytime soon.
Searching for the missing airplane has been not only challenging, but also quite expensive, with a total cost of $38.74 million estimated for the second phase of the search process. Of course, money is no topic for those performing the search operations, but it’s still worth noting that a lot of resources are being invested into trying to find the airplane eventually.
The search process involves sea vessels with advanced underwater drones, which have currently scanned more than 60% of the sea floor in the area – territory that was previously not even mapped. However, the plane still hasn’t been located in the currently scanned location.
Despite recent reports about airplane incidents being quite prominent in the media, experts say that we’re currently living in the safest period in aviation history. The problem, according to them, is that the media latches onto any scary-sounding story and blows it out of proportion, especially when it comes to something with more mysterious circumstances, like a plane that cannot be recovered completely. Despite the fact that we’re hearing about aviation incidents so often lately, it’s actually very safe to fly nowadays, and the risk of an incident is ridiculously low.