Why is there still no trace of flight MH 370? In an interview, Sir Tim Clark, head of Emirates Airline, is sharply critical of the investigation thus far. He believes someone took control of the plane and maintained it until the very end.
Tim Clark has been a senior manager at the airline Emirates since 1985 and has been instrumental in developing it into one of the world’s largest airlines. Today, the 64-year-old is seen as a knowledgeable expert and critic of the aviation industry. His view of the vanished Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 is a provocative one. The plane that disappeared was a Boeing 777 and Emirates operates 127 such aircraft, more than any other airline in the world.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: It’s now October, seven months after the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370, and we still don’t know what happened. What can still be done to gain some degree of clarity?
Clark: MH 370 remains one of the great aviation mysteries. Personally, I have the concern that we will treat it as such and move on. At the most, it might then make an appearance on National Geographic as one of aviation’s great mysteries. We mustn’t allow this to happen. We must know what caused that airplane to disappear.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And what do you think happened?
Clark: My own view is that probably control was taken of that airplane.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: By whom? What do you think happened?
Clark: It’s anybody’s guess who did what. We need to know who was on the plane in the detail that obviously some people do know. We need to know what was in the hold of the aircraft. And we need to continue to press all those who were involved in the analysis of what happened for more information. I do not subscribe to the view that the Boeing 777, which is one of the most advanced in the world and has the most advanced communication platforms, needs to be improved with the introduction of some kind of additional tracking system. MH 370 should never have been allowed to enter a non-trackable situation.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you mean by that?
Clark: The transponders are under the control of the flight deck. These are tracking devices, aircraft identifiers that work in the secondary radar regime. If you turn off that transponder in a secondary radar regime, that particular airplane disappears from the radar screen. That should never be allowed to happen. Irrespective of when the pilot decides to disable the transponder, the aircraft should be able to be tracked.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What about other monitoring methods?
Clark: The other means of constantly monitoring the progress of an aircraft is ACARS (Eds. Note: Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System). It is designed primarily for companies to monitor what its planes are doing. We use it to monitor aircraft systems and engine performance. At Emirates, we track every single aircraft from the ground, every component and engine of the aircraft at any point on the planet. Very often, we are able to track systemic faults before the pilots do.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How might it have been possible to disable that tracking system?
Clark: Disabling it is no simple thing and our pilots are not trained to do so. But on flight MH 370, this thing was somehow disabled, to the degree that the ground tracking capability was eliminated. We must find systems to allow ACARS to continue uninterrupted, irrespective of who is controlling the aircraft. If you have that, with the satellite constellations that we have today even in remote ocean regions, we still have monitoring capability. So you don’t have to introduce additional tracking systems.
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