I'm not sure that it was a case of the Malaysian officials simply being in over their heads, though I do think that is part of it. I think that they were hoping that it was a simple mechanical failure or pilot error and that the plane would be quickly recovered and they would inform the world of the crash.
My big but, here is, if that scenario is what Malaysian authorities believed to be the case from the beginning, why not mobilize the international community immediately when the plane went off course, or when there was no transmission from the cockpit? It is simply a curious sequence of events to me.
In my mind indicates that the Malaysians had some other scenario playing about in their heads, other than a ordinary plane crash, which is why they did not want to share it immediately with the world. JMO
bbm
That is a very, very good point. I have not thought about it in that way before.
If they had thought some mechanical failure occured, it would have been natural for them to immediately admit that they lost the plane and they don't know where the plane is or what happened.....here - here is the information that we have.
Instead, they admitted, what, 4 days later, IIRC, that the plane had made a left turn??? And then another few days before the zig-zag pattern was confirmed (on Military radar).
ANd then all the altitude changes, which, IIUC, STILL HAVE NEVER BEEN CONFIRMED by Maysia. There have been SO many RUMORS about the altitude - 5,000, 12,000.....they are swirling around b/c Malaysia will not confirm exactly what altitude points they have.
Then there was radar information from various countries which apparently were made known to Malaysia but the public doesn't know about. For example, DID INDONESIA CATCH THE PLANE ON ITS RADAR OR NOT???
JMO.