MH370: Inquest the answer to ATSB’s shameful act of secrecy

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s attempts at using high-priced lawyers to suppress coverage of its failures in its search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 are a disgrace, and a threat to the democratic principles of free speech and press freedom.

Transport Minister Michael McCormack should hold the ATSB to account. With the ATSB hiding details about its failed search, only a coronial inquiry can get justice for the six Australians who disappeared with the aircraft and 233 other souls on March 8, 2014, on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The MH370 hunt may be on hold but eventually details about the failed search will come out and the ATSB, protected by legislation from producing documents requested by The Australian under several Freedom of Information applications, will have to reveal all.

The ATSB’s FOI officers last week decided the disclosure of documents could have an adverse effect on a “third party’s” business and declined to release the sought-after material. I wonder how much taxpayers’ money is being wasted on the legal attempts to suppress evidential material. Former transport minister Warren Truss needs to be asked whether he directed the ATSB, so as not to annoy the Malaysians, to plan the MH370 search on the basis of a ghost flight of dead pilots — even though the ATSB appeared to have little evidence to support such a scenario. This despite the Malaysian prime minister initially stating it was a case of deliberate human intervention, and aviation professionals pointing out that MH370 was obviously flown under control for the final seven hours. To base the search on a controlled flight would suggest the captain of MH370 was the culprit.

We also need an answer as to why the ATSB steadfastly refused to entertain the calculated search area proposed by British Boeing 777 captain Simon Hardy a few months after the event. This target zone centred on a position about 40km outside the ATSB search area and could have been completely covered in a matter of days. Much of the evidence supports Hardy’s theory and little supports the ATSB.

Only a coronial inquest, which the Queensland government could order given that four of the lost on MH370 were from that state, will suffice to explain the deaths of the Australians on that flight.

Never in the history of aviation have authorities, to this extent, attempted to avoid revealing evidence in answer to airline crashes. The safety of the airline industry is still on trial until this likely cold-case homicide is resolved. The small-area search for the wreckage of MH370 should be restarted based on the analysis of evidence from aviation experts, and not from bureaucrats.

Byron Bailey, a veteran commercial pilot with more than 45 years’ experience, is a former RAAF fighter pilot and trainer. He was a senior captain with Emirates for 15 years, during which time he flew the same model Boeing 777 as MH370.