Originally Posted by
Carjockey
@Lonewolf
We don't know what was going on between 2.00am & 8.00am, but something was obviously wrong because the aircraft transponder and comms were "off" or "disabled" for whatever reason. The question must surely be why didn't ATC pick up on this and alert the civil and military authorities of neighboring countries immediately? Why the big delay?
From Malaysia ATC point of view nothing was wrong. The aircraft had been successfully handed over to Ho Chi Minh controller in Vietnam. Controller now stops watching that aircraft as it is not hers/his any more. The controller that should take action - and did - was the Vietnamese controller. The repeated calls and requests to call and listen were all initiated by the Vietnamese controller - as they should be - it was her/his aircraft. However, then the Vietnamese went further and said to Malaysia, MH370 seems to have turned back. Malaysia seems to have said - can't see it - handed it to you, not my problem. This is the problem with using cooperative surveillance systems.
The stop squawk and no VHF contact at the handoff meant that there was an administrative problem on who was responsible for initiating SAR. The Malaysian controllers cannot be expected to take SAR action on an aircraft that they handed off in good order, and could then no longer see. In theory an aircraft becomes overdue 30 minutes after it should have landed. That was several hours into the future.
This is yet another area where old protocols are no longer adequate or sensible. I think that this MH370 and to some extent AF447 losses are going to result in a major international rework of procedures and protocols on aircraft overdue/loss of contact, aircraft tracking, and the international protocols for setting up accident investigations.