Air traffic control supervisor sleeping on the job when MH370 disappeared from radar
According to a just-released 584-page report into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, an air traffic control supervisor was sleeping at the time the flight vanished from radar screens. The report contains transcripts of conversations between Malaysia Airlines staff members and air traffic controllers at Kuala Lumpur airport. Four hours after the plane's communications equipment stopped working, an airline staffer repeatedly asked the controllers whether the flight had successfully been handed over to Vietnamese controllers in the next airspace.
The Malaysian air traffic controller said that his shift had started two hours earlier – two hours after the flight had ceased communicating – and was unsure about the situation. According to the transcript, he said
"Aaa … never mind. I wake up my supervisor and ask him to check again, to go to the room and check what the last contact … all this thing."
In addition to that damning conversational detail, the report also highlights the slow response from air traffic controllers at Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh airport and their failure to respond to "at least one" emergency message from MH370. The Sydney Morning Herald says Ho Chi Minh's controllers took 20 minutes to ask why the flight had not entered its airspace or appeared on their radars when, according to international air traffic protocol, they should've been asking those questions within two minutes.
The report also highlights the confusion and slow, uncoordinated response from emergency response teams in Malaysia. The response teams "triggered a distress phase" just over five hours after the flight's final communication; the first search for the plane was not underway until it had been out of contact for more than 10 hours.
Malaysia's transport minister Liow Tiong Lai is obviously displeased with the report's findings. He has promised a "very fast" investigation and that he will take swift action against the air traffic control supervisor, if the man was sleeping on the job.
The work is on rotation. [...] If he is on a working shift, this is serious. We will definitely take action if there is any misconduct.
Liow did not define "very fast" or what he meant by "taking action," but either way, it's little consolation to the families of the 239 people onboard. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been missing for 370 days, and we still have no idea what happened.