Who gagged the search for the missing Malaysian jet?

The most serious absence at the heart of the story is any sign that the normal protocols of an air accident investigation have been followed. We know that the case is being worked by investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S., the Air Accidents Investigation Branch in the U.K., the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and, briefly because they left after a month of advising mostly on the sea search, the French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA). All of them are respected, state-of-the-art operations.

But under Malaysian control the investigators have not been able to follow the usual course of making public statements to explain progress—or lack of it. In a normal investigation it is customary to release a preliminary report as soon after the event as possible. This sometimes comes within days, and seldom takes longer than a month. The preliminary report is not to explain the causes of an accident but to give a precise account and record of the circumstances: the type of airplane, its age and maintenance record, the names and qualifications of its crew, the history of the flight up to the point of the crash.

Instead, the Malaysians adopted a policy of feeding virtually useless scraps to the public. Their so-called preliminary report on the accident was highly selective and perfunctory, a ragbag of unconnected documents without analysis. Moreover, it raised more questions than it answered.