What Do You Think Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

MARCH 21, 2014, 5:00 AM

On March 8 a jet carrying 12 crew members and 227 passengers disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. Since then, the world has followed this news story with both horror and suspense, wondering what could have gone wrong.

What do you think happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

In “Newly Detected Objects Draw Searchers for Malaysian Plane,”Michelle Innis and Chris Buckley provide the latest reporting on the mystery:

Satellite cameras spotted objects floating in the southern Indian Ocean that might be parts of the Malaysia Airlines jet that vanished on March 8, the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said on Thursday.

Mr. Abbott and an Australian rescue organizer both counseled caution about the sighting, found in images recorded on Tuesday. The first Royal Australian Air Force plane to fly over the estimated location of the objects returned to base Thursday without spotting anything that fit the description — a reminder of how the hunt for the missing Boeing 777 jetliner could remain long, difficult and possibly fruitless.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a message on Twitter that the search aircraft, a P-3 Orion, was “unable to locate debris — cloud and rain limited visibility — further aircraft to continue search.”

Later, a United States Navy P-8A Poseidon also returned from searching the target area to an air base near Perth, the capital of Western Australia, and “had nothing of significance to report,” according to a message from the United States Seventh Fleet, which is overseeing the American military contribution to the search. Cmdr. William J. Marks, the spokesman for the fleet, said in an email that the Poseidon had found “no indication of debris.”

Mr. Abbott told Parliament in Canberra, the capital, that “the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search.” He said that after analyzing the images, “two possible objects related to the search have been identified.”

He cautioned that “we must keep in mind the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult, and it may turn out that they are not related to the search.” Flight 370 and its 239 passengers and crew members took off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing in the early hours of March 8 and disappeared from ground controllers’ screens 40 minutes later.

NOW YOU GO: Read the entire article, then tell us …

— What do you think happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

— How closely have you been following this news story?

— What theories sound most plausible? Do you think the disappearance was caused by technical malfunction, pilot error or hijacking? Do you think there is a larger conspiracy at work?

— Why do you think the world is so fascinated with this disappearance?

Monday, April 7, 2014

Not Number One

Should the United States Care That It’s Not No. 1?

By MICHAEL GONCHAR

APRIL 4, 2014, 5:00 AM

The United States has the most powerful military and the biggest economy in the world. Our movies and music are consumed across the globe. But at least according to one measure, the Social Progress Index, we come in 16th.

Should the United States care that it’s not No. 1 in social progress — based on measures like health, ecosystem sustainability, basic education and personal safety?

In this Opinion piece at the top of the Times most-emailed list, the columnist Nicholas Kristof writes:

We in the United States grow up celebrating ourselves as the world’s most powerful nation, the world’s richest nation, the world’s freest and most blessed nation.

Sure, technically Norwegians may be wealthier per capita, and the Japanese may live longer, but the world watches the N.B.A., melts at Katy Perry, uses iPhones to post on Facebook, trembles at our aircraft carriers, and blames the C.I.A. for everything. We’re No. 1!

In some ways we indisputably are, but a major new ranking of livability in 132 countries puts the United States in a sobering 16th place. We underperform because our economic and military strengths don’t translate into well-being for the average citizen.

In the Social Progress Index, the United States excels in access to advanced education but ranks 70th in health, 69th in ecosystem sustainability, 39th in basic education, 34th in access to water and sanitation and 31st in personal safety. Even in access to cellphones and the Internet, the United States ranks a disappointing 23rd, partly because one American in five lacks Internet access.

“It’s astonishing that for a country that has Silicon Valley, lack of access to information is a red flag,” notes Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which oversees the index. The United States has done better at investing in drones than in children, and cuts in social services could fray the social fabric further.

This Social Progress Index ranks New Zealand No. 1, followed by Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands. All are somewhat poorer than America per capita, yet they appear to do a better job of meeting the needs of their people.

NOW YOU GO: Read the entire article, then tell us …

— Should the United States care that it’s not No. 1 in overall social progress — based on measures like health, basic education and personal safety?

— Do you think measures like the Social Progress Index have any validity? Do they say something accurate about quality of life in the United States and other nations? Or, are they not as useful as more traditional measures like gross domestic product?

— Do you think it’s fair to compare a country as large and diverse as the United States with much smaller countries like New Zealand and Switzerland?

— One of the things that the Social Progress Index emphasizes is access. So while the United States has some of the best schools and hospitals in the world, for example, not every American has access to these institutions. How important is access?