24 March 2014 Why talk when you can text

Cassi Creek:  The word came by text, indicating that Malaysian Air Flight 370 was presumed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, resulting in the deaths of all passengers and crew. 

          While the Prime Minister of Malaysia made the first announcement of the change in status for the flight, the families and friends of the passengers were  simply provided with brief messages sent to their cell phones. 

          What insensitivity!  How brutal it must be to receive such a notice in a cold and faceless manner.  Given the amount of lead time, it would have been very easy for the airline to bring in a disaster team capable of providing personal notification for every family member and friend waiting anxiously to hear what they knew but did not want to accept as final reality. 

          Yet, in a world that now prefers to text rather than talk, such brutality is a direct consequence of that preference. 

          The U.S. armed forces manages to send a team to the home of every service person killed or wounded in the line of duty.  The appearance of that team is always unwanted and seldom expected.  But it is personal in nature, providing a face-to-face announcement of loss.  The same face-to-face message should have been delivered to everyone waiting in Kuala Lumpur.  Anything less is not acceptable. 

          Now the search for wreckage and debris will focus in on a smaller area.  The families will most likely push for body recovery.  The recovery of those victims is highly unlikely.  The cause of this disaster may never be determined.

24 March 2014  Why talk when you can text

Cassi Creek:  The word came by text, indicating that Malaysian Air Flight 370 was presumed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, resulting in the deaths of all passengers and crew. 

          While the Prime Minister of Malaysia made the first announcement of the change in status for the flight, the families and friends of the passengers were  simply provided with brief messages sent to their cell phones. 

          What insensitivity!  How brutal it must be to receive such a notice in a cold and faceless manner.  Given the amount of lead time, it would have been very easy for the airline to bring in a disaster team capable of providing personal notification for every family member and friend waiting anxiously to hear what they knew but did not want to accept as final reality. 

          Yet, in a world that now prefers to text rather than talk, such brutality is a direct consequence of that preference. 

          The U.S. armed forces manages to send a team to the home of every service person killed or wounded in the line of duty.  The appearance of that team is always unwanted and seldom expected.  But it is personal in nature, providing a face-to-face announcement of loss.  The same face-to-face message should have been delivered to everyone waiting in Kuala Lumpur.  Anything less is not acceptable. 

          Now the search for wreckage and debris will focus in on a smaller area.  The families will most likely push for body recovery.  The recovery of those victims is highly unlikely.  The cause of this disaster may never be determined.

“(CNN) -- Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday, citing a new analysis of satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators, and apparently ending hopes that anyone survived.

A relative of a missing passenger briefed by the airline in Beijing said, "They have told us all lives are lost."

The Prime Minister based his announcement on what he described as unprecedented analysis of satellite data sent by the plane by British satellite provider Inmarsat and the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch. He didn't describe the nature of the analysis.

But he said it made it clear that the plane's last position was in the middle of the remote southern Indian Ocean, "far from any possible landing sites."

He begged reporters to respect the privacy of relatives.

"For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking," he said. "I know this news must be harder still."

The Prime Minister's statement came after the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it "deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived."