CRISIS AND POST-ACCIDENT

MANAGEMENT: LESSONS LEARNED

FROM THE TRAGEDIES OF MH370 AND
MH17

By: Mr. Fuad Sharuji, Head of Post-Accident Office

Malaysia Airlines
 Summary of MH370 (tragedy on 8 march 2014)

■ 227 passenger with 12 crew

■ Total soul onboard = 239 peoples
■ Flight route is from KL to Beijing (6 hrs flight)
■ Depart from KLIA 12.30 AM
■ Reported missing after waypoint Igari
■ Other 4 flights that were depart that night (route to Seoul, Narita, Taipei,
Osaka) was working except MH370
■ Using VHF and ACASS to contact the captain was fail
■ Flight reported to make a detour from Igari, Penang, Andaman Sea and last to
the South Indian Ocean
 Summary of MH17 (tragedy on 17 July 2014)

■ 283 passenger with 15 crew

■ Flight route is from Amsterdam to KL (12 hrs flight)
■ Depart from Amsterdam 12.30 PM
■ The flight was shot by missile in Ukraine
■ The missile explode at the left side of the cockpit which firing around
800 bullets
■ The flight went down at height of 33 000 feet in 3 minutes
 Early phase search of MH370

Releasing a toll free number for family to contact MAS to identify the passenger (toll
free number: 1-137-884-1234)

2 unknown passenger; 1 have fake Austrian passport and another one have fake
Italian passport boarding the plane

With the help of Interpol, both passenger are identified as Iranian who have history
of hijack

Locals said they saw a ball of fire, explosion in the sky, providing the exact location
of where the aircraft may have crash. This lead the team to search first the aircraft
at South China Sea
2 days later, some reports from the radar came that the flight have
make a turn from Penang to Andaman sea and straight to the South
Indian Ocean

The nearest part to the searched area are from Perth, which cover
around 120 000 sq km

It takes 5 days to travel from Perth until the area (15 000 nautical
miles)
During the duration of search for 2 years, Only debris were found
 Early phase search of MH17

The Ukrainian government act first by collecting

the body remains and inform the Malaysian
government about the situation

Due to the crash site which is at a war zone, the

personnel who need to retrieve the personal
belongs and the black box of the flight were
given 4 hours each day to enter the crash site

Because of the war situation is still ongoing and

Malaysian government need to handle the case
of MH370, the investigation team was leaded by
the Germans
Team structure and management

A news breaking team

Establishing a team
also was establish
who is responsible for
which consist of care
the tragedies that had
giver, counselor, police
happen
officer and secretary

The news breaking

team works directly
with the family to help
them during their grief
 Dealing with chaos and the unknown
Onslaught at
Extreme Uncertain on
media
chaotic, what exactly
enquiries &
information happen and
Barrage of
overload, staff what going to
false lead and
shortage happen rest
wrong info

Dealing with Coordination of

unverified responsibilities Extremely high
media reports & Team stress level &
& Unfiltered member More problem
social media unclear of than solution
uploads responsibilities
 Repatriation of human remains

Collection of
Flown from Arrival of first
human
Ukraine to batch with full
remains at
Netherland honor
crash site

Familly Repatriation to
Funeral ritual
identification homeland
Dealing with ambiguous loss
loss without a Can occur
closure or physically or
validation emotionally

A paradox of stressful grief

human because of
connection no validation

No closure in
loss, only
tolerance
 Multi-dimensional challenges

Fear the
led to a lot of Media acceptations
conspiracy sensationalizi of truth
theories ng of MH370

Unethical NOK
Distorted
lawyers mistrusts the
media
misguiding authorities
reports
the families and airlines