Jeff Wise is a journalist specializing in aviation, technology, and psychology who has written for Businessweek, Psychology Today, and The New York Times. He is also a private pilot, who flies both light airplanes and gliders.
Jeff is most well-known for appearing on the Netflix docuseries about the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Titled “MH370: The Plane That Disappeared”, the docuseries explores the competing theories that attempt to explain the plane’s disappearance. Jeff has also written a book about the case called “The Plane that Wasn’t There: Why We Haven’t Found MH370”.
USTN spoke to Jeff about his career as an aviation journalist, the ongoing challenges facing Boeing, and how he remains optimistic about solving the mystery of MH370.
You have dedicated a significant portion of your career on the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Why do you think it’s so important that the public truly understands the case?
MH370 is a case study of a pressing problem that society needs to address. Can we, collectively, get to the bottom of the issue, understand it, and solve it?
So far, I’d score it as a resounding failure, but the game isn’t over, and I remain optimistic.
Given your expertise, what do you believe is the most convincing theory to what happened to MH370?
There’s a common misperception that there are a lot of different theories about what happened to MH370 — in fact there are really only two. Either the pilot hijacked the plane to commit mass murder suicide, or it was cyber hijacked and flown north.
Are you still of the belief that third-party attackers hijacked the plane and took it north?
I don’t like to use the word “belief”; a major reason for our collective failure to grapple with the mystery thus far is that too many people cling to the first theory that seems reasonable to them and refuse to let go.
However, the more I examine the evidence, the harder I find it to reconcile the pilot-suicide theory with the evidence. For instance, I don’t think it’s reasonable to think that a 777 captain like Zaharie Ahmad Shah (pilot of MH370) would be able to, or want to, reboot the Satellite Data Unit. I also find it implausible that Zaharie just by a random twist of fate happened to carry out a series of manoeuvrers that left the plane outside the seabed search area.
I’m currently in the early stages of planning an experiment that I think will shed a clarifying light on the issue — I want to set up a Kickstarter to buy a flaperon and put it in the southern Indian Ocean on the 11th anniversary of the disappearance and see how the barnacles grow on it. I think this could settle once and for all whether the plane really flew south into the remote ocean.
You mention in a blog on your website that the case of MH370 has “changed the geopolitical situation”, could you expand more on what you meant.
If MH370 was cyber hijacked by extremely sophisticated hijackers, as I think the evidence shows it was, then it needs to be understood in the context of Russia’s ongoing hybrid warfare offensive against western democracy. These efforts have been remarkably successful, and as a result democracy is right now teething on the brink of defeat.
I think that most serious people understand the severity of this danger, but many clearly don’t, and I hope that if more people understand what happened to MH370 they will have a greater appreciation for just how resourceful, and how ruthless those who would destroy democracy are.
Can you explain how you became interested in aviation?
I’ve always been interested in flying, but it wasn’t until I found myself on assignment in Alaska, flying to a remote fly-fishing camp with a bush pilot, that I got to see what being a pilot was about close up. I thought, “I could do that”, and after I got home started taking flying lessons. Once I got my ticket, I was very interested in doing articles about flying as much as I could.
You have previously spoken about the issues that plagued Boeing since it was acquired by McDonnell Douglas. What would you say to the new CEO Kelly Ortberg if you were advising him on how to turn around the company?
I would advise him to signal as clearly as possible that the company will break with the “shareholder first” model of corporate governance and focus 100 percent on building the best possible planes for the long term. This means rebuilding trust with employees and customers – not by issuing carefully crafted statements but by standing behind them year after year after year.
As an aviation journalist and recreational pilot, you understand the relationship between the media and the aviation industry. I wanted to get your thoughts on how important it is that the media reports on all aviation incidents regardless of how minor, or whether you believe it mistakenly creates a culture of fear around flying?
Journalists don’t really get to choose what they cover; ultimately it comes down to what the public is interested in hearing about. You can write 100 stories about new fuel-efficient engines but if no one wants to read them it won’t matter.
In my experience, the public isn’t interested in EVERY plane crash, but they want to know about ones that kill a lot of people, especially people like them, or that are different or interesting in some way.
Where the judgement of an individual journalist can make a difference is in shining a light on stories that wouldn’t otherwise be told. For instance, I recently did a story on the conflict between the robust demand for private jet travel and the industry-wide mandate to decarbonize by 2050. These two trends are on a collision course, and the urgency of that contradiction is only going to become more intense as the deadline draws closer.
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