Science in the News 2014

Science News of 2014

The past year, 2014 has been filled with all different kinds of world news, some exciting, some surprising, but also very tragic. Since the start off the past year, there were three disappointing aircraft incidents, one that even made history. On March 8th a Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Boeing-777 disappeared somewhere over the South China Sea while heading to Beijing. 131 days later, on July 17th, another Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 also Boeing-777 has been shot down near Ukraine while heading to Amsterdam and months later, towards the end of the year, on October 31st, there was a different type of aircraft accident. Virgin Galactic, a "suborbital" space plane crashed during a rocket powered test flight.

Air Malaysia is one of the most famous airlines flying all over the world daily, and although the same airliner has experienced two accidents in the same year, people worldwide vow to continue flying with them. One of their international passenger planes disappeared on March 8th while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport. The Boeing aircraft 777, fight MH 370 carried 227 passengers and 12 crew members which have all been missing since. Less than an hour after the plane took off, at 01:19 am was the last time the air traffic control made voice contact and that was while it was over the South China Sea. Ever since the plane has been reported missing and nothing from the aircraft has been reported found, including no debris. Days after the flight went missing, Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak confirmed that the plane crashed in the Southern Indian Ocean  (see figure1). There have been many hypothetical scenarios as to what could have happened on the plane. One is that the cabins have been filled with smoke which could have left the pilots unconscious. The second hypothetical scenario could have been pilot sabotage, a part of the crew member could have been behind it all, but there is still and ongoing investigation behind it. It has been ten months since the disappearance of the flight and yet no news about it. This has been the most expensive search in aviation history and no airline search has been taking this long to uncover which makes it one of the most significant stories of 2014, also one of the reasons people looked for hope in 2014. 

           

                   Figure 1: Confirmation of where the plane crash took place.

Months later, another Malaysia Airlines flight incident happened above Ukrainian- Russian border (see figure2). On July 17th, Flight 17 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has been shot down by pro-Russian separatists using an air missile. The Russian government blamed the Ukrainian government, but it has been believed that the pro- Russian who was forced to shoot down the plane has been told that they shot down a plane from Kiev, not knowing it was a passenger plane from Malaysia. The crash took away all the lives of all 298 people on board where the corpses of the bodies remained 34 km around Hrabove, Ukraine where the crash happened. This flight has been confirmed as the deadliest aviation incident in Ukraine, deadliest airline shoot down, seventh deadliest aviation incident in history including a Boeing 777 and Malaysian Airlines worst incident of all time. Both MH 370 and MH 17 made history and shaped the world news in 2014, making it a tragic year. Having two different aircraft incidents of the same airliner made both significant stories of 2014 making it difficult and upsetting. 

Figure2: What the wreckage of the plane looked like when it crashed by the Ukrainian border.

Differ from the two previous aircraft incidents, both involving Malaysian Airlines, this was the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo crash. The suborbital space plane during a rocket-powered test flight ended with a crash where one of the pilots died and the other had a fatal injury (see figure3). It seemed to have been the engine that hasn't been prepared properly which led to the crash in the first place. When the carrier craft released the spaceship, the officials on the ground noticed something off about the engine only two minutes into the flight. CEO and the general manager of the space port, Stuart Witt was one of the eyewitnesses of the incident. Just like Witt, many other witnesses stated that they saw the plane engine looking like it did not perform properly and it seemed like the engine started then in the flight stopped and then started again. There seemed like the explosion wasn't visible, but it sure was seen to fall into pieces. Tests have been done throughout the years to develop the motor and to make sure there is same outcome each time and this time they were ready to put the motor in and try it out in space. Although they were determined the motor was ready, it led to the crash and a loss which was another plane crash incident recorded in the year 2014.

                                 Figure3: The site of the Virgin Galactic crash.

2014 has been a year of devastating news and losses and what made the headlines were the stories of plane crashes which have caused scares all over the world. The two Air Malaysia flights have been what the world was talking about and differ from these two plane crashes there was the virgin galactic space ship which also created another tragic news story for the year. All of these catastrophes have been investigated on ever since and they have been getting the world to hope and pray for a change.