The whereabouts of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is the current concern of people across China. Twenty-six countries by far have been involved in the ongoing search efforts, with even more countries studying and speculating about the cause of disappearance and all its possible flying routes. Before everything crystallizes, it is still difficult to make the final judgment about this weird incident in human aviation history.

But the author has a few thoughts to offer on the lessons from this incident.

First, MH370 went missing over an area adjacent to the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand---bordered by Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia, frequented by international flights. Such high frequency easily leads to blunders and flaws in flight control and surveillance and security loopholes as reflected in the Malaysian case. China is a big country in the South China Sea and Asia-Pacific regions in economic, trade, transportation, and tourist terms, with outbound and inbound flows of people and cargoes along the flying routes over the vast area. And considering the current international cooperation on counterterrorism, it is an urgent task for China to make stepped-up efforts in safeguarding Chinese and foreign tourists traveling over the area and maintaining regional aviation security and order.  

Among all things, the aviation identification and control capability in relevant areas are the most important. Flaws in the overlapping areas of aviation identification between Malaysia and Vietnam somewhat accounts for the lost contact with MH370. This incident serves as a wake-up call for China that to prevent such thing from happening again, it is imperative that we strengthen aviation identification and control capability over the South China Sea and adjacent waters, establish effective mechanisms and regulations regarding the identification, surveillance, and control of aircraft flying over these areas.

Secondly, after MH370 went missing, China has been ill-informed except for the limited updates released by Malaysia and western media, though more than half of the passengers aboard were Chinese. And China’s search efforts and media coverage seemed inadequate when families and friends of the passengers were waiting with great anxiety. This is because the missing plane is an American-made Boeing 777, which sends all information about the flight including the working state of the engines back to the US. Chinese media and relevant government agencies could only wait for second-hand data and information.

China is one of the biggest users in terms of civil aviation. Its air  flows of people and cargoes have been increasing. But aircraft for civil aviation in China are mainly exported from foreign countries, especially those large ones made by foreign manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus. It poses challenges not only to China’s economy but also to aviation safety. Therefore it is an urgent task for China to develop its homegrown civil plane manufacturing and engine technology.

Thirdly, the South China Sea and the adjacent waters have complex geographical features and are situated between a number of countries, confronting numerous complicated traditional and non-traditional security threats. Ensuring aviation security in this region requires relevant countries’ coordinated efforts in the security and technological domains to establish related cooperative mechanisms for a safe, smooth, convenient, transportation system, consolidating the basis for regional cooperation and prosperity. 

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