MARCH 26 — The saga of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has dominated international news coverage for the past few weeks. Monday night’s announcement by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak that the plane ended in the Indian Ocean will likely be only the latest twist in a continuing mystery.

The preceding 18 days of largely futile and frustrating search and recovery operations hold many lessons for crisis management.

Leadership and competency

Although Mr Najib made the announcement on the fate of the plane, he was largely missing from the public eye and in the media during the long days following the disappearance of the aircraft.

This was an international incident involving the national carrier. Not only were there passengers from several countries on board, but several countries committed major assets to assist in the search effort. These international dimensions required the visible leadership of the national leader and not only the scrambling efforts of lower-level officials. Mr Najib’s protracted absence reduced confidence in Malaysia’s response.

Amid the confusion of varying reports about the state of the search effort, an abiding impression was created of a lack of competence on the part of the Malaysian authorities.

Organisational leaders and operational managers must be selected on the basis of competency and not political suitability. It is too late to learn on the job during a crisis.

Contingency agencies must have a deep culture of competency. This requires meritocratic selection of talent, transparency of performance and accountability of responsibility. It is clear that these qualities are not strengths of the Malaysian system and the results were clear for all to see over the past three weeks.

Expect the unexpected

One of the remarkable things about the flight of MH370 is how it could cross Malaysian airspace in an unauthorised direction without triggering a response from the Malaysian Armed Forces. Malaysian military radar is responsible for ensuring the protection of the country’s airspace.

The fact that Flight MH370 could traverse the airspace is a damning commentary on the Malaysian state of military preparedness. As with the multiple breaches of border security at the Woodlands Checkpoint in Singapore, critical security systems have to be realistically tested to ensure that capabilities are proven. The time to find them wanting should not be during actual incidents.

The most telling lesson from MH370 is the unexpectedness of its final flight. Contingency agencies need to expect the unexpected. Rather than be limited by the paradigm of known scenarios and trapped by fixed standard operating procedures, agencies should be adaptable to new scenarios and be flexible in their responses.

This requires deep competency, confidence in operational leadership and adequate capabilities — all of which call for substantial commitment of resources to build, maintain, upgrade and train credible contingency capabilities. Taking short cuts can create critical performance gaps during actual crisis.

Effective coordination and diplomacy

The involvement of so many different platforms on air and sea from so many countries deployed in a wide and shifting area of operations required good coordination to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. The impression gained from the official reports from China, Australia, the United States and Malaysia suggests weak coordination, with these countries taking their own initiative in planning and deployment and following up on their own leads.

The Malaysians should be commended on maintaining regularity in their update communication, but confusion and contradiction also characterised much of the operation. This coordination deficit further exacerbated the frustration of anxious relatives.

The need for central coordination, inter-operability of platforms and operational familiarity between different services is essential for successful integrated crisis response. This underscores the need for good and frequent international exercises to build a framework for joint operations of various kinds. It also indicates that coordination capability and capacity have to have latency to scale up to deal with multinational responses if required.

When faced with a crisis on such a scale, countries depend on other nations to come to their aid. To date, about 25 countries have participated in some way in the response effort. This is a strong indication that it is vital to build and maintain good international relations with both neighbours and large strategic nations.

The fact that Malaysia was able to call upon such willing and generous assistance is testimony to its rich network of good relations. Building up the political capital in international relations is a long-term strategic commitment. Tragic episodes such as Flight MH370 demonstrate that other than perhaps the US, no country has adequate resources to undertake operations on a large extended scale on its own.

As the operation moves into what must be a difficult and technologically demanding recovery effort in deep waters, we should all pause and reflect on the fragility of human life. Modern technology and past performance are not guarantees against future shocks.

Our collective respect and sympathy are with the relatives of those lost on Flight MH370. The lessons learnt and applied from this tragedy are the best way to ensure that their loss was not in vain. — Today

*Devadas Krishnadas is Managing Director of Future-Moves, a boutique strategic risk consultancy based in Singapore.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.