The search for MH370: Paul Sinclair discusses the prospects for and challenges facing international maritime co-operation in search and rescue.

• Author: Sinclair, Paul

In the early stages of the so-far unsuccessful search for Malaysia Airlines' missing Flight MH370, gaps in international co-operation quickly became apparent, notwithstanding the welcome involvement of 27 countries in the effort. The serious implications of these gaps demand early attention to addressing possible methods of strengthening search and rescue co-operation in the Asia-Pacific region, including ratifying the proposed Search and Rescue Convention. China can now be expected to play a more significant role in regional search and rescue operations and other humanitarian missions. There is a need to engage China in the development of a regional search and rescue model.

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The appalling attack on Malaysia Airlines' Flight MH17 over rebel-held territory in Ukraine has removed from media headlines the continuing search for MH370, which disappeared earlier this year. In all 27 nations participated to varying degrees in the largest search and rescue (SAR) mission ever undertaken. The collective response to this tragedy is very welcome.

Especially welcome in view of the heightened tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and legacy issues has been their common deployment of military aircraft from the same Royal Australian Air Force base. This shared humanitarian endeavour offers grounds for hope that both countries will consider building on it to move towards overdue dialogue on the major issues in their relationship.

Despite the number of nations that have contributed to this mission, however, co-operation has not been as smooth or as effective as the international community, and especially the relatives of the passengers and crew on board that ill-fated flight, could reasonably have expected. The search quickly revealed significant gaps in international co-operation especially within ASEAN.

In this article I will highlight those gaps, comment on their implications, and suggest how they might be bridged to strengthen search and rescue co-operation in the Asia--Pacific region. I will also discuss why China will play a more significant role in regional search and rescue and other humanitarian missions in the years ahead, and the need to factor this development into SAR and Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HR/DR) planning.

Unco-ordinated response

The ASEAN countries have had decades of experience in working together. ASEAN prides itself on conducting more than a thousand meetings a year across a very broad spectrum of activities. Yet although many of the ASEAN members made important contributions in the early stages of the search, these were largely individual unco-ordinated efforts. To external observers it seemed odd given the groupings emphasis on collective effort that in a field of endeavour with a strong humanitarian focus ASEAN was unable to deliver a collective response.

There was, for instance, the undignified public spectacle of a testy exchange between Vietnam's deputy transport minister, Pham Quy Tieu, and his Malaysian counterpart. Minister Pham noted that 'five days after the plane went missing, Vietnamese authorities only exchanged information with a Malaysian military official, who refused to provide any information about the search mission carried out by Malaysian authorities'. In response Malaysia's minister of defence, who is also their acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said the information was 'too sensitive'.

The Royal Thai Air Force took ten days to announce that it had tracked MH370 after it turned west. Not disclosing that information in a timely fashion cost valuable time and resources. The early stages of the search were thus characterised by a reluctance to share vital information and by poor lines of communication.

Possible implications

ASEAN aims to establish an effective political and security community by 31 December 2015. Unless the unwillingness to share information, especially in a humanitarian situation, is overcome, it is difficult to envisage an effective transition to this objective. Moreover, next year ASEAN is also expected to put an Open Skies policy in place. We can expect more flights and greater competition. Issues exposed by the MH370 search need to be addressed if this policy is to be...