Missing MH 370 is a needle in a haystack

I saw over China Central Television (CCTV News) two days ago, and also read in the our local newspapers,  over 50 nations are now searching the north and southern corridors in an area of 2.24 square nautical miles for the missing Boeing 777 belonging to Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 ? Wow! That’s a huge, huge area indeed to search for a tiny plane in comparison.

For those whom mathematics is not their cup of tea, except for those maths wizards and my learned engineer friends, do you know how big that area is?

A simple calculation will tell us that 2.24 million square nautical miles is the same as a square bounded by four sides, each side approximately 2773.6 km long

The area of  a circle given by πr2

Thus if the area of search was a circle, the radius will be:

√ (A / π) = 7692809.6 sq km / π

= 7692809.6 / π = √2448697.3

= 1,564.8 km.

If we take KLIA as the centre, and draw a radius stretching up to where Vietnam and Laos boarder meets at coordinates 15.5033 degrees north, and 107.4614 degrees east, this distance is 1558.620 km from KLIA.

 If we now draw a circle 360 degree all round SE Asia from KLIA, the area of sweep is equivalent to 2.24 million square nautical miles. This is the magnitude we need to search for a plane. This is almost an impossible mission.

How does this compare to the surface area of a Boeing 777?

I have already given that as approximately 900 square metres in my previous blog

The area of search is approximately (2773.6 km x 1000 metres)² = 7.69 x 10¹² (7.67 million, million) square metres

Since the area of a Boeing 777 is just 10^-8 percent or 0.00,000,001 %   compared to the size of the search area.

This is far smaller than searching for a needle in a haystack.

 Let us say a haystack is spread over an area of 10 x 10 metres = 100 000 000 square millimeters.  

An object 0.00,000,001 %   of this dimension is:

= 0.01 square millimeter in size, or just a speck 0.1 mm across. How are they going to look for a speck in this vast ocean?

Maybe this is possible, but only by using a satellite images to zoom in at very high magnifications over some floating objects. This cannot be done using planes or ships. But still you need ships to go there to confirm a satellite image.

Searching for my plane:

I remember when I was a young boy the only toy I have was a yellow plane hardly one inch long. It was so precious to me. We have no computers, i-pad, i-phones, and tablets to play with those days.

I would pinched my yellow toy plane with my thumb and forefingers and moved it along a  table or some flat surface as if it was a runway making some humming noises as I moved the plane  as if it was taking off, and then lifted it up into the air and ‘flew’ it over my head as I ran.

One day, I played it in Batu Pahat High School field at a corner where there was a sand pit for shot put and high jump. I remember bringing my plane there to play as if it was taking off from a desert. Remember I always wanted to be a pilot that never was.  That was the best I could offer myself.

Lost in the ‘desert’:

After playing in sand pit, I lost that yellow plane in the sand. I frantically searched for my plane for days, weeks and month, and the more I dug into the sand, the deeper I buried it. I never managed to find that plane till this day. Each time I passed through the school field even today, I looked at that corner where the sand pit was, wondering if my pet plane is still there.

The submarine that never surfaced:

This is the same thing when I played with my toy submarine in the flooded streets outside my shop in Batu Pahat those days in the 1950’s. That submarine was supposed to surface after each dive into the flood water and monsoon drain in front of my father’s cold storage shop. But one day, it never did.

I then searched and searched for it in the drain and adjacent drain and in also in the street after the flood subsided, but it never saw the daylight.

Till this day when I go back to Batu Pahat and walked along my former shop through memory lane, I would look at that monsoon drain hoping for a 1:100, 00, 000 chance to see that submarine even though it may have long crumbled into rust from the salty sea water that flowed into the streets through Batu Pahat river in twice a day during each new and full moon from sea tides. 

But both my plane and submarine was captured by Mother Nature, never to be found till this day.    

Pray-fully,  and hopefully we can find MH 370. I am worried for those lives. I feel for them with each passing day. I trust God in His mercy will keep them safe, and for their loved ones, hopefully they will huddle together to keep each other psychologically warm and comfortable as they share their untold sorrows. 

This  is psychologically therapeutic if they share their common grief together to know the are not alone.

I trust others too like myself  will  pray and share the families grief together.

We trust in God, and we leave this Mercy in Him. 

Amen! 

lim ju boo

 Lim ju boo