Lost and Never Found: It’s Time to Accept that No One Will Ever Locate Flight MH370

The new Netflix Series “MH370: The Plane that Disappeared” is Heavy on Conspiracy, Light on Plausibility

“They’re never going to find that jet,” my uncle Don Harten casually remarked in 2014 as we sat in the lobby of the Van Nuys Hilton with CNN on in the background broadcasting coverage of the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines passenger jet, flight MH370.

“C’mon,” I laughed. “How do you lose without a trace something as big as a Boeing 777 loaded with the world’s most advanced avionics and communications equipment?”

“You ever see a jet that’s hit the water at 1,000 mph?” he replied.

I shrugged.

“All you’re left with are pieces about this big,” he said, holding his index finger and thumb in a circle about the size of a silver dollar.

I nodded as though I understood, but still believed at the time that he was being hyperbolic.

Author Craig K. Collins (right) with his uncle Maj. Don Harten prior to a speech to a group of Naval aviators in Van Nuys, CA, 2014.

Today, nearly a decade later, the mystery of flight MH370 endures and is the subject of a Netflix series MH370: The Plane that Disappeared.

My uncle, of course, knew of what he spoke. He was a combat pilot who flew five tours of…