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Gulf Times
Thursday, March 5, 2015

COMMENT
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GULF TIMES
Kohli needs to
cool down to be
a successful leader
Virat Kohli has had several run-ins with rival players
during his illustrious career so far, but by going
ballistic at a journalist over a story about his private
life he has yet again shown a petulant streak that isnt
worthy of someone who is tipped to take over shortly
as Indias cricket captain on a full-time basis.
For someone who wears his heart on his sleeve
and who is passionate about playing for his country,
Kohli may be excused for getting into altercations on
the eld heat-of-the-moment incidents as sports
journalists love to call those but what happened in
Perth a couple of days ago has once again raised doubts
whether he has the mental make-up to head a highprole but disparate team like India where players
come from different linguistic, cultural, social and
religious backgrounds.
Kohli apparently ew into a t of rage and directed
a barrage of abuse at the shocked journalist only to
realise later that it was a case of mistaken identity and
that the author of the piece about him and his lm star
girlfriend Anoushka Sharma was actually someone
else!
The Indian batting star then committed another
blunder by not saying sorry directly to the journalist,
but apologising through another member of the large
contingent of Indian
reporters covering the
World Cup.
That apparently has
not gone down well with
the media who have
accused him of not even
having the elementary
courtesy to directly own
up a mistake.
In a column published
in the Hindustan Times,
the journalist subjected
to Kohlis tirade said he
was still in shock.
Go and tell him that he is an international player
and he should learn how to behave, Jasvinder Sidhu
told the intermediary to inform Kohli after receiving
the apology.
How can he abuse and intimidate someone? I would
like to add that Kohli did not apologise to me directly.
Kohli has a long history of anger and emotion
management issues that have often led to negative
headlines, but fans and journalists tend to overlook
this aspect of his personality because he has been
pretty consistent with the bat.
He was ned in 2012 for making an indecent gesture
at spectators during a match in Sydney and has often
riled Pakistani players with unnecessary aggression
during matches.
Kohli is 26 years old and still has at least a decade of
top level cricket left in him, but he needs to curb his
tendency to shoot from the mouth if he wants to go
down in sporting history as a successful leader.
In that its surprising he has not imbibed some of
the qualities of his current captain M S Dhoni, who
has turned unappability into a ne art with his
monk-like demeanour even during extremely trying
situations.
However, all is not lost and Kohli still has plenty
of time to make up. Countless players have become
captains but only a few among them have gone on to
succeed as leaders. The sooner Kohli realises this, the
better it would be for him in the long run.

Countless
players have
become captains
but only a few
among them
have gone on
to succeed as
leaders

The shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion maritime search aircraft seen on low-level clouds as it flies over the southern Indian Ocean looking for missing
Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in this March 31, 2014 file photo. No trace has been found of the Boeing 777 aircraft, which disappeared a year ago this week carrying
239 passengers and crew, in what has become one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

A year on: there is still no

closure on ight MH370
In January, the Malaysian
government declared with
the heaviest heart and
deepest sorrow the greatest
mystery in aviation history
was an accident

By Updesh Kapur
Doha

unday will mark 12 months

since the mysterious
disappearance of a commercial
aircraft on a routine scheduled
ight across Asia.
A Boeing 777 aircraft with 239
passengers and crew onboard went off
the radar screens an hour into its ight
from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the
early hours of March 8.
The story of Malaysia Airlines ight
MH370 has consumed the global
media ever since.
A year on with no trace of its
whereabouts nor a shed of evidence
about what happened to the aircraft
has made this a mystery of all
mysteries in aviation history.
Many safety experts believe the
ight was deliberately diverted, with
the transponder that transmits a
planes identity turned off to avoid
detection.
Yet conspiracy theories have been
doing the rounds for months. The
aircraft evaded radar to land safely at
a remote Asian airport with all those
onboard said to be in a safe hideout;
hijackers took control of the aircraft
and landed at any one of 600 possible
airstrips in the region.
The aircraft was seized to obtain
classied information from Chinese
passengers employed by a US rm
that develops new technology; the
captain deliberately crashed the
aircraft into the sea on a suicide
mission; the plane was intercepted by
Western military jets and shot down;
onboard communication systems
were deliberately switched off, pilots

apprehended and the aircraft forced

on autopilot to change course south
towards the Indian Ocean before
crashing into its resting place. The
theories continue to mount.
Investigators are convinced the
aircraft is lying on the bottom of the
ocean thousands of miles from its
last known appearance, according
to whatever data analysts have been
able to decipher. With no oating
wreckage found at all, the suggestion
is the aircraft is virtually intact on the
seabed, fuelling thought that it was
carefully glided onto the sea surface to
minimise possible structural damage
before sinking to the bottom of the
ocean. An international coalition of
search and salvage teams has been
unsuccessful in the weeks and months
since the aircrafts disappearance to
nd any evidence at all.
Deep sea search teams are
continuing their efforts. But combing
a sprawling area of tens of thousands
of square kilometres as deep as 6,000
metres remains a huge challenge. Its
the ongoing pressure, the need to
know where the aircraft is and what
happened that will only put closure to
the mystery.

Conspiracy theories
have been doing the
rounds for months
Ships with specialists and
equipment capable of searching
depths that regularly exceed 4,000
metres are working around the clock,
ticking off sections of the sea oor
that have been searched. Unmanned
submarines are also involved in the
search efforts, able to meander their
way through difficult underwater
terrain including steep mountain
slopes that other equipment is unable
to do so.
The clock is ticking as efforts are
ramped up ahead of the southern
winter when adverse weather
conditions prevail from around May
onwards.
Following a six-month probe
of ight data using a unique
mathematical technique, a Boeing
777 British pilot believes the aircraft
is lying on the bottom of the ocean at
least 100 nautical miles from where
Australian authorities have been
searching up until now in the Indian
Ocean, west of Australias coastline.
He believes the captain of MH370
steered the aircraft on an emotional

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MH370 search efforts were intensive in the early days of the missing aircraft.

This picture taken on February 18, 2015 shows Wen Wancheng, a relative of
a passenger of flight MH370, crying outside Malaysian Prime Minister Najib
Razaks office in Putrajaya, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. One year after the
Malaysia Airlines jet vanished, next of kin are trapped inside what one describes
as a black hole of emotional and often physical suffering.
farewell y-past with unusual
twists and turns over his homeland
of Penang Island off the western
Malaysian coastline. According to the
investigative pilots calculations which
are being described as credible and are
now being investigated by Australian
authorities, based on signals from an
Inmarsat satellite, the plane ew along
the Malaysia Thailand border going
in and out of both countries airspace
several times to cause confusion
between air traffic controllers. The
aircraft was manoeuvred south
towards the Indian Ocean ying for
hours on autopilot before it crash
landed on the water and sank intact
that explains why no wreckage has
ever been found. It is reported that the
plane was depressurised to force those
onboard into an unconscious state.
The latest theory comes as
Australias transport minister
announced the country will, alongside
Indonesia and Malaysia, lead a trial
of an enhanced method of aircraft
tracking over remote oceans.
The new method would enable
planes to be tracked every 15 minutes,
rather than the previous rate of 30 to 40
minutes, which begs the question why
such monitoring hasnt been carried out
with greater frequency to date.
The trial is expected to use
satellite-based positioning technology
already on board 90% of long-haul
aircraft that transmits the planes
current position and its next two
planned positions. The trial will boost
the frequency with which planes
automatically report their position,
allowing air traffic controllers to
better track them. Regardless,
whatever the scientic breakthrough,
it is the comfort needed by families
of those onboard to know exactly
what happened on that tragic night.
And of course the aviation industry
worldwide needs to understand
to better improve its safety and
security processes. In January, the
Malaysian government declared
with the heaviest heart and deepest
sorrow the greatest mystery in
aviation history was an accident. This
denition of the disappearance has
caused consternation among families
fearing the search efforts have all but
stopped.
But the declaration is a necessary
legal step to enable relatives of
the victims to begin insurance
compensation claims from the airline
in accordance with international
protocol, while search teams continue

trawling through difficult waters.

There will be poignant scenes
coming out of Beijing and Kuala
Lumpur on Sunday on the rst
anniversary of the disappearance of
MH370.
Yet against the backdrop of the
incident and the shooting down of
another Malaysia Airlines aircraft
last July, a Boeing 777 over the
Ukraine/Russia border en route from
Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital,
2015 is the year of radical overhaul for
the ill-fated airline.
Malaysia Airlines will cut seat
capacity, review its eet and
routes and re-negotiate staff and
service contracts as part of a major
restructuring programme that could
see one-third of its 14,000 workforce
lose their jobs.
New owner Khazanah Nasional
Berhad aims to have loss-making
Malaysia Airlines emerge as a new
company on July 1.
It is the rst announcement
by the governments strategic
investment rm since it took control
of the troubled carrier in December
following the two tragedies to hit
Malaysia Airlines.
Khazanah has outlined a 12-point
recovery plan targeting protability
by 2017 and re-listing on the Bursa
Malaysia stock market in Kuala Lumpur
by 2020. The targeted turnaround
will include cutting seat capacity by
10% across its network and focus on
more protable domestic and regional
routes. Under careful evaluation
are the sustainability of ights from
Kuala Lumpur to Europe, including
Paris and London, operated with the
Airbus A380 superjumbo. The routes
could be threatened if they failed to
contribute to group protability. The
future of the A380s in MASs eet is
also being questioned. The airline has
also appointed a new CEO, Christoph
Mueller, the former boss of Aer Lingus
having been lauded for improving the
Irish carriers nancial performance
over the years.
Come this summer, Malaysia
Airlines is expected to emerge as a
new company. But it is a tall order
to resurrect a brand from the clouds
of two tragedies that will forever be
linked to Malaysia Airlines.
zUpdesh Kapur is a PR &
communications professional,
columnist, aviation, hospitality and
travel analyst. He can be followed on
twitter @updeshkapur