Abstract

The purpose of this project is to analyze and explain an article by using

the knowledge of thinking skill. The article chosen for the project is about the
Malaysia Airlines flight incident that occurred last month. A lot articles about this
incident is written by international or local media based on the findings and views
of experts. Our project is made to relate the element of thinking skill with the
incident and discuss how the thinking element of the article affects to others.

Introduction
This purpose of this project is to analyze a chosen article and relate it with
the knowledge of thinking skill we learnt in EUW322 Thinking Skills. Thinking skill
is a skill which must be practiced and developed through rational thinking and
thought.
The title of the chosen article MH370 might have crashed into Indian
Ocean in suicide mission written by the themalaysianinsider online news website
based on a news article from Daily Telegraph. The article is about the Malaysia
Airlines flight MH370 that disappear since last month.
This topic of MH370 is chosen because it is a hot topic that often been
discussed recently and we found that most of the articles are tend to be biased.
Most of the articles writers are irresponsible as they do not think before they write
and their biased and misleading opinions might have a significant impact to the
readers.
In this report, we will analyze the article and relate it with thinking skill
element. We will comment about the thinking element inside of the article based
on our thinking skill knowledge skill and some reference of experts opinions from
stated sources. The references were made from reliable articles or news
throughout the internet.

Issues of MH370
What is MH370?
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) a scheduled international
flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were 12 Malaysian crew members and
227 passengers from different countries on the flight of the plane, Boeing 777200ER.
Disappearance of MH370
The plane departed at 12:40 a.m. on March 8, 2014 (Saturday) and was
planned to reach Beijing at 6:30 a.m. However, the plane lost contact with the air
traffic control at 1:20 a.m., less than an hour after the takeoff. The last known
position of the plane was 120 nautical miles off the east coast of Kota Bharu,
Malaysia, at a height of 35000 feet. The plane was in good weather condition
before its disappearance, and was never been seen since then.
Where is MH370?
Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak has announced that British
investigators from its Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) have concluded
that the flight of Malaysian Airlines MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.
Yet, since there is no evidence until now, so many explanations and prediction
about disappearance of the plane have been proposed, such as:
i)

Pilot suicide
That the pilot or co-pilot locked himself in the cockpit to vanish in the
Southern Ocean, protected by the now mandated anti-hijacker fortified

ii)

doors
Hijacking
Unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group and the pilot
is forced to fly according to the orders of the hijackers. Some believes
that the plane is hijacked by the terrorist or maybe by the pilot or co-

iii)

pilot.
Shoot Down

The plane experienced electronic failure and was shot down by air
force when the plane is on the way back to the airport.
Pilot: Zaharie Ahmad Shah
Zaharie Ahmad Shah is a 53-year-old flight captain that joined Malaysia Airlines
in 1981 and had 18365 hours of flying experience. He is also an examiner
qualified to conduct simulator tests for pilot.
Co-pilot: Fariq Abdul Hamid
Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27-year-old, an employee of MAS since 2007, with 2,763
flying hours. This was Fariq's first flight as a fully qualified Boeing 777 first officer,
following the completion of his supervised transition to that type of aircraft.
Search & Rescue Effort
A few phases of international search and rescue effort have been carried
out since the disappearance of the plane. The search began in the Gulf of
Thailand and South China Sea. The search area is then extended to the Strait of
Malacca and Andaman Sea and changed to South Indian Ocean. Australia, US,
China, Japan, New Zealand, and a few other countries military and civilian assets
help in the search of the missing plane.
Critics
In respond to the MH370, many question and criticisms was raised by
international and local media. Malaysia is criticized for not handling the missing
flight issue with more transparency and promptness. Malaysia has been accused
of giving false leads on the planes whereabouts and some even believe that
Malaysia hid the real truth of the plane incident.

Discussion of the article based on the thinking skills

Based on the definition of the University of KENT, The UKs Europeans

university, lateral thinking is the ability to think creatively, or "outside the box" as it
is sometimes referred to in business, to use the inspiration and imagination to
solve problems by looking at them from unexpected perspectives.

Lateral thinking involves discarding the obvious, leaving behind traditional

modes of thought, and throwing away preconceptions. The writer had the idea of
the title of the article MH370 might have crashed into Indian Ocean in suicide
mission through lateral thinking. He thinks out of the box which ignores the
obvious or traditional thought that is the faulty of the device of the aircraft caused
this to be happened.

De Bono suggests that lateral thinking is necessary for coming up with

solutions that arent so straightforward. It is easy to see from the example above
that lateral thinking comes into play when solving crimes. Lawyers and detectives
do employ lateral thinking when attempting to solve crimes, because the
sequence of events is often not as straightforward it first appears to be. It is
smart move of the writer to use lateral thinking to figure out the cause of the
incident MH370 but the supportive evidences given by the writer is not strong
enough to support its statement. The evidences given by the writer which are the
The team investigating MH370's disappearance believed no malfunction or fire
was capable of causing the aircraft's unusual flight, it reported today. and Nor
would the disabling of the aircraft's communication system cause MH370 to veer
wildly off course on a seven hour silent flight into the sea," the English daily said.
are only showed that the cause of the incident still a mystery. Even though a
people who died without any outsider causing evidences, the police still need to
investigate whether he/she had the motif to suicide and how he/she make it, just
can report that he/she is suicide. So, the writer needs stronger evidences to
prove his statement.

Although it look likes logic that the MH370 might have crashed into Indian
Ocean in suicide mission, but it is not. The write make an unstated general
statement which is if the incident of aircraft is not caused suicide mission then it
would be caused by the malfunction, fire or disabling of the communication
system on the aircraft. Then, he makes another unstated specific statement in
different sentences throughout the article which pointed out the cause of the
incident are not by malfunction, fire and disabling of the communication system
on the aircraft. This is syllogism, a mode of argument that forms the core of the
body of Western logical. Every syllogism is a sequence of three propositions
such that the first two imply the third, the conclusion.
The famous Aristotelian syllogism is one species of deductive reasoning
which is a part of the logic thinking. The writer uses this syllogism to convince
peoples or readers to believe about his statement. Aristotelian believed his
syllogism can possible avoid all the fallacies but it had been discovered several
formal error before the 20th century. Thus, though it looks like a true statement in
fact it is only a valid statement. This is because there are still other possible
causes of this incident. Furthermore, the causes which rejected by the writer are
also prediction and assumption of the expert through their experiences. So, the
real reason only will be revealed when the black box is found.
Vertical thinking should be implied and be concerned on the article by the
writer. Hauser MJ described vertical thinking as a linear and left-brained thinking
way. It only selection what is relevant and correct with the issues. Not only this,
analytical thinking which described as an in depth analysis of a problem or
defined as abstract separation of a whole into its constituent parts in order to
study parts and their relations also can help the write to produce better article.
The write should provide, explain or discuss more detail in the evidence to
support his statement which related with the suicide mission. He should use the
left-brained thinking way to analysis the causes of the incident which means he

should collect and analysis the all the reliable and relevant data and information.
Then, make a true conclusion based on the investigation and study.
The Daily Telegraph had received a source from the police investigation
said that they still clueless and have not collected anything suspicious. So, it is
wrong that the writer make his own assumption that it is a suicide mission.
Beside this, he also needs to know the effect of his article before published. For
example, his articles title of MH370 might have crashed into Indian Ocean in
suicide mission may lead to the world to feel phobia with Malaysia and
Malaysian.
Malaysian authorities have come under intense criticism for their handling
of the ordeal, including claims they hid information and bungled the search. By
applying objective thinking which is the ability to be open-minded and
dispassionate judging content on its individual merits to ultimately reach a
conclusion on this sentence, the criticism on Malaysian authorities is over. They
also wished they can announce every first data or information they received to
the public at the first time. But they need times to wait for the information to be
confirmed is reliable and true before released to avoid fallacies or confuses in the
public. This is because the faulty information given by Malaysian authorities may
lead to a big impact to the reputations of Malaysia. Thus, there is no reason why
Malaysian authorities want to hide information. Furthermore, it is impossible for
Malaysian authorities to hide the information while there are so many counties
involved in this search and investigate works.

Implication
This article will bring a negative impact to Malaysian by stated untrue
statement which the reason of the incident of MH370 is caused by the pilot
suicide mission. Many people form attitudes toward other countries even without
firsthand experience with those countries. Mass media offer audiences
opportunities for indirect experience with other countries by disseminating much
of the information available about those other countries (DeFleur & DeFleur,
2003; Fullerton, 2005; Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2004; Kunczik, 1997; Smith, 1973;
Wanta, Golan, & Lee, 2004). This so-called mediated experience is often crucial
in shaping individuals perceptions of other countries, because people get most of
their information about other countries from the media when they lack direct
firsthand experience. Thus, this article will affect the reputation of the Malaysia.
It will make peoples feel phobia about Malaysia which similar to the phobia
Islam after case 911. Peoples have wrong perception toward Islam after 911.
Brown and Miles write that another feature of Islam phobic discourse is to
amalgamate nationality (e.g. Arab), religion (Islam), and politics (terrorism,
fundamentalism) while most other religions are not associated with terrorism,
or even "ethnic or national distinctiveness. They feel that "many of the
stereotypes and misinformation that contribute to the articulation of Islam phobia
are rooted in a particular perception of Islam", such as the notion that Islam
promotes terrorism especially prevalent after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Other peoples also will have wrong perception toward Malaysia due to
misinformation about the pilot suicide mission. They will feel that Malaysians are
dangerous and irresponsible. Other than that, Malaysians also will face act of
discrimination in the foreign countries during vacation, study or business. The
largest project monitoring Islam phobia was undertaken following 9/11 by the EU
watchdog, European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC).
Their May 2002 report "Summary report on Islam phobia in the EU after 11
September 2001", written by Chris Allen and Jorgen S. Nielsen of the University

of Birmingham, was based on 75 reports 15 from each EU member

nation. The report highlighted the regularity with which ordinary Muslims became
targets for abusive and sometimes violent retaliatory attacks after 9/11. In a 2011
paper published in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (Vol. 3, No. 1), AbuRaiya and his co-authors surveyed 138 Muslims living in the United States. Most
reported experiencing at least one stressful event related to their Muslim identity,
such as anti-Muslim comments, special airport security checks and
discrimination.
The effect on the reputation of Malaysia will give an impact to Malaysia
economics. The tourism sector has been recognized by the government as a
major source of revenue and a catalyst for the Malaysian economic renaissance.
In 2011, tourist arrivals increased by 137,128 to 24,714,324 compared to
24,577,196 in 2010, while receipts increased by RM1.8bil to RM58.3bil compared
to RM56.5bil the previous year. In addition, the sector contributed a total of
RM37.4bil to the Gross National Income (GNI) of the country. Among the top ten
tourist markets for 2011 were Singapore (13,372,647), Indonesia (2,134,381),
China (1,250,536), Australia (558,411), United Kingdom (403,940), and Japan
(386,974). reported by The star (Wednesday May 2) in the article Tourism to
give Malaysia a boost. This showed that the effect on the tourism will affect the
economics of Malaysia. Furthermore, China is major tourist market of the
Malaysia will cause the condition worst due to misinformation of this article about
the pilot suicide mission. Based on the article China-Malaysia tourism hit by
MH370 which written by China Spectator (28 MAR), an internet survey by
Sina.com, a leading Chinese news portal, found that 77.7 per cent of 59,582
respondents said the missing plane incident would "affect their going to Malaysia
for tourism". The misinformation article will bring up the hard feeling of China
citizens towards Malaysia. According to Tesoro-Tess, citing data from the
Reputation Institutes City RepTrack Pulse study, a five-point increase in a citys
reputation correlates with a 7.2% jump in the willingness of travelers to discover
that city. The tourism markets outlook has dimmed markedly after the recent
missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370, according to a study by the Malaysian

Institute of Economic Research (MIER), reported by Malaysia Digest (24 April

2014 ) in the article Tourism Market Seen Taking Plunge After MH370 Crisis.
Conclusion
Nowadays play an important role in our everyday life. In 21th century, the
media not only spread in the form of printed media, news or article can spread
easily all over the world through blog or any social network, it is important that a
media to provide an unbiased and responsible article so that it will not mislead
the readers.
However, whether we like it or not, media or writers will tend to express
their opinion based to their views and judges, without provide effective evidence.
The always prefer attractive, misleading title to attract the readers. Most writers
also reports more heavily on one side than the other. The readers end out with
looking more sources to figure out what is the truth.
Therefore, the writers need to be more mature and think twice before
using their words. They must write based on the truth by referring to multiple
sources, data and studies result instead of their own feeling. They have their
responsible as what they had written may convey to anyone in the world and this
mislead will cause a continuous domino effect.
As a conclusion, it is important that the media should provide real and
unbiased information to the readers. Since media is part of our life and could
cloud our decisions, we should also be wise enough in think and interpret the
article thoroughly and aware of bias article.

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