The Search for MH370 – Deepest Dive by Jana Wendt and Peter Waring

Available only on Audible

A bit of history

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China.^[1] The cause of its disappearance has not been determined. It is widely regarded as the greatest mystery in aviation history,^[2][3][4] and remains the single deadliest case of aircraft disappearance.

About the Authors

Jana Wendt has been the face of Australian news and current affairs for 3 decades. She is a face that many Aussies know and love. Known as “the perfumed steamroller”, she has earned a gold logie for her role on an Australian A Current Affair program and she has also worked in radio and magazines and written three books, including a novel.

Peter Waring is a former Australian Naval Officer and one of the highlights of his career involves the search for Malaysian aircraft MH370. He has since moved to London and is now a program manager at Ridgeway Information, a London-based research consultancy.

About the book.

The book itself feels more like a collection of podcasts than an actual book, and in fact, each section is titled as an “Episode” not a “chapter”

This, however, doesn’t detract from the book, if anything, it makes it feel more alive, like you’re able to follow along as it was happening even though the story in itself is narrated in the past tense as, obviously, this is the history of the research done and the events that’s happened along the way.

Another way to look at this is each podcast feels like a mini documentary that one might see on an “A Current Affair” type program, and I think that credit would have to go to Jana with her expertise in interviewing people.

There are 8 episodes in this book, each of which last roughly 45-50 minutes in length. I’ll try to give a brief summary of each episode here.

Episode 1 – Goodnight Malaysian 3-7-0

This episode takes us back to the very beginning. The actual event of the night, the moments leading up to the vanishing of the plane.

Episode 2 – Tick Tick Tick

Because the plane was believed to have crashed just past Australian waters, the Australian government steps up to help with the search but they’re on a race against time as the blackbox battery only lasts for 30 days.

Episode 3 – The Pilot’s Mind.

This episode is pretty self-explanatory as it looks into the pilot, Captain Zaharie Shah and work out what his role was in all this. Could he have been responsible for the tragedy? You’ll have to listen to find out.

I believe this episode also talks us through a flight simulator of the probable route the plane took, which, in itself, is quite telling.

Episode 4 – Tearing at the Fabric of Reality

Confusion reigns as talks turn to other Malaysian planes that have crashed, namely, one that was mentioned shot down.

(I actually do remember this discussion at the time when they started talking about this other plane, I remember thinking, is that what happened to the MH370? Was it shot down?)

Episode 5 – Growing Unease

There is some confusion in the search for the plane when wreckage shows up where it’s not expected to.

Episode 6 – Indiana Jones & the Unturned Stones

This episode focuses on what one might call, a real life Indiana Jones. A real life character who has travelled the globe specialising in searching for hard-to-find objects.

Episode 7 – A Certain Quality of Madness

We hear from another individual, Oliver Plunkett, the CEO of Ocean Infinity as he talks about how he got involved in the search for MH370.

Episode 8 – Where is MH370

In this final episode, although the search results aren’t conclusive, there are suspicions of where the plane may lie and in the final moments of this episode, you are given coordinates to search for on Google Earth so that you can see for yourself where suspicion lies.

In Summary

I wouldn’t call these brief descriptions as spoilers as you only have to look on the Audible website and you’ll see what I basically said here but in more detail, but it still does not cover all the info when hearing these episodes in full. All the information raised is certainly eye opening.

We hear from families of some of the victims and how these families have moved on since then, as best as they could.

And we learn how these families found out about their missing loved ones, which in itself, I found to be quite upsetting.

I would recommend this to anyone who’s ever wondered what happened to this fateful plane or for any plane enthusiast who may obsess over aviation disasters.

This story certainly makes me think twice about ever boarding a plane because do you really know who you’re entrusting your lives with?

If you’ve listened to this book, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Thank you for taking the time to read this review.