Families don't have answers and teams are still searching. So is this really appropriate?

Today marks seventy-one days since the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. In that time, countless conspiracy theories have been thrown around claiming to explain what happened to the plane. And now an actual book has been published.

Flight MH370: The Mystery alleges that the aircraft was accidentally shot down during a joint US-Thai military training exercise. The book also makes the claim that international search efforts were deliberately led in the wrong direction to cover up the mistake.

Author Nigel Cawthorne acknowledges in his introduction that the families of the missing passengers will “almost certainly” never be sure what happened to their loved ones. So why publish a book which claims to explain the aircraft’s disappearance?

Cawthorne has written the book in support of the theory that the plane was shot down just after it stopped communicating with air traffic controllers. Around the same time as the aircraft’s transponder went off, New Zealand oil rig worker Mike McKay claims to have seen a burning plane going down in the Gulf of Thailand. We also know that there was a series of war games taking place in the South China Sea involving Thailand, the US, and personnel from China, Japan, Indonesia and other countries.

Cawthorne writes:

“The drill was to involve mock warfare on land, in water and in the air, and would include live-fire exercises. Say a participant accidentally shot down Flight MH370. Such things do happen. No one wants another Lockerbie [Pan Am flight 103 by terrorists in 1988 allegedly in retaliation for a US Navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier], so those involved would have every reason to keep quiet about it.”

He suggests that the military personnel may have released misinformation using anonymous and contradictory sources, to lead search parties into hostile environments and ensure that nothing could be found. Cawthorne goes on to suggest that “another black box” could have been dropped off the coast of Australia to further divert search efforts.

”Now I’m not saying that’s what happened but if a black box is found, who is to say that it is from Flight MH370? Another black box could have been dropped in the sea 1000 miles from Perth while the search was going on in the South China Sea. In these circumstances, with the amount of disinformation abroad, it is best to be sceptical.”

Cawthorne, who lives in London, states on his website that he may be Britain’s “most published living author”. With 150 titles to his name, it’s no mystery how he managed this latest release so quickly.

Cawthorne’s book is just the latest of many projects that have been released following the disappearance of MH370 – a movie is also reportedly in production and could be in cinemas within months. Rupesh Paul Productions has been promoting a film titled ‘The Vanishing Act’ at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film’s trailer features a cast of terrified passengers on the ill-fated airbus, and is being promoted with the tagline “the untold story of the vanished Malaysian flight”. Watch it here:

Paul wrote the screenplay for the film after being contacted by a Malaysian journalist who claimed to know what happened to the flight.

Defending himself against criticism that the movie release is premature, Paul has stated that he does not believe releasing the film so soon after the plane’s disappearance is insensitive to the families of missing passengers. Speaking to British tabloid The Daily Mirror, Paul said, “Everyone in the world, they want to know what happened. Personally if you ask me, I want the truth to come out.”

Both projects have been criticized for taking advantage of the intense public interest and media scrutiny surrounding the mystery of the missing plane. We have to admit, it does seem like both Cawthorne and Paul are ignoring the rights of grieving relatives who are still coming to terms with their loss.

What do you think? Is it too soon to be releasing books and movies about an aircraft disappearance we still have no answers for?