Flight 370 and the Terror of Being Off the Grid

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/flight-370-and-the-terror-of-being-off-the-grid/ ^ | MARCH 13, 2014 | Farhad Manjoo

[nickcarraway]

How can a commercial airliner go missing? How, in this hyperconnected age, could it vanish from the earth, apparently without trace, eluding a nearly weeklong search involving more than a dozen governments and some of the world’s most advanced surveillance technology?

In addition to the familiar horror and sadness over a catastrophe of modern aviation, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 comes freighted with an unusual terror — the surprise that in our digitally monitored era, people and objects can still somehow vanish. The disappearance stands in stark contrast to the hallmark sensation of our time, the certainty that we’re all being constantly tracked and that, for better or worse, we’re strapped to the grid, never out of touch.

It turns out that’s not true. There are places in this world that are still beyond the grid. And it reminds us — or, at any rate, it reminds me — that as much as we lament constant tracking, there is often something deeply comforting in having one’s location pinned to a map.

This week aviation experts have poured out to explain what, in 2014, seems unfathomable. When you’re high in the air over the ocean, you may be flying in a blind spot, one of the few places on the planet where you’re not being watched.

[Ahithophel]

Why?