The Missing Airplane: 35% of Americans Blame Mechanical Problems; 22% Say Suicide; 12% Think It’s Terrorism; 9% Believe Flight 370 Is Hiding

CNN and other outlets have aired some
pretty strange speculations about the fate of Flight 370,
prompting a lot of complaints from media critics. But how
popular are those theories with the general public? The latest
Reason-Rupe pol asked Americans what they think happened to the
missing plane. Here are the results:

Which of the following do you
think most likely happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight
370?

• It crashed due to mechanical problems: 35 percent
• It was crashed intentionally by the pilots: 22 percent
• It was destroyed by terrorists: 12 percent
• It landed safely and is in hiding: 9 percent
• It’s linked to supernatural or alien activity: 5
percent
• It was shot down by a foreign government: 3 percent
• Other: 4 percent
• Don’t know: 9 percent
• Refused to answer: 1 percent

Some thoughts:

1. Broadly speaking, “conspiracy”
narratives seem to be popular. The answer invoking terrorists
is clearly a conspiracy story, and the answers involving a
deliberate crash, a foreign government, a plane in hiding, and
supernatural or alien intervention can at least conceivably involve
conspiracies too.

2. That said: Of the options offered, it’s the one
clearly non-conspiratorial story that got a plurality
of the support.

3. A certain number of respondents, presented with an option
like “It’s linked to supernatural or alien activity,” are going to
select that just to screw with the results. I don’t know how big
that phenomenon—call it the Troll Effect—might be, but having gone
through the answers that were volunteered by the folks who picked
“Other,” it’s clear that there’s at least a few people out
there who are messing with us. One person said “All of the
Above.”

4. Whatever Americans may believe about what happened to the
plane, most of us have kept our heads when it comes to letting this
rare event affect our risk assessment. Here’s one more question
from the survey:

Would you say the events surrounding Malaysia
Airlines Flight 370 make you more likely to fly, less likely, or
doesn’t it have much effect on whether or not you will
fly?

• More likely: 1 percent
• Less likely: 17 percent
• Not much effect: 81 percent

For further thoughts, see my article “The
Flight 370 Conspiracy Stories Aren’t About to Stop.” For more
on conspiracy theories in general, see my book The United States
of Paranoia.