For Malaysians and many others in the world, the number 370 will never be the same again. It will always be a reminder of the greatest aviation mystery of all time. The Malaysia Airline flight that bore the number vanished without a trace en-route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of March 8, 2014.

Two years on, the fate that befell the 239 people on board MH370 remains a giant question mark.

The tragedy also thrust Malaysia into the global limelight for all the wrong reasons, with public officials struggling to come up with answers for questions that kept piling up.

Let’s review some pertinent points in the harrowing tale and consider the lessons we could learn from it.

Bad public relations plagued Malaysian authorities from the onset of the tragedy. The military said its radars showed MH370 making a U-turn from its intended route, but acknowledged that nothing was done about it until the news broke to the general public.

Then came the revelation that two Iranian passengers boarded the flight using forged passports and that the Immigration Department failed to detect this. They did not counter check with the Interpol database of such documents.

There was also much brouhaha regarding the cargo manifest of the flight.

Public officials tasked to deal with the international media on a daily basis failed big time in the job. This was particularly the case with the front man for the Department of Civil Aviation, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman. He stuttered, paused, repeated himself and stumbled across answers. He often had to be rescued by those accompanying him at the press conferences.

It was not only public officials who looked like clowns when dealing with the tragedy. We had opposition figures coming up with remarks like, “If Pakatan had control of the air force or the navy, we would have found the plane by now.” This came from Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng. He later apologised and retracted his remark. And then there was Pokok Sena MP Mahfuz Omar, who said Pakatan MPs were willing to take the places of the 239 “hostages” on board the flight, assuming it had been hijacked.

If there was any consolation, it came in the form of Hishammuddin Hussein, who was then the acting Transport Minister. He was the only saving grace; he handled difficult questions from the press with tact and professionalism.

There are still many questions to be answered about the tragedy, but Hishammuddin did justice to what could be done at his level and at that point of time.

Another shameful episode occurred in January 2015. It was declared that an accident caused MH370 to disappear and that all on board could be considered to have lost their lives.

A press conference was called, but cancelled at the eleventh hour, as families of passengers turned up at the venue uninvited, causing much commotion and confusion. The announcement was eventually made through a televised event.

A much better option would have been to ask the families who turned up to gather in another room and to brief them on the heartbreaking news, and the spectacle on live TV could have been avoided. But clearly, the Department of Civil Aviation and MAS missed out on the common courtesy memo.

On the bright side, MAS did buck up considerably when it came to dealing with another tragedy of global magnitude – the shooting down of MH17. This could be the result of having learnt some lessons from the botched handing of the earlier tragedy. Other authorities also showed much better handling of the MH17 tragedy and, of course, the QZ8501 tragedy.

As much as the authorities handling the search and recovery efforts are confident that MH370 had met a watery end in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, scepticism among the global community, including families of passengers, remains high.

This is partly due to the earlier murky or contradicting statements given by various authorities.

It doesn’t help that the possible discovery of debris from the flight at various parts of the world happens to coincide with stories of other Malaysian scandals making international headlines. Many find the timing “highly convenient.” Some say it’s suspicious.

As tragic as the shooting down of MH17 and the crash of QZ8501 were, at least the families of those on board know that their loved ones have passed on. The MH370 kin have been denied this closure.

Perhaps Malaysia and the rest of the world can learn a thing or two from this series of air tragedy.

One, if something of this magnitude happens again, the best bet would be to come clean. Do not feel ashamed to admit failures and accept responsibility. Even screw-ups, no matter how big, can be forgiven and eventually forgotten when those responsible admit their faults and sincerely pledge to correct them.

Also, the Malaysian government must appoint only truly worthy people to head its agencies so that their expertise will come in handy, especially in times of crisis. Incompetence only makes a bad situation worse.

If the MH370 families can take the loss of their loved ones in stride, the above mentioned are small sacrifices others can make to make things right.

As time and technology advances, it is the world’s earnest hope that someday, the final resting place of MH370 will be found and the relatives of those on board will finally have closure.