Month: March 2014

The Malaysian Insider/AFP
March 29, 2014

Interpol hit back yesterday at Malaysia’s claims that consulting a stolen passport database would have caused too much delays to be useful, after confusion caused by Kuala Lumpur’s failure to detect two illegal migrants on the still missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.

Two passengers on the Malaysian Boeing 777 flight thought to have crashed into the Indian Ocean triggered an international terrorism probe this month after it was revealed they were travelling on stolen passports.

It was later reported that the pair were illegal migrants from Iran seeking a better life in the West and Malaysian authorities were criticised for not using an Interpol database designed to identify stolen passports.

But on Wednesday, Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told parliament in Kuala Lumpur that consulting the database was too time consuming for immigration officers and caused airport delays. Continue reading “Interpol hits back at Malaysia’s stolen passport database claims”

By Neil Arun
BBC News
28 March 2014

A white speck on a black background. Zooming in, the spectral outline of something that was perhaps part of an aircraft.

It may be a vital clue in the riddle of flight MH370, fodder for the investigators and closure of a kind for the families of the missing passengers.

Or it may be a wayward shipping container, the remnants of a fishing boat, regurgitated flotsam from the tsunami that struck Indonesia 10 years ago, driftwood, plastic waste – or just a transient fleck of foam on a boisterous sea.

None of these possibilities can be discounted in the satellite images from the southern Indian Ocean where the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines jet has been focused.

In the absence of finer data, floating debris from the plane remains critical to solving the puzzle of its disappearance. Continue reading “Flight MH370: Aircraft debris – or a load of rubbish?”

Kathy Marks
Guardian
28 March 2014

The search for wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 moved 1,100km to the north-east yesterday following a fresh analysis of radar and satellite data. Five aircraft combing the new stretch of the Indian Ocean quickly found multiple objects which ships will try to locate on Saturday.

The search zone was re¬calibrated, bringing it considerably closer to the Western Australian coast, after data analysis indicated that the Boeing 777 – which vanished soon after taking off from Kuala Lumpur three weeks ago – was flying faster than initially estimated, and therefore would have run out of fuel more quickly.

Items spotted from the air included two rectangular objects that were blue and grey: two of the colours in the aircraft’s livery. Others were white or light-coloured. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa), which is co-ordinating the hunt, said photographs of the objects would be analysed overnight.

For the past week, aircraft and ships have been crisscrossing an area about 2,500km south-west of Perth, pinpointed as the most likely spot where MH370 is presumed to have run out of fuel and crashed, killing all 239 passengers and crew. Continue reading “Missing Malaysian Flight MH370: Search area shifts after Boeing looks at engine data”

The Malaysian Insider/Reuters
March 29, 2014

The search for flight MH370, the Malaysian Airlines jetliner that vanished over the South China Sea on March 8, has involved more than two dozen countries and 60 aircraft and ships but been bedevilled by regional rivalries.

While Malaysia has been accused of a muddled response and poor communications, China has showcased its growing military clout and reach, while some involved in the operation say other countries have dragged their feet on disclosing details that might give away sensitive defence data.

Several countries in the region, including China, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, are engaged in a series of territorial disputes in the South China Seas, with control of shipping lanes, fishing and potential hydrocarbon reserves at stake.

With the United States playing a relatively muted role in the sort of exercise that until recently it would have dominated, experts and officials say there was no real central coordination until the search for the plane was confined to the southern Indian Ocean, when Australia largely took charge. Continue reading “Geopolitical games handicap Malaysia jet hunt”

Malaysiakini
Jane Wardell and Rujun Shen
Reuters
Mar 28, 2014

MH370 An air and sea search for a missing Malaysian passenger jet moved 1,100km north on Friday, after Australian authorities coordinating the operation in the remote Indian Ocean received new information from Malaysia that suggested the plane ran out of fuel earlier than thought.

The dramatic shift in the search area, moving it further than the distance between London and Berlin, followed analysis of radar and satellite data that showed the missing plane had travelled faster than had been previously calculated, and so would have burned through its fuel load quicker.

Australia said late on Friday that five aircraft had spotted “multiple objects of various colours” in the new search area.

“Photographic imagery of the objects was captured and will be assessed overnight,” the Australian Maritime and Safety Authority (Amsa) said in a statement.

“The objects cannot be verified or discounted as being from MH370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships.”

The latest twist underscores the perplexing and frustrating hunt for evidence in the near three-week search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour into a Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight. Continue reading “More objects spotted after search shifts north”

The Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri should resign or be sacked for plunging the government and country into a greater credibility crisis in the long-running MH370 disaster.

Already, Malaysia is in the eye of the storm not only over the hitherto inexplicable 21-day disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft but the centre of an international hurricane over our crisis management with great distrust that the aggrieved families are not given all the relevant information.

As a Canadian media specialist has rightly pointed out, in the world of crisis communications, perceptions can be killers.

In these circumstances of an international crisis over our crisis management, it is just unacceptable that we have a bumbling and bungling Deputy Defence Minister who could be so irresponsible and reckless as to talk rubbish in Parliament on Wednesday, saying during the winding-up speech for the Defence Ministry in the debate on the motion of thanks for the royal address, that the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) did not attempt to intercept MH370 when it was detected on military radar off the Straits of Malacca on March 8 as the RMAF had “assumed” that the plane was ordered to turn back by flight traffic controllers.

It is not good enough for him to make a U-turn after more than 24 hours of shaming the RMAF, the government and the nation and say that his remarks in the Dewan Rakyat on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370’s turn back had been proven erroneous, and that it was based on his own assumptions.

Compounding his egregious error in Parliament, Abdul Rahim claimed yesterday that conclusive answers will only be available when the debris from the plane is found.
Continue reading “Deputy Defence Minister should resign or be sacked for plunging government and country into greater credibility crisis in the long-running MH370 disaster”

Nancy Argyle
Malaysiakini
Mar 27, 2014

COMMENT In the very specialised field of disaster communications, there is one cardinal rule. Do no harm. It’s a rule that the teams communicating the crisis of disappeared Malaysia Flight MH370 did not seem to fully comprehend.

While there were many things that they did right, their actions were overshadowed by what went wrong and, despite Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Abdul Rajak seeming to sincerely feel the anguish of the families, puzzlingly, the actual communications effort from others did not reflect it.

In a crisis, the expectations placed on government officials are at their highest. This is the one time that the public has very little tolerance for error. After all, if you can’t trust your government in a disaster, who can you trust?

Unfortunately, the needs of the public and media in a crisis often clash with the traditional “knee-jerk” reaction of officials trying to control the information coming out. It’s an all too common scene that you see happen all over the world and through many different disasters.

So what went wrong with communications surrounding the disappearance of MH370 and how could this have been done better? Continue reading “How communicating in crisis went wrong for M’sia”

Agence France Presse
March 27, 2014

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia has said all 239 people aboard flight MH370 are believed dead, but the failure to recover bodies is complicating efforts to lay their souls to rest, relatives and religious leaders said on Thursday.

The flight carried passengers from around the world following a number of major religions, and the failure to achieve closure via last rites has added to the anguish of grieving relatives.

Hindus traditionally perform special prayers on the first, 16th and 30th day after a person’s death. Continue reading “MH370 mystery complicates last rites for the missing”

By John Gapper
Financial Times
March 26, 2014

GM dealt deftly with a fatal fault while Malaysia Airlines’ crisis has become a diplomatic disaster

General Motors and Malaysia Airlines are both in trouble but one is giving a lesson in how to handle a fatal crisis while the other is offering a masterclass in how not to. There is a glaring contrast in the behaviour, and ability to cope with public criticism, of Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive, and Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, the chief executive of Malaysia Airlines – although Ms Barra has a simpler task.

Both face the most critical corporate challenge – how to respond when your customers die because they used your product or service. The GM accident victims were a dozen drivers or passengers of faulty compact cars; in Malaysia Airlines’ case, the presumed victims are the 239 passengers of the missing flight.

Ms Barra, who took over as GM’s boss in January, has so far reacted in an exemplary manner. She has stepped up to take personal responsibility, admitted that GM is to blame and apologised; emphasised her sorrow “as a mom with a family of my own” and promised not only to make amends but to use the crisis as a turning point for GM.

Mr Ahmad oversaw the blunder in which some families were informed of deaths by text message. Having emphasised in a statement that he responded “as parent, as a brother, as a son”, he relapsed into defensive corporate-speak in a BBC Radio interview. Describing the criticism as “unfair”, he insisted that his airline had “given beyond . . . what I call the standard scenario”. Continue reading “A company embroiled in tragedy must display tact”

By Dyana Sofya – Malay Mail Online

March 27 — One of my father’s favorite bands is the Bee Gees. I grew up listening to them especially during weekends when he would spend hours in front of his elaborated sound system listening to old classics, from Santana’s Black Magic Woman, Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall to Sweet Charity’s Teratai.

My mother who loves to chat, be it face-to-face with another person or on the phone was not fond of my father’s weekend routine because it would be too noisy for her to listen to herself but they however subconsciously insist to be in the same room despite their different needs.

The tragedy of MH370 made all of us realise the value of family, unity and togetherness. Those onboard of MH370 are someone’s father, mother, son and daughter. We may have different backgrounds, nations, languages, colours, cultures, likes, dislikes, habits, and manners in every way of life, nonetheless, they are our brothers and sisters in humanity.

The incident showed us that we are all connected, we are first and foremost, human beings. We share the same feeling of worry and disbelief throughout the seventeen days hoping for a clue, an answer to the missing MH370 together with 239 of its passengers and crew. All of us were concerned and baffled on how a technology-advanced aircraft goes missing without a sign. Our hearts stopped at once for a second when the Prime Minister made the announcement that flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean. All of our hearts, thoughts and prayers go to the passengers and crew, their family members and friends. Continue reading “How grief brings us together”

Today is the 20th day of the missing MH370 disaster with still no answer as to “”what, how and why” as to the series of events in the early hours of March 8 resulting in the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft with 239 passengers and crew on board, resulting in the longest and biggest-ever multi-national 26-nation sea-and-air search.

Although the search area has been narrowed considerably from the Northern and Southern Corridors to the south of Southern Corridor in the southern Indian Ocean, and despite the new satellite images revealing 122 objects that could be debris from the Boeing 777, the international search team today which had been bolstered to 11 military and civilian aircraft and five ships have ended empty-handed when they have to call off the search operation today due to bad weather.

Severe icing, severe turbulence and near zero visibility are forecast to deteriorate later in the day in the area some 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth in the deepest and roughest waters in the world, roiled by the “Roaring Forties” winds that cut across the sea.

The winds are named for the area between latitude 40 degrees and 50 degrees where there is no land mass to slow down gusts which create waves higher than six metres. Continue reading “Cabinet should decide tomorrow in support of an Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 to be appointed in current meeting of Parliament whether the black box is discovered or not”

The Malay Mail Online/Reuters
March 27, 2014

WASHINGTON DC, March 26 — FBI Director James Comey told a House subcommittee yesterday he expects his agency to finish an investigation of computer files related to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight in the next one or two days.

Comey, who was testifying before an appropriations subcommittee on the FBI’s 2015 budget request, said Malaysian authorities gave the FBI forensic computer materials and that the agency’s review of those materials is nearly complete.

“I have teams working really around the clock to exploit that,” Comey said. “I don’t want to say more about that in an open setting, but I expect it to be done fairly shortly. Within a day or two we will finish that work.”

Comey did not say what results he expected from the FBI’s analysis. He also denied allegations that Malaysian authorities had not been open to assistance offered by the FBI in the investigation of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which has been missing for over two weeks. Continue reading “FBI says review of MH370 computer files almost done”

The best evidence that flight MH370 crashed in the southern ocean.

By Jeff Wise
Slate

For the relatives of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the announcement by the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Monday must have registered as a double shock. First there was the fact that their loved ones were dead: “The past few weeks have been heartbreaking; I know this news must be harder still,” Najib said at a press conference after families were notified. More surprisingly, the announcement was made even though no bodies or wreckage had been recovered. Instead, the passengers’ fate had been determined by math alone. A U.K.-based satellite company, Inmarsat, had deployed a new kind of mathematical analysis to determine that the plane’s trajectory had carried it deep into the southern Indian Ocean, a region where there are were no landmasses upon which a plane can set down. Ergo, the passengers were all dead.

In Beijing, family members reacted with outrage, staging an impromptu march on the Malaysian embassy. One can only imagine how frustrating it must be to be told to abandon hope, to grieve in the absence of any material evidence of loss. They must have wondered if they could really believe what they were being told. Unreliable information has been reported throughout the search process, with assertions made about the flight only to be later refuted, modified, or quietly dropped. Amid all the uncertainty, how much credence should be given to this new mathematical formula, which seemed so complicated that hardly anyone could understand and whose underlying data remains veiled in secrecy?

That’s what I wondered when I heard the news, but after reviewing Inmarsat’s publicly released information with an expert, I’ve come to the conclusion that its findings are most likely sound. With caveats. Continue reading “How Can Math Decide That Someone Is Dead?”

The Malay Mail Online/AFP
March 27, 2014

PERTH, March 27 — Thunderstorms and gale-force winds threatened to impede a frantic international search today for wreckage from Flight MH370 after satellite images of more than 100 floating objects sparked fresh hopes of a breakthrough.

Malaysia said the imagery taken in recent days by a French satellite showed “122 potential objects” in the remote southern Indian Ocean, although nothing has yet been pulled from the treacherous seas despite a multinational recovery operation.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has cautioned that it was impossible to determine whether the objects were related to the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 which crashed on March 8 with 239 people aboard after mysteriously disappearing.

But the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the search some 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth, said they were in an area authorities have pinpointed as a potential crash zone.

“Positions in the satellite information released by Malaysia Remote Sensing Agency were within yesterday’s search area,” it said as a fleet of planes prepared to head for the search zone once again before the weather worsens. Continue reading “Bad weather forecast as new images spur MH370 search”

The Malaysian Insider
March 26, 2014

Putrajaya’s handling of search efforts for flight MH370 has set the country on a long road to repair its reputation, The Wall Street Journal said, following a slew of criticism over disorganised search efforts besides the conflicting and opaque information released since the aircraft disappeared on March 8.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said that complaints have stung a government seldom used to such global scrutiny, and this week, authorities appeared to seek a new course.

The business daily cited Monday night’s press conference where Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had explained how foreign experts had concluded from new satellite data analysis that the plane had gone down in a remote portion of the southern Indian Ocean.

WSJ said that Najib’s statement was uncharacteristically forthright, and the new information was released unusually fast – and the backlash was just as intense. Continue reading “Malaysia’s credibility at stake in search for missing flight MH370, says report”

Alexander Trowbridge
CBS News
March 25, 2014

The heart-wrenching and costly search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues, even after Malaysian officials announced satellite evidence that the vessel plunged into the Indian Ocean with no survivors. What are the lessons from the tragedy? What can airlines and manufacturers do to prevent another prolonged and painful saga?

Mary Kirby, the founder and editor of the aviation news company Runway Girl Network says the key is connectivity.

“Nothing is ever going to be the same in aviation,” Kirby said in an interview with CBS News. “This is a pivotal moment, a watershed moment in the aviation industry where we are going to understand why it’s so important for connectivity to be core.”

By connectivity, she means the ability for those aboard a plane to send and receive information to the world outside the flight. For passengers, it’s the convenience of, say, logging onto the internet. For pilots, it’s essential cockpit communications. Kirby argues that one of basic steps to preventing another incident like MH370, in which the aircraft’s transponder and communication equipment were disabled, is making sure planes can’t disconnect in the first place.

“We need to not have the ability to simply switch off a transponder, and not know where an aircraft is at,” Kirby said. “If you allow the switch off of the transponder there needs to be an automatic backup.” Continue reading “Lessons from MH370: How can we never lose a plane again?”

The Malaysian Insider
March 26, 2014

As investigators continue to analyse satellite data in the hope of finding answers on what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, an industry expert said the plane spent 23 minutes at up to 45,000 feet – way above its maximum altitude – and rendered everyone unconscious from the lack of oxygen, said a report in British tabloid Daily Mail.

The plane’s maximum service ceiling is 43,100 feet, but military radar had tracked the aircraft flying at between 43,000 feet and 45,000 feet shortly after the last communication from its cockpit.

“It was tracked flying at this altitude for 23 minutes before descending. Oxygen would have run out in 12 minutes (in a depressurised cabin), rendering the passengers unconscious,” said the source.

An expert said although the 777-200ER Boeing aircraft has a maximum service ceiling of 43,000 feet, it can probably fly safely at even greater heights.

But at that altitude, where the atmosphere drastically thins, it would take mere minutes if not seconds for hypoxia – a lack of oxygen – to set in, said the Daily Mail report. Continue reading “MH370 spent 23 minutes above maximum altitude, may have caused hypoxia, says expert”

By Pathma Subramaniam
The Malay Mail Online
March 25, 2014

SUBANG JAYA, MARCH 25 — Every single principle governing the running of a free and fair election was breached during last year’s May 5 federal polls, Bersih’s People’s Tribunal concluded in its findings released today.

Panel member former United Nations Special Representative and constitutional law expert Yash Pal Ghai said Election 2013 had fallen short of every aspect of democracy and violated the standard of free and fair elections.

He agreed that the election had been free to some extent because those who were registered voters were not blocked from casting their ballots but said this freedom was more in a “narrow sense” of the word.

During Election 2013, the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) retained federal power with 133 seats to Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) 89 seats despite losing the popular vote contest to the federal opposition, garnering just 49 per cent of the total votes cast.

“We have found ourselves compelled to reach a conclusion that there were multiple failings in the way GE13 was conducted and that virtually every tenet of free election was violated at some place and at some time,” said Yash Pal, who headed the tribunal. Continue reading “Election 2013 broke every rule in the book, Bersih panel finds”

Two events in the past 36 hours highlight the tragic development of the 19-day disaster of the missing MH370 Boeing 737-200 airliner, where a sea of confusion has swept over Malaysians and people worldwide concerned about the fate of the aircraft and the 239 passengers and crew on board, viz:

(1) The announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Monday, 25th March (17th Day) at 10 pm that “using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort”, the last position of the missing aircraft was in the middle of the Indian Ocean west of Perth, and that “flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean”. Bottom line – all 239 passengers and crew had perished in the crash with no survivors. However, more than 17 hours later, acting Transport Minister Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein told Parliament yesterday afternoon that the SAR (search-and-rescue) operation would continue and that he would not give up so long as there are still hope for the 239 passengers and crew.

(2) Flags at government agencies, schools and the private sector in Johor and Perak flown at half-mast as mark of respect for the passengers and crew of MH370; but in Parliament yesterday, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that the Malaysian Government would not declare a state of national mourning until more conclusive evidence was found to identify wreckage belonging to MH370.

This is the reason why families, relatives, friends and well-wishers of the 239 passengers and crew, who after 19 days of excruciating anguish, and who would want to have closure of their ordeal, reacted so emotionally and even hysterically to the Prime Minister’s announcement of a finality to the missing MH370 of having been lost in the southern Indian Ocean with no survivors – when it is “a closure without a closure” as no piece of wreckage of the aircraft has yet been sighted. Continue reading “19th Day of missing MH370 drowned by sea of confusion over fate of aircraft and 239 passengers and crew on board”

By Ong Kian Ming | 7:50AM Mar 26, 2014
Malaysiakini

ANALYSIS To the casual political observer, two facts from the recent Kajang by-election would have stood out.

Firstly, the turnout decreased from 88 percent in GE13 to 72 percent. Secondly, the majority of victory decreased from 6,824 in GE13 to 5,379 – a drop of 1,445 votes.

On the surface, these results may seem like a negative reflection on Pakatan Rakyat’s and specifically PKR’s campaign as part of the ‘Kajang Move’. But a more careful analysis of the results reveals important findings that are positive for Pakatan, moving forward.

Pakatan increased its popular vote from 56.8 percent to 59.7 percent, a 2.9 percent increase. While this increase may not seem significant, one has to take into account that the lower turnout most likely decreased Pakatan’s popular vote.

Most of those who did not vote for a variety of reasons – did not return from outstation, it was the start of the school holidays, and thought that the outcome was already decided – would have been Pakatan voters, especially the younger voters whose turnout decreased more than the older voters (more on this later).

Secondly, Pakatan won in 14 out of 16 polling stations (not including postal and early votes) in the by-election compared with 12 out of 16 polling stations in GE13.
Continue reading “Kajang polls reflect positively on Pakatan”