Month: March 2014

Ram Anand
Malaysiakini
Mar 24, 2014

MH370 Acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein today agreed with proposals for a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on the disappearence of the missing Flight MH370, but said the onus was on cabinet to decide on the matter.

“I agree that both sides (opposition and government) be together in this issue,” he said during his winding-up speech for the debate on the motion of thanks for the royal address at the Dewan Rakyat today.

“Not only at the Malaysian level, but on a global level we must show togetherness. But I alone cannot make a decision. As the responsible minister, I will bring this up to the cabinet for a decision,” Hishammuddin said.

He said this in response to a question from Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Gelang Patah) over the proposal for a PSC on the missing plane, which was made by Anthony Loke (DAP-Seremban) last week. Continue reading “Hisham agrees to PSC plan, but cabinet to decide”

The Malay Mail Online
March 24, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 — Distraught, the Chinese families of those on board MH370 left a briefing by Malaysia Airlines in Beijing in “profound grief” after hearing that the ill-fated jetliner had crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.

“Awful scene. Chinese families leaving briefing room, wailing,” tweeted CNN correspondent Pauline Chiou, shortly after the tragic news was delivered, both in Malaysia and in Beijing.

The Chinese made up a bulk of the passengers on board flight MH370, a total of 153 of the 239 people, including 12 crew members and two infants.

“It’s just awful… it is profound, profound grief,” said Chiou in a broadcast on CNN.

“I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just an awful, awful scene,” she said.

Chiou said a screaming woman was seen being taken away on a stretcher towards a waiting ambulance van. Behind her, another person, believed to be the woman’s relative, followed the stretcher to the vehicle. Continue reading “Tears of grief and ambulance calls in Beijing when families told of MH370 crash”

by Lee Shi-Ian
The Malaysian Insider
March 24, 2014

Satellite data showed that flight MH370 flew into the southern Indian Ocean, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today, as Malaysia Airlines said the flight is lost “beyond reasonable doubt”.

“Flight MH370 flew into the southern Indian Ocean,” the Prime Minister said in Kuala Lumpur tonight.

In a statement to relatives of the 239 people on board the flight, MAS said: “We deeply regret that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board have survived … We must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean.”

Najib said families of the passengers and crew had been briefed of the latest development. Continue reading “MH370 lost beyond reasonable doubt, says MAS”

The Malay Mail Online
March 24, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 — Satellite data allowed the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that once spanned 30 million sq km to be whittled down to 68,000 sq km, but open questions exist over why authorities took so long to make this discovery.

The current search area some 2,500km southwest of Perth in Western Australia was calculated by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Australia using data provided by commercial satellite firm Inmarsat, according to a Washington Post report yesterday.

But the data between Inmarsat and the missing Boeing 777-200ER is the same that allowed Malaysian authorities to announce on March 15 that the plane could be in one of two corridors: a northern arc from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in central Asia, or a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

The latter corridor is where Australia said satellite images of debris possibly related to MH370 was found. Since then, China and France have provided additional data of other sightings in the area.

“Why it took the experts in Canberra and Washington so long to get their heads together is another open question, and not one that be entirely explained by Malaysian foot-dragging,” the Washington Post said in its report yesterday Continue reading “Who is holding up satellite info in MH370 search?”

Sunday Star
Sunday March 23, 2014

PETALING JAYA: A sense of responsibility for the missing MH370 has taken a toll on Air Traffic Controllers on duty the morning the plane disappeared on March 8.

There were 40 personnel on duty during the shift, including the Radar Controller, Flight Planner and Flight Data officers, who were directing the aircraft before handing over responsibility to their Vietnamese counterparts.

A senior Department of Civil Aviation officer told The Star some of those on duty can’t help but dwell on what happened to the plane.

“They have come to talk to me and kept asking why, why why, this had happened,” said the officer. “Despite assuring them they had carried out their duties, some can’t let go of the incident.”

He said all emergency protocol was followed immediately after MH370 disappeared off the radar. Continue reading “What happened on March 8 still haunts personnel on duty”

The Malaysian Insider
March 21, 2014

Yet another speculation – if indeed it turned out that debris spotted by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority are that of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 – is that the aircraft had run out of fuel and continued to glide before it finally made its descent into the ocean.

An aviation professional, speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, said newer aeroplanes would continue to glide, even after their fuel reserves had been exhausted.

“All the aeroplanes glide.

“They’ll go 10 (kilometres) along for every one down,” said Professor Jason Middleton from the University of New South Wales’ School of Aviation.

This is of course supposing that the whole crew and passengers on the flight had become unconscious due to a mechanical failure which caused low cabin pressure, resulting in the plane turning into a ‘ghost flight’ for several hours. Continue reading “After running out of fuel, plane likely glided a hundred kilometres more, says expert”

The Malaysian Insider
March 24, 2014

With the world’s eyes following every move it made in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Malaysian authorities could have done better in devising a comprehensive major emergency response mechanism, said an opinion piece published today in China’s Global Times.

The opinion piece written by Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said that at times conflicting statements issued by various Malaysian authorities, ranging from transport to the military, had only caused confusion and further grief.

Oh was also a former political secretary to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

“This negative perception of Malaysian handling of the present incident may be caused by two features in Malaysia’s political environment that are alien to most Chinese,” Oh said in the piece titled “Malaysia’s political rivalries bedevil search for lost MH370 flight”. Continue reading “Clueless politicians and rivalry make search for MH370 even harder, says academic”

The Malay Mail Online/AFP
March 24, 2014

PERTH, March 24 — Australia said today that French satellite data indicating floating objects possibly related to missing Flight MH370 were outside the current search zone, while admitting to “clutching” at every piece of new information.

Malaysian authorities yesterday received details from France indicating floating objects in the area of the southern Indian Ocean being scoured for the missing Malaysian jet which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board.

The information was passed to Australian authorities who are coordinating the hunt for the plane, now focused on a remote stretch of ocean 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) southwest of Perth.

But Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said the latest potential sighting of debris was about 850 kilometres north of where aircraft and ships have been looking since Thursday. Continue reading “Australia ‘clutching’ at MH370 leads after new data”

By PHILIP P. PAN and KIRK SEMPLE
New York Times
MARCH 22, 2014

The night sky was clear above the clouds, and the last glimmer of a setting half-moon had faded when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, cruising at 35,000 feet over the Gulf of Thailand, approached the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace on its usual route to Beijing. What happened next should have been routine for a twice-daily milk run between two of Asia’s most important cities. Air traffic controllers outside Kuala Lumpur usually hand the jet off to their counterparts in Ho Chi Minh City as the flight turns northeast toward the Chinese capital.

But in those early hours of March 8, pilots flying nearby heard an unusual crescendo of chatter on the radio frequencies used by radar control in Vietnam and Malaysia. Air traffic personnel in both countries were trying and failing to reach the plane.

“Any stations in contact with Malaysian 370, please relay.”

Vietnamese and Malaysian controllers asked one aircraft after another to radio the jet. Pilots listened as one plane after another tried and heard only static.

“Malaysian 370, this is Malaysian 88.”

“Malaysian 370, this is Malaysian 52.”

People familiar with the calls, describing them for the first time, said they were calm, even laconic. The pilots trying to reach the airliner had no reason to believe it had suffered anything more than an ordinary radio malfunction. Continue reading “A Routine Flight, Till Both Routine and Flight Vanish”

By Ted Jeory
Sunday Express
March 22, 2014

AIRLINES were placed on red alert over potentially catastrophic fire risks from lithium mobile phone batteries just 11 days before Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 took off carrying a cargo of them, the Sunday Express can reveal.

The warning was issued by French authorities last month after a fire on board an Air France Boeing 777 in 2010 was found to be caused by a phone’s lithium battery.

They had discovered that the battery had slipped into the moving mechanism of a business class seat, crushing it and sparking a fire.

As a result of that incident and a series of other fires over the past few years, they told the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to investigate the risks of people taking mobile devices into aircraft cabins.

Their main concern centred on an Air France flight from Atlanta to Paris, which experienced a fire over the Atlantic near Ireland in December 2010 at 38,000ft.

Cabin crew had noticed a burning smell and switched off the in-flight entertainment system to minimise the hazard, but when they removed the seat cushion they saw naked flames.

They then doused the flames with water, which extinguished the fire and the plane later landed safely. Continue reading “Flight MH370: Airlines on RED ALERT over lithium battery FIRE RISK in passenger cabin”

By Alex Pearlman | March 19, 2014
Boston Globe

The continuing search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has consumed the world’s attention for almost two weeks now. The mad quest to find the Boeing 777 has yet to answer the main questions on everyone’s mind: Where is that plane, and what happened to the people on it? Yet the search and the surrounding news coverage have revealed some surprising — and in some cases unsettling — facts about an industry the average person likely takes for granted.

We expect to fly and land safely, and these days, most flights do. But the system isn’t perfect, and in the time we’ve been engaged in the mystery of the lost plane, we’ve learned some noteworthy details about commercial aviation, technology, and national security.

1. Systems that collect information about flights have significant limits.

On Flight 370, a key communications system aboard the plane was somehow shut down. But that can happen for safety reasons. Continue reading “5 things MH370 has taught us about aviation”

by Jon Henley
The Guardian
20 March 2014

Even if the two unidentified objects shown on satellite images floating in the southern Indian Ocean are debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, finding them could prove to be a long and difficult process that may rely on good luck as much as on advanced technology, oceanographers and aviation experts warned on Thursday.

If the objects are recovered, locating the rest of the Boeing 777 on the ocean floor could turn out to be harder still. And if the fragmented and scattered remains can eventually all be collected and pieced together, working out exactly what happened to flight MH370 may be the toughest job of all.

“You know, we may never actually see anything,” said David Learmount, operations and safety editor at aviation news specialists Flightglobal. “It may simply not be feasible. That was actually my first thought when I heard of the flight’s disappearance: we may never find it. We may never know what happened.” Continue reading “MH370: what are the obstacles in the search for Malaysia Airlines plane?”

Ten days after my speech in Parliament proposing a Parliamentary Select Committee on the missing MH370 crisis, with 239 passengers and crew on board in the early hours of March 8; three days after the Pakatan Rakyat press conference on Wednesday in Parliament on a formal proposition to set up a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 by way of an amendment to the pending Motion of Thanks for the Royal Address currently undergoing debate in the Dewan Rakyat and two days after the Pakatan Rakyat MP for Seremban Anthony Loke having moved the formal proposition in Parliament on Thursday for the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370, there is still not a word from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak whether the government would support a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370.

The search for the missing MH370 Boeing 777-200 aircraft is already the longest in modern passenger-airline history, as the previous record was the 10-day search for a Boeing 737-400 with 102 people on board operated by Indonesia’s PT Adam Skyconnection Airlines, which went missing off the coast of the country’s Sulawesi island on January 1, 2007.

The MH 370 search has entered the third week with today being the 15th day of the missing aircraft, but despite the deployment of the world’s largest-ever 26-nation multi-national air-sea search-and-rescue (SAR) operation covering two vast tracts of territories totaling 2.24 million square nautical miles (about the same size of Australia), there has been no clue as to what happened to the aircraft and the 239 passengers and crew in the early hours of March 8, how and why it happened! Continue reading “Call on Najib to show national and international leadership by giving full support for the establishment of Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370”

Carmen Fishwick
Guardian
21st March 2014

Speculation about what really happened on missing flight 370 has been rampant. A commercial long-haul pilot and an experienced cabin crew member discuss the possibilities

We may never know what happened to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and the 239 people on board.

The Guardian spoke to a long-haul commercial pilot and a former Thomas Cook flight attendant – people who understand aeroplane emergency procedures and rules about access to the cockpit and communication systems – about key details in the competing theories doing the rounds about the plane’s fate.

Commercial long-haul pilot for a major airline (anonymous)

In what circumstances would you communicate with the ground to say there was an emergency?

In an emergency all pilots are trained in a golden rule: ANC, which is to aviate, navigate, communicate, in that order. Continue reading “What happened to MH370? A pilot and a flight attendant give their views”