Month: April 2014

The Malay Mail Online
April 10, 2014

PERTH, April 10 — The hunt for more black box “pings” from missing Malaysian airliner MH370 was narrowing today to a specific patch of remote ocean after two more signals were detected.

The head of the Australian-led search Angus Houston raised hopes yesterday that wreckage will be found within days even as the black box batteries start to expire.

Houston’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) announced today the search area off western Australia was now 57,923 square kilometres (22,364 square miles) — some 20,000 square kilometres down on yesterday.

But Australian ship Ocean Shield is focused on an area of the Indian Ocean 2,280 kilometres (1,400 miles) northwest of Perth where it picked up two fresh signals Tuesday to match a pair of transmissions logged over the weekend as searchers try to pinpoint the exact crash zone.

No debris from the Boeing 777 which disappeared on March 8 has yet been found. Continue reading “Hunt for black box signals zeroes in on ‘final resting place’”

The Malay Mail Online
April 8, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 ― New analysis of partial satellite communications with Flight MH370 that places it in the Indian Ocean location where acoustic signals were detected by search teams have led authorities to believe they may have found the site of wreckage.

British daily, The Telegraph, reported today that the final satellite contact or “half-handshake” ― as it is referred to in aviation jargon ― could have been the moment when the plane ran out of fuel, turned upside down and plunged into the water.

Citing Chris McLaughlin from British satellite company Inmarsat, The Telegraph reported that analysis of the new signals were made at 00.19 GMT ― 8.19am Malaysian time ― on March 8, just eight minutes after Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370’s last regular hourly handshake.

The daily reported that the signals were further scrutinised by an international team of experts and the latest analysis showed the plane to be travelling faster than previously presumed, burning up more fuel, and would have landed even further north along the same arc.

“The partial handshake would be the plane running out of fuel and faltering for a moment, so the system went off network and then briefly powered up and had communication with the network. The plane looked for a final communication before it went off ― and that was it,” McLaughlin was quoted saying.

The daily also cited a former British Airways pilot who flew Boeing 777s, Stephen Buzdygan, as saying that the jetliner would have continued staying airborne but may have turned over on its back as the engines shut off one after the other. Continue reading “Satellite data analysis suggests MH370 flew inverted to site of acoustic signals”

By Alan Boyle
NBC News
April 8th 2014

Don’t expect instant gratification in the race to recover wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, even if searchers confirm they’re hearing pings from the Boeing 777’s black box.

The operation won’t be like the thrill-a-minute treasure hunt in the movie “Titanic”: Identifying the wreckage will require painstaking passes by a torpedo-like autonomous robot called Bluefin 21, which will be operating at the very limit of its range.

If the side-scan sonar readings identify a field of debris, the robot sub will go over the territory again with high-resolution video cameras, pinpointing the locations of the black-box recorders and other evidence.

It’s only after those clues have been collected that searchers can send down yet another kind of robot, connected to a search ship and capable of bringing debris up to the surface.

The first part of the task will require programming the Bluefin 21 in advance to look for something the size of a shoebox in a search area that could span hundreds of square miles. Continue reading “Searchers Get Robot Squad Ready to Hunt for Malaysian Jet Debris”

Bangkok Post
8 Apr 2014

One month after flight MH370 vanished, there is still no proof of what happened to the plane or where it ended up, despite an intensive international search now focused on the Indian Ocean.

This handout photo taken on April 4, 2014 and released on April 7 by Australia’s Defence Department shows the HMAS Success readying a rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) near dusk following a reported sighting of potential debris

But authorities believe they may be zeroing in, after ping signals possibly emanating from the plane’s “black box” of flight and cockpit voice data were detected deep down in the search area.

Here are answers to some key questions:

Q: Are the ‘pings’ from MH370? Continue reading “Q&A on the MH370 mystery”

The Malay Mail Online
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal
April 8, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 ― City lights may have brightened Dataran Merdeka last night, but the iconic landmark was unmistakably sombre, as small groups of people quietly gathered there to hold a candlelight vigil for the passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

It has now been exactly one month since flight MH370 has been missing, and despite a multinational search operation which has spanned oceans and countries, no one knows where the aircraft has landed, save for theories and plausible scenarios.

By 11.30pm, a small group of 150-odd Malaysians of different races stood within the concrete jungle of Kuala Lumpur, saying little but hoping for the impossible.

From adults to the elderly and even children, people lit candles and formed a small circle around a sign which read “in remembrance of the one month since MH370 went missing.”

“We are here to offer our support for the families and relatives of those who were on board MH370. There is little we can do, so we pray to our respective God to try and make this painful moment as bearable as possible,” a 28-year-old who only wanted to be known as Hussaini told The Malay Mail Online. Continue reading “One month on, Malaysians hold silent vigil for lost flight MH370”

Timeline of Flight MH370
CNBC.com
7.4.2014

The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has entered its fourth week, with the plane believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from its original flight path.

Just as the batteries on the locator beacons on the aircraft’s “black boxes” are nearing their limits, the searchers have detected signals they believe are “consistent” with the flight recorders.

Australian authorities said the signals may represent the best lead yet after the international investigation into the ill-fated carrier was initially stymied by several false leads.

Many questions about the fate of MH370, which left Kuala Lumpur en route to Beiing on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew, remain unanswered, including why the flight diverted from its planned route and what exactly caused it to crash.

The lack of information has taken a toll on the families of those on board the flight who until the announcement had been clinging on to hope their relatives may still be alive.

Here is a chronology of the latest developments: Continue reading “Timeline of Flight MH370”

By Mike M. Ahlers, CNN
April 7, 2014

(CNN) — After weeks of fruitless searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, it sounds like a promising sign.

When a Chinese patrol ship picked up two pulses in the southern Indian Ocean, the head of the Australian agency coordinating search efforts called it “an important and encouraging lead.”

Investigators hope the audio signals are locator beacons from the plane’s data recorders, but they’re not sure yet.

Is it the discovery we’ve all been waiting for? Could those be Malaysia Airlines Flight 370’s pingers?

Here are four reasons to believe and six reasons to doubt:

REASONS TO BELIEVE

1) The frequency doesn’t occur in nature.

The Chinese Haixun 01 patrol ship detected pulses at a frequency of 37.5 kHz, the Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency reported. That’s the same frequency of black box pingers — and that frequency is no accident. The pingers were designed to have that frequency because it does not occur in nature.

2) There were two separate events.

The Haixun 01 reported two pulses within 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) of each other. Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agency Coordination Center, described them as “fleeting, fleeting acoustic events.” One was described as being 90 seconds long; no time was given for the other, but it was evidently shorter. Continue reading “MH370: Is it the pinger? 4 reasons to believe; 6 reasons to doubt”

Clive Irving
The Daily Beast
5.4. 2014

Hope to find MH 370 was virtually destroyed by a month of bungled searching. The only saving grace was one lonely satellite company’s brilliance.

It’s now a month since Malaysian Flight MH370 became modern aviation’s greatest mystery. Certain things are clear and many of them are disturbing.

First, the oversight of commercial air space in this part of Asia is chaotic. Jealously preserved divisions of power within each state made it impossible to achieve the kind of open, rapid and efficient exchange of information between the states themselves that is essential in an emergency. As s result, too much time has been spent chasing false leads, some of them dubiously motivated, and assessing data that turned out to be badly flawed.

As long as any physical evidence remains out of reach this is not only the most demanding sea search for an airplane ever undertaken, it’s a virtually impossible forensic challenge.

The initial failure to report radar sightings of what was probably Flight MH370 had costly consequences in a time-critical situation. Days were wasted searching the South China Sea, not the Indian Ocean.

It took at least a week to produce anything resembling a reliable time line of the Boeing 777’s course after the last contact between it and controllers. Continue reading “The Worst Place in the World for MH370 to Go Missing”

Mark Townsend
The Observer
5 April 2014

With the batteries powering the black box from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 expected to expire as early as Monday, experts have warned that the international hunt for the aircraft’s wreckage may be looking in the wrong area.

The flight recorders of the Boeing 777 emit a ping that can be detected by sonar equipment, but the devices have a battery life of around 30 days, which means ships hoping to locate the signal are rapidly running out of time.

Finding the data recorders after that remains possible, but experts say it will become significantly more challenging if the signal beacons stop working.

Underwater attempts to pinpoint the ping continued, four weeks to the day after the airliner vanished, with the Australian navy’s Ocean Shield and Britain’s HMS Echo trawling an identified area using sophisticated underwater detection equipment.

However, some experts warn that they could be scouring the wrong stretch of remote Indian ocean. Aviation expert and former RAF Hercules pilot David Learmount said the failure to locate any floating wreckage meant that the search effort was effectively still working blind. Continue reading “Flight MH370: ‘Hunt for black box may be in the wrong area’”

By Dennis Lynch
International Business Times
April 06 2014

Almost a month after Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 went missing over the Gulf of Thailand, searchers are focusing on two areas in the Indian Ocean where they detected possible signals consistent with MH370’s black-box pinger.

The signals were detected by the Australian ship HMS Ocean Shield and the Chinese ship Haixun 01 about 300 nautical miles away from each other.

Searchers are hastening to detect pinger signals because MH370’s black-box pinger battery could expire during the next two weeks. The pinger battery lasts from 30 to 45 days, with April 22 being the latest to find a signal. A confirmed signal would greatly narrow the search area, which is now the size of England.

The Chinese vessel Haixun 01 has reported two signals at the 37.5 kHz frequency. These signals were detected about a mile away from one another with equipment used just below the surface of the water. While not confirmed, the Haixun 01 signals are promising for their consistency, and one signal lasted 90 seconds. Continue reading “The Hunt For MH370 Narrows On Two Possible Locations After Searchers Detect Potential ‘Pings’”

Kate Mayberry
AlJazeera
05 Apr 2014

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – When the aviation industry’s safety experts sat down in Kuala Lumpur for their annual meeting this week, there was one issue that was uppermost in their minds: the fate of missing flight MH370.

“I don’t think I could start my remarks in any other way than by acknowledging the human tragedy of MH370,” Tony Tyler, the Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told delegates as he opened the meeting earlier this week. “The best way for all of us involved in aviation to honour the memory of those on board is to learn from what happened to improve safety in the future.”

Four weeks after the Boeing 777-200 and its 239 passengers and crew went missing on a seemingly routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the chances of finding out what happened remain remote.

Not a single piece of wreckage has been found and with no physical evidence, let alone the data and cockpit voice recorders, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s announcement on March 24 that the plane had “ended,” its journey in the southern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles off course, has done little to ease the anguish of the families of those on board.

For days, a multinational search force including Australia, the US and China has taken to the seas and the skies off Australia’s western coast, the search parameters refined regularly according to satellite imagery and the electronic “pings” that the aircraft continued to make even after normal on-board communications ceased to function. But the scale of the task remains immense. Daily search areas cover tens of thousands of square kilometres of some of the world’s most remote ocean. Continue reading “Malaysia flight MH370 shadows safety meeting”