Category: Airline

By Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
Jun 1, 2015

MAS is not a commercial enterprise, but an offshoot of a government department, and run along government lines. It takes its orders from politicians, it bows to various political demands, it can never be re-structured unless the torrid cocktail of political patronage and building personal empires is eliminated.

After years of Ketuanan Melayu and Biro Tata Negara (BTN) spewing division, with claims that the Malays are God’s chosen people, it is ironic that the saviour of MAS is a German, Christoph Mueller.

What a slap in the face of the rakyat, the planes in the fleet are being sold off, to save some money, and yet Najib Abdul Razak and the self-styled First Lady of Malaysia (Flom) wastes millions of ringgit on a new aeroplane for ministerial junkets.

Our politicians bled MAS dry and now Mueller wants to perform a cull and punish the employees, instead of the politicians and fat cats, who sit on the management board.

It is outrageous that the people in positions of authority refuse to take any responsibility for their failures, and will probably be retained with a more lucrative package. Continue reading “Race, religion, royalty, reality and MAS”

by Ram Anand
The Malaysian Insider
27 May 2015

Beginning September, Malaysia Airline System Bhd, the company Malaysians know as the national carrier since 1972, will cease to exist.

It would instead be replaced by a new company, Malaysia Airlines Bhd, to be fully owned by Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional before a planned re-listing in Bursa Malaysia by 2019.

This, however, is not the first time MAS has been subjected to a turnaround plan or a bid to save the airline. It has happened several times over the course of 22 years, beginning in 1994.

This is the most comprehensive restructuring plan that MAS has been subjected to though. One that will involve a rigorous cutting down of its air travel routes and its workforce, likely to reduce it to a regional airline.

But this will only work if the government and those helming this restructuring plan heed the lessons of the past. Continue reading “The 21 years of mismanagement that brought MAS to its knees”

BY JENNIFER GOMEZ
Published: 18 June 2014 | Updated: 18 June 2014 10:39 AM
The Malaysian Insider

After more than 100 days since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, it is time for Putrajaya to be held accountable for the tragedy, a forum was told last night.

Veteran DAP leader Lim Kit Siang accused Putrajaya of dragging its feet in launching an inquiry to find out what actually caused the plane’s disappearance, adding that “heads should roll”.

“It’s been 101 days and time to demand accountability, heads should roll.

“And we must make it very clear that we cannot accept there will be no investigation until the plane is found,” he said at a forum to commemorate the plane’s disappearance after 100 days.
Continue reading “MH370: Time for accountability, heads must roll, forum told”

By Koon Yew Yin

The long term MAS price chart shows that it has dropped from Rm 2.10 in 2007 to 18 sens today. As a long term serious investor, I have had a closer look at the cheap share price. Why is it selling at 18 sen or less than one fifth of its par value?

My intention in writing this piece is to help the BN Government decide to put in the final nail and to bury MAS so as to save tax payers’ money. Obviously the Government did not pay enough attention to my previous articles “Why MAS share price is on cheap sale?” and “Why MAS Is Still Flying” which I published about a year ago. It will be relevant to include some of the points I mentioned in my previous article in this new one.
Continue reading “The BN Government should close down MAS”

By Tim Barla | May 18, 2014
The Sydney Morning Herald
EXCLUSIVE

Seventy-one days after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, the first book about the disaster will go on sale on Monday with a theory about what might have happened.

And as the international search continues for the aircraft Irene Burrows, the Queensland mother who lost her son and daughter-in-law on the flight, said it was too soon for a book.

Flight MH370 The Mystery, which is made available by NewSouth Books in Sydney, doesn’t claim to have any answers but to some extent supports the theory that the aircraft may have been accidentally shot down during a joint Thai-US military exercise in the South China Sea. Searchers were then possibly led in the wrong direction to cover up the mistake, it suggests.

”In an age where a stolen smart phone can be pinpointed to any location on earth, the vanishing of this aircraft and 227 passengers is the greatest mystery since the Mary Celeste,” the publicity for the book reads.
Continue reading “First book on MH370 mystery blames US war games”

By J. Kyle O’Donnell Mar 28, 2014 2:25 PM GMT+0800
Bloomberg

The disappearance of Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS)’s Flight 370 has galvanized a multinational search, spawned theories ranging from an accident to air piracy and repeatedly dashed hopes that a resolution was at hand.

Below is a timeline of the events that began with the jet’s departure from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing:

March 8:

12:41 a.m.: Flight 370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew members on board.

1:07 a.m.: Last transmission from the Boeing Co. 777-200ER via an onboard text-and-data messaging system known by the acronym Acars.

1:19 a.m.: Last communication from the cockpit. Initial investigation says copilot said, “alright, good night” as the last words. Plane leaves Malaysian airspace, heading across the Gulf of Thailand toward Vietnam.

1:21 a.m.: Radar transponder is switched off.

1:37 a.m.: Next Acars transmission is due, and never comes.

2:15 a.m.: Malaysian military radar spots an aircraft on the west side of Peninsular Malaysia that isn’t using its transponder. This development won’t be publicly known until about a week later. The radar target is Flight 370, heading away from its planned route.

6:30 a.m.: Flight 370 is scheduled to arrive in Beijing.

7:39 a.m.: China’s Xinhua news agency sends a flash bulletin saying contact had been lost with Flight 370. Chinese passengers make up about two-thirds of the people on board the plane.

8:11 a.m.: Last satellite signal sent from the plane, known as a “handshake,” is detected. This development won’t be known for about a week.

8:19 a.m.: Evidence of a “partial handshake” between the aircraft and the ground station eight minutes after the last complete communication. This information was released March 25.

9:15 a.m.: No response from the aircraft when the ground station sent the next message, indicating the plane was no longer logged on to the network.

Initial search efforts focus on the Gulf of Thailand, where twin oil slicks stir concern that they signal a crash on the plane’s known route. The discovery that two passengers were traveling on stolen passports triggers speculation that terrorism may have been involved.

March 9: Vietnamese searchers find objects in the Gulf of Thailand only to conclude later that they’re unrelated to Flight 370. Representatives for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing travel to Malaysia to assist with the investigation. Speculation arises that the plane deviated from its route.
Continue reading “Timeline of Malaysian Air’s Missing Flight 370”

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”

The Malaysian Insider
March 15, 2014

Classified intelligence analysis of electronic and satellite data has indicated that the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight 370 likely crashed either in the Bay of Bengal or somewhere in the Indian Ocean, an exclusive report by the CNN said.

If this information is true, it would offer the first glimpse of concrete details about what happened to the Beijing-bound flight which went off the radar early last Saturday.

It had enough credibility for the United States to move its guided missile destroyer, the USS Kidd, into the Indian Ocean, and Indian officials to expand its search effort into the Bay of Bengal.

An aviation industry source told CNN that the flight’s automated communications system appeared to be intact for up to five hours, because “pings” from the system were received after the transponder last emitted a signal.

The CNN report said taken together, the data points toward speculation in a dark scenario in which someone took the plane for some unknown purpose, perhaps terrorism.

That theory is buoyed by a New York Times (NYT) report that the MAS plane made several significant altitude changes after losing transponder contact.

The paper said MH370 altered its course more than once as though it was still under the command of a pilot. Continue reading “Classified data shows plane may have crashed in Bay of Bengal or Indian Ocean”

The Malay Mail Online
March 15, 2014

WASHINGTON, March 15 ― A US naval ship and surveillance plane are heading to the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal to search for a missing Malaysian airliner that vanished a week ago, officials said yesterday.

US media reports, meanwhile, suggested the plane experienced marked changes in altitude after it lost contact with ground control, and altered its course more than once as if still under the command of a pilot.

A P-8 Poseidon aircraft and a guided missile destroyer, the USS Kidd, were due to aid the international hunt for the jet as the search effort extended further west, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said.

“At Malaysia’s request, the USS Kidd is north of the Straits of Malacca in what we’re calling the western search area,” Warren told reporters in Washington.

The Kidd was preparing to search the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal for the Malaysia Airlines plane. Continue reading “US ship, plane to search Bay of Bengal for missing jet”

The Malay Mail Online
March 15, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 ― With new evidence suggesting the possibility that missing jetliner MH370 had been deliberately piloted towards the Andaman Islands, another theory has now emerged out of the woodwork ― could someone have landed aircraft?

Reuters cited two sources yesterday as saying that investigators believe the plane had been directed between navigational waypoints after it lost contact with ground control, which indicated it was being flown by someone with aviation training.

It cited another source as saying that investigations are now looking at the possibility of foul play, with signs pointing increasingly to the likelihood that a person who knew how to fly a plane had deliberately swung the aircraft hundred of miles off its original course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, towards the Andaman Islands.

“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” Reuters had quoted a “a senior Malaysian police official” as saying.

Although this is at best just conjecture for now, it may be one of the few working theories that could finally expose more conclusive leads to what experts have described as the most baffling of mysteries in aviation history.

But if the Malaysia Airlines aircraft had truly made the air turn-back as suspected, if it had headed to the Andaman Islands as satellite data and US officials have suggested, and if it indeed had landed, where in the remote Indian archipelago could it have parked itself so stealthily out of sight? Continue reading “Could MH370 have landed?”

The Malaysian Insider
March 15, 2014

With evidence showing a missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Boeing 777-200ER could still be intact, US officials have not ruled out that flight MH370 was flown to a secret site so that it could be used at a later date.

There has been no trace or debris field on land or sea that is linked to the plane carrying 239 people, which vanished while on a red-eye flight to Beijing last Saturday.

“I am keenly interested in resolving this mystery so we can discard the possibility, however remote, that the airplane can be used for nefarious purposes against us in the future,” ABC News quoted a US official as saying.

The official added that “all our intelligence assets” are being used to try to figure this out.

Investigators searching for the missing MAS passenger jet said that they could not rule out hijacking and are looking at whether one of the plane’s pilots or crew could have been involved. Continue reading “MH370 hijack theory includes intent to use plane for ‘nefarious purposes’, say US officials”

The Malaysian Insider
March 15, 2014

An unprecedented international effort is under way from space to track the missing Malaysia passenger jet as satellite operators, government agencies and rival nations sweep their gaze across two oceans in search of elusive debris or data.

Six days after the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 went missing with 239 people on board, the search has widened to the Andaman Sea, northwest of the Malay Peninsula, with only one precious clue – an ephemeral “ping” detected five or six times after the plane lost contact – picked up in orbit.

Disaster relief agencies and governments are co-operating across political divides, and in the absence of a formal probe are finding informal ways to share information, including via China’s weather agency, a person involved in the search said.

“I haven’t seen this sort of level of involvement of satellites in accident investigation before,” said Matthew Greaves, head of the Safety and Accident Investigation Centre at Cranfield University in Bedford, England. “It is only going to get more important until they find some wreckage.”

Several governments are using imagery satellites – platforms that take high definition photos – while data from private sector communications satellites is also being examined. Continue reading “Satellites scour earth for clues as missing jet mystery deepens”

The Malaysian Insider
March 14, 2014

Indian aircraft combed Andaman and Nicobar, made up of more than 500 mostly uninhabited islands, for signs of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 jetliner that evidence suggests was last headed towards the heavily forested archipelago.

Popular with tourists and anthropologists alike, the islands form India’s most isolated state. They are best known for dense rainforests, coral reefs and hunter-gatherer tribes who have long resisted contact with outsiders.

The search for flight MH370 turned west toward the islands after Malaysia’s air force chief said military radar had detected an unidentified aircraft suspected to be the lost Boeing 777 to the west of Malaysia early on Saturday.

Two sources yesterday told Reuters the unidentified aircraft appeared to be following a commonly used navigational route that would take it over the islands.

The Indian navy has deployed two Dornier planes to fly across the island chain, a total area of 720 km by 52 km, Indian military spokesman Harmeet Singh said in the state capital, Port Blair. So far the planes, and a helicopter searching the coast, had found nothing.

“This operation is like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Singh, who is the spokesman for joint air force, navy and army command in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Continue reading “India scours uninhabited jungle islands for lost MH370 jetliner”

The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — The dramatic expansion of the search for a missing Malaysian airliner suggests the plane flew thousands of miles off course, crossing — apparently undetected — a sensitive region bristling with military radar.

Aviation experts today queried the plausibility of such a scenario, but confirmation from US and Malaysian officials that the search was being widened into the vast Indian Ocean suggested it had credible underpinnings.

If there was a debate over what might have happened to Flight MH370, there was a general consensus as to the extraordinary nature of its disappearance without trace a week ago over the South China Sea.

“I would probably go ahead and say this is unprecedented,” said Anthony Brickhouse, a member of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators.

“In most investigations each day you move forward, you uncover more things, more clues,” Brickhouse told AFP. Continue reading “Aviation experts question shift in search for MH370”

The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — Global satellite company Inmarsat revealed today that it had registered “routine, automated signals” from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 during its flight from Kuala Lumpur.

The news adds to the intrigue surrounding the aircraft’s disappearance, particularly as it appears to corroborate reports that said satellites had picked up faint, electronic pulses or “pings” from MH370 hours after it was last heard from.

Inmarsat, a London-based firm, reported its findings in a statement on its website but did not elaborate on when or how long the signals were received.

“This information was provided to our partner SITA, which in turn has shared it with Malaysia Airlines,” it said in the statement, adding that further information should be obtained from MAS, the owner of the Boeing 777 aircraft that went missing.

SITA is a global specialist in air transport communications and information technology. Continue reading “London-based satellite firm says MH370 registered signals on its network”

The Malaysian Insider
March 14, 2014

Military radar-tracking evidence suggests that the Malaysia Airlines MH370 jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula toward the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters today.

Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints – indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training – when it was last plotted on military radar off the country’s northwest coast.

The last plot on the military radar’s tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India’s Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.

Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.

A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight, with 239 people on board, hundreds of miles off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.

All three sources declined to be identified because they were not authorised to speak to the media and due to the sensitivity of the investigation. Continue reading “Radar data suggests MH370 plane flown deliberately toward Andaman Islands”

Malaysiakini
Mar 14, 2014

The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 appears to be shifting back and forth between east and west of peninsula Malaysia, with latest information from scientists in China suggesting that the plane may have triggered a seismic event when it impacted the sea some 150km off the southern tip of Vietnam.

A team of seismologists at a top China research university said they detected a slight seismic event on the sea floor between Vietnam and Malaysia on March 8 which could be a result of an impact.

“It was a non-seismic zone, therefore judging from the time and location of the event, it might be related to the missing MH370 flight,” said a statement posted on the University of Science and Technology of China website.

This was also reported by the South China Morning Post. Continue reading “Seismic event turns focus back to Vietnam waters”

by Joseph Sipalan
The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — While investigators have doubled efforts in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the chances of a swift recovery and more pertinently, answers to its sudden disappearance midflight, are looking more remote with each passing day.

US officials, who are aiding Malaysia in a multi-nation hunt for the Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people, are pursuing a new lead west to the Indian Ocean, after its satellites picked up electronic pulses that signalled the plane remained airborne hours after it flitted off radar.

If proven true, it could make an already daunting operation even more difficult to conduct and coordinate as the sheer size of the Indian Ocean would increase the search area exponentially.

But the chances of finding the plane intact—seven days after flight MH370 was to hand landed in Beijing—in the world’s third largest water body are looking slim.

The Indian Ocean has an average depth of 13,002 feet (3,963 m) while its deepest point, the Java Trench is believed to be at -23,812 feet (-7,258 m), according to information in the CIA World Factbook.

The Boeing 777 aircraft had enough fuel to fly up to 8.30am on March 8, leaving it with some seven hours of fuel in its tanks when it lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control (ATC). Continue reading “Long haul ahead for answers to missing MH370”

By Alan Levin, Kartikay Mehrotra and Anurag Kotoky
Bloomberg News
Mar 14, 2014

India’s navy set up a search zone for the missing Malaysian airliner in the Andaman Sea, hundreds of miles off the course of Flight 370, as evidence mounted that the plane may have flown long after controllers lost contact.

India has sent five ships and four aircraft to search for the plane, V.S.R. Murthy, commander for Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Indian Coast Guard, said by phone today. Aviation investigators are compiling signs the Boeing Co. (BA) 777-200 veered off its route and traveled west over Malaysia (MAS), beyond the limits of the country’s radars, according to two people who asked not to be identified with the probe active.

A satellite transmitter on the plane was active for about five hours, indicating the plane was operational after its transponder shut down less than an hour after takeoff, said three U.S. government officials. The 777 can cruise at 500 miles (805 kilometers) an hour or more, meaning it may have flown for as far as 2,500 miles beyond its last point of contact if it was intact and had enough fuel.

The information adds to the mystery surrounding the March 8 disappearance of the Malaysian Airline System Bhd. plane carrying 239 people. With no evidence of a mechanical failure or pilot error, U.S. investigators are treating the disappearance as a case of air piracy, though it remains unclear by whom, one person said. Continue reading “India Looking for Malaysian Jet as U.S. Sees Air Piracy”

Lindsay Murdoch
Sydney Morning Herald
March 14, 2014

Kuala Lumpur: As Malaysia’s government struggled to defend its handling of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, controversy has erupted over a witch doctor who carried out a ritual at the capital’s international airport, who claimed he was trying to find it.

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said the government had never before embarrassed itself to this extent on the international stage by allowing Ibrahim Mat Zin, the witch doctor or shaman, to perform a ritual in public that was an affront to Islam. Continue reading “Controversy as shaman performs ritual to help find missing Malaysia Airlines plane”