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US experts: MH370’s last ‘ping’ sent over water

The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — Flight MH370 had sent a series of “pings” or electronic pulses, with the last transmitted from a location over water at a cruising altitude, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported today as searchers cast their eyes further west towards the Indian Ocean in the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) passenger plane.

Citing several unnamed US military and space industry officials who had been briefed on the investigation, the US daily reported that the satellites had also received speed and altitude information about the aircraft from the five or six “pings” before the pulses disappeared, which the experts believe could help them decipher its route and location.

But the people involved in the matter had declined to divulge the specific flight path the plane had transmitted, WSJ reported.

According to the report, an industry official said it was possible that the system sending them had been turned off by someone onboard the plane.

The report follows new evidence showing the Boeing 777-200 jumbo jet carrying 239 people had continued its flight hours after it supposedly left radar detection. Continue reading “US experts: MH370’s last ‘ping’ sent over water”

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US: Search may extend to Indian Ocean

Malaysiakini/Reuters
Mar 14, 2014

A new search area for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 may be opened in the Indian Ocean, the White House said, significantly broadening the potential location of the plane, which disappeared nearly a week ago with 239 people on board.

Expanding the search area to the Indian Ocean would be consistent with the theory that the Boeing 777 may have detoured to the west about an hour after take-off from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.

“It’s my understanding that based on some new information that’s not necessarily conclusive – but new information – an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney told reporters in Washington.

Carney did not specify the nature of the new information and Malaysian officials were not immediately available to comment.

The disappearance of the MAS plane is one of the most baffling mysteries in the history of modern aviation. There has been no trace of the plane nor any sign of wreckage despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries across Southeast Asia. Continue reading “US: Search may extend to Indian Ocean”

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Rare but sometimes, plane crash sites are not found, says aviation expert

The Malaysian Insider
March 14, 2014

If efforts to find the missing flight MH370 fail as the search enters its first week, it might be that the crash site simply cannot be found, says a former aviation safety and security writer.

Citing a 1972 crash involving a Pan Alaska Airways flight, Sylvia Adcock, writing in CNN’s website, said a Cessna took off from Anchorage bound for Juneau in bad weather. The plane never arrived.

The search for the missing aircraft was intense and covered an area of 325,000 square miles, with up to 3,600 flight hours involved in the search for the wreckage. It was never found and the search was called off 39 days later. Continue reading “Rare but sometimes, plane crash sites are not found, says aviation expert”

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Pentagon convinced of ‘manual intervention’ in MH370 transponder, communications shutdown

The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — Seven days since flight MH370 fell off the radar, two senior US defence officials are now convinced there was “manual intervention” that led to the shutdown of two communication systems aboard the jumbo jet that happened separately.

US broadcasting network ABC News cited one of the military officials as saying the information indicates the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) plane did not fall out of the sky due to a catastrophic failure of its systems, a theory that had been previously floated after the Boeing 777-200 vanished without a trace.

The report also cited US investigators saying the two modes of communication were “systematically shut down”.

That means the US team “is convinced that there was manual intervention”, ABC News reported on its website this morning, citing anonymous sources—bolstering speculation of a hijack. Continue reading “Pentagon convinced of ‘manual intervention’ in MH370 transponder, communications shutdown”

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US says lost MH370 flew on for hours, flight data given by Malaysia

The Malaysian Insider
March 14, 2014

Evidence that flight MH370 flew on for another four hours after vanishing early Saturday morning came from data shared by Malaysian authorities, not from engine maker Rolls-Royce, Washington Post reported today.

As a result of unspecified “new information,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said authorities searching for the Boeing 777-200ER may expand the hunt into the Indian Ocean, which extends hundreds of kilometres further west.

Obama administration officials later said the new information was that the plane’s engines remained running for approximately four hours after it vanished from radar early Saturday en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were 239 people on board.

One senior administration official said the data showing the plane engines running hours after contact was lost came from the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS, a way that planes maintain contact with ground stations through radio or satellite signals.

The official said Malaysian authorities shared the flight data with the administration. Continue reading “US says lost MH370 flew on for hours, flight data given by Malaysia”

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Distrust adding to Malaysian jet confusion, say analysts

The Malaysian Insider
March 13, 2014

Deep distrust between Asian neighbours and sensitive security issues are jamming essential communication lines in the chaotic hunt for a Malaysia Airlines plane, analysts said today.

Bickering between Malaysia, China and others involved in trying to solve the baffling weekend disappearance of the jet has exposed longstanding tensions and prevented a coordinated response, they said.

“There clearly are communication problems on multiple levels. There is an underlying lack of trust in these matters,” Bridget Welsh, an associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University, told AFP.

“The issues of protecting territory, security intelligence and interests are starting to win over the common goal of finding the plane and closure.” Continue reading “Distrust adding to Malaysian jet confusion, say analysts”

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Amid Search for Plane, Malaysian Leaders Face Rare Scrutiny

by Thomas Fuller
New York Times
MARCH 12, 2014

SEPANG, Malaysia — Malaysia’s governing elite has clung to power without interruption since independence from Britain almost six decades ago through a combination of tight control of information, intimidation of the opposition and, until recently, robust economic growth.

But worldwide bafflement at the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has challenged the country’s paternalistic political culture and exposed its coddled leaders to the withering judgments of critics from around the world.

Civilian and military leaders on Wednesday revealed that they had known for the past four days, but did not publicly disclose, that military radar had picked up signals of what may have been the missing aircraft. It appeared to be flying on a westerly course sharply off its intended flight path to Beijing.

If the radar readings were from the missing plane, it could mean a radical reinterpretation of where it ended up. And it was only under a barrage of intense questioning on Wednesday from a room packed with reporters who had arrived from many countries that officials acknowledged that the last recorded radar plot point showed the jet flying in the direction of the Indian Ocean — and at a cruising altitude, suggesting it could have flown much farther.

That raised the question of why the information had not been released earlier. Continue reading “Amid Search for Plane, Malaysian Leaders Face Rare Scrutiny”

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MAS: Boeing, RR deny getting MH370 data bursts

The Malay Mail Online
By Zurairi AR
March 13, 2014

SEPANG, March 13 — Boeing and Rolls Royce did not receive engine data from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the flag carrier said today when refuting reports that engine information showed the plane flew four hours longer than previously known.

Speaking during the daily press conference on the search efforts today, MAS group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said both the plane maker and engine builder have denied they received two bursts of Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) feedback allegedly from the Beijing-bound plane with 239 on board.

“The reports that the plane transmitted data long after the ACARS signal was lost are inaccurate. Our records show that the last ACARS transmission was at 1.07am,” Ahmad said.

“We have contacted both Rolls Royce and Boeing and both deny receiving the data.”

An earlier report by the Wall Street Journal that Rolls Royce such information had raised the possibility that the plane could be anywhere in a 4,400-mile radius. Continue reading “MAS: Boeing, RR deny getting MH370 data bursts”

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Call for immediate formation of Parliamentary Select Committee on Disasters to give full support to MH 370 “search and rescue” operation and to conduct investigations after SAR ops to address all queries on the MH 370 tragedy

(Speech in Dewan Rakyat when taking part in the debate on Motion of Thanks for the Royal Address on Thursday, 13th March 2014)

I rise with a heavy heart to take part in the Motion of Thanks on the Royal Address.

This is the sixth day of the disappearance of MH 370 with 239 passengers and crew, and what has made the past five days so excruciating and tormenting to the families, relatives and friends of the 239 people on board and well-wishers regardless of race, religion, political affiliation or nationality in Malaysia and world-wide is that nothing has been found despite a massive multi-national SAR operation involving 35 aircraft and 42 vessels to give any clue as to what actually happened or to indicate the final location of the aircraft.

With each passing day, our hopes and prayers that the 239 passengers and crew of MH 370 can survive safely through their ordeal become more and more tenuous, but even so, we must not give up hope and must continue to pray for a miracle for MH 370.

All Malaysians, in fact all humanity, regardless of race, religion, politics or nationality, have come together as one to pray for the safety of the 239 passengers and crew on board MH 370.

We cannot pretend that many questions are not being asked, whether by the aggrieved families, relatives and friends or by the humanity at large, whether in Malaysia or internationally, and which increase with each passing day, about the MH 370 tragedy, but the answers to these questions will have to wait as the sole focus and priority must be to find the aircraft. Continue reading “Call for immediate formation of Parliamentary Select Committee on Disasters to give full support to MH 370 “search and rescue” operation and to conduct investigations after SAR ops to address all queries on the MH 370 tragedy”

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In search for MH370, why did China take so long to release satellite photos?

The Malay Mail Online
MARCH 13, 2014 UPDATED: MARCH 13, 2014 03:04 PM

BEIJING, March 13 — Beijing was unusually open in revealing its satellite capabilities when it released photographs of possible debris from a missing airplane, despite taking four days to make the images public, analysts said today.

China’s State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) published three pictures late yesterday of what it said were suspected large floating objects in the South China Sea.

The images were taken on Sunday, it said, raising questions as to why it took several days for them to emerge, and whether—and if so, when—they had been passed to the Malaysian authorities co-ordinating the search.

China’s space programme is military-run and normally be shrouded in secrecy.

Malaysian and Vietnamese flights in the area of the photographs failed to spot anything, officials said.

But Morris Jones, an independent space analyst based in Australia, said Beijing’s disclosure of the pictures was surprisingly open.

“Satellite imagery is a strategic tool that has military applications, and nations are usually very cautious in revealing how much these satellites can do and how much they can see,” he told AFP.

“I am surprised that the Chinese have openly released this image because we don’t normally see images of this quality.”
Continue reading “In search for MH370, why did China take so long to release satellite photos?”

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Lost MH370 flew on for hours after vanishing from radar, reports Wall Street Journal

The Malaysian Insider
MARCH 13, 2014

American investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The business paper said this raised the possibility that the Boeing 777-200ER jet could have flown on for hundreds of additional kilometres under conditions that remain murky.

Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co 777’s engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring programme, the paper said.

That raised a host of new questions and possibilities about what happened aboard the wide-body jet carrying 239 people, which vanished from civilian air-traffic control radar over the weekend, about one hour into a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

Six days after the mysterious disappearance prompted a massive international air and water search that so far hasn’t produced any results, the investigation appears to be broadening in scope.
Continue reading “Lost MH370 flew on for hours after vanishing from radar, reports Wall Street Journal”

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Malaysia sends search aircraft to possible crash site

The Malaysian Insider
MARCH 13, 2014
LATEST UPDATE: MARCH 13, 2014 10:10 AM

Malaysia is sending a search aircraft to check the possible crash site identified by Chinese satellite images, said a Malaysian air force official.

Chinese satellites searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have “observed a suspected crash area at sea”, a government agency has revealed.

The Chinese have released days-old images of potential wreckage in the South China Sea in what is possibly the first indication of a crash site five days after the Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 people onboard.
Continue reading “Malaysia sends search aircraft to possible crash site”

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Chinese satellite images key on Day 6 of search for MH370

The Malay Mail Online
March 13, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 — A Chinese satellite hunting for the missing Malaysian jet detected three floating objects at sea along Flight 370’s intended route, the latest lead for investigators on the sixth day of a multi-nation search.

Images showed the pieces were as large as 24 metres by 22 metres, China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense said on its website. The pictures were taken on March 9, the day after the Boeing Co. 777-200 vanished while flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian Airline System Bhd. is verifying the data with the search and rescue team, said Lincoln Lee, a spokesman.

“People will be watching closely today,” said Jeff Walker, an aviation security consultant at JKG Global Group in Sydney. “The Chinese have very good equipment, so let’s wait and see if it’s the wreckage.”
Continue reading “Chinese satellite images key on Day 6 of search for MH370”

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Boeing: MH370 not subject to FAA inspection order

The Malay Mail Online
March 13, 2014

WASHINGTON, March 13 — Boeing Co yesterday said the missing 777 Malaysia Airlines jetliner was not subject to a new US safety directive that ordered additional inspections for cracking and corrosion on certain 777 planes.

The Federal Aviation Administration last week ordered additional, repeated inspections of certain Boeing 777 aircraft, warning that corrosion and cracking could lead to rapid decompression and damage to the structure of the aircraft.

The Federal Aviation Administration told airlines to inspect US registered aircraft for cracking, corrosion and potential repairs after receiving a report about a 16-inch crack in the fuselage skin underneath an adapter for the airplane’s satellite communications antenna.

Boeing said it worked closely with the FAA to monitor the fleet for potential safety issues and take appropriate actions.

But it said the 777-200ER Malaysia Airlines aircraft did not have that antenna installed and was not subject to the FAA order. Continue reading “Boeing: MH370 not subject to FAA inspection order”

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No quick fix in search for MH370

The Malay Mail Online
March 13, 2014

Kuala Lumpur, March 13 — The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has entered its sixth day with multinational planes and ships scouring seas on both sides of Peninsular Malaysia.

Stumped for answers after a fruitless five days spent looking for the missing jetliner mainly in seas off Vietnam’s south coast, Malaysia has expanded the search area to include the Straits of Malacca and the Andaman Sea.

The search area is now so wide it spans seas from India to China, but Malaysia insists there is still hope for the missing passengers and crew, 239 in all.

Malaysian authorities reached the decision to widen the search under the unrelenting gaze of worldwide media and found themselves on the back foot for much of the time.

Perhaps it was inevitable there were some lapses and inconsistencies. Continue reading “No quick fix in search for MH370”

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Experts slam Malaysia’s struggle to chart MH370 crisis

The Malay Mail Online
March 12, 2014

BANGKOK, March 12 — Criticised for contradictory statements, slow reactions and a lack of information, the “incompetence” of Malaysian authorities in communicating effectively during a crisis on the scale of its missing jet is painfully evident, analysts say.

With the search for flight MH370 now swinging away from the original zone, the airline and the government are accused of floundering as they face increasing demands for clarity.

“They have not experienced anything of this magnitude. It’s a bit difficult for them to grasp the scale,” Shukor Yusof, aviation analyst at Standard and Poor’s Capital IQ, told AFP.

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has issued more than a dozen statements to the media since the disappearance, including the full flight manifest, details of the search and rescue operation, and offered support to families while authorities have given regular briefings.

The airline has also offered to fly relatives to Kuala Lumpur to be closer to the search and has made 31,000 yuan (RM16,600) available to the family of each missing passenger.

Some experts in public relations said the airline was doing its best in unprecedented circumstances.

But Yusof said the authorities had at times appeared “abrasive” and “flippant”, while airline representatives had seemed “lacking in contrition” which belied poor staff training for crisis situations.

“This is an extremely serious tragedy and it has to be treated as such… I think communication has been very poor,” he said. Continue reading “Experts slam Malaysia’s struggle to chart MH370 crisis”

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‘Triggered transmission’ system instead of black box can help to locate aircraft faster

The Malaysian Insider
MARCH 12, 2014

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has brought a long-debated issue into focus – whether it is high time to install the “triggered transmission” sytem which records and transmits flight data the moment it senses something is wrong.

An editorial by the Bloomberg news wire service said the high cost of having a “triggered transmission” system, which one manufacturer put at less than US$100,000 (RM329,000) per aircraft, is the reason many airlines are reluctant to have them installed on their planes.

The cost of transmitting and storing huge amounts of data is also prohibitive.

The “triggered transmission” system was among the recommendations made by Investigators following the Air France tragedy on June 1, 2009. Continue reading “‘Triggered transmission’ system instead of black box can help to locate aircraft faster”

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Failing to show the way in search for flight MH370

The Malaysian Insider
March 13, 2014

Across the world, top newspapers and leading news agencies have started to rap Malaysia for the “mystery, confusion and disarray” in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

So far, government leaders from Datuk Seri Najib Razak down have failed in one critical aspect: inspiring confidence and assuring Malaysians and the international community that they know what they are saying and doing.

There have been inconsistencies and discrepancies that have even led to Vietnam suspending its air search operations until Putrajaya lets it know the latest direction of the massive hunt for the lost Boeing 777-200ER.

Then there is the irony of China asking Putrajaya to be more “forthcoming” in its information about the passenger jet where two-thirds of the 239 people on board are Chinese.

The thing is, government is only as good at the people on top and the cream of Malaysians politicians have either been hiding, waffling or in a stupor. Continue reading “Failing to show the way in search for flight MH370”

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Missing MH370 may have strayed toward Andaman Sea, says air force

The Malaysian Insider
March 12, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 — Malaysia’s military has traced what could have been the jetliner missing for almost five days to an area near India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, hundreds of miles from its last known position, the country’s air force chief said today.

After a series of at times conflicting statements, the latest revelation underlined that authorities remain uncertain even where to look for the plane, and no closer to explaining what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 or the 239 people on board.

The flight disappeared from civilian radar screens shortly before 1:30am on Saturday, less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, as it flew northeast across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand bound for Beijing. What happened next is one of the most baffling mysteries in modern aviation history.

Malaysian air force chief Tan Sri Rodzali Daud told a news conference that an aircraft was plotted on military radar at 2:15am, 320km northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia’s west coast.

It was not confirmed that the unidentified plane was Flight MH370, but Malaysia was sharing the data with international civilian and military authorities, Rodzali said. Continue reading “Missing MH370 may have strayed toward Andaman Sea, says air force”

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Malaysia Airlines mystery: US issued warnings over Boeing 777 ‘weak spot’

By David Millward, US Correspondent
The Telegraph
11 Mar 2014

Potential weakness in fuselage of Boeing 777s was identified by the Federal Aviation Administration last year

American transport officials warned of a potential weak spot in Boeing 777s which could lead to the “loss of structural integrity of the aircraft” four months before the disappearance of Malaysia airlines Flight MH370.

The Federal Aviation Administration in Washington drew up an Airworthiness Directive in November. It was triggered by reports of cracking in the fuselage skin underneath a Boeing aircraft’s satellite antennae.

In its directive the FAA, which is responsible for supervising the safety of American-made aircraft such as Boeing, told airlines to look out for corrosion under the fuselage skin.

This, the FAA said, could lead to a situation where the fuselage was compromised leading to possible rapid decompression as well as the plane breaking up.

“We received a report of cracking and corrosion in the fuselage skin underneath the SATCOM antenna adapter,” the FAA warned. “During a maintenance planning data inspection, one operator reported a 16-inch crack under the 3-bay SATCOM antenna adapter plate in the crown skin of the fuselage on an aeroplane that was 14 years old with approximately 14,000 total flight cycles. Continue reading “Malaysia Airlines mystery: US issued warnings over Boeing 777 ‘weak spot’”