Category: MH 370

AlJazeera
29 March 2014

A Chinese ship is steaming towards a search area in the southern Indian Ocean after one of the country’s military aircraft spotted three suspicious objects that could be related to the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.

China’s state news agency Xinhua reported that the Chinese military plane Ilyushin IL-76 had sighted three white, red and orange floating objects from an altitude of 300m on Saturday.

The Australian Maritime and Safety Authority (AMSA), which is coordinating the search, said late on Friday that five international aircraft had spotted “multiple objects of various colours”. Continue reading “Chinese ship steams to possible MH370 debris”

Three events in the last 24 hours have brought some semi-light and “hope against hope”, however tenuous and unsubstantial, in the long, bleak and agonizing 21-day ordeal of the aggrieved that all is not yet lost for the 239 passengers and crew aboard Malaysian Airlines aircraft MH 370 Boeing 777-200 as long as no wreckage has been found.

The first is the statement by the satellite company Inmarsat, distancing itself from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s definitive conclusion on the 17th day of the missing MH370 that the Malaysian Airlines flight had ended in the southern Indian Ocean with no survivors and the announcement of the end of the search-and-rescue (SAR) operation.

Inmarsat spokesperson Jonathan Sinnatt has been quoted in the international media as saying that Inmarsat had only provided the information and it was for the Malaysian government to draw its own conclusions. Continue reading “Three events in last 24 hours brought some semi-light and “hope against hope”, however tenuous and unsubstantial, all is not yet lost for the 239 aboard MH 370 as long as no wreckage has been found”

By Jordan Golson
Wired
03.28.14

The southern Indian Ocean is a vast, desolate and hostile place churned by relentless currents and vicious storms. It is rarely traversed by air or sea, and anything lost there may never be found. That includes Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

But those scouring a remote swath of ocean west of Australia received tantalizing clues this week, including new radar data about the plane’s velocity. The data, gleaned from radar between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, suggests MH370 was traveling faster than previously believed, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said. That means it would have run out of fuel sooner. The agency called this new information “the most credible lead to where debris may be located.” 1

The new lead prompted a sudden change in focus to an area 685 miles northeast of where everyone had been searching. They’d spent much of the week scouring an area 1,600 miles west of Perth, Australia, after satellite images taken Sunday by Airbus Defence and Space and Monday by Thailand’s Geo-Informatics Space Technology Development Agency revealed what might be a debris field.

The shift to yet another area underscores just how perplexing the search has been, and how investigators have been frustrated in their quest for answers. None of the aircraft or ships in the region have found anything of note, and the photos may reveal nothing more than whitecaps or the flotsam so often found at sea.

With little else to go on, investigators have so far relied upon the scant satellite and radar communication the plane had after going dark 90 minutes into its March 8 flight to Beijing with 239 people aboard. Finding a debris field would be akin to a homicide detective locating a body, allowing investigators to begin piecing together, literally and figuratively, what happened.

“Until they find debris,” said Dr. Vernon Grose, a former investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, “they’re spending all that money on this, and it’s totally useless.” Continue reading “Here’s How They’ll Piece Together What Happened to Flight MH370”

The Malaysian Insider
March 29, 2014

Will Malaysians have the appetite for a political witch hunt after the flight MH370 crisis?

A writer contributing to Al Jazeera website says that right now many are emotionally exhausted with the affair and by the time all the questions have been answered and murkiness cleared, it could be business as usual in Malaysia.

“Once the dust settles on this tragedy, could the lessons learnt act as a catalyst for the political shake up, or even awakening, that Malaysia so urgently needs?

“Will the Malaysian people demand a more answerable government from now on – and more importantly will the ruling elite deliver?” freelance writer Zarina Banu wrote in Al Jazeera this week.

She pointed out the clumsy and conflicting communications over flight MH370, which was carrying 239 people on board when it disappeared en route to Beijing on March 8. No physical wreckage or debris has yet to be found.

But she said Malaysians were split about the way the leadership has managed these catastrophic events – a fissure that mirrors a virtual 50-50 political divide between the government and the opposition. Continue reading “Can flight MH370 lead to political change?”

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”

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”

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”