Category: MH 370

The Malaysian Insider
March 21, 2014

Five days after satellites captured images of debris and objects which may be linked to flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean and a day after the release of those images by the Australian authorities, reports have pieced together questions related to the search for the missing plane in waters 2,500km from Perth.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO) took off from Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am on March 8 but disappeared en route to Beijing. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.

This morning, Australia said it would resume the hunt for objects found on the ocean surface.

Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) general manager John Young said yesterday the largest piece was about 24m. Ships and aircraft from the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand have joined the Australian-led search effort.

Here are the top 12 questions on missing flight MH370:

When will we know whether the debris from the southern Indian Ocean is from flight 370?

The satellite images of the debris taken on Sunday have not been confirmed as MH370 but they are being seen as the best lead in the investigation for the missing plane so far. Continue reading “After satellite find, 12 questions emerge about MH370”

The Malaysian Insider
March 21, 2014

March 21, 2014.Dozens of ships and aircraft have joined the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 but after 14 days, experts have now raised the question: what if the Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO) is never found?

Although many experts think such an idea seems unlikely, especially in the age of modern technology, history has shown that it was not impossible, AP reported today.

“When something like this happens that confounds us, we’re offended by it, and we’re scared by it,” Ric Gillespie, a former aviation accident investigator was quoted as saying. Continue reading “What if MH370 is never found?”

By PAOLO MARENGHI and MIKE TREW

abcnews
March 20, 2014

A British satellite company said today that it had indications that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane may have crashed into the Indian Ocean as early as two days after the plane’s disappearance.

The search for the jetliner did not move into the Indian Ocean until more than a week after the plane vanished in the middle of the night from Malaysian airspace on March 7.

“This is very troubling, just thinking of the time wasted and what was ever on the water moving farther away,” said ABC News consultant Tom Haueter, a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator.

Inmarsat, the maker of satellites, told ABC News that they had an “initial idea” on March 9 and by March 10 were “fairly certain” that the search parties should look in the south Indian Ocean for the vanished plane. Continue reading “Satellite Company Says It Predicted Missing Plane’s Location 10 Days Ago”

Jon Swaine and Tom McCarthy in New York
Guardian
20 March 2014

In the absence of hard facts, speculation about what really happened on Flight 370 has been rampant. But do any of these explanations hold up? We take a look at the competing theories

It’s 12 days since the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. A 250-ton Boeing 777-200 has, for the time being, vanished. Twenty-six countries have joined a search of 2.24m square nautical miles from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean. Satellite images have given investigators cause to believe there may be debris in the southern Indian Ocean, but so far, a search of the area has found nothing.

In the absence of confirmed sightings, speculation has been rife about what happened to the plane and the 239 people on board, with competing theories feverishly discussed by professionals and amateurs. Some sound more plausible than others. Here, we assess the relative merits of the more prominent explanations for the plane’s disappearance. Continue reading “The hunt for MH370: which theories are plausible, and which don’t add up?”

The Malay Mail Online
March 20, 2014

SYDNEY, March 20 — Australia expects to make a quick deliberation on whether possible debris seen at sea is indeed from flight MH370, a report said today, but a first spotter flight failed to locate anything in bad weather.

Authorities should know something definite on the possible discovery of debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane within “two or three days”, the Australian Associated Press quoted Defence Minister David Johnston as saying in Jakarta.

But a Royal Australian Air Force Orion sent today to investigate possible wreckage from the Boeing 777 failed to spot debris, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said.

The P-3 surveillance aircraft was sent to the Indian Ocean search zone some 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth after Australia revealed the presence of two objects at sea possibly related to flight MH370.

“RAAF P3 crew unable to locate debris. Cloud & rain limited visibility,” AMSA said on its Twitter feed. “Further aircraft to continue search for #MH370.” Continue reading “MH370: Australia says definite findings on debris likely within 3 days”

The Malaysian Insider
March 20, 2014

After many hours involving aircraft from Australia, New Zealand and the United States, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) has said it has ended its search efforts for the day for possible debris from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Surveillance had scoured a remote and stormy section of the Indian Ocean for most of Thursday, looking for a pair of floating objects that Australia and Malaysia guardedly called a “credible” lead in the 12-day-old hunt for a missing passenger jet.

Australia said the objects – one was estimated at 24 metres across – were captured in satellite imagery, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the Malaysian plane’s mysterious disappearance as relatives of the 239 people aboard braced for another emotional roller-coaster.

Four search aircraft were dispatched from Australia – which has taken charge of the search in the southern Indian Ocean – to the area about 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth where the grainy images were snapped.

The planes – two from Australia, one from New Zealand and one US aircraft – covered an area of 23,000 sq km without any sighting before the search was suspended for the day, said Amsa.

Amsa has released a statement saying that it has ended its search efforts for the day. They will resume tomorrow morning. Continue reading “No luck on first day of search at ocean site for debris linked to flight MH370”

By Andy Pasztor, Jon Ostrower and James Hookway
The Wall Street Journal
March 20, 2014

Investigators Are Still Working to Recover From the Delay

Four days went by before officials acted on satellite data showing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew for several hours away from the area being covered by a massive international search, people familiar with the matter said—a delay from which investigators are still working to recover.

The satellite’s operator, Britain’s Inmarsat PLC, on March 11 turned over to a partner company its data analysis and other documents indicating that the plane wasn’t anywhere near the areas on either side of Malaysia where more countries and ships had been searching for three days since the plane disappeared. The documents included a map showing two divergent north and south corridors for the plane’s route stretching some 3,000 miles from the plane’s last previously known location, the people said.

The information was relayed to Malaysian officials by Wednesday, March 12, the people said. Inmarsat also shared the same information with British security and air-safety officials on Wednesday, according to two of the people, who were briefed on the investigation.

Two additional people familiar with the Malaysian side of the probe said the information could have arrived in Kuala Lumpur as late as the morning of March 13.

Malaysia’s government, concerned about corroborating the data and dealing with internal disagreements about how much information to release, didn’t publicly acknowledge Inmarsat’s information until March 15, during a news conference with Prime Minister Najib Razak. Malaysia began to redirect the search effort that day to focus on the areas the information described, and said for the first time that deliberate actions were involved in the plane’s disappearance. Continue reading “Critical Data Was Delayed in Search for Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight”

by Emily Rauhala/Beijing
TIME
March 19, 2014

The distraught families of passengers on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 say their pain is compounded by a lack of information about the massive search now in its twelfth day

Grief stalks the halls of Beijing’s Metropark Lido Hotel. Families of the Chinese passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have spent the last 12 days sleeping, eating and waiting here. They pass the hours scouring the Internet and watching television, desperate for information about their loved ones. They are exhausted and angry.

It is easy to spot them in hotel’s bright courtyards and corridors. Some flew here from distant provinces and barely speak Mandarin Chinese. They look lost in a hotel packed with foreign tourists, a place where Rimowa, a luxury luggage company, sells suitcases for 10,000 yuan ($1,600). Many are visibly grief-stricken, their eyes swollen, heads bowed. All are wary of speaking to outsiders. After all, one woman asked, “What is there left to say?” Continue reading “The Nightmare Never Ends For Families of Missing Jet”

I have just sent an urgent email to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak asking for Cabinet endorsement at its meeting tomorrow for a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 to support the ongoing search-and-rescue (SAR) operation and to stand in readiness for a full-scale investigation into the MH370 crisis after the SAR operation.

In my email to the Prime Minister, I informed him of the amendment moved this morning by the Pakatan Rakyat MP for Seremban YB Anthony Loke to the Motion of Thanks currently debated by Parliament proposing the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 to give full support to the ongoing search-and-rescue (SAR) operation and to stand in readiness to conduct a full-scale investigation into the MH370 crisis after the SAR operation.

We are now in the 13th day after over 300 hours of the traumatic and agonizing multi-national air-sea search, now involving over a hundred ships, helicopters and aircrafts as well as radar system from 26 nations for the missing MH370 Boeing 777-200 aircraft with 239 passengers and crew on board covering two vast tracts of territories totaling 2.24 million square nautical miles stretching from the southern Indian Ocean to Kazakhstan in the north.

We seem no nearer to the discovery of any clue to lead to the whereabouts of the aircraft or what happened in the early hours of March 8, although there are reports today of a new lead from Australian satellite imagery of two objects possibly related to the missing MG370 in the southern Indian Ocean, but which awaits verification. Continue reading “Urgent email to Najib for Cabinet endorsement tomorrow for a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 to support SAR and standby for full-scale investigation into MH370 crisis”

The Malaysian Insider/Reuters
March 20, 2014

The disappearance of a Malaysian plane has prompted calls for in-flight streaming of black box data over remote areas, but industry executives say implementing changes may be complex and costly.

Mark Rosenker, former chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board, said this incident and the 2009 loss of an Air France flight in the Atlantic should spur reforms in what he described an outdated accident investigation process.

Rosenker, a retired US Air Force general, said finding a way to transmit limited information from flight data and cockpit voice recorders to a virtual “cloud” database would help authorities launch accident investigations sooner and locate a plane if it got into trouble while out of reach of ground-based radars.

“This is the second accident in five years where we’ve had to wait to get the black boxes back,” Rosenker said. “We need to bring the concept of operations for accident investigations and the technology of what is available up to the 21st century.”

Twenty-six nations have been searching for the missing Boeing Co 777 airliner over an area roughly the size of Australia for 12 days, but the massive hunt has found no trace of any wreckage thus far. Continue reading “Loss of plane spurs calls to upload black box data to the ‘cloud’”

The Malaysian Insider
March 20, 2014

Malaysia Airlines opted out of a simple computer upgrade that costs RM33 per flight which would have provided critical information to help find the missing flight MH370 because it went for a cheaper option when purchasing the aircraft, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today.

A satellite industry official was quoted as saying that the upgrade, called Swift, would have provided the direction, speed and altitude of flight MH370 even after other communications from the plane went off the radar.

Had the Swift system been upgraded to include the full package of applications, it could have sent information on engine performance, fuel consumption, speed, altitude and direction, regardless of whether the transponder and Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) were working, he said.

The expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Australian daily that the Swift system was similar to how a smartphone sends data to a satellite, while ACARS was akin to an app for a mobile phone.

“When ACARS is turned off, Swift continues on,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“If you configure Swift to track engine data, that data will be streamed off the plane. It continues to be powered up while the aircraft is powered up.”

The report showed that had Malaysia Airlines obtained the upgrade, it would have continued to send flight data by satellite even after the plane’s transponder and ACARS communications went dead. Continue reading “Crucial MH370 info missing because MAS wanted to save RM33, says expert”

Jeswan Kaur| March 20, 2014
Free Malaysia Today

Grieving families, especially from China, are furious with the Malaysian government for its refusal to be forthcoming with information.

COMMENT

Even in the face of a heartbreaking crisis, the Malaysian government could not let go of its insatiable hunger for politicking.

The nation is left speechless and at a loss wondering why and how the national carrier Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing 777 plane, said to be one of the safest in the world, has disappeared.

It is day 13 since the MH370 Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight has gone missing. International experts complementing Malaysia’s search and rescue efforts are baffled as to what became of the plane which was ferrying 239 people including the cabin crew.

Still, the Malaysian government refuses to get its act right. On Tuesday night, Defense Minister and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein briefed politicians from the ruling BN coalition on the missing aircraft.

For reasons best known to him, Hishammuddin, who is also Umno’s vice-president, ignored politicians from the opposition camp. BN’s nemesis, Pakatan Rakyat was visibly upset at being left out. Continue reading “MH370: Pressure starts piling on govt”

By News.com.au
New York Post
March 19, 2014

Was lost Flight MH370 the victim of a midair heist of gold bullion? Has it landed but remains hidden? Or was it a terrorist hijacking?

Speculation grows as Australia leads the Indian Ocean search for clues.

Top 10 theories – What may have happened to Flight MH370

1. Fire

A fire may have broken out on the aircraft shortly after last contact was made with air traffic control. The pilot may have made a sharp left turn and attempted to return to a Malaysian airport. Continue reading “10 theories about missing Flight MH370”

The Malay Mail Online
March 20, 2014

WASHINGTON DC, March 20 — US President Barack Obama said yesterday the search for the missing Malaysian airliner was a “top priority” for the United States and offered every possible resource — including the FBI.

In his first on camera comments on the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Obama offered thoughts and prayers to the relatives of the missing passengers.

“I want them to be assured that we consider this a top priority,” Obama told Dallas television station KDFW in an interview at the White House.

“We have put every resource that we have available at the disposal of the search process,” he said. Continue reading “Obama says plane search a ‘top priority’”

The Malaysian Insider
March 20, 2014

With search for the missing Malaysia Airlines entering its 13th day without any significant development, the FBI has stepped in to help analyse data from a flight simulator seized from the home of flight MH370’s Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah last weekend.

Malaysia has now made available to the FBI electronic data generated by both pilots of flight MH370, including data from a hard drive attached to the captain’s flight simulator, and from electronic media used by the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, an American law enforcement official said to Reuters.

The official, however, said he could not confirm that some data had been wiped from the simulator and stressed that there was no guarantee the FBI analysis would turn up any fresh clues.

USA Today, meanwhile, reported an American federal law enforcement official as saying that the material, including a flight simulator recovered from one of the pilot’s homes, is likely to be shipped to the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Virginia.

The report quoted United States Attorney General Eric Holder as saying that the US and Malaysian governments have been “in ongoing conversations about how we can help”.

“We’re working with authorities, but we don’t have any theories (on the cause of the plane’s disappearance),” USA Today quoted Holder as saying.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein had said at the daily press briefing yesterday that local and international expertise have been recruited to examine the pilot’s flight simulator.

“Some data had been deleted from the simulator and forensic work to retrieve this data is ongoing,” Hishammuddin had said.

He had said that the investigations into the flight simulator were part of the overall probe into all passengers and crew on board the Malaysia Airlines flight which has been missing since March 8.

“We are sharing all information relevant to the case with all relevant international investigative agencies,” he had said.

United States investigators had become increasingly frustrated in recent days that Malaysian authorities had not asked them for more help. Continue reading “FBI analyses pilot’s flight simulator data as search for MH370 enters 13th day”

The Acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein should not have dishonoured Parliament by causing a parliamentary crack on the MH370 crisis when he should have presented a united national front in the world’s largest-ever 26-nation multi-national air-sea search-and-rescue (SAR) operation for the missing Malaysian Airlines aircraft with 239 passengers and crew on board.

Over a hundred ships, helicopters and aircrafts as well as radar systems from 26 nations are involved in a SAR mission scouring two vast tracts of territories totaling 2.24 million sq nautical miles (about 7.68 million square kilometres) stretching from the southern Indian Ocean to Kazakhstan in the north to find the missing MH370 Boeing 777-200 aircraft.

The world’s largest-ever multi-national air-sea SAR, entering the 12th day after over 250 hours without any clue on the whereabouts of the aircraft or what happened on March 8, is in a race against time as there are only 18 days left for the search teams to locate the aircraft’s black box, the most important piece of aviation technology, as it will only transmit a signal for 30 days.

When Malaysia expects unprecedented international unity in the world’s largest-ever multi-national SAR operation, Malaysians and in particular the Malaysian Parliament must demonstrate unprecedented national unity in support of the SAR mission for the missing aircraft and not to present any parliamentary crack, division or disunity to the world on this issue. Continue reading “Hishammuddin should not have dishonoured Parliament by causing a parliamentary crack on the MH370 crisis when he should have presented a united national front in world’s largest-ever multi-national air-sea SAR”

The Malay Mail Online
March 19, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 — The person flying Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on a northern trajectory would need pinpoint precision to have any chance of foiling an extensive network of radars operated by heavily-militarised countries in the region, according to US defence personnel.

Speaking to the New York Times, they noted the area that is home to India, China and Pakistan — all of whom have nuclear weapon capabilities and not all of whom are on good terms — who watch their airspace meticulously.

The northern corridor is one of two that investigators have calculated the plane — now missing for more than 10 days could — could have taken. It ranges from the borders of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to the northern edge of Thailand.

“I wouldn’t be looking through China and that northern route,” Sean O’Connor, a former intelligence analyst for the US Air Force told the NYT.

“It is not out of the realm of possibility that you could pull this off, but everything would have to go your way,” said O’Connor. Continue reading “Implausible MH370 defeated all radar shields, defence sources say”