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.
The Sun-Herald is the first media outlet in Australia to see the work, written by author and journalist Nigel Cawthorne. It records the events, emotions and theories unfolding on a backdrop of fruitless searches.
Cawthorne says in the introduction that ”almost certainly” relatives will never be sure what happened to their loved ones.
”Did they die painlessly, unaware of their fate? Or did they die in terror in a flaming wreck, crashing from the sky in the hands of a madman?”
He says this raises the significance that around the time the plane’s transponder went off at 01.21, New Zealander Mike McKay, working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Thailand, saw a burning plane. He links that to the joint Thai-US military exercise going on in the South China Sea with personnel from China, Japan, Indonesia and other countries.
”The drill was to involve mock warfare on land, in water and in the air, and would include live-fire exercises,” he writes.
”Say a participant accidentally shot down Flight MH370. Such things do happen. No one wants another Lockerbie [Pan Am flight 103 by terrorists in 1988 allegedly in retaliation for a US Navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier], so those involved would have every reason to keep quiet about it.”
He suggests through anonymous and contradictory sources, they might release misinformation, leading people to search in the wrong place in an environment so hostile that it would be unlikely anything would ever be found.
”After all, no wreckage has been found in the south Indian Ocean, which in itself is suspicious,” Cawthorne writes.
”Now I’m not saying that’s what happened but if a black box is found, who is to say that it is from Flight MH370? Another black box could have been dropped in the sea 1000 miles from Perth while the search was going on in the South China Sea. In these circumstances, with the amount of disinformation abroad, it is best to be sceptical.”
Ms Burrows, the mother of Brisbane man Rod Burrows who was travelling with his wife, Mary, said on Friday the book was premature.
”Nobody knows what happened so why would anyone want to put out a book at this stage?” she said.
”There’s absolutely no answers. It’s devastating for the families. It’s 10 weeks tomorrow and there’s nothing,” she said.
”There are so many theories that I only want to believe one, that they were all unconscious and didn’t know what was going on.
”That’s my only theory. That keeps me sane. All I want is for somebody to find a bit of plane. My husband wants a black box and I want a bit of plane to let me know just where they are.”
Penguin will soon release a book on the mystery to be written by aviation author Christine Negroni. She wrote Deadly Departure on TWA Flight 800, about a plane that crashed in the Atlantic near New York in 1996, killing 230.
Writing on her blog she says she has discussed the flight with French air accident investigator Olivier Ferrante.
He told her: ”So far it is a crash with no airplane, no bodies, no crash site, no physical evidence. It is a virtual crash until a piece of wreckage is found.”
#1 by pulama on Monday, 19 May 2014 - 7:47 pm
Did the missing plane crash into the South China Sea? Maybe it did, or maybe not. In any case, a SAR operation was conducted in the South China Sea for one week. We were never told if someone eventually retrieved and examined the floating objects from the South China Sea captured on Chinese satellite images. But we were told those satellite images from Chinese satellites were mistakenly issued!
/// * March 8 (Day 1) . . – A search-and-rescue (SAR) operation is mounted at 5.30 am for the missing Boeing B777-200ER, with the focus on the South China Sea.
* March 9 (Day 2) – Military radar indicates the possibility of an unidentified aircraft having made an “air turnback”. – A Chinese satellite captures images of possible objects related to the missing aircraft in the South China Sea. . .
* March 11 (Day 4) – The SAR operation extends to the Strait of Melaka due to the possibility of the aircraft having made the air turnback. . .
* March 12 (Day 5) – The SAR operation extends to the south of Thailand and the Andaman Sea.
* March 13 (Day 6) – There is no proof that the floating objects in the South China Sea captured on Chinese satellite images on Sunday are connected to the missing plane. Chinese authorities also say the satellite images were mistakenly issued.
* March 14 (Day 7)- The SAR operation extends to the Indian Ocean.
* March 15 (Day 8) – Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak confirms that the unidentified flight that made the air turnback traced by primary radar is Flight MH370.
– The SAR operation focuses on two possible corridors: the northern corridor stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand and the southern corridor stretching from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean. . .
– The SAR operation ends in the South China Sea.///
“Timeline of the search for MH370″, Bernama, published on 5 May 2014.
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v7/bu/newsmarkets.php?id=1035882
#2 by narasimam on Monday, 19 May 2014 - 8:49 pm
lets wait for the next book from the chinese, ausies, singapore, indonesia, thailand and utusan
#3 by pulama on Tuesday, 20 May 2014 - 7:20 am
Dr M claims “someone is hiding something about MH370”. We wonder who!
“If you want to apportion blame, you have to apportion blame to nearly the whole world” — Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, when asked about MH370 tragedy in a press conference recently.
///Being the defence minister, which is the highest rank of administrator, he should show us how a responsible man behaves and administers such an important ministry. But, he often let us down whenever he is confronted with questions related to MH370. Instead of blaming the whole world, it would be better to give more convincing answers to address the still unanswered questions.
The air force and Hishammuddin keep on insisting MH370 was not intercepted because it was not identified as a hostile target. But, how did they conclude the blips that appeared on military primary radar were not a hostile target? What are the criteria used by them to make such conclusion?///
/// . .Asking back the reporters. . merely shows us an irresponsible act of dodging the tough questions. . . The question is not about are we in a war mode, the real question is whether or not you abide to the established standards.///
///Hishammuddin said Malaysia did better than Air France flight 447 incident and that Air France only activated search and rescue operations (SAR) after seven hours of loss of communication, while MAS triggered SAR only after four hours. But again, are we really doing better? . . By analysing the timelines of both events, Brazil took three hours, 48 minutes to initiate SAR, while Malaysia took four hours and 11 minutes. In short, Malaysia still took more time than Brazil. Did Hishammuddin realise this fact?///
///. .when were MAS’s INCERFA, ALERFA and DETRESFA messages sent? Please show us the timeline. One can see that the more answers Hishammuddin gives, the more questions arise. Uttering more silly remarks may work in Malaysia, which was ranked 147 out of 180 countries in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index, but it won’t work when facing the outspoken foreign media and a more open civil society.///
“I beg to differ from Hishammuddin” by Lam Choong Wah, article in Malaysian Insider, 19 May 2014.
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/i-beg-to-differ-from-hishammuddin-lam-choong-wah
#4 by Justice Ipsofacto on Tuesday, 20 May 2014 - 12:19 pm
OMG!
He is at it again!! Kerismuddin bin lembuddin said that the whole world is at fault for the missing mh370.
And and and by that he meant that I too somehow was at fault??
Nooooooooooooooo………..
I am innoceeeeeeeeeeeeent.