By Zoe Mintz
International Business Times
June 16 2014

It seems likely to go down as one of the worst examples of botched corporate communications in history: On March 24, 16 days after Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared on its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the airline delivered official condolences to the relatives of the 239 people who had been on board.

By text message.

“Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived,” the airline declared in its text, acting on fresh satellite data that purportedly confirmed that the flight had crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

For practitioners of the trade known as crisis management, here was a textbook illustration of how not to go about it. Here was a recipe for turning a terrible event into an irredeemable destroyer of brand image. Read the rest of this entry »

AFP
The Guardian
17 June 2014

Scientists from British company Inmarsat tell BBC that Australian vessel was distracted by bogus signals

The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is yet to target the most likely crash site, having been distracted by what is now believed to have been a bogus signal, satellite experts have claimed.

Scientists from Inmarsat, the British company that has been helping the search effort, told the BBC’s Horizon programme there was a “hotspot” in the southern Indian Ocean in which it most likely came down. Read the rest of this entry »

By Alan Huffman
International Business Times
June 17, 2014

MH370: 100 DAYS LATER

Right up until the late 18th century, when the first weighted lines were used to probe the ocean depths, many people believed the seas were bottomless — the watery equivalent of infinite outer space.

Even after scientists and mariners began systematically probing the ocean bottoms, the most profound depths remained incalculable, the stuff of dreams and nightmares.

Today, we know that the idea of a bottomless sea is absurd. An eighth-grader with a globe can pinpoint the most profound depth, a seven-mile-deep abyss in the western Pacific known as the Mariana Trench. Three people have actually traveled to the bottom of the trench aboard specially designed submersibles.

In our quest to define and describe the world, we have crisscrossed the oceans and continents compiling exhaustive knowledge about its life forms and features, and extended our physical reach through technology, which provides us instantaneous and pervasive access to information about seemingly everything. No realm seems beyond our jurisdiction. We can now make cell phone calls from the summit of Mount Everest; our backyards are visible to strangers on Google Earth; and our daily movements are tracked by GPS and surveillance cameras.

Yet as the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 made clear, knowledge and access to information can be deceptive. After 100 days of relentless searching, involving more than 40 ships and 39 aircraft from 12 countries, we know little more about the missing Boeing 777 than we did on the day it disappeared. Read the rest of this entry »

By Chris Goodfellow
The Telegraph
16 Jun 2014

Former pilot Chris Goodfellow maintains his view that the loss of MH370 was due to an accident but says matters should be turned over to Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch to find out what really happened

In the early days of the search of MH370, when the mainstream media was favouring a terrorism-hijacking scenario or questioning if one of the pilots was suicidal, I put forward an alternative theory – that the loss of the aeroplane might have been the result of an accident. This theory was picked up on the web and went viral. I did not seek or expect such an enormous response: I wrote simply as a pilot with some knowledge of the issues defending two fellow pilots who were being much-maligned and who could not defend themselves.

More than three months have elapsed since the Boeing 777 vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of March 8, bound for Beijing. Yet the mystery of how a modern aircraft can disappear from the face of the earth continues to fascinate and appal. In this era, when delivery companies like UPS and FedEx routinely track vehicles via global satellite positioning (GPS), it seems incredible that this passenger jet, capable of auto-landing in total fog, did not carry a device broadcasting its position in real time and independent of all other systems on board. If one good thing comes out of this accident, it will be a new regulation making the fitting of such a device compulsory.

Since the aircraft belonged to Malaysian Airlines and the incident is presumed to have started in Malaysian airspace, the lead nation in the investigation is Malaysia. In my opinion, this is the Achilles heel of the inquiry. Read the rest of this entry »

By Sophie Brown, CNN
June 16, 2014

(CNN) — When authorities confirmed last month that four “pings” heard in the southern Indian Ocean had nothing to do with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, it was a devastating blow for those involved in the investigation, the families of those on board the missing jet, and the countless number of people around the world who had become captivated by the mystery surrounding the plane’s disappearance.

What was described as “the most promising lead” in the search had proved fruitless.

The investigation into the ill-fated flight is already the most expensive in aviation history. Malaysia has spent $8.6 million so far, Australia is expecting to spend around $84 million, and other countries involved in the search have reportedly set aside sizable sums. Meanwhile, families of the missing passengers are working to raise $5 million to encourage anyone with information about the plane’s whereabouts to come forward.

Sunday marked 100 days since the Boeing 777 disappeared. To the frustration and disappointment of many, no tangible evidence has been found. How long will authorities keep working to solve this expensive mystery and what are their reasons for doing so? CNN speaks to aviation experts for their views. Read the rest of this entry »

by Binoy Kampmark
Counterpunch
June 09, 2014

The Lure of Conspiracy

It has been unendurable for those families who remain none the wiser for what happened to the Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board. In such a vacuum of uncertainty, theories form and hypotheses develop. If one of the most extensive aviation searches in history cannot uncover the remains of a vanishing flight, the reasons may lie elsewhere. Well, that is at least what is being proposed by such individuals as Ethan Hunt, whose namesake from Mission Impossible suggests tasks more foolhardy than constructive.

For Hunt, the absence of a plane equates to the presence of conspiracy, and that old faith in the malice that is human kind asserts itself. “The mystery is unprecedented in the history of aviation, and we need to work as a collective community with one goal of finding the truth, the plane and the passengers.”

There are those of like mind. Former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, never averse to blending demagoguery with conspiracy when in office, suggested that the CIA, Boeing and the media were bound by a wicked design. “Clearly Boeing and certain agencies have the capacity to take over ‘uninterruptible control’ of commercial airliners of which MH 370 B777 is one.” In a blog post, he expressed puzzlement that, “For some reason the media will not print anything that involves Boeing or the CIA” (Breathecast News, May 26). Instead, Malaysian authorities were being singled out as the inept bogeymen of a badly directed mission. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Marszal
The Telegraph
09 Jun 2014

“Inescapable uncertainties” over speed, flight path and altitude of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 mean search area will shift again, reports claim

The search for MH370 looks set to expand further as authorities on Monday signalled another major shift in the search area, in what is already set to be the most costly search in aviation history.

New doubts over previous calculations concerning the missing Malaysia Airlines flight’s speed, flight path and altitude have caused authorities to refocus their efforts on new sections of the vast Indian Ocean, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Describing all calculations concerning the plane’s final location as “educated guesses”, people familiar with the process told the newspaper that search teams are likely to shift “significantly south or southwest” from the areas of the ocean bed scoured in May.

An announcement on the location of the new area is expected by mid-June. Read the rest of this entry »