The Malay Mail Online
April 25, 2014

Kuala Lumpur April 25 – Malaysia has agreed to release its preliminary report on the disappearance of MH370 by next week, caving to pressure from the angry families of those aboard the missing jetliner.

In an exclusive interview with CNN yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak reportedly told the global news channel’s aviation expert Richard Quest that the report, now in the hands of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), will be made publicly available.

“I have directed an internal investigation team of experts to look at the report, and there is a likelihood that next week we could release the report,” Najib said, according to CNN’s online report of the interview.

CNN said the prime minister later replied with a more definitive answer that the report will be released next week, and that according to Najib’s office, the internal investigation team has also been told to look into what other information could be revealed at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Farrell
Guardian
23 April 2014

Search officials play down likelihood that material, believed to be riveted sheet metal, is from missing Malaysia Airlines plane

An object has washed ashore in Western Australia that may be linked to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Australian officials have said.

Australia’s joint co-ordination centre announced on Wednesday that police had taken possession of an object 10km from the town of Augusta. Malaysian officials have also been provided with photographs of the object.

“The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is examining the photographs of the material to determine whether further physical analysis is required and if there is any relevance to the search of missing flight MH370,” the joint coordination centre said.

An Australian search official involved with the search has stressed they were treating the discovery of the object with scepticism.

ATSB chief commissioner Martin Dolan said the object appeared to be sheet metal with rivets, according to CNN.

“It’s sufficiently interesting for us to take a look at the photographs,” he said, but added: “The more we look at it, the less excited we get.” Read the rest of this entry »

– Loke Siew Fook
Roketkini.com
April 23, 2014

Pemergian mantan Pengerusi Kebangsaan DAP Sdr Karpal Singh pada pagi 17 April 2014 dalam satu kemalangan ngeri di KM301.6 Lebuhraya Utara Selatan berdekatan Gua Tempurung menggemparkan seluruh negara. Saya dimaklumkan tentang berita sedih tersebut semasa berada dalam lawatan ke Guangzhou, China, atas jemputan sebuah institut penyelidikan rantau Asia Tenggara di sana. Saya memendekkan lawatan saya untuk kembali ke Malaysia pada 18 April untuk memberikan penghormatan terakhir kepada mendiang Sdr Karpal.

Saya bersama seluruh kepimpinan DAP dan puluhan ribu rakyat Malaysia mengiringi jenazah Sdr Karpal untuk menyelesaikan perjalanan terakhirnya di Georgetown, Pulau Pinang, pada tengahari 20 April 2014. Sepanjang perarakan tersebut, perasaan saya sedih dan terharu untuk menghantar seorang pemimpin politik dan peguam yang amat sinonim dengan rakyat Malaysia. Nama Karpal Singh telah tertanam di minda saya sejak di bangku sekolah lagi. Gandingan beliau dengan Sdr Lim Kit Siang merupakan beregu yang paling mantap dalam kepimpinan tertinggi DAP dan barisan pembangkang di Parlimen sepanjang beberapa dekad yang lalu.

Saya merenung wajah dan emosi orang ramai yang berduyun-duyun memberikan penghormatan terakhir kepada Sdr Karpal di Dewan Sri Pinang dan juga puluhan ribu yang berbaris di sepanjang jalan. Ramai yang menitiskan air mata dan tidak dapat mengawal kepiluan hati naluri mereka. Ramai juga yang berteriak “Karpal Singh, Karpal Singh” dengan penuh bersemangat sebagai tanda menghargai semangat perjuangan beliau.

Mereka ini terdiri daripada pelbagai latarbelakang kaum dan agama, darjat dan lapisan masyarakat. Daripada golongan peguam hinggalah para penjaja, Sdr Karpal menyayat hati semua. Ini terbukti dengan reaksi spontan ribuan penunggang motosikal yang mengiringi kereta jenazah beliau untuk sampai ke krematorium.

Dalam hati kecil, saya berasa amat bangga sebagai seorang ahli DAP dan berkhidmat sebagai seorang anggota CEC di bawah kepimpinan Sdr Karpal Singh. Sdr Karpal adalah dari kaum minoriti yang paling kecil di Malaysia iaitu komuniti Sikh. Namun, beliau bukan disanjungi sebagai seorang pemimpin komuniti Sikh mahupun pemimpin DAP semata-mata, tetapi sebagai seorang pemimpin rakyat Malaysia yang telah banyak berkhidmat dan berkorban untuk negara! Read the rest of this entry »

Washington Post
AP
April 19, 2014

Travelers at Asian airports have asked questions about the March 8 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Here are some of them, followed by answers.

Samuel Rogers, a 20-year-old German on a backpacking trip, in Bangkok and on his way to Malaysia.

He asked: “Why did the Malaysian military see the plane on their radar but not report it immediately?”

A: The Malaysian Air Force’s official line is that its radar operators spotted the plane but didn’t have any reason to suspect it. This is why they didn’t attempt to contact the plane or scramble jets to intercept it. Many aviation and defense experts say there are grounds to doubt this. They speculate the air force failed to spot the unidentified plane entering its airspace, or if it did, didn’t respond to what could potentially have been a national security threat. Admitting that would be a highly embarrassing and sensitive for any air force, and could be the reason for the delay in publicly confirming that the plane did turn back. Read the rest of this entry »

By David Learmount
Flightglobal
17 April, 2014

The least unlikely cause for the disappearance of MH370, based on what little we know about the final flight, is that a person with a sharp mind and a plan, but who was emotionally unbalanced, took control of the aeroplane.

It could have been one of the pilots, or someone else on board who had the means to persuade the pilots to depart from official cockpit security procedures, possibly in a friendly way.

Cabin crew? Nobody knows, and there is certainly no direct evidence. Read the rest of this entry »

by Greg Botelho and Ed Payne, CNN
April 20, 2014

(CNN) — The underwater drone scanning for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 finished its seventh mission Sunday, having covered about half its intended territory without finding any sign of the missing plane.

This has been the case for 44 days now, which seems like an eternity for the relatives of the 239 passengers and crew on board, still hoping for a miracle or, at least, closure.

The Bluefin-21 drone started its eighth mission soon after the previous one ended Sunday morning, surveying the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean for traces of the Boeing 777.

These efforts may be a main focus of the search, but they aren’t the only part. Read the rest of this entry »

BY SHAZWAN MUSTAFA KAMAL
The Malaysian Insider
APRIL 20, 2014

GEORGE TOWN, April 20 — The streets of Penang’s historical city centre roared with the voices of thousands calling out the name of their state’s beloved son — Karpal Singh.

Elbows jostled with shoulders as admirers of the late lawyer and lawmaker surged through a sea of bodies for a final glimpse of their hero as his casket was loaded onto a hearse for the state funeral procession around the streets of George Town, where Karpal had studied, set up his legal practice, fought epic courtroom battles and debated the law.

Emotions ran high as the huge crowd, which had gathered in front of Dewan Sri Pinang as early as 7am, shouted in unison “Karpal Singh! Karpal Singh! Karpal Singh!”

Banners and posters bearing the deceased Bukit Gelugor MP’s familiar face were placed all over the entrance of the building; tents were erected to allow visitors a place to rest and to shelter from the sweltering heat.

Inside the town hall, family members recited last prayer rites for Karpal. Outside the chanting tumult swelled to a roar. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Farrell in Perth
Guardian
19 April 2014

Fifteen-hour days are par for the course for the unsung heroes on the frontline of the aerial search for the missing plane

On the frontline of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, one brief second can make all the difference.

“You might have a second or a second and a half between seeing something and it disappearing from your view,” said Jim Maclean, one of the searchers who has been with the Perth state emergency service (SES) for 32 years.

“So you’ve got to look at it, identify it and decide whether it warrants being called in before it disappears out the side of your view. It’s quite intense, you’ve got to be really concentrating all the time,” he said.

But the group of people doing perhaps the most important job in the search are taking on the task without payment. The SES air search observers are ordinary Australians and they are all volunteers. There are now more than 200 involved in the search from across the country, who have put in more than 2,000 hours of flight time searching for the missing plane. Read the rest of this entry »

The Guardian/Reuters
19 April 2014

Indian Ocean hunt by US navy deep-sea vehicle narrows to an area with a radius of just 10km

The underwater search for the flight recorders from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could be completed in five to seven days, Australian officials said on Saturday.

A US navy deep-sea autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), Bluefin-21, is scouring a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean floor for signs of the plane, which disappeared from radars on 8 March with 239 people on board and is believed to have crashed in the area.

The underwater search has been narrowed to a circular area with a radius of 10km (6.2 miles) around the location from which one of four pings believed to have come from the recorders was detected on 8 April, officials said.

The huge international search-and-rescue effort for any physical evidence of the plane’s wreckage, now in its seventh week, had so far proved fruitless. Read the rest of this entry »

By Greg Wood
AFP
15th April 2014

Perth (Australia) (AFP) – A mini-sub hunting missing Flight MH370 was set to sweep the Indian Ocean seabed again Tuesday after cutting short its first mission, as Malaysia vowed to reveal any ‘black box’ data found.

The unmanned submarine equipped with sonar gear was deployed Monday night from the Australian ship Ocean Shield, which has spearheaded the hunt for the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard.

But the dive by the Bluefin-21 detected nothing of interest before it automatically aborted the mission after breaching its maximum operating depth, the US Navy said in a statement.

The Australian agency coordinating the search said the Bluefin-21 “exceeded its operating depth limit of 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) and its built-in safety feature returned it to the surface”.

The unmanned Autonomous Underwater Vehicle was undamaged and set for a second sonar sweep during the day, weather permitting, officials said. Read the rest of this entry »

By Rachel Pannett and Ross Kelly
Wall Street Journal
April 14, 2014

Authorities Deploy Underwater Vehicle to Examine Sea Floor; Six Days Since Last Pings Detected

SYDNEY—An unmanned submersible began searching the Indian Ocean seabed for wreckage from 3786.KU in Your Value Your Change Short position Flight 370 on Monday, as authorities gave up on fleeting hope of detecting any new signals from the missing jet’s black-box flight recorders.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is leading the multinational search, said a series of “ping” signals detected last week by a U.S. Navy black box detector remains the most promising lead in the search for the plane, which disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.

But as the search entered its 38th day—more than a week beyond the estimated battery life of the black boxes’ emergency locator beacons, and six days after the last signal was detected—it makes sense to turn to the underwater Bluefin-21 vehicle, the former chief of Australia’s defense forces said.

“Aircraft wreckage needs to be visually identified before we can say with certainty that this is the final resting place of Flight 370,” he said. “I would caution you against raising hopes that the deployment of the autonomous underwater vehicle will result in the detection of the aircraft wreckage—it may not. However, this is the best lead we have and it must be pursued vigorously.” Read the rest of this entry »

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
April 15, 2014

There was a time when Malaysia was known for its institutions – a civil service that facilitated rapid development from an agrarian economy to an industrialised one, a judiciary that was held in high esteem of the Commonwealth, and a military that defeated a communist insurgency.

Today, more than 50 years as a nation spanning from Perlis to Sabah, we see ineptitude and incompetency, a complete meltdown of Malaysian institutions.

The Attorney-General now farms out cases to an Umno lawyer; the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) leads an organisation which does not act when a High Court rules; the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) suffers a credibility deficit; and the air force has not covered itself with any glory.

So who do Malaysians turn to in time of need?

Not any of the above, it appears. Sad but true. Read the rest of this entry »

By Li Xinran | April 15, 2014
Shanghai Daily

THE mysterious disappearance and search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 have dominated headlines, broadcast news and the internet since the huge aircraft vanished six weeks ago.

Coverage by domestic and international journalists has been intense, but too much reporting by Chinese mainland outlets did not demonstrate the depth and initiative of the reports by their foreign counterparts. Surely, they are capable of investigating and producing “scoops.”

But major stories about the flight, its pings, possible course and intriguing theories about the disappearance have been picked up and translated from CNN, the BBC, The AP, Reuters, AFP and other sources.

These overseas media went to great lengths to interview pilots, aviation, safety, satellite, meteorology, and oceanography experts, and many others.

It cannot be denied that Chinese media dispatched their journalists to the frontline immediately after the flight went missing. Shanghai-based Dragon TV and Oriental Morning Post sent their reporters to Malaysia and Vietnam respectively to trace the incident from the very beginning.

But many Chinese reporters naturally covered the press conferences and appear to focus most of their energy on the families of the Chinese passengers on board and their anger over insufficient information. Read the rest of this entry »

The Acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein should stop his “cat-and-mouse” game of “yes, no, yes, no” on whether there would be Parliamentary Select Committee on the MH370 disaster as such vacillation further erodes trust and confidence even among Malaysians in the government handling of the MH370 disaster as highlighted by the latest opinion poll.

In an opinion poll commissioned by The Malaysian Insider and conducted by Merdeka Center in the last week of last month from March 24 to 30, 54% of the 1,092 respondents from all the parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia polled believed Putrajaya was not transparent in releasing information about Flight MH370 which vanished 38 days ago on March 8.

In response to the question whether they thought Putrajaya had been truthful or had been hiding anything about MH370, 54% of respondents felt Malaysia had been hiding information, 26% said the government had been truthful while 20% were unsure.

Chinese respondents were almost unanimous in giving the thumbs down to the BN federal government while the slight majority of Indian and Malay respondents, too, believed Putrajaya had been hiding information.

This time, respondents from both rural and urban areas were united in believing that Putrajaya has been less than forthcoming with information about MH370.

This second opinion poll shows that the level of trust and confidence even among Malaysians in government transparency and competence in the handling of the MHJ 370 disaster have progressively worsened since the beginning of the tragedy, as in a similar opinion survey in the first two weeks of the tragedy from March 8 to 20, 50% of Malaysians were unhappy with Putrajaya’s handling of the crisis. In other words, an increase from 50% unhappy with the government’s handling of the crisis in the first two weeks to 54 per cent in the third week.

The survey for the first two-weeks of the MH 370 disaster revealed that only 43% were satisfied with the way Putrajaya was dealing with the issue, which has fallen further to 26 per cent in the third week. Read the rest of this entry »

by Lee Shi-Ian
The Malaysian Insider
April 14, 2014

More than half of Malaysians polled last month believe that the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government has been hiding information about flight MH370’s disappearance, according to a new survey by The Malaysian Insider.

Out of the 1,029 respondents polled in The Malaysian Insider survey carried out by the Merdeka Center, 54% said Putrajaya was not transparent in releasing information about flight MH370 which vanished on March 8.

In response to the question whether they thought Putrajaya had been truthful or had been hiding anything about MH370, 54% of respondents felt Malaysia had been hiding information, 26% said the government had been truthful while 20% were unsure. Read the rest of this entry »

By Syed Jaymal Zahiid
The Malay Mail Online
April 13, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — Putrajaya is close to setting up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 after increasingly positive signs that the plane’s “black boxes” will be found, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said today.

The acting transport minister also added that an international panel to determine on who has jurisdiction to extract data from the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders was gaining similar momentum.

“We are getting closer to the issue… we have been quite busy getting the ministerial committees, expert panels and getting the royal commission set up.

“That will be announced in the near future,” Hishammuddin, who is also defence minister, told a press conference after visiting the preparations for a defence exhibition at the Putra World Trade Centre here.

Today’s remark was the most direct indication on Putrajaya’s expected choice to investigate the mystery of the plane that disappeared on March 8 with 239 on board, with calls for both a RCI and a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to probe the matter. Read the rest of this entry »

BBC News
12 April 2014

Signals in remote seas thought to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are “rapidly fading” and finding the jet will be a “massive, massive task”, Australia’s PM says.

Tony Abbott said he was confident “pings” detected by search teams were from the aircraft’s black boxes.

But no new signals have been confirmed in the search area since Tuesday.

“No one should underestimate the difficulties of the task still ahead of us,” Mr Abbott warned.

Correspondents say Mr Abbott appeared to be couching his comments from Friday, in which he said he was “very confident” that signals heard by an Australian search ship were from the missing Boeing 777. Read the rest of this entry »