Archive for category MH 370
Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Black box has fallen silent, admits Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott
Tomas Jivanda
The Independent
13 April 2014
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is warning that the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight is likely to be long after pings believed to be from locator beacons on the all-important black boxes fell silent, meaning the batteries have most probably died.
The last of four strong signals coming from 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) below the surface were heard on the 8 April. The batteries on the black boxes, which record flight data including conversations from the cockpit, only last a month, meaning the window has passed.
The pings already captured have however allowed the search area to be narrowed down to a 500-square-mile patch of the seabed – about the size of Los Angeles. Once officials are confident no more sounds will be heard, and the search area can be narrowed no further, a robotic submersible will be sent down to slowly scour for wreckage across the vast area.
The Bluefin 21 submersible will take six times longer to cover the same area as the ping locator, and will need about six weeks to two months to canvass the current underwater zone. Read the rest of this entry »
Call on Najib to convene emergency meeting of Parliament before May to set up Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370 in view of the plethora of committees which Parliament had never been informed
Posted by Kit in MH 370, Parliament on Sunday, 13 April 2014
The 37th day of the missing MH 370 tragedy has become darker today with another 24 hours of “silence” in the southern Indian Ocean, five days after the “most promising lead” in the search for the missing Boeing 777 plane as the Perth-based Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) announced that “there have been no confirmed acoustic detections over the past 24 hours”.
In Malaysia, confusion and contradictions continue to be very rife causing more grief and anguish to the families of the 239 passengers and crew, whether it be the conflicting reports about whether the RMAF had scrambled aircrafts after the missing MH370 in the early hours of March 8 or whether Flight MH370 co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid had purportedly made a call on board the plane near Penang after it mysteriously cut off communications with tower controllers.
There were surprise announcements like the one from the Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein that Malaysia was sending two representatives from the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) to be included in Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) which is coordinating the search and recovery effort for Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean.
Why only sending two Malaysian representatives to join the JACC after the SAR operation had shifted to the southern Indian Ocean based in Perth for nearly three weeks?
Does this mean that Malaysia was never represented at all in the higher councils of the search operation based in Perth for nearly three weeks?
Another surprise is the disclosure of a plethora of investigation committees, which neither Parliament nor the country had been properly informed. Read the rest of this entry »
Where’s the debris, asks aviation expert as search for MH370 enters 36th day
The Malaysian Insider
April 12, 2014
As searchers scour the Indian Ocean west of Australia for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, an aviation expert told CNN today there should be debris on top of the water.
Jim Tilmon, a former American Airlines pilot and aviation analyst, told CNN that the chances of not having debris on top of the water were remote.
“The amount of flotsam left behind in the crash would most likely vary based on how MH370 hit the water,” Tilmon told CNN.
Since MH370 disappeared on March 8 shortly after departing from Kuala Lumpur, all the possible debris spotted from the air by satellites have turned out not to be from the aircraft. Read the rest of this entry »
Concerns remain but Chinese tourists say still fond of Malaysia
By Ho Kit Yen
The Malay Mail Online
April 13, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — The disappearance of flight MH370 and kidnappings near Semporna, Sabah, have not discouraged Chinese tourists from visiting Malaysia.
Sichuan native Xiao Huan, 25, who arrived here on April 4, admitted she had initially wanted to cancel her trip here because of the MH370 incident. She had booked the trip in December last year.
“I was worried about boarding the flight. I didn’t cancel in the end because we had paid for it,” said Xiao.
Xiao admitted Malaysia Airlines (MAS) could have handled the plane’s disappearance better in the early stages.
“There seemed to be so much confusion when the news broke. I heard the flight landed in Nanning, China, initially. But that was found to be untrue,” she said.
Her husband, Li Xin, 25, said Chinese nationals just want to know what happened to the flight. Read the rest of this entry »
MH370 and the black box of the mind
Josh Cohen
The Guardian
12 April 2014
Psychoanalyst Josh Cohen on the flight recorder as a potent image of our helpless relationship to the world and to ourselves
Occasionally, perhaps when you feel most inured to the traumatic images that assail us daily on the TV screen or in the papers, you see something that tears you out of your glassy indifference. That, at least, was the effect on me of the pictures of the families of the flight MH370 passengers, eyes knitted in prayer, mouths flung open in rage.
Imagine howling. The phrase, spoken by Claudio in Measure for Measure, came to mind as my eyes fell on their faces and shut tightly, as though reflexively shamed by the indecency of looking at them. But why, when we stare with such casual composure at all manner of grief and suffering, should these images induce such particular and intense aversion?
“Imagine howling”: the phrase is the culmination of Claudio’s febrile vision of death, with its “fiery floods” and “thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice”. But the speech is describing less his impending death, than the current torment of trying, and not being able to imagine it: “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where.” In other words, it is the living who suffer the torments of death, the irremediable ignorance of not knowing where we will be going.
It is this ignorance that makes the plight of the MH370 families so unbearable to contemplate. The confirmed knowledge that a loved one is dead enables the bereaved to begin what Freud called the work of mourning: the slow and painful acknowledgment that the person lost has been removed irrevocably from our world. We cannot know where they have gone, but we can at least know they are not here and that they won’t be coming back.
The families of the Malaysian Airlines flight have, at time of writing, no such grim consolation. Read the rest of this entry »
#MH370: Tragic Flights of Fancy
By Kyle Sanders and Brad “RenderMan” Haines, Combat Pilot and Hacker
Re-Code
April 10, 2014
The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has been tragic — and the grief of the families involved cannot be overstated. But adding to that sadness and bewilderment, another tragedy has taken place: An array of wild speculation and fallacious reporting of the event by news and popular media outlets around the world.
Perhaps the long search for evidence of the aircraft’s fate has paid off. Perhaps not. In any case, now is a good time to look back at the coverage that has displayed a disheartening lack of respect for the families of the passengers and crew, whose grief demanded — and was too often denied — the consideration of due diligence in reporting. Here are some perspectives on just a few of the fallacious stories that surfaced during these recent difficult weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
Hishammuddin is supremo of the MH 370 SAR (search and rescue) mission but he should not be supremo or even have any role in the MH 370 disaster investigation stage
Last Saturday, the Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein announced an investigation team as well as three ministerial committees on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, viz:
1. an independent “investigator-in-charge” to lead an investigation team comprising three groups
*an airworthiness group, which will look into maintenance records, structure and system of the airline;
*an operational group, which will examine flight recorders operations and meteorological aspects of the investigation; and
*a medical and human factor group, which will look into psychological and pathological aspects as well as survival factors of those on board the plane.
2. Three ministerial committees, namely a next-of-kin committee, headed by Hamzah Zainuddin, the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister; a technical committee led by Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, the Deputy Transport Minister and a deployment of assets committee, helmed by Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri.
These announcements should not have been made by Hishammuddin.
Hishammuddin is the supremo of the missing MH 370 SAR (search and rescue) operation, which is entering into its 36th day with its relentless roller-coaster anguish and torture for the families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew onboard. Read the rest of this entry »
How deep is deep? Imagining the MH370 search underwater
By Holly Yan and Ed Lavandera, CNN
April 11, 2014
(CNN) — Just how hard is it to find a plane at the bottom of the ocean?
Imagine standing on a mountain top and trying to spot a suitcase on the ground below. Then imagine doing it in complete darkness.
That’s basically what crews searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have been trying to do for a month.
Thursday is Day 34 in the search for the plane that disappeared March 8, taking with it 239 passengers and crew members. Read the rest of this entry »
Putrajaya starts investigating confused initial response to disappearance of flight MH370
The Malaysian Insider
April 11, 2014
The government has begun investigating civil aviation and military authorities to determine why opportunities to identify and track Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were missed in the chaotic hours after it vanished, two officials said.
The preliminary internal enquiries come as tensions mount between civilian and military authorities over who bears most responsibility for the initial confusion and any mistakes that led to a week-long search in the wrong ocean.
“What happened at that time is being investigated and I can’t say any more than that because it involves the military and the government,” a senior government official told Reuters. Read the rest of this entry »
Latest bombshell on 34th day of MH 370’s disappearance fuelled further doubts about government’s readiness to be fully transparent following reneging of promises to brief PR MPs and to establish PSC
A bombshell was dropped on the grieving families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew, Malaysians and the world on the 34th day of MH370’s disappearance – CNN report last night that the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had scrambled its search aircraft on the morning of the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 737 at around 8 am, but did not inform authorities until three days later and the denial by the Defence Minister, Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein.
Quoting a senior Malaysian government official and another source involved in the investigation, CNN reported last night that “Malaysian air force search aircraft were scrambled around 8am, soon after Malaysia Airlines (MAS) reported that its plane was missing early March 8.”
It reported that aircraft were scrambled before authorities could corroborate data indicating the Boeing 777 turned westward from its northbound flight path.
The unnamed source stated RMAF had “not informed the Department of Civil Aviation or search and rescue operations until three days later, March 11″.
It further reported Flight MH 370 disappeared from military radar for some 120 nautical miles after it crossed back over Peninsular Malaysia. Read the rest of this entry »
Defence minister denies Malaysia scrambled fighter jets after MH370 plane vanished
The Malay Mail Online
April 11, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, April 11 — Malaysia did not deploy any military aircraft to chase down Flight MH370 after the Beijing-bound passenger plane went off civilian radars on March 8, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein posted on Twitter.
The denial was first tweeted by Hishammuddin’s communications team late last night, in response to a news report broadcast on US network CNN that cited an unnamed senior government official saying Royal Malaysian Air Force fighter (RMAF) jets were scrambled at about 8am on March 8, shortly after the Malaysia Airlines jet was reported missing.
“Latest from @CNN claiming that Msian Air Force aircraft scrambled soon after @MAS reported #MH370 missing early 8/3 is a false allegation,” Hishammuddin’s communication team posted on its official Twitter account, @H2OComms) at 10.29pm.
Hishammuddin, who is also acting defence minister and has been the country’s official face in charge of the search, later retweeted the message on his official Twitter account, @HishammuddinH2O. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia Airlines criticised over London incident
The New Zealand Herald
Friday Apr 11, 2014
Britain’s air accidents investigator has criticised Malaysia Airlines for its lack of proper oversight in preserving flight recordings during an incident at London’s Heathrow Airport in 2012.
A Boeing 747 bound for Kuala Lumpur, carrying 340 passengers, had to return to Heathrow soon after takeoff because of engine and electrical failures on Aug. 17, 2012.
The pilots flew the plane manually and returned to the airport safely. Read the rest of this entry »
More questions arise in search for MH370 following detection of signals, says report
The Malaysian Insider
April 10, 2014
Investigators searching for missing flight MH370 are adopting a cautious stance despite the discovery of more pulse signals in the Indian Ocean over the weekend and yesterday, a sign that the task ahead remains an arduous undertaking.
Simon Boxall, lecturer in ocean and earth science at the University of Southampton, said any confirmation that the signal comes from the Boeing 777-200ER’s locator beacon would mean “the possibility of recovering the plane – or at least the black boxes – goes from being one in a million to almost certain,” CNN reported.
However, Angus Houston, who heads the rescue effort, warned against expecting a quick resolution.
“It could take some days before the information is available to establish whether these detections can be confirmed as being from MH370.
“In very deep oceanic water, nothing happens fast,” CNN quoted the retired Australian Air chief marshal who is chief coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre as saying. Read the rest of this entry »
MH370 exposes Hall of Shame
Posted by Kit in Mariam Mokhtar, MH 370 on Thursday, 10 April 2014
Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
Apr 7, 2014
The grand self-proclamation of “Malaysia, the Best Democracy in the World”, with its fantastic education system which rivals the British, American and German systems is a myth designed for die-hard Umno Baru supporters. This fairy-tale was shattered by the disappearance of MH370.
Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, like the prime ministers before him, has let down the nation, but the investigation into MH370 has trashed Malaysia’s reputation.
We need a cull of the political class to regain our credibility as a nation. We should start with the following initiates of the ‘Hall of Shame’. Politicians head the list, then civil servants. If the civil servants were to be replaced before the politicians, the new ones would be corrupted by their political masters, who dictate to them.
Malaysia has been on auto-pilot for several decades and the nation has been performing like a rudderless aeroplane. MH370 signals the beginning of the end of Umno Baru. Read the rest of this entry »
Missing Plane Will Haunt Malaysia’s Future
Posted by Kit in MH 370, Najib Razak on Thursday, 10 April 2014
William Pesek
Bloomberg
8th April 2014
The Flight 370 crisis has fully exposed the dangers of allowing one party to rule a nation for six decades.
President Barack Obama always knew his Asia tour later this month would be fraught with political landmines. The two nations that lead off his itinerary — U.S. allies Japan and South Korea — have been squabbling for more than a year over World War II history. Another, the Philippines, is one of Asia’s economic bright spots even as President Benigno Aquino’s government is locked into a dangerous maritime territorial spat with China — a country Obama would rather not antagonize.
But most problematic of all may be Obama’s time in Malaysia. Obama’s visit — the first by a U.S. leader to Kuala Lumpur in 50 years — was meant to celebrate a nation viewed as a high-tech hub of moderate Islam and a democratic contrast to China. Six months ago, Obama hailed Malaysia as “an example of a dynamic economy” and touted its multiethnic society as a model to others. Today, amid the global outcry over the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, such praise sounds naive. The past month has highlighted Malaysia’s deepest flaws, and all-too-few of its strengths.
The international press has pilloried Prime Minister Najib Razak‘s government for its initial response to the crisis, which was marred by conflicting information, poor coordination with neighboring countries, defensiveness, and an apparent lack of transparency. Fairly or not, since March 8 when Flight 370 disappeared on its way to Beijing, Malaysia has lost a great deal of its standing both in the region and around the world. Read the rest of this entry »
RMAF deployed search aircraft on March 8, but did not inform anyone
The Malaysian Insider
April 10, 2014
A senior Malaysian government official has revealed that the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had scrambled search aircraft at 8am on the morning of March 8, soon after Malaysia Airlines had reported that flight MH370 was missing.
In a surprising new development, CNN reported today that it was informed by the official that the RMAF search aircraft were scrambled well before authorities had corroborated data indicating that the missing commercial aircraft had turned back westward from its last-known location over the South China Sea.
A source involved in the investigation into the missing MAS plane has confirmed this latest information, CNN reported.
According to CNN, the source also told them that RMAF did not inform the Department of Civil Aviation nor anyone in the search and rescue operations team until March 11, three days after the aircraft disappeared. Read the rest of this entry »
Hunt for black box signals zeroes in on ‘final resting place’
The Malay Mail Online
April 10, 2014
PERTH, April 10 — The hunt for more black box “pings” from missing Malaysian airliner MH370 was narrowing today to a specific patch of remote ocean after two more signals were detected.
The head of the Australian-led search Angus Houston raised hopes yesterday that wreckage will be found within days even as the black box batteries start to expire.
Houston’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) announced today the search area off western Australia was now 57,923 square kilometres (22,364 square miles) — some 20,000 square kilometres down on yesterday.
But Australian ship Ocean Shield is focused on an area of the Indian Ocean 2,280 kilometres (1,400 miles) northwest of Perth where it picked up two fresh signals Tuesday to match a pair of transmissions logged over the weekend as searchers try to pinpoint the exact crash zone.
No debris from the Boeing 777 which disappeared on March 8 has yet been found. Read the rest of this entry »
Hishammuddin and Shahidan’s reneging on their undertaking to give briefing to PR MPs and shooting down proposal for a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370 Disaster will reinforce adverse national and international perceptions about Malaysia’s transparency and crisis management of the MH 370 disaster
Posted by Kit in MH 370, Parliament on Wednesday, 9 April 2014
We had just experienced what I would describe as “mankind’s longest month” from March 8 to April 7, not only for the families, loved ones and friends of the 239 passengers and crew on board MH370 Boeing 777-200ER which had disappeared in the early hours of March 8, but also for Malaysians and well-wishers worldwide.
For the first time in human history, for a whole month in real time, 24/7 (i.e. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 31 days a month), the world has been haunted and tortured by the question as to how in the modern age, a hi-tech passenger plan can just vanish without a trace for a month with 239 passengers and crew onboard.
The families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew are drowned in grief and yet cannot really begin to grieve, for they are not prepared to abandon the glimmer of hope that there could be a miracle, for there has been no evidence or piece of wreckage to establish that MH370 had met a disastrous end.
On the 31st day of the disappearance of MH 370 Boeing 777 aircraft, three pings from deep in the Indian Ocean gave new hope to the world that they were signals from the plane’s black boxes before their beacons fall silent – promising a finality which had eluded the world’s longest and biggest-ever sea, undersea, air, satellite search which had involved 26 nations and scores of aircrafts, ships, submarines and even undersea drones. Read the rest of this entry »
Satellite data analysis suggests MH370 flew inverted to site of acoustic signals
The Malay Mail Online
April 8, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 ― New analysis of partial satellite communications with Flight MH370 that places it in the Indian Ocean location where acoustic signals were detected by search teams have led authorities to believe they may have found the site of wreckage.
British daily, The Telegraph, reported today that the final satellite contact or “half-handshake” ― as it is referred to in aviation jargon ― could have been the moment when the plane ran out of fuel, turned upside down and plunged into the water.
Citing Chris McLaughlin from British satellite company Inmarsat, The Telegraph reported that analysis of the new signals were made at 00.19 GMT ― 8.19am Malaysian time ― on March 8, just eight minutes after Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370’s last regular hourly handshake.
The daily reported that the signals were further scrutinised by an international team of experts and the latest analysis showed the plane to be travelling faster than previously presumed, burning up more fuel, and would have landed even further north along the same arc.
“The partial handshake would be the plane running out of fuel and faltering for a moment, so the system went off network and then briefly powered up and had communication with the network. The plane looked for a final communication before it went off ― and that was it,” McLaughlin was quoted saying.
The daily also cited a former British Airways pilot who flew Boeing 777s, Stephen Buzdygan, as saying that the jetliner would have continued staying airborne but may have turned over on its back as the engines shut off one after the other. Read the rest of this entry »
Searchers Get Robot Squad Ready to Hunt for Malaysian Jet Debris
By Alan Boyle
NBC News
April 8th 2014
Don’t expect instant gratification in the race to recover wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, even if searchers confirm they’re hearing pings from the Boeing 777’s black box.
The operation won’t be like the thrill-a-minute treasure hunt in the movie “Titanic”: Identifying the wreckage will require painstaking passes by a torpedo-like autonomous robot called Bluefin 21, which will be operating at the very limit of its range.
If the side-scan sonar readings identify a field of debris, the robot sub will go over the territory again with high-resolution video cameras, pinpointing the locations of the black-box recorders and other evidence.
It’s only after those clues have been collected that searchers can send down yet another kind of robot, connected to a search ship and capable of bringing debris up to the surface.
The first part of the task will require programming the Bluefin 21 in advance to look for something the size of a shoebox in a search area that could span hundreds of square miles. Read the rest of this entry »
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