Bad weather forecast as new images spur MH370 search
The Malay Mail Online/AFP
March 27, 2014
PERTH, March 27 — Thunderstorms and gale-force winds threatened to impede a frantic international search today for wreckage from Flight MH370 after satellite images of more than 100 floating objects sparked fresh hopes of a breakthrough.
Malaysia said the imagery taken in recent days by a French satellite showed “122 potential objects” in the remote southern Indian Ocean, although nothing has yet been pulled from the treacherous seas despite a multinational recovery operation.
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has cautioned that it was impossible to determine whether the objects were related to the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 which crashed on March 8 with 239 people aboard after mysteriously disappearing.
But the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the search some 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth, said they were in an area authorities have pinpointed as a potential crash zone.
“Positions in the satellite information released by Malaysia Remote Sensing Agency were within yesterday’s search area,” it said as a fleet of planes prepared to head for the search zone once again before the weather worsens. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia’s credibility at stake in search for missing flight MH370, says report
Posted by Kit in Media, MH 370, Najib Razak on Wednesday, 26 March 2014, 5:18 pm
The Malaysian Insider
March 26, 2014
Putrajaya’s handling of search efforts for flight MH370 has set the country on a long road to repair its reputation, The Wall Street Journal said, following a slew of criticism over disorganised search efforts besides the conflicting and opaque information released since the aircraft disappeared on March 8.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said that complaints have stung a government seldom used to such global scrutiny, and this week, authorities appeared to seek a new course.
The business daily cited Monday night’s press conference where Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had explained how foreign experts had concluded from new satellite data analysis that the plane had gone down in a remote portion of the southern Indian Ocean.
WSJ said that Najib’s statement was uncharacteristically forthright, and the new information was released unusually fast – and the backlash was just as intense. Read the rest of this entry »
Lessons from MH370: How can we never lose a plane again?
Alexander Trowbridge
CBS News
March 25, 2014
The heart-wrenching and costly search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues, even after Malaysian officials announced satellite evidence that the vessel plunged into the Indian Ocean with no survivors. What are the lessons from the tragedy? What can airlines and manufacturers do to prevent another prolonged and painful saga?
Mary Kirby, the founder and editor of the aviation news company Runway Girl Network says the key is connectivity.
“Nothing is ever going to be the same in aviation,” Kirby said in an interview with CBS News. “This is a pivotal moment, a watershed moment in the aviation industry where we are going to understand why it’s so important for connectivity to be core.”
By connectivity, she means the ability for those aboard a plane to send and receive information to the world outside the flight. For passengers, it’s the convenience of, say, logging onto the internet. For pilots, it’s essential cockpit communications. Kirby argues that one of basic steps to preventing another incident like MH370, in which the aircraft’s transponder and communication equipment were disabled, is making sure planes can’t disconnect in the first place.
“We need to not have the ability to simply switch off a transponder, and not know where an aircraft is at,” Kirby said. “If you allow the switch off of the transponder there needs to be an automatic backup.” Read the rest of this entry »
MH370 spent 23 minutes above maximum altitude, may have caused hypoxia, says expert
The Malaysian Insider
March 26, 2014
As investigators continue to analyse satellite data in the hope of finding answers on what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, an industry expert said the plane spent 23 minutes at up to 45,000 feet – way above its maximum altitude – and rendered everyone unconscious from the lack of oxygen, said a report in British tabloid Daily Mail.
The plane’s maximum service ceiling is 43,100 feet, but military radar had tracked the aircraft flying at between 43,000 feet and 45,000 feet shortly after the last communication from its cockpit.
“It was tracked flying at this altitude for 23 minutes before descending. Oxygen would have run out in 12 minutes (in a depressurised cabin), rendering the passengers unconscious,” said the source.
An expert said although the 777-200ER Boeing aircraft has a maximum service ceiling of 43,000 feet, it can probably fly safely at even greater heights.
But at that altitude, where the atmosphere drastically thins, it would take mere minutes if not seconds for hypoxia – a lack of oxygen – to set in, said the Daily Mail report. Read the rest of this entry »
Election 2013 broke every rule in the book, Bersih panel finds
By Pathma Subramaniam
The Malay Mail Online
March 25, 2014
SUBANG JAYA, MARCH 25 — Every single principle governing the running of a free and fair election was breached during last year’s May 5 federal polls, Bersih’s People’s Tribunal concluded in its findings released today.
Panel member former United Nations Special Representative and constitutional law expert Yash Pal Ghai said Election 2013 had fallen short of every aspect of democracy and violated the standard of free and fair elections.
He agreed that the election had been free to some extent because those who were registered voters were not blocked from casting their ballots but said this freedom was more in a “narrow sense” of the word.
During Election 2013, the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) retained federal power with 133 seats to Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) 89 seats despite losing the popular vote contest to the federal opposition, garnering just 49 per cent of the total votes cast.
“We have found ourselves compelled to reach a conclusion that there were multiple failings in the way GE13 was conducted and that virtually every tenet of free election was violated at some place and at some time,” said Yash Pal, who headed the tribunal. Read the rest of this entry »
19th Day of missing MH370 drowned by sea of confusion over fate of aircraft and 239 passengers and crew on board
Two events in the past 36 hours highlight the tragic development of the 19-day disaster of the missing MH370 Boeing 737-200 airliner, where a sea of confusion has swept over Malaysians and people worldwide concerned about the fate of the aircraft and the 239 passengers and crew on board, viz:
(1) The announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Monday, 25th March (17th Day) at 10 pm that “using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort”, the last position of the missing aircraft was in the middle of the Indian Ocean west of Perth, and that “flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean”. Bottom line – all 239 passengers and crew had perished in the crash with no survivors. However, more than 17 hours later, acting Transport Minister Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein told Parliament yesterday afternoon that the SAR (search-and-rescue) operation would continue and that he would not give up so long as there are still hope for the 239 passengers and crew.
(2) Flags at government agencies, schools and the private sector in Johor and Perak flown at half-mast as mark of respect for the passengers and crew of MH370; but in Parliament yesterday, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that the Malaysian Government would not declare a state of national mourning until more conclusive evidence was found to identify wreckage belonging to MH370.
This is the reason why families, relatives, friends and well-wishers of the 239 passengers and crew, who after 19 days of excruciating anguish, and who would want to have closure of their ordeal, reacted so emotionally and even hysterically to the Prime Minister’s announcement of a finality to the missing MH370 of having been lost in the southern Indian Ocean with no survivors – when it is “a closure without a closure” as no piece of wreckage of the aircraft has yet been sighted. Read the rest of this entry »
Kajang polls reflect positively on Pakatan
Posted by Kit in Election, Ong Kian Ming, Pakatan Rakyat, Selangor on Wednesday, 26 March 2014, 11:18 am
By Ong Kian Ming | 7:50AM Mar 26, 2014
Malaysiakini
ANALYSIS To the casual political observer, two facts from the recent Kajang by-election would have stood out.
Firstly, the turnout decreased from 88 percent in GE13 to 72 percent. Secondly, the majority of victory decreased from 6,824 in GE13 to 5,379 – a drop of 1,445 votes.
On the surface, these results may seem like a negative reflection on Pakatan Rakyat’s and specifically PKR’s campaign as part of the ‘Kajang Move’. But a more careful analysis of the results reveals important findings that are positive for Pakatan, moving forward.
Pakatan increased its popular vote from 56.8 percent to 59.7 percent, a 2.9 percent increase. While this increase may not seem significant, one has to take into account that the lower turnout most likely decreased Pakatan’s popular vote.
Most of those who did not vote for a variety of reasons – did not return from outstation, it was the start of the school holidays, and thought that the outcome was already decided – would have been Pakatan voters, especially the younger voters whose turnout decreased more than the older voters (more on this later).
Secondly, Pakatan won in 14 out of 16 polling stations (not including postal and early votes) in the by-election compared with 12 out of 16 polling stations in GE13.
Read the rest of this entry »
Satellite hunters track jet’s flight
By Thomas Hale and Daniel Thomas
Financial Times
24th March 2014
Deep in the heart of Inmarsat’s London headquarters, just off Silicon Roundabout, screens illuminate the operations of 10 satellites, each 22,000 miles above the earth in geostationary orbit.
These screens provided the clues that helped unravel the mystery of where flight MH370 came down. They are inundated with daily updates – represented by pink and green lights – that were used by the company’s scientists and engineers to deduce a probable location for the crash.
Inmarsat moved into its present location in 1993, long before the area became synonymous with 21st century technological innovation.
Although technology is at its core, the origins of Inmarsat – short for International Maritime Satellite Organisation – differ greatly from the entrepreneurial tech start-ups that have come to dominate the neighbourhood’s offices and bars. Read the rest of this entry »
Washington paper says MH370 saga shows Malaysia must be more open
Posted by Kit in MH 370, Najib Razak on Wednesday, 26 March 2014, 10:26 am
The Malaysian Insider
March 25, 2014
Putrajaya’s last-ditch pivot for openness in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has not impressed its partners – be it Beijing that demands more information on satellite data or Washington bemused with contradictions in the hunt for the lost passenger jet.
A strongly-worded editorial from Washington Post today put the entire saga of the plane’s disappearance and Malaysia’s handling of the search as an unfolding disaster that reflects the country’s need for immediate change.
“It is entirely premature to say what happened to the airplane. But it is not too early for Malaysia’s leaders to draw lessons from their unsteady performance of recent weeks and commit themselves to transparency and openness.
“Their alternative is not working,” said the editorial headlined “Malaysia’s airliner response exposes a ruling malaise”. Read the rest of this entry »
Undersea volcanoes could complicate MH370 wreckage retrieval, geologist warns
The Malaysian Insider
March 26, 2014
The recovery of MH370 and its black box is going to be an extremely difficult task as geologists believe the debris from the Malaysian Airlines aircraft could be lying above a giant undersea chain of volcanoes whose complex terrain has barely been charted, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).
To make matters worse, the only Australian vessel capable of charting depths of 3,000 metres, the RV Southern Surveyor, had been decommissioned in December, the daily said.
Robin Beaman, a marine geologist from James Cook University, told SMH that so little of the southern Indian Ocean sea floor, including the search zone, had been mapped in detail that any attempt to retrieve the wreckage would require extensive 3D mapping, possibly by ships with multibeam echo sounders.
“It’s bad timing really. Australia has no capability of mapping these depths,” he was quoted by SMH as saying. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia Says Missing Plane Sent One Last Partial Signal
By KEITH BRADSHER, EDWARD WONG and THOMAS FULLER
New York Times
MARCH 25, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The Malaysian authorities released new details on Tuesday to buttress their conclusion that Flight 370 must have ended in a crash in a remote part of the Indian Ocean.
But with no physical evidence of the plane’s fate yet found, and the search suspended for a day because of treacherous weather, distraught relatives and friends of passengers mounted an angry protest in Beijing, breaking through police lines and marching to the Malaysian Embassy demanding more answers.
Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s defense minister and acting transportation minister, said at a news conference near Kuala Lumpur that the plane appeared to have sent one more partial signal eight minutes after the last of the previously disclosed electronic “handshakes” between the plane and a satellite, which engineers have analyzed to infer the plane’s probable path after it disappeared from radar screens early on March 8. Mr. Hishammuddin called the newly reported signal a “partial handshake.” Read the rest of this entry »
How satellites tracked down flight MH370 – but why we still can’t find the plane
By Sebastian Anthony
ExtremeTech
March 25, 2014
Yesterday morning, the Malaysian prime minister confirmed that Malaysia Airlines flight 370 crashed in the south Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people on board. Curiously, though, despite the PM’s confidence, this conclusion is based entirely on second-hand information provided by UK satellite company Inmarsat. There is still no sign of debris from MH370, and investigators still have absolutely no idea what happened after the final “All right, good night” message from the cockpit. If you’ve been following the news, you probably have two questions: How did Inmarsat narrow down MH370′s location from two very broad swaths across central Asia and the Indian Ocean, and furthermore, if we know where the plane crashed into the ocean, why haven’t we found it yet? Read the rest of this entry »
MH370: Britain finds itself at centre of blame game over crucial delays
By Gordon Rayner, and Nick Collins
Telegraph
24th March 2014
With all hope now lost of finding their loved ones alive, relatives of the 239 people on board flight MH370 were increasingly expressing anger and resentment towards those they believe are to blame for the failure to locate the missing aircraft.
By singling out the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the British satellite firm Inmarsat as the source of the information that confirmed the Boeing 777 went down in the Indian Ocean, Malaysia’s prime minister may have directed part of that anger towards Britain.
The AAIB, working with Inmarsat, provided the only credible information on the Malaysia Airlines flight’s whereabouts, but a series of delays meant ten crucial days were lost before search teams began looking in the southern Indian Ocean, where it now seems certain the aircraft went down. Read the rest of this entry »
Answers to the mystery of MH370 will surface together with debris, paper says
The Malaysian Insider
March 25, 2014
In the aftermath of the devastating news that the flight of Malaysia Airlines MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean, questions emerged whether the mystery can be solved with the discovery of the wreckage.
But the man who led the 2009 Air France crash probe cautioned that even yesterday’s announcement might not be conclusive.
“The seas and oceans are real dustbins in which we find loads of things. We found wooden crates and fragments on beaches that had nothing to do with the crash. Today we must first of all identify the debris,” Alain Bouillard told Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
Recalling the difficult task of retrieving debris of the Air France aircraft which crashed into the vast Atlantic Ocean killing 228 people, the daily listed several questions which it said could surface in the course of the investigation into MH370. Read the rest of this entry »
MH370: Show me the evidence
– Robert Chaen
The Malaysian Insider
March 25, 2014
3 questions that were left unanswered in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s March 24th Press Conference:
1. How can a new radar analysis be conclusive beyond any reasonable doubt without any evidence of a piece of physical wreckage found?
Radar and satellite analysis has so far delivered no physical evidence.
2. What is the visual “proof” of this new analysis?
3. Why is this “new analysis” only available after 17 days after MH370 went missing? Read the rest of this entry »
‘Set up PSC to probe MH370 mystery’
Posted by Kit in MH 370, Parliament on Tuesday, 25 March 2014, 5:37 pm
Leven Woon| March 25, 2014
Free Malaysia Today
Opposition leaders demand a Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate MH370 disappearance.
KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Rakyat leaders today made repeated calls to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to be forthcoming with the details over his statement last night on the missing MH370.
DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang and PAS’ Pokok Sena MP Mahfuz Omar were adamant that the parliament should best deal with MH370 crisis by setting up a bipartisan select committee (PSC).
They made the requests before and after Najib’s visit to Parliament today.
Najib was in the House today to table a motion of condolence to the passengers and crew of MH370, and it was followed by a debate session. Read the rest of this entry »
Flight MH370 ended in ocean seen hiding answers in vast waters
The Malay Mail Online
March 25, 2014
SYDNEY, March 25 ― While Malaysia’s conclusion that Flight 370 went down in the Indian Ocean may give closure to anguished family members, the search for wreckage in one of the planet’s most forbidding parts means the wait for answers to how and why may be a long time coming ― if ever.
Searchers came up empty again yesterday, the 17th day since the Malaysian Airline System Bhd. flight disappeared, as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak of Malaysia said analysis of satellite data showed the flight “ended” in the ocean.
Even if objects spotted from aircraft and satellites can be located, the flight recorders that would unwind the mystery may be irretrievably lost in the abyss of the sea bed. The search for wreckage was suspended today because of foul weather.
For the 11-man crew on a US Navy P3 Orion stationed near Kuala Lumpur, the hunt for Flight 370 has meant fruitless days in the air monitoring radars and cameras, fixated on water so glaring it’s impossible to make out where it meets the sky. Read the rest of this entry »
After the traumatic news, time to answer questions on MH370 mystery
The Malaysian Insider
March 25, 2014
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced last night that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was lost at a remote location in the middle of the Indian Ocean, possibly ending weeks of speculations as to the plane’s final stop.
That did not, however, answer several key questions which have been lurking ever since the Boeing 777 disappeared on March 8, sparking what aviation experts call the most mysterious plane tragedy in history.
Britain’s Daily Mirror looks at five questions still begging for answers.
1. No confirmed debris, so did plane really crash?
Investigators know where a plane crashed, even before finding debris. A single piece of wreckage is enough to determine whether the plane exploded or crashed. The key answer lies in the black box, which may take years to discover. Read the rest of this entry »
Finding MH370 black box, wreckage could take years, says USA Today
The Malaysian Insider
March 25, 2014
The announcement last night that MH370 crashed into the Indian Ocean does little to solve the mystery of its disappearance, as aviation experts say it may take months or years to find the black box and wreckage, USA Today reported today.
It could also take years before an accident report was released with a probable cause, the report quoted experts as saying.
Analysis of satellite data was at a preliminary stage and the plane’s wreckage and the recorders must be recovered before facts were established, former National Transportation Safety Board accident investigator Al Yurman was quoted as saying. Read the rest of this entry »
Australia pauses MH370 hunt due to stormy weather
The Malay Mail Online
March 25, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 — Search for debris from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was suspended for today owing to difficult weather conditions in the area scoured, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said today.
The Australian agency that is co-ordinating search for the Boeing 777-200ER with 239 on board said it was withdrawing ships and aircraft with the arrival of waves of up to 4m and gale force winds in the area.
“AMSA has undertaken a risk assessment and determined that the current weather conditions would make any air and sea search activities hazardous and pose a risk to crew. Therefore, AMSA has suspended all sea and air search operations for today due to these weather conditions,” it said in a statement today.
The delay comes just as Malaysia announced yesterday new data from British commercial satellite firm Inmarsat confirmed that the missing plane was in the southern “corridor” where Australia and Indonesia are searching. Read the rest of this entry »
