Highly regrettable on 6th day of MH 370 tragedy, while Malaysians prayed hard for safety of 239 passengers and crew members on board, Mahathir was only interested in spewing lies and communal poison
Posted by Kit in DAP, Kajang by-election, Mahathir, MH 370 on Sunday, 16 March 2014, 11:46 am
This is the ninth day of the MHI 370 tragedy.
It is highly regrettable that while Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or politics, are praying hard for the safety of the 239 passengers and crew members on board the Malaysian airline, there are people like the former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir who seemed more interested in continuing to spew lies and communal poison to pit race against race and religion against religion in Malaysia to further their petty political agenda.
This is what Mahathir did on Thursday, 13th March, the sixth day of the MH 370 tragedy, in his blog campaigning for the MCA candidate in the Kajang by-election – a most irresponsible and reckless act as it is such incessant spewing of lies and communal poison which had been the major cause of the worst racial and religious polarization in the nation’s history.
In his blog-post on Thursday, Mahathir continued to make baseless accusations against the DAP and the Pakatan Rakyat, alleging that DAP wanted “complete” Chinese political and economic dominance in Malaysia. Read the rest of this entry »
MAS jet couldn’t have flown over our airspace, says India’s military
The Malaysian Insider
March 16, 2014
Indian military authorities have dismissed the possibility that the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370, which mysteriously disappeared eight days ago en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, could have flown over India on its way to Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan in Central Asia, the Times of India reported.
“If the jetliner had tried to cross the Indian mainland, our primary radars (which bounce radio signals off targets) would have picked it up despite its transponders being switched off (secondary radars beam signals that request information from a plane’s transponders),” said a top Indian Air Force (IAF) officer.
If an “unidentified” plane had been picked up flouting prescribed procedures or with switched-off transponders or not “squawking” IFF (identification, friend or foe) codes, a series of “air defence measures” would have kicked in – including the scrambling of fighters – to “detect, identify, intercept and destroy” the intruder, the newspaper reported. Read the rest of this entry »
What could have happened to flight MH370?
The Malaysian Insider
March 15, 2014
The week-long search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took a major new turn today as evidence indicated that its communication systems were manually switched off and the airliner was deliberately diverted.
The first concrete, verified lead as to the possible reason behind the disappearance has fuelled speculation over how and why MH370 might have been commandeered – and its likely fate.
Here are some of the possible scenarios being weighed up by experts.
Theory: Terror attack
Why: As the theory that the plane was deliberately taken over gains traction, questions over the involvement of terrorist organisations have come back to the fore. Read the rest of this entry »
Official: Interpol snubbed even as foul play seen in MH370
The Malay Mail Online
March 16, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — Malaysia repeatedly rejected Interpol’s offers to help investigate Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 even as the government now believes the plane went missing due to “deliberate action”, a Western law enforcement agent has alleged.
Speaking to ABC News in the United States, the official who went unnamed accused Malaysia of jealously guarding its information to the point of turning away the aid offered by the intergovernmental police agency.
“It’s the old pre-9/11 approach: close-hold information, don’t share anything,” the anonymous official was quoted as saying by ABC News on its website yesterday, referring to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
ABC News quoted other unidentified law enforcement officials who expressed concern that the alleged refusal by Malaysia to take up Interpol’s offer may have caused leads into the mysterious disappearance of MH370 to grow cold.
The allegations raised the ABC News report that Malaysia was unwilling to share information appeared at odds, however, with Putrajaya’s action in releasing highly-confidential raw data from its military radars to countries assisting in the search, including China and the US.
Such data is often among a country’s most closely-guarded secrets as it can be used to ascertain its defensive strengths and vulnerabilities; no country willingly divulges such information if it can be avoided. Read the rest of this entry »
If DAP or any of Pakatan Rakyat parties had done what Perkasa had done in going against the King’s Speech on the National Unity Consultative Council, we would have been accused of being anti-national, anti-Agong and traitors
Posted by Kit in Judiciary, Kajang by-election, nation building on Saturday, 15 March 2014, 5:22 pm
In his royal address opening Parliament on Monday, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong not only endorsed the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) set up by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to preserve the country’s harmony and seek a common ground on various religious and ethnic matters, he “called on all parties to refrain from making any statement or action that might be deemed provocative or sensitive”.
The Yang di Pertuan Agong said: “Be mindful that when unity disintegrates, the country will head towards destruction. Therefore, we should reinforce unity by cultivating mutual respect and moderation in life.”
But the Yang di Pertuan Agong has been openly challenged and defied by the provocative and insensitive statements and actions of extremist organization Perkasa and other NGOs, led by Ibrahim Ali, which rejected “wholesale” the NUCC and have set up the National Unity Front (NUF) as an alternative to the NUCC.
Yesterday, former Chief Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamed was announced as the first chief of the Perkasa-backed NUF to challenge what the Yang di Pertuan Agong said in his Royal Address to Parliament on Monday. Read the rest of this entry »
Two brands of Malaysian unity: moderation versus bigotry
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, nation building on Saturday, 15 March 2014, 9:18 am
by Elizabeth Zachariah
The Malaysian Insider
March 06, 2014
Malay rights group Perkasa’s Datuk Ibrahim Ali has only one reason for setting up his own unity council – he wants to keep the Malays happy.
Ibrahim feels that by keeping the Malays happy and united, only then will unity be possible in Malaysia, a country where over half of the 30 million population are Malays.
“The happiness and the unity of the Malays and the Bumiputera are the core of unity in Malaysia because we are the majority at 67%,” the Perkasa president told The Malaysian Insider.
“The government cannot satisfy everyone, so it is best if they keep the majority happy because they are the ones who can determine and foster unity.”
Hence, the formation of his baby, the National Unity Front, which Perkasa has presented as an alternative to Putrajaya’s newly formed National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC). Read the rest of this entry »
Classified data shows plane may have crashed in Bay of Bengal or Indian Ocean
The Malaysian Insider
March 15, 2014
Classified intelligence analysis of electronic and satellite data has indicated that the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight 370 likely crashed either in the Bay of Bengal or somewhere in the Indian Ocean, an exclusive report by the CNN said.
If this information is true, it would offer the first glimpse of concrete details about what happened to the Beijing-bound flight which went off the radar early last Saturday.
It had enough credibility for the United States to move its guided missile destroyer, the USS Kidd, into the Indian Ocean, and Indian officials to expand its search effort into the Bay of Bengal.
An aviation industry source told CNN that the flight’s automated communications system appeared to be intact for up to five hours, because “pings” from the system were received after the transponder last emitted a signal.
The CNN report said taken together, the data points toward speculation in a dark scenario in which someone took the plane for some unknown purpose, perhaps terrorism.
That theory is buoyed by a New York Times (NYT) report that the MAS plane made several significant altitude changes after losing transponder contact.
The paper said MH370 altered its course more than once as though it was still under the command of a pilot. Read the rest of this entry »
US ship, plane to search Bay of Bengal for missing jet
The Malay Mail Online
March 15, 2014
WASHINGTON, March 15 ― A US naval ship and surveillance plane are heading to the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal to search for a missing Malaysian airliner that vanished a week ago, officials said yesterday.
US media reports, meanwhile, suggested the plane experienced marked changes in altitude after it lost contact with ground control, and altered its course more than once as if still under the command of a pilot.
A P-8 Poseidon aircraft and a guided missile destroyer, the USS Kidd, were due to aid the international hunt for the jet as the search effort extended further west, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said.
“At Malaysia’s request, the USS Kidd is north of the Straits of Malacca in what we’re calling the western search area,” Warren told reporters in Washington.
The Kidd was preparing to search the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal for the Malaysia Airlines plane. Read the rest of this entry »
Could MH370 have landed?
The Malay Mail Online
March 15, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 ― With new evidence suggesting the possibility that missing jetliner MH370 had been deliberately piloted towards the Andaman Islands, another theory has now emerged out of the woodwork ― could someone have landed aircraft?
Reuters cited two sources yesterday as saying that investigators believe the plane had been directed between navigational waypoints after it lost contact with ground control, which indicated it was being flown by someone with aviation training.
It cited another source as saying that investigations are now looking at the possibility of foul play, with signs pointing increasingly to the likelihood that a person who knew how to fly a plane had deliberately swung the aircraft hundred of miles off its original course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, towards the Andaman Islands.
“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” Reuters had quoted a “a senior Malaysian police official” as saying.
Although this is at best just conjecture for now, it may be one of the few working theories that could finally expose more conclusive leads to what experts have described as the most baffling of mysteries in aviation history.
But if the Malaysia Airlines aircraft had truly made the air turn-back as suspected, if it had headed to the Andaman Islands as satellite data and US officials have suggested, and if it indeed had landed, where in the remote Indian archipelago could it have parked itself so stealthily out of sight? Read the rest of this entry »
MH370 hijack theory includes intent to use plane for ‘nefarious purposes’, say US officials
The Malaysian Insider
March 15, 2014
With evidence showing a missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Boeing 777-200ER could still be intact, US officials have not ruled out that flight MH370 was flown to a secret site so that it could be used at a later date.
There has been no trace or debris field on land or sea that is linked to the plane carrying 239 people, which vanished while on a red-eye flight to Beijing last Saturday.
“I am keenly interested in resolving this mystery so we can discard the possibility, however remote, that the airplane can be used for nefarious purposes against us in the future,” ABC News quoted a US official as saying.
The official added that “all our intelligence assets” are being used to try to figure this out.
Investigators searching for the missing MAS passenger jet said that they could not rule out hijacking and are looking at whether one of the plane’s pilots or crew could have been involved. Read the rest of this entry »
Satellites scour earth for clues as missing jet mystery deepens
The Malaysian Insider
March 15, 2014
An unprecedented international effort is under way from space to track the missing Malaysia passenger jet as satellite operators, government agencies and rival nations sweep their gaze across two oceans in search of elusive debris or data.
Six days after the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 went missing with 239 people on board, the search has widened to the Andaman Sea, northwest of the Malay Peninsula, with only one precious clue – an ephemeral “ping” detected five or six times after the plane lost contact – picked up in orbit.
Disaster relief agencies and governments are co-operating across political divides, and in the absence of a formal probe are finding informal ways to share information, including via China’s weather agency, a person involved in the search said.
“I haven’t seen this sort of level of involvement of satellites in accident investigation before,” said Matthew Greaves, head of the Safety and Accident Investigation Centre at Cranfield University in Bedford, England. “It is only going to get more important until they find some wreckage.”
Several governments are using imagery satellites – platforms that take high definition photos – while data from private sector communications satellites is also being examined. Read the rest of this entry »
India scours uninhabited jungle islands for lost MH370 jetliner
The Malaysian Insider
March 14, 2014
Indian aircraft combed Andaman and Nicobar, made up of more than 500 mostly uninhabited islands, for signs of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 jetliner that evidence suggests was last headed towards the heavily forested archipelago.
Popular with tourists and anthropologists alike, the islands form India’s most isolated state. They are best known for dense rainforests, coral reefs and hunter-gatherer tribes who have long resisted contact with outsiders.
The search for flight MH370 turned west toward the islands after Malaysia’s air force chief said military radar had detected an unidentified aircraft suspected to be the lost Boeing 777 to the west of Malaysia early on Saturday.
Two sources yesterday told Reuters the unidentified aircraft appeared to be following a commonly used navigational route that would take it over the islands.
The Indian navy has deployed two Dornier planes to fly across the island chain, a total area of 720 km by 52 km, Indian military spokesman Harmeet Singh said in the state capital, Port Blair. So far the planes, and a helicopter searching the coast, had found nothing.
“This operation is like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Singh, who is the spokesman for joint air force, navy and army command in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Read the rest of this entry »
Aviation experts question shift in search for MH370
The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — The dramatic expansion of the search for a missing Malaysian airliner suggests the plane flew thousands of miles off course, crossing — apparently undetected — a sensitive region bristling with military radar.
Aviation experts today queried the plausibility of such a scenario, but confirmation from US and Malaysian officials that the search was being widened into the vast Indian Ocean suggested it had credible underpinnings.
If there was a debate over what might have happened to Flight MH370, there was a general consensus as to the extraordinary nature of its disappearance without trace a week ago over the South China Sea.
“I would probably go ahead and say this is unprecedented,” said Anthony Brickhouse, a member of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators.
“In most investigations each day you move forward, you uncover more things, more clues,” Brickhouse told AFP. Read the rest of this entry »
London-based satellite firm says MH370 registered signals on its network
The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — Global satellite company Inmarsat revealed today that it had registered “routine, automated signals” from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 during its flight from Kuala Lumpur.
The news adds to the intrigue surrounding the aircraft’s disappearance, particularly as it appears to corroborate reports that said satellites had picked up faint, electronic pulses or “pings” from MH370 hours after it was last heard from.
Inmarsat, a London-based firm, reported its findings in a statement on its website but did not elaborate on when or how long the signals were received.
“This information was provided to our partner SITA, which in turn has shared it with Malaysia Airlines,” it said in the statement, adding that further information should be obtained from MAS, the owner of the Boeing 777 aircraft that went missing.
SITA is a global specialist in air transport communications and information technology. Read the rest of this entry »
Radar data suggests MH370 plane flown deliberately toward Andaman Islands
The Malaysian Insider
March 14, 2014
Military radar-tracking evidence suggests that the Malaysia Airlines MH370 jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula toward the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters today.
Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints – indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training – when it was last plotted on military radar off the country’s northwest coast.
The last plot on the military radar’s tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India’s Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.
Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.
A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight, with 239 people on board, hundreds of miles off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.
All three sources declined to be identified because they were not authorised to speak to the media and due to the sensitivity of the investigation. Read the rest of this entry »
Seismic event turns focus back to Vietnam waters
Malaysiakini
Mar 14, 2014
The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 appears to be shifting back and forth between east and west of peninsula Malaysia, with latest information from scientists in China suggesting that the plane may have triggered a seismic event when it impacted the sea some 150km off the southern tip of Vietnam.
A team of seismologists at a top China research university said they detected a slight seismic event on the sea floor between Vietnam and Malaysia on March 8 which could be a result of an impact.
“It was a non-seismic zone, therefore judging from the time and location of the event, it might be related to the missing MH370 flight,” said a statement posted on the University of Science and Technology of China website.
This was also reported by the South China Morning Post. Read the rest of this entry »
Long haul ahead for answers to missing MH370
by Joseph Sipalan
The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — While investigators have doubled efforts in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the chances of a swift recovery and more pertinently, answers to its sudden disappearance midflight, are looking more remote with each passing day.
US officials, who are aiding Malaysia in a multi-nation hunt for the Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people, are pursuing a new lead west to the Indian Ocean, after its satellites picked up electronic pulses that signalled the plane remained airborne hours after it flitted off radar.
If proven true, it could make an already daunting operation even more difficult to conduct and coordinate as the sheer size of the Indian Ocean would increase the search area exponentially.
But the chances of finding the plane intact—seven days after flight MH370 was to hand landed in Beijing—in the world’s third largest water body are looking slim.
The Indian Ocean has an average depth of 13,002 feet (3,963 m) while its deepest point, the Java Trench is believed to be at -23,812 feet (-7,258 m), according to information in the CIA World Factbook.
The Boeing 777 aircraft had enough fuel to fly up to 8.30am on March 8, leaving it with some seven hours of fuel in its tanks when it lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control (ATC). Read the rest of this entry »
India Looking for Malaysian Jet as U.S. Sees Air Piracy
By Alan Levin, Kartikay Mehrotra and Anurag Kotoky
Bloomberg News
Mar 14, 2014
India’s navy set up a search zone for the missing Malaysian airliner in the Andaman Sea, hundreds of miles off the course of Flight 370, as evidence mounted that the plane may have flown long after controllers lost contact.
India has sent five ships and four aircraft to search for the plane, V.S.R. Murthy, commander for Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Indian Coast Guard, said by phone today. Aviation investigators are compiling signs the Boeing Co. (BA) 777-200 veered off its route and traveled west over Malaysia (MAS), beyond the limits of the country’s radars, according to two people who asked not to be identified with the probe active.
A satellite transmitter on the plane was active for about five hours, indicating the plane was operational after its transponder shut down less than an hour after takeoff, said three U.S. government officials. The 777 can cruise at 500 miles (805 kilometers) an hour or more, meaning it may have flown for as far as 2,500 miles beyond its last point of contact if it was intact and had enough fuel.
The information adds to the mystery surrounding the March 8 disappearance of the Malaysian Airline System Bhd. plane carrying 239 people. With no evidence of a mechanical failure or pilot error, U.S. investigators are treating the disappearance as a case of air piracy, though it remains unclear by whom, one person said. Read the rest of this entry »
Controversy as shaman performs ritual to help find missing Malaysia Airlines plane
Posted by Kit in Airline, Anwar Ibrahim, Foreign, Transport on Friday, 14 March 2014, 1:29 pm
Lindsay Murdoch
Sydney Morning Herald
March 14, 2014
Kuala Lumpur: As Malaysia’s government struggled to defend its handling of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, controversy has erupted over a witch doctor who carried out a ritual at the capital’s international airport, who claimed he was trying to find it.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said the government had never before embarrassed itself to this extent on the international stage by allowing Ibrahim Mat Zin, the witch doctor or shaman, to perform a ritual in public that was an affront to Islam. Read the rest of this entry »
US experts: MH370’s last ‘ping’ sent over water
The Malay Mail Online
March 14, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 — Flight MH370 had sent a series of “pings” or electronic pulses, with the last transmitted from a location over water at a cruising altitude, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported today as searchers cast their eyes further west towards the Indian Ocean in the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) passenger plane.
Citing several unnamed US military and space industry officials who had been briefed on the investigation, the US daily reported that the satellites had also received speed and altitude information about the aircraft from the five or six “pings” before the pulses disappeared, which the experts believe could help them decipher its route and location.
But the people involved in the matter had declined to divulge the specific flight path the plane had transmitted, WSJ reported.
According to the report, an industry official said it was possible that the system sending them had been turned off by someone onboard the plane.
The report follows new evidence showing the Boeing 777-200 jumbo jet carrying 239 people had continued its flight hours after it supposedly left radar detection. Read the rest of this entry »
