Woke up with heavy heart like majority of Malaysians as MH370 tragedy enters third day with nothing to go on about the mysterious disappearance of the aircraft and 239 persons on board
I woke up this morning with a heavy heart like the majority of Malaysians with the news that over 50 hours have passed since MH370 was reported lost from radar and there is nothing to go on as to what happened to the 239 passengers and crew of the Boeing B777-200 aircraft on its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
There has been no confirmed signs of wreckage or debris, no distress signal from the aircraft before it lost contact with ground control, and no clear indication that the plane had experienced any technical failure in mid-air.
Hopes of Malaysians and people around the world who prayed for the safety and a miracle to ensure that the 239 people on board MH370 could survive their mysterious disappearance have become more and more tenuous.
This has brought home the stark reality that something terrible had in fact happened to the aircraft and the 239 passengers and crew although the international search and rescue (SAR) operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane with 239 on board has intensified. Read the rest of this entry »
MH370’s disappearance exposes global air safety flaws, says paper
The Malaysian Insider
MARCH 10, 2014
The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 over a busy part of Southeast Asia has exposed flaws in global air safety, from usage of stolen passports and outdated black box technology, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported today.
It said that as a search for clues to the fate of the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft resumed in the waters off Vietnam, air safety and anti-terror authorities on two continents appeared equally stumped about what direction the probe should take.
The passenger jet was cruising over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board when it suddenly dropped off air traffic radar screens, less than an hour after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur, early Saturday morning. None of the Beijing-bound plane’s transmitters appeared to signal distress before shutting down.
In a massive international investigation, no early theory has emerged about what transpired on the airplane, which was traveling in good weather at cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. The known sequence of events includes elements that seem different from anything in the annals of recent jetliner accidents, the business daily said.
“For now, it seems simply inexplicable,” said Paul Hayes, director of safety and insurance at Ascend Worldwide, a British advisory and aviation data firm. Read the rest of this entry »
As search expands, MH370’s disappearance remains puzzling
The Malaysian Insider
MARCH 10, 2014
It was a clear night and the weather was good. Oil rigs and fishing boats blinked lights like a string of pearls across the shallow Malay Basin northeast of Kota Baru. And Flight MH370 flying above in the night sky disappeared.
For a third day in a row, more ships and aircraft are searching for the missing Boeing 777-200ER which was carrying 239 people when it lost contact with air traffic controllers at 1.30am Saturday.
No one has reported a mid-air explosion and US authorities have also discounted that from data obtained from satellites and radars in the area, which is one of the busiest parts of the South China Sea.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that for many, the mystery over the disappearance of Flight MH370 is deepened by its occurrence in what is quickly becoming one of the world’s most militarised zones, with hundreds of millions of dollars being expended to detect fighter jets, missiles, submarines and other threats. Read the rest of this entry »
Where in the world is flight MH370 and other questions
The Malaysian Insider
March 10, 2014
An extensive air and sea search resumed for the third day this morning for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370, as more questions arose over its last known location and the identity of some of its passengers on board the Boeing 777-200ER that vanished early Saturday morning.
Vietnamese authorities found fragments believed to be the composite inner door and tail section of the 11-year-old passenger jet, 50 miles south-southwest of Tho Chu island.
Malaysian authorities also found oil slicks some 20 nautical miles from MH370’s last known position when it disappeared from radar screens without even a distress call or signal.
Officials investigating the disappearance of flight MH370 with 239 people on board are narrowing the focus of their inquiries on the possibility that it disintegrated in mid-flight.
The MAS jet vanished after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing in the early hours of Saturday, but search teams have not been able to make any confirmed discovery of wreckage in seas beneath the plane’s flight path almost 48 hours after it took off.
“The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet,” said the official, who is involved in the investigations in Malaysia. Read the rest of this entry »
MH370 pilot an aviation tech geek, spends off days on flight simulator at home
The Malaysian Insider
March 10, 2014
The pilot of a Malaysia Airlines jet that went missing on Saturday enjoyed flying the Boeing 777 so much that he spent his off days tinkering with a flight simulator of the plane that he had set up at home, current and former co-workers said.
Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, captain of the airliner carrying 239 people bound for Beijing from the Malaysian capital, had always wanted to become a pilot and joined the national carrier in 1981.
Airline staff who worked with the pilot said Zaharie knew the ins and outs of the Boeing 777 extremely well, as he was always practicing with the simulator. They declined to be identified due to company policy.
“He was an aviation tech geek. You could ask him anything and he would help you. That is the kind of guy he is,” said a Malaysia Airlines co-pilot who had flown with Zaharie in the past.
Zaharie set up the Boeing 777 simulator at his home in a suburb on the outskirts of the Malaysian capital where many airline staff stay as it provides quick access to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Pictures posted by Zaharie on his Facebook page show a simulator with three computer monitors, a tangle of wires and several panels. Read the rest of this entry »
Conspiracy theories abound as search for MH370 enters third day
by Clara Chooi
The Malay Mail Online
March 10, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 — Over 50 hours have passed since MH370 was reported lost from radar and still, there is little to go on.
Intensive, round-the-clock efforts by an army of rescue workers from at least seven countries, manning as many as 72 vessels by air and by sea have failed to turn up a single indication that the Boeing B777-200 aircraft carrying a staggering 239 people had crashed.
There has been no confirmed signs of wreckage or debris, no distress signal from the aircraft before it lost contact with ground control, and no clear indication that the plane had experienced any technical failure in mid-air.
During take-off at 12.41am on Saturday, weather conditions appeared normal.
The aircraft, described as one of the “safest”, was said to be equipped with the ASD-B flight transponder, which transmits data on its altitude, speed and direction back to air traffic controllers every second.
It also has the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), which can be manually activated by the pilot or should transmit information on the aircraft’s location in the event of a crash.
As such, if the plane was experiencing problems in mid-flight, it should have been able to transmit a distress signal back to ground control. The fact that this did not happen has led to speculation on the behaviour of the aircraft at the time it went missing. Read the rest of this entry »
Judicial process and timing in Anwar’s case implies persecution not prosecution, says Bar Council
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Judiciary on Sunday, 9 March 2014, 8:31 pm
The Malaysian Insider
March 09, 2014
The charge against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the manner in which his appeal was handled fuels the perception that the opposition leader was persecuted and not prosecuted, the Bar Council said.
Malaysian Bar president Christopher Leong said that in the first place, the archaic provision under the Penal Code which criminalises sodomy and oral sex should never have been brought against Anwar.
“The case has unnecessarily taken up judicial time and public funds, and has muddied the waters of our justice system.
“We also have grave misgivings with respect to the manner and timing in which the appeal was handled, especially over the way in which mitigation and sentencing proceeded,” Leong said. Read the rest of this entry »
Anwar will miss the June meeting of Parliament if he is jailed in two months, which means Permatang Pauh by-election will have to be held in June or July
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Good Governance, Kajang by-election, Pakatan Rakyat on Sunday, 9 March 2014, 12:50 pm
If Anwar Ibrahim is right in his winding-up speech at the Pakatan Rakyat 5th Convention in Shah Alam yesterday that he might be imprisoned within two months, it would mean another “rush to judgment” to dispose of Anwar’s Federal Court appeal to uphold his five-year jail conviction by the Court of Appeal on Friday.
This is because Anwar would have exhausted his legal remedies and once his 5-year jail conviction is upheld by the Federal Court in two months, Anwar will have to start his second jail incarceration.
It would also mean that Anwar will not be able to attend the June meeting of Parliament, and the forthcoming parliamentary meeting beginning tomorrow will be Anwar’s last parliamentary meeting.
Furthermore, it would also mean that Anwar would be disqualified as MP and the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election would have to be held in June or July. Read the rest of this entry »
Some theories behind why MH370 might have vanished
The Malaysian Insider
March 09, 2014
As the search continues for Malaysia Airlines’ missing flight MH370, international aviation experts have weighed with their theories on what caused it to vanish the radar screens early Saturday morning.
The experts told the Associated Press that the most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles above the earth.
In a report this morning, the news agency said the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight Saturday morning over the South China Sea has led aviation experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to place a distress call.
It could take investigators months, if not years, to determine what happened to the Boeing 777 flying from Malaysia’s largest city of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
“At this early stage, we’re focusing on the facts that we don’t know,” said Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer with Boeing who worked on its 777 wide-body jets, and is now director of the Airsafe.com Foundation.
If there was a minor mechanical failure — or even something more serious like the shutdown of both of the plane’s engines — the pilots likely would have had time to radio for help. The lack of a call “suggests something very sudden and very violent happened,” said William Waldock, who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.
AP said it initially appears that there was either an abrupt breakup of the plane or something that led it into a quick, steep dive. Some experts even suggested an act of terrorism or a pilot purposely crashing the jet. Read the rest of this entry »
Questions about crisis management, like why the PM and acting Transport Minister not informed immediately when MH370 went missing but only after several crucial hours later, will have to wait as top priority now is to find aircraft and address the grief of bereaved relatives
The last 24 hours had been a very distraught time not only for the bereaved relatives and friends of the 239 passengers and crew on Malaysia Airlines’ MH370 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, but to people in the whole world as the passengers involved 14 different nationalities.
When I first read of the shocking news some 24 hours ago, I tweeted a local online report by The Malaysian Insider “MAS says ‘lost contact’ with plane carrying 239 passengers” and an international news report in The Los Angeles Times “Malaysia Airlines says flight to Beijing missing” – as this is not just a national concern, but a riveting international mishap.
For the last 24 hours, I joined not only Malaysians but people world-wide hoping and praying that the 239 passengers and crew of MH 370 would miraculously survive their ordeal.
The missing MH370 flight and the fate of the 239 people on board dominated the thoughts of all the Pakatan Rakyat leaders and members who attended the Pakatan Rakyat Fifth Convention, and although Parliamentary Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and DAP National Organising Secretary Anthony Loke were the only two leaders to touch on the ongoing search for the MH370 in their speeches, the Convention was united in their unspoken prayers and hopes that 239 people on board the MH370 would able to pull through safely.
After 24 hours, one would have to face up to the reality that something terrible had happened in the tragedy of MH370. Read the rest of this entry »
Call on Kajang voters to do the impossible in the by-election by making the Barisan Nasional candidate lose deposit
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Kajang by-election, Malaysian Dream, nation building on Sunday, 9 March 2014, 7:10 am
[Speech (Part 2) at the 5th Pakatan Rakyat Convention at Setia City Convention Centre, Shah Alam on Saturday, 8th March 2014 at 4.30 pm]
The Kajang voters should do the impossible in the by-election on March 23 by making the Barisan Nasional candidate lose deposit.
It is not enough for the Pakatan Rakyat/PKR candidate just to win, or even to win with a bigger majority than last year during the 13th general election.
Pakatan Rakyat should set out to ensure the achievement of the impossible in the Kajang by-election by getting the Barisan Nasional candidate to lose the deposit.
This is a very “tall order” but the occasion warrants going for such an extraordinary result.
This will a clear and unmistakable verdict that the people disapproves of any return to authoritarian rule or reversion to blatant and flagrant subversion of the independence, impartiality and integrity of the judiciary and other important national institutions to serve the political interests of the powers-that-be, as is clearly evident in the five-year jail conviction of Anwar Ibrahim yesterday. Read the rest of this entry »
Where is Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
By Chelsea J. Carter. Jim Clancy and Ralph Ellis, CNN
March 8, 2014 — Updated 2136 GMT (0536 HKT)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) — What happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
The closest thing to a clue in the search for a missing commercial jetliner are oil slicks in the Gulf of Thailand where all contact was lost with the flight, which was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
A Vietnamese search plane, part of a massive, multinational search effort, spotted the oil slicks that stretch between 6 and 9 miles, the Vietnam government’s official news agency reported. The traces of oil were found about 90 miles south of Tho Chu Island, the report said, in the same area where the flight disappeared from radar early Saturday morning.
The oil discovery only added to a growing list of questions about the fate of the plane carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members: When and where did the plane go, and who exactly was on board?
“It has been more than 24 hours since we last heard from MH370. …The search and rescue team is yet to determine the whereabouts of the Boeing 777-200 aircraft,” the airline said in a statement posted to its website. At this stage, search and rescue efforts “have failed to find evidence of any wreckage.”
In the meantime, the search area in the South China Sea is being expanded and efforts to locate the plane will continue overnight and into early Sunday morning, said Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of civil aviation in Malaysia. Read the rest of this entry »
Oil slick found between Vietnam and Malaysia ‘suspected of being crashed Boeing aircraft’
The Malaysian Insider
Latest Update: March 09, 2014 12:00 am
A 20km-long oil slick spotted between Malaysia and Vietnam this afternoon may be the first sign that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 people aboard went down in the waters between Vietnam and northern Malaysia, according to Vietnam’s director of civil aviation.
“An AN26 aircraft of the Vietnam Navy has discovered an oil slick about 20 kilometres in the search area, which is suspected of being a crashed Boeing aircraft – we have announced that information to Singapore and Malaysia and we continue the search,” Lai Xuan Thanh, the director of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, was quoted as saying by The New York Times.
He said he did not know whether the slick was closer to the Malaysian or Vietnam side of the entrance to the Gulf of Thailand.
The report said the last coordinates automatically transmitted by the aircraft were from near the midpoint between the two countries, when the plane appeared to be in stable flight at 35,000 feet.
The discovery came as an international team of rescuers from, among others, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, the United States, Singapore and the Philippines search for the Beijing-bound aircraft which vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12.41am. Read the rest of this entry »
Possibility of Foul Play Raised in Disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Jet
By KEITH BRADSHER
New York Times
MARCH 8, 2014
HONG KONG — As searchers scoured the Gulf of Thailand early Sunday for a Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 people aboard, investigators examined the usual causes of such disappearances: bad weather, possible mechanical failures, pilot error. But the discovery that at least two passengers were carrying stolen passports also raised the unsettling possibility of foul play.
As of the predawn hours Sunday, there was little to go on: no wreckage of the jet, a Boeing 777-200 on a red-eye flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, had been found, and other than a 12-mile-long oil slick on the surface of the gulf, there was no hint that a crash had even taken place.
Officials stressed that the investigation was in its earliest stages and that they were considering all possibilities. The airline said the plane had recently been inspected and had no history of malfunctions. Malaysia’s deputy minister of transport, Aziz bin Kaprawi, said the authorities had received no distress signal from the aircraft. Read the rest of this entry »
Anwar’s body can be jailed but the spirit and soul of the Pakatan Rakyat for a new Malaysia of freedom, justice, good governance and prosperity for all Malaysians cannot be imprisoned
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Pakatan Rakyat on Saturday, 8 March 2014, 8:59 pm
This 5th Pakatan Rakyat Convention is to be an ordinary annual convention. But it has become a historic one.
This is because this PR Convention in Shah Alam must send out a clear and unmistakable message to the powers-that-be that they can jail the body of Anwar Ibrahim but they cannot imprison the spirit and soul of Pakatan Rakyat for a new Malaysia of freedom, justice, good governance and prosperity for all Malaysians!
Selangor Speaker Hannah Yeoh could not have put it better when she said in her speech this morning that when the powers-that-be first persecuted and imprisoned Anwar Ibrahim after sacking him from Umno 16 years ago, Anwar was a leader of the Malays.
Today, in the second-round of persecution and imprisonment of Anwar Ibrahim, Anwar has become the leader of Malaysians.
This is the measure of the transformation that Anwar has wrought in the past 16 years (compared to the fake “transformations” of the Najib administration), and there can be no better outcome of today’s convention than for all Pakatan Rakyat leaders, members and supporters, whether PKR, PAS or DAP to resolve to follow Anwar’s example to become Malaysians fighting for the welfare and interests of all Malaysians. Read the rest of this entry »
Sodomy 2 Ruling Creates New Excitement
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Elections, Judiciary, Kajang by-election on Saturday, 8 March 2014, 9:32 am
By Kee Thuan Chye
Yahoo! News
8th March 2014
The buzz is all over town. And most probably outside of the country too. Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has been found guilty by the Court of Appeal of sodomising Saiful Bukhari Azlan in 2008.
The High Court acquitted him of the charge in January 2012, but the Attorney-General appealed. Now it looks like Anwar’s luck has run out. The famous Sodomy 2 case has caught up with him this time.
The judge has sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment. Although Anwar’s lawyers have straight away filed notice of appeal to the Federal Court, his conviction should disqualify him from standing in the upcoming Kajang by-election, which had come about when the incumbent state assemblyman, Lee Chin Cheh, stepped down to actually pave the way for Anwar to contest – as part of the so-called Kajang Move engineered by PKR strategist Rafizi Ramli with the long-term view of possibly making Anwar menteri besar in order to prepare Selangor as the launchpad for Pakatan Rakyat to take Putrajaya.
What happens to that now? Read the rest of this entry »
Winners, losers and others in Sodomy II
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir, Najib Razak, Pakatan Rakyat on Saturday, 8 March 2014, 7:36 am
BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
March 07, 2014
Barisan Nasional (BN) got what it wanted. Datuk Seri Najib Razak got what he wanted. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad got what he wanted. Tun Daim Zainuddin got what he wanted.
Heck, any Umno politician will be celebrating today. The man who could have ended it all for Umno is back where they want him to be – in jail.
And this time, the keys will be thrown away, finally ending the political career of a man who has withstood 15 years of sledgehammer treatment from his political opponents, BN.
Here are some initial thoughts from today’s court decision. Read the rest of this entry »
Applauding Khairy’s suggestion to revise BTN
Posted by Kit in Education, nation building on Thursday, 6 March 2014, 11:32 pm
— Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud
The Malay Mail Online
March 6, 2014
MARCH 6 ― In The Malay Mail dated 5 March, Umno minister Khairy Jamaluddin has suggested a revision of the country’s National Civics Bureau (BTN) training courses, saying undergraduates should be treated like adults and not taught to be blind supporters of the government.
I, myself have never been to any of BTN courses. However, a few years back, a friend of mine who was working for a government agency and was dating a lovely Chinese lady received a directive from his superior to attend a BTN course.
Upon returning from the course held somewhere in the state of Pahang, we went for our weekly coffee session and he shared with me his experience about the course he attended. He mentioned,
“The course made me racist. I feel that the other races are not thankful enough for being in Malaysia. We should show them that we are the boss and they better respect it.”
I was shocked. Read the rest of this entry »
Dare Muhyiddin make a Ministerial statement in Parliament next week to explain why Singapore can get two universities for four consecutive years into the THE Top 100 Universities World Reputation Rankings and THE World University Rankings for Top 400 but not a single one from Malaysia?
Posted by Kit in Education, Muhyiddin Yassin, university on Thursday, 6 March 2014, 5:50 pm
For many years, it is a heart-breaking event for Malaysians whenever there is a publication of world university rankings, for it is not to find out how well Malaysian universities compare with the best in the world but how badly Malaysian universities fared in international university comparisons and benchmarkings.
The release today of the 2014 Times Higher Education (THE) World Reputation Rankings for the Top 100 Universities is no different. In fact, it is worse.
For four consecutive years, Malaysia has been excluded from both the THE World Reputation Rankings and the THE World University Rankings for Top 400, with not a single Malaysian university able to make the grade in both rankings.
Singapore National University (SNU) achieved the best World Reputation Rankings in the four-year THE series, ranked No. 34 in 2011, 40 in 2012, 29 in 2013 and 21 in 2014. SNU is only behind two other Asian universities the 2014 World Reputation Rankings – University of Tokyo and Kyoto University in 11th and 19th ranking respectively.
Other Asian universities following closely behind SNU in the THE World Reputation Rankings 2014 are Seoul National University (No. 26), Tsinghua University (No. 36), Peking University (No. 41), University of Hong Kong (No. 43), Osaka University (No. 50), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), National Taiwan University and Tokyo Institute of Technology (No. 51-60), Tohoku University (No. 61-70), Chinese University of Hong Kong, Yonsei University (No.81-90) and Nanyang Technological University (No. 91-100).
What must be very mortifying to Malaysians who in the past had prided in having University of Malaya in the fifties and sixties as one of the world-ranking universities comparable in academic excellence with universities like the Universities of Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney now finding Malaysian universities not only trailing far behind their previous peers, including Universities of Singapore, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney, but being overtaken by universities which Malaysians had never heard before. Read the rest of this entry »
Call for a high-powered squad comprising MCMC, Police and representatives from BN and PR, to clean up social media of incessant incitement of racial and religious animosities and hatred through lies and falsehoods to set Malaysia aflame
Posted by Kit in IT, Law & Order, nation building on Thursday, 6 March 2014, 8:54 am
The latest criminal harassment and intimidation of DAP National Vice Chairperson and MP for Seputeh Teresa Kok for her “Onederful Malaysia CNY 2014” video must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
The police should act under Section 124A of the Penal Code which provides for up to seven-year jail sentence for the offence by anyone who “attempts to overawe by means of criminal force” a Member of Parliament from exercising her lawful powers.
Last night, Utusan Malaysia had, around midnight, sent an SMS alert stating “Seputeh MP Teresa Kok was slapped by an unknown man after a ceramah at Taman Permatang Pauh at 11.30 pm”.
However, the Umno-owned daily soon issued a correction stating that Kok had not been slapped but was instead “handed” a rotten egg by a man, which later broke when they shook hands. Read the rest of this entry »
