Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

[baron-pierreIV]

^ Yeah I agree. I think as usual (it reminds me of the 2008 torch relay counter protests actually) the Chinese media becomes hypo-jingoistic and makes everything - even this a event - some kind of personal barb at their nation. I have no idea what those Chinese families are going through, and frankly I hope I never have to, but I do feel that China's media is egging them on and exploiting their grief (apparently the protest at the Malaysian embassy in Beijing was set up by the media). Also the way the Chinese media reported their planes coming into Perth to save an overstretched Australian Air Force was funny too. They landed at the wrong airport! Baron, I think you might find this article amusing:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2014/03/24/05/55/chinese-search-planes-to-save-the-day-in-mh370-hunt

Well at least they landed -- i"m sure was their thinking.

But that's just like the incident in Grenada in 2006 when at the inauguration of Grenada's national cricket stadium which big China paid for, it was the Taiwanese national anthem that got played! The band leader got sacked and the delegation from Beijing boycotted the official reception the next night!!

Edited March 28, 2014 by baron-pierreIV

[Alexjc]

Oh it looks like they found something...

RAAF, JMSDAF, RNZAF P3 Orions and a USN Posiden have stumbled across a large floating debris field in the adjusted search area last night. It is believed to be the one spotted by satellite a few days ago. Transmitter marker bouys were dropped onto the site. Ships are being diverted to the area now.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Alexjc

[runningrings]

I feel like I've read that story every day this week now: "aircraft have spotted debris, theyre on their way!"

[Olympian2004]

I feel like I've read that story every day this week now: "aircraft have spotted debris, theyre on their way!"

Exactly. And in the end, they cancel the search and declare a new searching area. To me, that whole search really seems planless now. It must be a truly awful experience for the victims' relatives.

[Alexjc]

Another awful day of identifying items, not connected to MH370. Finding a needle in a haystack is hard but finding the right haystack harder still.

How long can the multinational search keep going?

[runningrings]

For as long as it takes, at least as far as Australia is concerned. For Abbott - this is more than just finding the wreckage of an airliner and more about earning extremely valuable brownie-points with his SE Asian counterparts.

[Alexjc]

Also Australia has to fulfill it's obligation under internationally recognized agreements regarding shipping and aircraft SAR. This portion of Indian Ocean is in their region for searching.

[Alexjc]

Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbot, is about to confirm the beacon pings being picked up over the last week are from the black boxes of missing flighf MH370. The Royal Australian Navy research ship Ocean Shield, has been slowly homing in on distictive "pings" picked up by a RAAF P3k Orion yesterday.

[Olympic Fan Darcy]

Couriermail is reporting that it's been found. Unconfirmed reports however

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/unconfirmed-report-says-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-black-box-has-been-found/story-fnizu68q-1226880483186

[Olympic Fan Darcy]

news.com sorry*

And now they're saying this, Abbott is really f#cking this up

"There has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370," says Australian chief search coordinator.

[krow]

it's the prime minister of australia's fault?

ohh brother. i thought we all agreed it was malaysia's fault?

[Olympic Fan Darcy]

It's not his fault, he just keeps coming out and trying to act like he's the savior and has found the solution. Yet every time he does it, it turns out to be bullshit.

[runningrings]

Look - I intensely dislike Abbott as much as any other level-headed, self-respecting Australian does, but I'm not sure you expect him to do? It is not hard to see that he and the government (and other relevant govts in this situation - China, Malaysia, et al.) are working with very limited information in an unprecedented situation. If he communicated less he would be accused of secrecy or not caring.

I think this is more a case of this just being a very frustrating difficult incident to try and resolve - we live in an age where we expect answers instantly - and MH370 is nearly enigma status which is oddly grating on people's nerves.

[Olympic Fan Darcy]

Well, he could at least get his facts straight.

He says that a major breakthrough happens and then 10 minutes later (and i'm not lying it was around about 10 minutes later) search coordinator Angus Houston said the signal detected was not related. Like come on, get some evidence before you do a press release

[gotosy]

Joint air search ends for MH370

Near Perth, Australia (CNN) -- After seven weeks of intense but fruitless searching, the international air effort to find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is over. But some ships will stay on the Indian Ocean to gather any debris that might surface.

More than 600 military personnel from at least seven countries solemnly posed in front of search planes Tuesday for a commemorative photo. Some traded military patches and mulled over their disappointment in not finding the Boeing 777.

...

Most of the international air crews will leave the Royal Australian Air Force Base Pearce, near Perth, over the next few days.

The likelihood of finding any debris on the ocean's surface is "highly unlikely," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday. By now, most of the debris is probably waterlogged and has probably sunk, he said.

So officials are moving on to the next phase: a more intense underwater search that will use private contractors and could cost about $56 million.

Crews will now scour a much larger area of the ocean floor -- 60,000 square kilometers. The process could take at least six to eight months, officials said.

The Bluefin-21 underwater probe will continue scanning the ocean floor. But the submersible couldn't search Tuesday because of weather and very high seas.

...

CNN

[Alexjc]

RNZAF pulled out yesterday with it's P3K heading home...Satisfied thats all they could do to help. This sad episode in aviation history will live on for a while.

[baron-pierreIV]

Well, this is another task for Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic.

I wonder if James Cameron is already planning a film version??

[gotosy]

Report on MH370 reveals 4-hour gap before search for plane began

(CNN) -- On the fateful night that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, officials apparently didn't notice for 17 minutes that it had gone off radar -- and didn't activate an official rescue operation for four hours.

Those are two of the details outlined in a preliminary report by Malaysia's Transportation Ministry released to the public Thursday. The report had been sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the U.N. body for global aviation.

What's remarkable about the report is what's missing from it.

When did the plane disappear?

At 1:21 a.m. on March 8, the plane -- carrying 239 people to Beijing -- disappeared from radar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

By then, the plane's crew should have contacted air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, but apparently it didn't.

And it wasn't until 17 minutes later that Ho Chi Minh asked Malaysian air traffic control where the plane was.

"We are left to assume (that) for those 17 minutes, Kuala Lumpur either didn't notice or didn't act," CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said.

Why was there a four-hour gap in response?

Then came a four-hour gap -- from the time when officials noticed the plane was missing to when the official rescue operation was launched.

The report gives no explanation for what happened during those four hours, other than to say that Kuala Lumpur contacted Singapore, Hong Kong and Cambodia.

And those four hours may have been critical.

On Tuesday, a Malaysia Airlines official said the plane probably ran out of fuel about 7½ hours into the flight. That means it might have been flying during that four-hour gap, and possibly for another 2½ hours after the search started.

Where was the military?

The Malaysian Prime Minister has said the military tracked the plane as it headed back across Malaysia.

According to the report, a playback of a recording from military primary radar revealed that an aircraft that may have been MH370 had made a westerly turn, crossing Peninsular Malaysia. The search area was then extended to the Strait of Malacca.

But it's unclear when that happened. The report makes no mention of the military's role the night of the disappearance.

Where are the details?

Preliminary reports are by their nature brief and to the point. It is up to the country to choose whether to release additional details, such as a cargo manifest, seating plan and air traffic control transcripts.

"This report and any other documents released should be an audit of what happened and factually who did what," Quest said.

Compared to the preliminary reports of other recent major flight investigations, the one released by Malaysia is scant.

The equivalent preliminary report on Air France 447 was 128 pages long. That report by, produced by France's aviation safety agency just one month after the plane went missing in 2009, offered specific details on communication between various air traffic control centers.

Flight 447 was found more than a year later in the Atlantic Ocean; all 228 people on board had died.

And a preliminary report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau into the Qantas engine explosion in 2010 ran more than 40 pages, including diagrams and charts.

"I can certainly understand that the authorities had more pressing matters in finding the plane than writing a long report, when there will be plenty of other chances to do so," Quest said, "but this report is the barest possible they could get away with."

Debate over transparency

The report released Thursday was the same one Malaysia submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organization but had not been made public. Malaysian officials came under heavy criticism last week for submitting the report to the U.N. body but not making it available to relatives of passengers.

While authorities are not required to make a preliminary report public, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak acquiesced.

Reporters could not ask questions raised by the report since the document was released by e-mail and not at a news conference.

One safety recommendation

The report makes one safety recommendation: the need for real-time tracking.

Authorities noted that while commercial planes spend considerable time operating over remote areas, there is no requirement for real-time tracking of such aircraft.

"There have now been two occasions during the last five years when large commercial air transport aircraft have gone missing and their last position was not accurately known," the Malaysian report states. "This uncertainty resulted in significant difficulty in locating the aircraft in a timely manner."

CNN

[micheal_warren]

Hopeless thats all I can say. This has been botched from word go and shows just how inept the Malaysians are!

[runningrings]

Hopeless thats all I can say. This has been botched from word go and shows just how inept the Malaysians are!

Its a pretty unique and unprecedented circumstance - so I'm sure many nations would have "botched from the world go" also. A country like New Zealand wouldn't have fared so well if an Air NZ aircraft vanished in similar circumstances.

[micheal_warren]

perhaps.... But it just seems to be stuff up after stuff up... Also transparency is not really a world the Malaysian government is too fond of. I am sure New Zealand would not be that bad.

[Alexjc]

perhaps.... But it just seems to be stuff up after stuff up... Also transparency is not really a world the Malaysian government is too fond of. I am sure New Zealand would not be that bad.

A country like New Zealand?...what do you mean Runningrings? - like Australia?

For a start, if an Air New Zealand flight had gone haywire like that, the CAA would've been on to it the moment it changed course...also Air NZs aircraft a tracked in near real time due to the fact they fly over more water than any other airline.

There's been a lot of blood boiling on GB and globally over this now infamous aviation disaster and the handling of it by Malaysian authorities...Going by thier track record so far...It's been awful...and it really looks like Malaysia is trying to sidle away out a back door.

[micheal_warren]

A country like New Zealand?...what do you mean Runningrings? - like Australia?

For a start, if an Air New Zealand flight had gone haywire like that, the CAA would've been on to it the moment it changed course...also Air NZs aircraft a tracked in near real time due to the fact they fly over more water than any other airline.

There's been a lot of blood boiling on GB and globally over this now infamous aviation disaster and the handling of it by Malaysian authorities...Going by thier track record so far...It's been awful...and it really looks like Malaysia is trying to sidle away out a back door.

Well said. i completely agree

[gotosy]

MH370 search: Reunion debris 'very likely' part of plane

Debris found on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion is "very likely" to be from the missing flight MH370, a top Australian official has told the BBC.

Martin Dolan, who heads Australia's search efforts, also said the operation was continuing "in the right place" in the southern part of the ocean.

The wreckage, said to be a wing part, is to be flown to France for analysis.

The Malaysia Airlines flight - a Boeing 777 travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing - vanished in March 2014.

There were 239 passengers and crew on board the plane when it went missing.

French examination

The debris washed up on Reunion island on Wednesday, some 4,000km (2,500 miles) from the area where MH370 is thought to have gone down.

Mr Dolan, who heads the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, told the BBC that he was "increasingly confident that the wreckage... is associated with a 777 aircraft".

Aviation experts who have studied photos of the debris say it resembles a flaperon - a moving part of the wing surface - from a Boeing 777.

"There is no other recorded case of a flaperon being lost from a Boeing 777," Mr Dolan said.

"We are confident we have the quality of the search to cover that area and find the missing aircraft," he added.

However, Mr Dolan also said the discovery of debris would not help pinpoint where the plane went down.

"Over the last 16 or 17 months, any floating debris would have dispersed quite markedly across the Indian Ocean," he told the AFP news agency.

Guided by signals from the plane that were detected by satellite, authorities believe it went down in the southern Indian Ocean.

However, no physical evidence of this has ever been found and in January Malaysian authorities declared that all on board were presumed dead.

Location of a flaperon on a Boeing 777

Earlier, Australian officials and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the location of the debris was consistent with drift analysis provided to investigators.

The wreckage is expected to be flown to the French city of Toulouse later on Friday. French media quote officials as saying it will be examined by experts next week.

The BBC's Chris Bockman in Toulouse says aviation authorities have a huge hangar facility to store and study wreckage - as they did with the Air France airliner that crashed on its way from Brazil to Paris in 2009.

BBC transport correspondent Richard Westcott says the object may have a data tag with a serial number that could be directly traceable to MH370. Even if there is no tag, it should have a traceable manufacturer's stamp, he adds.

BBC

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33728658

[gotosy]

MH370: Reunion debris is from missing plane

Part of the aircraft wing found on Reunion Island is from the missing MH370 plane, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has confirmed.

Mr Najib said international experts examining the debris in France had "conclusively confirmed" it was from the aircraft.

The Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people veered off course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.

The debris was found on the remote French Indian Ocean island a week ago.

In a statement, Mr Najib said the "the burden and uncertainty faced by the families" in the 515 days since the aircraft disappeared had been "unspeakable".

"We now have physical evidence that flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean," he added.

'Very strong indications'

French prosecutor Serge Mackowiak later confirmed the wing fragment, known as a flaperon, was from a Boeing 777 - the same make and model as the missing Malaysian airliner.

He said initial tests showed there were "very strong indications" the flaperon was from flight MH370. But he said confirmation would only come after further tests on the fragment, which would begin on Thursday.

Investigators] will try to do it as soon as possible in order to provide total and reliable information to the family of victims, who are on our minds at the moment," Mr Mackowiak added.

The debris is being examined at an aeronautical test centre near Toulouse.

The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris said there was some frustration that Mr Mackowiak refused to categorically confirm the fragment was part of the missing aircraft.

But there is little doubt now that the flaperon will be declared the first evidence of the plane in the coming days as no other Boeing 777s are thought to have crashed in the region.

BBC

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33794012