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**bsteadman** · 05-23-2014, 01:49 PM

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Scientists question methods and the politics of the MH370 search

News Corp - Australia
5/23/2014

UNDERWATER scientists have labelled the search for MH370 a “debacle” and say Prime Minister Tony Abbott was playing politics when he prematurely announced the black box pingers had been found.

The acoustic experts, who do not wish to be identified, said the four crucial signals detected by a US pinger locator were almost certainly not from the missing Malaysian Airlines plane’s black boxes, but from another man-made source.

They insisted that the signals were in the wrong frequency and detected too far apart to be from the boxes.

“As soon as I saw the frequency and the distance between the pings I knew it couldn’t be the aircraft pinger,” one scientist told News Corp Australia.

That conclusion is supported by the lack of success from a detailed search of the area conducted by the US deep sea drone ‘Bluefin 21’.

The unmanned submarine will return to Perth this weekend and will be replaced by a commercial deep water search vehicle.

An RAAF aircraft also detected a mystery signal earlier in the search, showing there were other signals being transmitted.

“It is clear there were other man made signals out there,” an expert said.

In answer to questions from News Corp Australia the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said that the signals were “likely” sourced from electronic equipment and were “believed to be” consistent with the Flight Data Recorder.

However the scientists said the 33.3 kilohertz frequency of the signal was very different to the 37.5 kilohertz generated by underwater acoustic beacons. The signals were also detected some 30km and four days apart.

The JACC has refused a request to release recordings of the signals for independent analysis and it did not release the exact location or precise depth of the signals.

Agency head retired defence chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said the signals were still being analysed to ensure nothing was overlooked.

“They won’t release them because they don’t know what it is,” one scientist said.

“Signals do pass through water in complicated ways and you can get unusual ‘sound ducts’ but at those distances it is very unlikely.”
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View the complete article, including video and photos, at:

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel...-1226928975742

**bsteadman** · 05-29-2014, 02:12 PM

MH370: Australia rules out main search zone

Government announces plane is not in part of Indian Ocean where searchers previously reported 'pings' from black box

The Guardian
Michael Safi in Sydney and Tania Branigan in Beijing
5/29/2014

Excerpt:

The Australian government says pings in the Indian Ocean that it believed were from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were not from the aircraft's black box recorder

The missing Malaysia Airlines plane is not in the Indian Ocean search zone where underwater “pings” were detected, the Australian search authorities have announced, after a US navy officer cast doubt on whether the signals were from a plane's black box flight recorder.

On a day of dramatic developments, the Australian Transport Safety Buereau (ATSB) said it had finished searching the area and declared that it “can now be discounted as the final resting place of MH370”.

An underwater search vehicle, Bluefin-21, has scoured more than 850 square kilometres of the Indian ocean west of Perth since four acoustic signals – thought to have been emitted by the missing aircraft’s black box flight recorders – were detected by a towed pinger locator in April.

But the search has failed to turn up any sign of the plane, which went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to beijing on 8 March with 239 people on board.

“The joint agency co-ordination centre can advise that no signs of aircraft debris have been found by the autonomous underwater vehicle since it joined the search effort,” search authorities said.

“The search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections can now be considered complete and, in its professional judgment, the area can now be discounted as the final resting place of MH370.”

Australia's deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, told parliament in Canberra on Thursday that the search would move into a new phase beginning in August that could take 12 months.

"The pings were the best information available at the time and that is all you can do," he said.

"We are still very confident that the resting place of the aircraft is in the southern [Indian] Ocean and along the seventh ping line," he added, refering to an arc identified by analysis of satellite communications data from UK company Inmarsat. The search area would now be extended to a 60,000sq km zone along the arc. The ocean floor would be mapped to help the search.

The team was "still confident" that the plane would be found and were "determined" to do so, he said.

The statements came after claims by a senior US navy officer earlier in the day that the four acoustic signals may have been produced by the search vessel and wrongly identified as black box signals.

“Our best theory at this point is that [the pings were] likely some sound produced by the ship [the Ocean Shield] ... or within the electronics of the towed pinger locator,” the US navy’s deputy director of ocean engineering, Michael Dean, told CNN.

The US navy said later that Dean’s comments had been “speculative and premature” but the statement by Australian search authorities did not address these new doubts.

The ATSB said the next stage of the search would be to map the ocean floor near where the plane is thought to have crashed, a process which a Chinese ship, the Zhu Kezhen, has begun. The mapping is expected to take three months.

A private contractor is expected to begin an exhaustive 12-month search of the mapped area in August.
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View the complete article, including photos, at:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...uthorities-say

**bsteadman** · 05-30-2014, 01:42 PM

Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: The 13 theories that could explain where the plane is - and what happened to it

With no trace of the missing Boeing 777 in the "ping" search area, conspiracy theorists have tried to fill in the gaps of what we know

The Independent
Adam Withnall
5/29/2014

Officials today confirmed what we have feared for some time - that a relatively tiny search zone in the southern Indian Ocean is not the final resting place of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

From an underwater mission covering 850 sq km (320 sq mile) where acoustic "pings" were heard, the area being searched has now been extended to around a 60,000 sq km (23,100 sq mile) zone based on satellite data which remains disputed in some quarters.

The Australia-led search control team estimate it could be August - next year - before this region has been covered, and hopes of finding the Boeing 777's flight recorders are becoming increasingly dim.

With so much uncertainty surrounding the circumstances of MH370's bizarre disappearance, it has become rich territory for aviation experts, bloggers and conspiracy theorists alike.

Here we round up 13 of the most prominent theories as to where the plane ended up, and what went wrong in the first place.

Shot down in a military training exercise

While the Australian officials leading the search for MH370 say they remain “absolutely convinced” it ended up in the southern Indian Ocean, some passengers’ families – and theorists – distrust the unprecedented satellite data analysis involved.

Among those who support this view are the British journalist and author Nigel Cawthorne, who has controversially already published the first book on the plane’s disappearance.

He supports one theory, based on the eye-witness testimony of New Zealand oil rig worker Mike McKay, that the plane was shot down shortly after it stopped communicating with air traffic controllers.

At the time there was a series of war games taking place in the South China Sea involving Thailand, the US and personnel from China, Japan, Indonesia and others, and Cawthorne has linked this to Mr McKay’s claims to have seen a burning plane going down in the Gulf of Thailand.

Flown north and shot down deliberately, prompting cover-up

At a stage in the investigation when it was believed the plane could have flown for some time from where it disappeared along either a northern or southern corridor, many posted on forums suggesting that if it had been the former we would never hear about what happened.

Some still support this view, and former RAF navigator Sean Maffett told the BBC that after 9/11, any unidentified airliner entering the airspace of another country would lead to fighter jets being scrambled.

“If the plane is in the northern arc it could easily have been shot down,” he said. This theory also involves a national – or possibly international – cover-up, based on the premise that no country would want to admit to shooting down an airliner full of passengers from all over the world.

Flown north in the ‘shadow’ of another plane

Another theory suggests that instead of flying south, the plane flew north in the “shadow” of another airliner around half an hour to an hour after dropping off civilian radar.

The aviation blogger Keith Ledgerwood argued that MH370 and Singapore Airlines flight 68 were in the same vicinity at the time, and said: “It became apparent as I inspected SIA68's flight path history that MH370 had manoeuvred itself directly behind SIA68 at approximately 18:00UTC and over the next 15 minutes had been following SIA68.”

By flying a short distance behind and most likely a little above the altitude of SIA68, also a Boeing 777, Ledgerwood said that it would be able to appear as a single blip on radar screens.

SIA68 flew on to Spain – and this theory suggests MH370 could have branched off and landed in one of a number of locations across Xinjiang (north-east China), Kyrgyzstan or Turkmenistan.

Experts have said that the idea sounds “feasible”, and that even if higher-resolution military radar was monitoring SIA68 operators might have dismissed the fact that there were two objects as an technical glitch or echo.

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View the complete article at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...t-9455120.html

**bsteadman** · 06-02-2014, 07:35 PM

Expert: Search for MH370 not becoming more complicated

The Maylay Mail Online
6/2/2014

Excerpt:

An expert says the MH370 search is not becoming more complicated as the search and rescue team was looking in the wrong area. — Reuters picAn expert says the MH370 search is not becoming more complicated as the search and rescue team was looking in the wrong area.

New Zealand-based space scientist and physicist, Duncan Steel, made the remarks in an email interview with Bernama following the latest announcement by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which discounted the vicinity of acoustic signals detected previously.

“They were never leads (the claimed acoustic detections). Having discounted them is a good thing, in that it enables other possibilities to be considered,” said Steel, who is also a visiting Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham, England and a space scientist at NASA-Ames Research Centre in California, USA.

According to him, the sonic pings in the Indian Ocean were obviously (to a physicist) not from the MH370 emergency locator beacon and that ATSB's announcement was entirely disconnected from the satellite-derived information.

He believed that based on available information from the released raw data, it was most likely that the aircraft headed south at near 500 knots, and ended up much further south than the current search area.

Steel lauded British satellite telecommunications company, Inmarsat for doing a good job of pulling out the data and analysing it, noting that the Inmarsat analysis was good.

“However, that does not mean I am sure they are correct, because we have not been given vital information about the composition of the BFOs (Burst Frequency Offsets) and the modelling that Inmarsat performed.

“If we had those information, we could check on what was done, to verify it or possibly find errors,” he explained.

Steel suggested that at least some consideration should be given to the northern corridor until the possibilities could absolutely rule it out.

“For example, someone should go and take a look at the suggested crash site in the Besh Tash Valley (Kyrgyzstan), which was indicated by a smoke plume just when the aircraft would have been expected to have crashed. In reality, that might be only a one-in-1,000 possibility, but why not go take a look so as to exclude it?”
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View the complete article at:

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/ma...re-complicated

**bsteadman1** · 06-03-2014, 10:49 PM

Sailor Katherine Tee reports seeing Malaysia Airlines MH370 on fire near Thailand

News.com - Australia
6/3/2014

Excerpt:

A SAILOR has told Australian authorities she saw a burning Boeing 777 near Thailand the morning MH370 disappeared.

Katherine Tee said she was sailing across the Indian Ocean in March when she saw what she believes was the missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 billowing black smoke across the night sky.

The British woman was sailing from Kochi, India, to Phuket, Thailand, with her husband, Marc Horn, when she saw what appeared to be a large aircraft on fire.

“I thought I saw a burning plane cross behind our stern from port to starboard, which would have been approximately north to south,” Ms Tee wrote on sailing website, Cruisers’ Forum.

“Since that’s not something you see every day, I questioned my mind. I was looking at what appeared to be an elongate plane glowing bright orange, with a trail of black smoke behind it. It did occur to me that it might be a meteorite. But I thought it was more likely that I was going insane.”

On Tuesday she told Thailand’s Phuket Gazette newspaper that she was on night-watch on the couple’s 40 foot sloop on the night of March 7-8.

“I saw something that looked like a plane on fire. That’s what I thought it was. Then I thought I must be mad. It caught my attention because I had never seen a plane with orange lights before so I wondered what they were,” she said.

“I could see the outline of the plane, it looked longer than planes usually do. There was what appeared to be black smoke behind it.

“There were two other planes well above it — moving the other way — at the time. They had normal navigation lights. I remember thinking that if it was a plane on fire that I was seeing, the other aircraft would report it.”

The couple arrived in Phuket two days later, on March 10, but Ms Tee didn’t report her sighting to the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) until Sunday.
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View the complete article at:

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel...-1226941681483

**bsteadman** · 06-04-2014, 09:31 PM

MH370: Indian Ocean crash may have been heard by underwater microphones

Curtin University in Western Australia says analysis shows a possibility, albeit slim, that listening devices picked up impact

The Guardian
Brendan Foster in Perth
6/4/2014

Excerpt:

Deep-sea microphones picked up an intense sound that may have been Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 crashing into the Indian Ocean, Australian researchers have announced – while stressing that the likelihood of a connection to the plane could be as low as 10% and a natural event like an earthquake might also have been the source.

Scientists from Curtin University in Western Australia gave a highly cautious account on Wednesday after analysing low-frequency noises picked up by a combination of underwater sensors – some set up by the UN to monitor for nuclear tests, and others put in place for Australian research purposes.

The Malaysian Airliner went missing almost three months ago on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. Satellite signals point to the plane having gone down in the Indian Ocean but a massive international search effort led by Australia has turned up nothing.

Underwater sound recorders from Curtin University’s Centre of Marine Science, placed about 40km off Rottnest Island, picked up a signal on 8 March that may have represented a "high-energy event" around the time the plane was thought to have crashed, said Dr Alec Duncan, a senior research fellow at the centre.

The signal was matched with another underwater listening station, run by the United Nations' Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), off Cape Leeuwin, the most south-westerly mainland point of the Australia.

“Soon after the aircraft disappeared scientists at CTBTO analysed data from their underwater listening stations south-west of Cape Leeuwin and in the northern Indian Ocean,” he said. That initially did not turn up anything of interest, Duncan said.

When the search for MH70 swung to the southern Indian Ocean scientists from Curtin decided to retrieve their acoustic recorders from west of Rottnest Island, to be checked against the CTBTO's earlier data, Duncan said.

“Data from one of the IMOS recorders showed a clear acoustic signal at a time that was reasonably consistent with the information relating to the disappearance of MH370," he said.

The CTBO analysis was rechecked and revealed a signal "almost buried in the background noise but consistent with what was recorded on the IMOS recorder off Rottnest”, Duncan said.

“The crash of a large aircraft in the ocean would be a high-energy event and expected to generate intense underwater sounds. The timing of the signal was not totally unrelated to the disappearance of the plane.”

Duncan said he had sent the results to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and scientists at Curtin would continue to work with authorities, he said.

Duncan cautioned that large uncertainties in the estimates meant it was only a possibility that the sound came from MH370, and a natural event like an earth tremor could be equally or more likely.

“Although we have now completed our analysis of these signals, [we] still have several recorders deployed that could conceivably have picked up signals relating to MH370,” he said.

“If it is related to the aircraft it could reduce the size of the search area.”
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View the complete article at:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...er-microphones

**bsteadman** · 06-05-2014, 06:25 PM

Analysis vindicates MH370 'arc' theory

SBS Australia
AAP
6/5/2014

Excerpt:

An independent analysis has confirmed searchers are looking in the right place for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.

The news comes a week after the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said the narrowed-down area where acoustic "pings" were detected could be discounted as the final resting place of MH370.

But searchers said they remained confident in a long flight path "arc" over the southern Indian Ocean defined by British company Inmarsat, which is based on the seventh and final "handshake" between the Boeing 777 and satellites.

On Thursday, the ATSB said the independent analysis had confirmed the arc was the right place to look.

"At the time MH370 reached this arc, the aircraft is considered to have exhausted its fuel and to have been descending," the ATSB said in a statement.

As a result, the aircraft was unlikely to be more than 38km to the west or 55km to the east of the arc, the ATSB said.

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View the complete article at:

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/storystre...tes-arc-theory

**bsteadman** · 06-09-2014, 06:16 PM

MH370 families seek $5 million for investigation, reward

CNN News
David Molko and Holly Yan, CNN
6/9/2014

Excerpt:

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Search official: Hopefully they can share the outcome of their investigation with us

Fundraiser's project leader: I'm certain the plane is not in the ocean

The money will go toward the investigation and a reward, he says

A governance committee includes five relatives of passengers and two others

(CNN) -- Using dramatic music fit for a Hollywood epic, a video-led fund-raising effort hit the Web this week purportedly to help find answers about missing Malaysia Flight 370.

Several relatives of the 239 people on board appear in a video posted on the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo.

They say nothing, and stare into a camera, solemn-faced. They hold up pieces of papers with their missing relatives' names. "Please help us find the truth," one man's sign implores.

The site aims to raise $5 million.

"OUR effort will not be in opposition to the official investigation, but rather seeks to uncover clues not yet discovered, and to pursue that evidence without interference from parties who are also liability holders in this case," the page reads. "We hope to plug doubts, overcome shortcomings, and improve the number of actionable leads towards in the search for MH370. The accountability of the authorities remains undiluted."

A massive multinational search to scour the southern Indian Ocean where Malaysian authorities said the plane crashed has turned up no wreckage.

The underwater search was postponed in late May. Australia said it will negotiate with private companies to conduct the next phase but that isn't expected to start until at least late July or August.

Some family members have been critical of the way Malaysia has handled the investigation. Sarah Bajc is one of them.

"Without a fresh approach, the truth and the plane will never be found," Sarah Bajc, partner of passenger Philip Wood, said on the campaign's website.

The campaign is led by a "governance committee" that includes seven people: five are family members of passengers, and two are people experienced in fund-raising and private investigation, the Reward MH370 website says.

"All decisions made regarding management of the campaign, selection of and coordination with private investigation resources, lead advancement and reward payment must be approved by a majority of the Governance Committee," the site says.

Australian businessman Ethan Hunt is leading the project. "I'm certain it's not in the ocean," Hunt told CNN about the plane.

He suspects someone knows where the jetliner is, and the money raised will serve as an incentive for that person to come forward.

"Utilizing the immense potential of the crowd, we believe we can achieve our primary goal of recovering the flight where others methods have failed," he said.
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View the complete article, including video, at:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/08/world/...families-fund/

**bsteadman** · 06-10-2014, 02:29 PM

Oil rig worker reveals he lost his job for reporting that he saw 'MH370 on fire'

Mike McKay was working on the Songa Mercur oil rig off the coast of Vietnam on March 8 when he saw what he believed was a 'burning plane'

Mr McKay sent an email claiming: 'I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines plane come down. The timing is right'

The email was leaked to the media and Mr McKay was paid up until the end of his work period but released from the rig five days earlier

The drilling consultant for the past 35 years is now looking for more work

The Daily Mail / Mail Online
Richard Shears
6/5/2014, Updated 6/9/2014

A New Zealand oil rig worker, who claimed to have seen 'MH370 on fire' over the South China Sea, revealed today that he had lost his job for reporting the incident.

Speaking for the first time about the sighting of a 'burning aircraft' and the loss of his job, Mike McKay remained positive about the contents of an email he had sent, in which he said: 'I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines plane come down. The timing is right.'

And he said that the ongoing search for the missing airliner raised many unanswered questions, adding: 'The investigators do not inspire trust.'

Mr McKay was working on the Songa Mercur oil rig off the southern coast of Vietnam on the night of March 8 when he saw what he believed was a burning plane.

This comes as families of missing passengers have offered a $US5 million reward for information leading to a breakthrough in the mystery.

Perth woman Danica Weeks, the wife of missing New Zealander Paul Weeks, said that contradictory information about the plane's disappearance has prompted families to mount their own effort to find answers.

The Reward MH370 campaign, to be financed via fundraising website Indiegogo, aims to raise at least $US5 million ($A5.41 million) 'to encourage a whistleblower to come forward with information'.

'We have been cut off so many times at the gate that we're just now having to take things into our own hands, think outside the box and just try and do something to find this plane,' Mrs Weeks told ABC radio.
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View the complete article, including video and photos, at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-confirms.html

**bsteadman** · 06-14-2014, 04:26 PM

'MH370 was no accident': Shocking new claim from commercial pilot who spent months investigating doomed flight for new book

A commercial pilot and a journalist have written Good Night Malaysian 370: The truth behind the loss of Flight 370

Ewan Wilson and Geoff Taylor say they used a process of elimination to reveal 'the truth behind the tragedy' of the missing plane

'It was deliberate and it was calculated and it should never have been allowed to happen,’ Taylor says

It comes as a Netherlands' survey ship and Chinese military vessel announce plan to begin mapping the Indian Ocean floor in mid-June for the next phase in the search

The Daily Mail / Mail Online
6/14/2014

Excerpt:

The disappearance of MH370 has been described as ‘deliberate’ and ‘calculated’ in the latest book to be published on the tragedy.

New Zealand authors Ewan Wilson, a commercial pilot and Hamilton City Councillor, and Waikato Times journalist Geoff Taylor, said they used a process of elimination to lead readers to the revelation that the tragedy was no accident.

Wilson told stuff.co.nz that the conclusion of Good Night Malaysian 370: The truth behind the loss of Flight 370 will shock the travelling public.

‘For the first time we present a detailed analysis of the flight, the incredible route it took, and who we believe was in charge of the aircraft as it plunged into the Indian Ocean,’ Wilson said.

The book begins at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8 and weaves in the lives of the 239 passengers and crew on board what was meant to be a short flight to Beijing.

Wilson, a former CEO of two airlines and with qualifications in transport safety investigations, said the men investigated each piece of evidence and eliminated all the possible scenarios until the reader is left with 'one shocking and unbelievable conclusion'.

‘The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 captured the world's attention and shocked everyone - [the outcome] is gut-wrenching,’ he said.

The authors travelled to Malaysia to interview authorities and family members of MH370's pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

Taylor said authorities were not willing to admit the truth.

‘For the sake of the relatives of those on the flight the truth needs to be out there,’ he said. ‘We visited the departure lounge where families sat full of excitement and anticipation waiting for their boarding call. Surely they deserve better than a cover up?'

During a late night visit to the departure lounge Taylor recalled the moment his conclusion swept over him.

‘What happened to MH370 was no accident,’ he said. ‘It was deliberate and it was calculated and it should never have been allowed to happen.’

Wilson said the March 8 mystery could determine which airlines passengers choose in the future.

The authors also recommend immediate changes to the management of flight crews and the introduction of tamper-proof technical systems to ensure the aircraft can be tracked at all times.

Meanwhile, Australia has chosen a state-of-the-art Dutch vessel to help map the Indian Ocean floor as the search for missing flight MH370 heads deeper under water.

Netherlands-based Fugro Survey will assist a Chinese military vessel in surveying the ocean bed as part of the next stage of the quest for the Malaysia Airlines plane which vanished three months ago.

The MV Fugro Equator, which is equipped with a deep water multi-beam echo sounder system, will work with Chinese PLA-Navy ship Zhu Kezhen to complete the mapping ahead of the underwater search by an as-yet undetermined contractor.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is now planning to comb a 60,000 square-kilometre (24,000 square-mile) search zone based on the plane's last satellite communication.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) stated that the survey would provide crucial information to help plan the deep water search for MH370 which is scheduled to begin in August.

‘The bathymetric (ocean floor) survey will provide a map of the underwater search zone, charting the contours, depths and composition of the seafloor in water depths up to 6,000 metres,’ the JACC said.

Fugro said in a statement that it expected its vessel to start mapping in mid-June which was expected to take about three months.
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View the complete article, including video and photos, at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...d-tragedy.html

**bsteadman1** · 06-16-2014, 08:34 PM

Flight MH370: What are they hiding?

Former pilot Chris Goodfellow maintains his view that the loss of MH370 was due to an accident but says matters should be turned over to Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch to find out what really happened

The Telegraph
Chris Goodfellow
6/16/2014

Excerpt:

In the early days of the search of MH370, when the mainstream media was favouring a terrorism-hijacking scenario or questioning if one of the pilots was suicidal, I put forward an alternative theory – that the loss of the aeroplane might have been the result of an accident. This theory was picked up on the web and went viral. I did not seek or expect such an enormous response: I wrote simply as a pilot with some knowledge of the issues defending two fellow pilots who were being much-maligned and who could not defend themselves.

More than three months have elapsed since the Boeing 777 vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of March 8, bound for Beijing. Yet the mystery of how a modern aircraft can disappear from the face of the earth continues to fascinate and appal. In this era, when delivery companies like UPS and FedEx routinely track vehicles via global satellite positioning (GPS), it seems incredible that this passenger jet, capable of auto-landing in total fog, did not carry a device broadcasting its position in real time and independent of all other systems on board. If one good thing comes out of this accident, it will be a new regulation making the fitting of such a device compulsory.

Since the aircraft belonged to Malaysian Airlines and the incident is presumed to have started in Malaysian airspace, the lead nation in the investigation is Malaysia. In my opinion, this is the Achilles heel of the inquiry. The majority owner of Malaysian Airlines Systems (MAS) is PMB, a Malaysian government holding company. MAS has clocked up net losses of $1.3 billion (£766 million) in the past three years. This is a clear conflict of interest, which has resulted, intentionally or otherwise, in a bungled investigation. If the bungling is intentional, then might it have something to do with the cargo that MH370 was carrying (more of which later)? Until this matter is resolved, the disappearance will continue to be surrounded by conspiracy theories. For me, the answer is clear: the one party benefiting from the continuing state of confusion surrounding MH370 is Malaysia.

The disappearance of this twin-engine wide-body airliner is without parallel in modern aviation, a mystery replete with questions. But what is certain is that something fast and furious occurred on that aircraft as it flew over the South China Sea.

There is always the possibility of design flaw in anything mechanical, and there is an established procedure by which aircraft manufacturers and regulators handle these issues. Service Bulletins (SBs) issued by manufacturers, and Airworthiness Directives (ADs) issued by regulators keep the industry informed. The Boeing 777 has had its share of such notices, and there are two in particular that are relevant to MH370 – one involving a short-circuit in the hose feeding emergency oxygen to the crew, and one warning of possible rupturing of the aircraft pressure vessel due to the mounting of a satellite communications antenna.

The former was responsible for a well-documented accident (fortunately on the ground at Cairo) involving an Egyptair 777. The resultant fire destroyed the cabin and burned a hole through the plane, and would have been catastrophic if it had occurred in mid-air. The satellite antenna issue could also be fatal, tearing the aircraft’s skin and resulting in rapid depressurisation. It is time for the Malaysian authorities to show that checks and modifications regarding these issues and contained in SBs and ADs were complied with.

But the issue that requires most clarity remains the plane’s cargo. It took almost three weeks for the world to learn that MH370 had been carrying a consignment of lithium-ion batteries. But we do not know for sure how many. What else of a hazardous nature was being carried? Published cargo records show neither the real shippers nor the real recipients. The international community should demand total transparency from the Malaysians in regard to this. After all, huge resources have been spent by Australia, China, the United States and others on the so-far fruitless search for debris in the Indian Ocean.
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View the complete article, including photo and videos, at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ey-hiding.html

**bsteadman** · 06-17-2014, 12:56 PM

Most likely crash site of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 'is in stretch of Indian Ocean that is yet to be searched'

Satellite company Inmarsat claims to have pinpointed crash site 'hotspot'

Tracked plane's likely flight path to stretch of the southern Indian Ocean

Search terms were on way to site but left after hearing 'pings' elsewhere

These mysterious signals were investigated but source was never found

The Daily Mail / Mail Online
John Hall
6/17/2014

Excerpt:

The most likely crash site of the missing Malaysian Airlines jet has yet to be searched, a UK satellite company has claimed.

Hourly electronic connections received by telecommunications experts Inmarsat revealed that the Boeing 777 airliner had to have come down in the southern Indian Ocean.

Scientists from the company say they have calculated the plane's most likely flight path to a 'hotspot' on the ocean floor which is some distance from previous search sites.

A major search for Flight MH370 has been under way since it disappeared with 239 passengers and crew on board after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing on March 8.

Now Inmarsat believe they have tracked the most likely crash site down to a stretch of the southern Indian Ocean that Australian search vessel the Ocean Shield failed to reach.

It is understood that the ship had at one point been on its way to the site, but turned back after picking up other signals some distance away, thought to be from the plane's flight recorders.

These 'pings' were investigated for two months during a search of 328 square miles of sea bed north west of Perth in Australia, but the source was not found.

Chris Ashton, from Inmarsat, told BBC's Horizon programme: 'It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the north east than our area of highest probability.'

Inmarsat modelled a series of arcs across the Indian Ocean based on a likely speed and heading if the plane was flown on autopilot, and found a path that lined up with data gathered from where its systems made contact with the jet.

Mr Ashton said: 'We can identify a path that matches exactly with all those frequency measurements and with the timing measurements and lands on the final arc at a particular location, which then gives us a sort of a hotspot area on the final arc where we believe the most likely area is.'

A number of countries are continuing to negotiate on how to fund the next phase search, which will cover almost 21,600 square miles of seabed beneath water up to 4.3 miles deep
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View the complete article, including photos, at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-searched.html

Announcement

Most likely crash site of MH370 is in unsearched area of Indian Ocean

Most likely crash site of MH370 is in unsearched area of Indian Ocean

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