Malaysian flight with 239 people aboard missing, including 153 Chinese nationals

InformationSociety · Apr 8, 2014

Australian ship trawls for signals from missing Malaysia plane

By Jane Wardell and Swati Pandey
SYDNEY/PERTH, Australia Tue Apr 8, 2014 1:53am EDT

(Reuters) - An Australian ship which picked up possible "pings" from the black box recorders of a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner has been unable to detect any further signals and time is running out to narrow the massive search, officials said on Tuesday.

Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency coordinating the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, said the month-long hunt in the Indian Ocean was at a critical stage given the batteries in the black box beacons had already reached the end of their 30-day expected life.

A U.S. Navy "towed pinger locator" onboard Australia's Ocean Shield picked up two "ping" signal detections over the weekend - the first for more than two hours and the second for about 13 minutes.

Houston said the signals sounded very much like black box beacons and represented the best lead in the search yet, but efforts to pick up the pings again had so far been unsuccessful.

"If we don't get any further transmissions, we have a reasonably large search area of the bottom of the ocean to prosecute and that will take a long, long time. It's very slow, painstaking work," said Houston.

The black boxes record cockpit data and may provide answers about what happened to the plane, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished on March 8 and flew thousands of kilometers off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.

Authorities have not ruled out mechanical problems as a cause of the plane's disappearance but say evidence, including loss of communications, suggests it was deliberately diverted.

Analysis of satellite data led investigators to conclude the Boeing 777 came down in an area some 1,680 km (1,040 miles) northwest of Perth, where possible pings were picked up and the search is now focused.

BLUEFIN ON HOLD

An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) named Bluefin-21 is onboard the Ocean Shield and could be sent to look for wreckage on the sea floor, but narrowing the search zone first was critical, Houston said.

"It is a large area for a small submersible that has a very narrow field of search, and of course, it is literally crawling along the bottom of the ocean," he said.

"That's why it's so important to get another transmission and we need to continue until there's absolutely no chance the device is still transmitting."

The Bluefin will scour the ocean floor in 20-hour missions using sonar in an attempt to find the Boeing 777, before its findings are downloaded and analyzed on board the Ocean Shield.

If anything unusual is spotted, the sonar on board the robotic vehicle will be replaced with a camera to take a closer look. The potential search area is about 4.5 km (2.8 miles) deep, the outer reach of the Bluefin's range.

Some 133 missions have been completed so far in the multinational aerial hunt for debris in the southern Indian Ocean but have only turned up fishing gear and other detritus.

"They go on with the same intensity that we have carried through to this point in time," Defence Minister David Johnston told reporters. "We are throwing everything at this difficult and complex task."

Up to eleven military planes, three civilian planes and 14 ships will take part in the search on Tuesday, with the Australian coordination center reporting good weather in the search area.

(Additional reporting by Lincoln Feast in Sydney and Anuradha Raghu in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Dean Yates and Michael Perry)

InformationSociety · Apr 9, 2014

New ping signals spark confidence in Malaysia Airlines search

By Matt Siegel and Swati Pandey
SYDNEY/PERTH, Australia Wed Apr 9, 2014 2:35am EDT

Makio Miyagawa (R), Japanese ambassador to Malaysia, Hideki Jufuku (2nd R), commander of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force and Royal Malaysian Air Force members wave to Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force P3C crew departing to Pearce Airbase, to continue search operations of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, at Subang Airbase near Kuala Lumpur April 9, 2014. REUTERS-Samsul Said

(Reuters) - Australian officials said on Wednesday that two new "ping" signals had been detected in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, boosting confidence after more than a month of fruitless searching for the missing jetliner.

The signals, which could be from the plane's black box recorders, bring to four the number of overall "pings" detected in recent days within the search area by a U.S. Navy "Towed Pinger Locator"(TPL).

Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency coordinating the search, struck an optimistic tone when announcing the information, but urged caution as the task of searching the remote Indian Ocean region remained enormous.

"I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify aircraft wreckage before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370," Houston told reporters in Perth.

"I'm now optimistic that we will find the aircraft, or what is left of the aircraft, in the not too distant future."

The black boxes record cockpit data and may provide answers about what happened to the plane, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished on March 8 and flew thousands of kilometers off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.

But the batteries in the beacons have already reached the end of their 30-day expected life, making efforts to swiftly locate them all the more critical.

Authorities say evidence suggests the plane was deliberately diverted by someone familiar with the aircraft, but have not ruled out mechanical problems.

Analysis of satellite data led investigators to conclude the Boeing 777 came down in a remote area of the Indian Ocean, some 2,261 kms (1,405 miles) northwest of the Australian city of Perth.

FRESH PINGS BUT IN A LARGE AREA

Up to 11 military aircraft, four civilian aircraft and 14 ships were planned to carry on Wednesday with a massive search that has, so far, yielded frustratingly little concrete information.

On the weekend, the sophisticated U.S. Navy TPL picked up what officials said were two signals consistent with black box locator beacons - the first for more than two hours and the second for about 13 minutes.

On Wednesday, Houston said that another ping was detected on Tuesday afternoon and lasted five minutes, 25 seconds, while a second was picked up on Tuesday night and lasted seven minutes. That brings to four the number of pings found in the area.

But two U.S. Navy officers told Reuters on Wednesday that while the pings had been found within a 1,300 square kilometer area, they were not confident that they represented reoccurrences of the same signal.

"I'd say they are separate acoustic events," said U.S. Navy Captain Mark Matthews, citing the fact that the pings are not close together.

"There has been variability in the geographic position which leads me to be less optimistic than I would be if I could consistently reacquire the signal so that I have a nice, small geographic area to focus the autonomous under water vehicle search on," he added.

An autonomous underwater vehicle named Bluefin-21 is onboard the Ocean Shield and could be sent to look for wreckage on the sea floor once intelligence narrows the search area.

The potential search area is currently about 4.5 km (2.8 miles) deep, the outer reach of the Bluefin's range.

A RACE AGAINST TIME

Although the batteries in the black box recorders are thought to have a lifespan of roughly 30 days, officials have said they can last for as long as two weeks beyond that time.

That meant the search was becoming even more of a race against time than it has been up to now, said Houston.

"I mean, we are looking at this stage for transmissions that are probably weaker than they would have been early on because the batteries of both devices are passed their use-by date and they will very shortly fail," he said.

Despite the new signals being detected, Houston insisted that search teams should exhaust the capability of planes and vessels before deploying underwater vehicles.

"Bear in mind, that the time spent on the surface we're covering six times more area and any given time than we'll be able to do when we go underwater," Houston said.

"So with the batteries likely to fade or fail very shortly, we need to get as much positional data as we can so that we can define a very small search area."

(Reporting by Matt Siegel in SYDNEY, Swati Pandey in PERTH; Editing by Michael Perry)

InformationSociety · Apr 9, 2014

Unmanned submarine put on hold as MH370 search officials continue to hunt for 'pings'

The Bluefin 21 miniature submarine will use sonar to create images of the seabed in an effort to locate debris

PUBLISHED : Monday, 07 April, 2014, 4:18pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 08 April, 2014, 4:49pm

Agencies in Perth

The Bluefin 21 is hoisted back on board the Australian Defense Vessel Ocean Shield. Photo: AFP

An unmanned submarine that the Australian government said would be launched today to help search for missing flight MH370 will not be deployed until the search area has been further narrowed down, officials said today.

Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency coordinating the search, said the Bluefin 21 would only be put in the water when search teams had picked up more signals.

Able Seaman Clearance Divers Matthew Johnston (right) and Michael Arnold embarked on Australian Defence Vessel Ocean shield to scan the water for debris of the missing flight near Perth, Australia. Photo: EPA

"It is a large area for a small submersible that has a very narrow field of search, and of course, it is literally crawling along the bottom of the ocean," he said.

"That’s why its so important to get another transmission and we need to continue until there’s absolutely no chance the device is still transmitting."

Australia's Acting prime Minister Warren Truss said earlier that the submarine would be put in the water close to where possible black box 'pings' were detected.

The three search areas in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia, where 12 planes and 14 ships are searching for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Photo: AMSA/EPA

Once launched from the Australian navy's Ocean Shield ship, it will use sonar to create images of the seabed in an effort to locate any debris from the flight, which went missing a month ago today.

If any potential wreckage is discovered the sub will be fitted with a camera and sent back to photograph the scene.

Crews have so far had no luck in relocating the signals that were picked up at the weekend, Truss said.

"Today is another critical day as we try and reconnect with the signals that perhaps have been emanating from the black box flight recorder of the MH370," he said.

"The connections two days ago were obviously a time of great hope that there had been a significant breakthrough and it was disappointing that we were unable to repeat that experience yesterday."

Australian former Defence Chief Angus Houston has revealed an Australian navy ship has detected new underwater signals consistent with aircraft black boxes. Photo: EPA

“Everyone’s anxious about the life of the batteries on the black box flight recorders. Sometimes they go on for many, many weeks longer than they’re mandated to operate for — we hope that’ll be the case in this instance. But clearly there is an aura of urgency about the investigation.”

Finding the plane's two black boxes is crucial in unravelling what happened to the Malaysia Airlines jet after it vanished from radar screens on March 8.

The Ocean Shield, using a "towed pinger locator" detected underwater "signals" consistent with black box transmissions for more than two hours on Sunday, officials revealed yesterday.

Former Australian defence force chief Angus Houston, who is leading the Perth-based hunt, said the signals in the Indian Ocean suggested ships and planes were searching "very close to where we need to be".

But search teams are locked in a race against time, with batteries in the plane's two flight data recorders powerful enough to emit pings for only about a month.

Houston said the navy's Ocean Shield first detected the signal late on Saturday night, holding it for two hours and 20 minutes before it was lost.

After making a turn, it again detected a pulse, receiving it for 13 minutes. "On this occasion, two distinct pinger returns were audible," he said.

"Significantly, this would be consistent with transmissions from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder."

US Navy Captain Mark Matthews talks to reporters. Photo: EPA

Warning that it could take days to confirm whether they were black box signals, he added: "Clearly this is a most promising lead, and probably in the search so far, it's … the best information that we have had.

"We've got a visual indication on a screen and we've also got an audible signal - and the audible signal sounds to me just like an emergency locator beacon."

Malaysia's acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said last night: "We are cautiously hopeful there will be a positive development in the next few days, if not hours."

The airliner's black boxes normally emit a frequency of 37.5 kilohertz, while both signals picked up by the Australian ship were 33.3 kilohertz, said US Navy Captain Mark Matthews.

However, officials contacted the manufacturer of the flight recorders and were told the frequency could drift near the end of their shelf lives.

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Malaysian Defence Minister and acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein (left) and Malaysia's Department Civil Aviation Director General Azharuddin Abdul Rahman listen to a question from journalist during a media conference in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: EPA

News of the Australian discovery came as the British ship HMS Echo spent yesterday scouring the seas following reports that the crew of the Chinese Haixun 01 had detected brief signals using a device dangled over the side of the vessel, 555 kilometres away.

Twelve planes and 14 ships were yesterday searching three designated zones, one of which overlaps with the Ocean Shield's underwater search.

Last night the head of Malaysia Airlines, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, again refused to be drawn on whether he would resign. He said: "I have work to do here."

Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse

InformationSociety · Apr 10, 2014

More pings raise hopes that plane wreckage will be found soon

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 09 April, 2014, 9:06am
UPDATED : Thursday, 10 April, 2014, 3:34am

Agencies in Perth

Australian seamen scour the ocean for debris. Photo: AFPTwo more underwater signals had been detected in the hunt for flight MH370, officials said yesterday, raising hopes that wreckage of the plane would be found within days.

The "pings" were picked up during a sweep of the Indian Ocean on Tuesday by the Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield.

Angus Houston, who is leading the search operation, said sounds detected in the same area last week had been analysed and were "consistent with the specification and description of a flight data recorder".

"[The analysts] therefore assess that the transmission was not of natural origin and was likely sourced from specific electronic equipment," he said.

"I'm now optimistic that we will find the aircraft or what is left of the aircraft in the not too distant future, but we haven't found it yet because this is a very challenging business."

Despite the two new detections, Houston acknowledged that search crews were running out of time in the hunt for the Malaysia Airlines aircraft's two black boxes, as batteries powering transmissions run down.

Signals picked up at the weekend were held for more than two hours, while the latest sounds lasted for just five-and-a-half minutes and seven minutes.

Once the beacons fall silent, locating the flight recorders, thought to be in water some 4.5 kilometres deep, would be an immensely difficult, if not impossible, task.

"We need to, as we say in Australia, 'make hay while the sun shines'," Houston said. "I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify the aircraft before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370."

No other ships are allowed near the Ocean Shield while it pulls along the "towed pinger locator" because its work must be done in an environment as free of noise as possible.

A modified Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion has been parachuting sonar buoys into the vicinity. The buoys float on the surface and have a hydrophone dangling 300 metres below to hopefully pick up any transmissions. Officials warned though that transmissions could be dulled by thick silt on the seabed.

Houston said a decision had not yet been made on how long searchers would wait before an unmanned submarine was deployed. Such a vehicle will use sonar to map the seabed, a long, laborious task.

The search for debris on the surface of the ocean picked up intensity yesterday, with 15 planes and 14 ships scouring an area of 75,427 square kilometres northwest of Perth. Flight MH370 and the 239 people it was carrying vanished on March 8 after leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.

Associated Press, Agence France-Presse

InformationSociety · Apr 12, 2014

Exclusive: Malaysia starts investigating confused initial response to missing jet

By Siva Govindasamy and Niluksi Koswanage
KUALA LUMPUR Fri Apr 11, 2014 10:42am EDT

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Australian PM says searchers confident of position of MH370's black boxes

(Reuters) - Malaysia's government has begun investigating civil aviation and military authorities to determine why opportunities to identify and track Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 were missed in the chaotic hours after it vanished, two officials said.

The preliminary internal enquiries come as tensions mount between civilian and military authorities over who bears most responsibility for the initial confusion and any mistakes that led to a week-long search in the wrong ocean.

"What happened at that time is being investigated and I can't say any more than that because it involves the military and the government," a senior government official told Reuters.

In an interview with Reuters last weekend, Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said internal enquiries were under way, although he declined to give details.

A government spokesman did not respond to Reuters questions over whether an investigation had been launched. The senior government source said it was aimed at getting a detailed picture of the initial response. It was unclear which government department was in charge or whether a formal probe had been opened.

Malaysia's opposition coalition has demanded a parliamentary inquiry into what happened on the ground in those first few hours. Government officials have said any formal inquiry should not begin until the flight's black box recorders are found.

The Boeing 777 was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it disappeared on March 8. Malaysia says it believes the plane crashed into the southern Indian Ocean after being deliberately diverted from its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.

A search effort is taking place well out to sea off the Australian city of Perth to try to locate any wreckage as well as the recorders which may provide answers to what happened onboard.

MECHANICAL PROBLEM ASSUMED

Interviews with the senior government source and four other civilian and military officials show that air traffic controllers and military officials assumed the plane had turned back to an airport in Malaysia because of mechanical trouble when it disappeared off civilian radar screens at 1:21 a.m. local time.

That assumption took hold despite no distress call or other communication coming from the cockpit, which could have been a clue that the plane had been hijacked or deliberately diverted.

The five sources together gave Reuters the most detailed account yet of events in the hour after the plane vanished. All declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue and because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

"The initial assumption was that the aircraft could have diverted due to mechanical issues or, in the worst case scenario, crashed," said a senior Malaysian civilian source. "That is what we were working on."

Officials at Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation, which oversees air traffic controllers, the Defence Ministry and the air force directed requests for comment to the prime minister's office, which did not respond.

One senior military official said air traffic control had informed the military at around 2:00 a.m. that a plane was missing. The standard operating procedure was to do so within 15 minutes, he said. Another military source said the notification was slow in coming, but did not give a time.

Civil aviation officials told Reuters their response was in line with guidelines, but they did not give a specific time for when the military was informed.

Once alerted, military radar picked up an unidentified plane heading west across peninsular Malaysia, the senior military official said. The air force has said a plane that could have been MH370 was last plotted on military radar at 2:15 a.m., 320 km (200 miles) northwest of the west coast state of Penang.

PLANE TRACKED IN REAL TIME?

Top military officials have publicly said Malaysia's U.S. and Russian-made fighter jets stationed at air force bases in Penang and the east coast state of Kuantan were not scrambled to intercept the plane because it was not viewed as "hostile".

"When we were alerted, we got our boys to check the military radar. We noticed that there was an unmarked plane flying back but (we) could not confirm (its identity)," said the senior military source. "Based on the information we had from ATC (Air Traffic Control) and DCA (Department of Civil Aviation), we did not send up any jets because it was possibly mechanical problems and the plane might have been going back to Penang."

The military has not publicly acknowledged it tracked the plane in real time as it crossed back over the peninsula.

While fighter jets would not have had enough fuel to track a Boeing 777 for long and darkness would have complicated the operation, they could have spotted MH370 flying across peninsular Malaysia and possibly beyond, aviation experts said.

That could have enabled Malaysia to get a better fix on where it was headed and thus possibly ruled out the need to search off its east coast in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, around where MH370 was last seen on civilian radar.

Fighter pilots should be able to scramble within minutes, aviation experts said, although the time can vary widely from country to country. In Europe and North America, radar experts said controllers were trained to coordinate across civil and military lines and across borders.

They said military jets would have been scrambled, as they were from a Greek air force base in 2005 when a Helios Airways jet with 121 people on board lost contact over the Aegean Sea after suffering a decompression that knocked out the pilots. Two F-16 jets could see the captain's seat empty and the first officer slumped over the controls. The plane crashed in Greece after running out of fuel.

"This raises questions of coordination between military and civil controllers," former pilot Hugh Dibley, a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, said of Malaysia's response.

BUREAUCRATIC DELAYS

Another contentious issue has been whether the military was slow in passing on its radar data that showed an unidentified plane had re-crossed the Malay peninsula.

Two civilian aviation officials said military bureaucracy delayed the sharing of this information, although they gave no precise timeframe for when it was handed over.

"The armed forces knew much earlier that the aircraft could have turned back. That is why the search was expanded to include the Strait of Malacca within a day or two," said a second senior civilian source, who was familiar with the initial search, referring to the narrow stretch of water between Indonesia and Malaysia, on the western side of the peninsula.

"But the military did not confirm this until much later due to resistance from senior officers, and the government needed to step in. We wasted our time in the South China Sea."

Government sources have said Prime Minister Najib Razak had to force the military to turn over its raw radar data to investigators during the first week after the flight's disappearance.

Military officials have said they did not want to risk causing confusion by sharing the data before it had been verified, adding this was why Air Force chief Rodzali Daud went to the air base in Penang on March 9, where the plane's final radar plot was recorded.

On the same day, Rodzali said the search was being expanded to the west coast, although Reuters has not been able to determine if that meant the data was being shared with other Malaysian officials.

On March 12, four days after Flight MH370 disappeared, Rodzali told reporters there was still no confirmation the unidentified plane had been Flight MH370, but added Malaysia was sharing the radar data with international civilian and military authorities, including those from the United States.

Authorities called off the search in the South China Sea on March 15 after Razak said satellite data showed the plane could have taken a course anywhere from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean.

FEARS OF LOSING JOBS

A sixth source, a senior official in the civil aviation sector, said the plane's disappearance had exposed bureaucratic dysfunction in Malaysia, which has rarely been subject to such international demands for transparency. "There was never the need for these silos to speak to one another. It's not because of ill intent, it's just the way the system was set up," the official said.

The accounts given to Reuters reveal growing tensions between civilian officials, the military and Malaysia Airlines over whether more could have been done in those initial hours.

One of the Reuters sources said military officials in particular were concerned they could lose their jobs.

Tensions have also emerged between the government and state-controlled Malaysia Airlines.

Malaysia's defence minister and acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said in an interview with China's CCTV that the airline would have to "answer" for its mistakes in dealing with the relatives of the some 150 Chinese passengers on board.

In his interview with Reuters, Malaysia Airlines chief Ahmad Jauhari played down talk of tension, saying there were "slight differences of opinion."

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in PARIS; Writing by Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Alex Richardson and Dean Yates)

InformationSociety · Apr 12, 2014

Australian PM's confidence over black box signals from MH370 rejected by search chief

Australian PM’s ‘confidence’ over black box signal goes against latest statement from search chief

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 10 April, 2014, 6:05pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 12 April, 2014, 3:11am

Danny Lee and Angela Meng

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott expressed optimism over the hunt for missing flight MH370 during an official visit to China yesterday - despite the search chief's insistence there had been no new breakthrough.

Abbott said after attending a luncheon in Shanghai: "We have very much narrowed down the search area and we are very confident that the signals we are detecting are from the black box on MH370."

He said the hunt was focused on a narrow zone in the southern Indian Ocean and officials "knew the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometres", Xinhua reported.

Abbott, who later met President Xi Jinping in Beijing, warned that recovering the flight data and cockpit voice recorders would still be a "long, slow and painstaking process".

Tony Abbott meets Xi Jinping in Beijing yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Abbott's optimism was in contrast to comments from the head of the agency co-ordinating the search effort, retired air chief marshal Angus Houston.

He said the fifth and latest "ping" signal, detected on Thursday, was not related to MH370.

And Houston cautioned that the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre would not be rushed into deploying underwater vessels to search for the recorders.

He said yesterday in a statement that appeared to contradict Abbott's assertions: "A decision as to when to deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle will be made on advice from experts … and could be some days away.

"There has been no major breakthrough in the search."

The recorders may help investigators solve the biggest mystery in modern aviation history.

The Malaysia Airlines plane was carrying 239 people - 154 of them Chinese - when it vanished on March 8 on its way from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur.

The flight changed course and headed in the opposite direction.

Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) supervising the search, says the ping is "unlikely" to be from the black box. Photo: Xinhua

Investigators believe it was diverted deliberately, either for an emergency or other reasons.

The hunt has brought together more than 25 countries, but only a few of them are equipped with the deep-water technology needed to retrieve the recorders. Pings detected in the search are believed to have come from a depth of 4,500 metres.

The black boxes from Air France flight 447, which crashed into the mid-Atlantic in 2009, were retrieved at 4,000 metres.

Stefan Williams, a professor of marine robotics at Sydney University, said the Australia-led search team lacked the necessary equipment.

But he added: "There are remotely controlled vehicles available which are capable of operating at those depths. Deep water equipment is designed to go down to 6,000 metres. The US in particular has a number of systems used previously in the search for the Air France flight."

After Malaysia announced the delay of a diplomatic trip to China next week, Beijing postponed the delivery of two goodwill pandas scheduled to arrive in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday until an "appropriate time".

Additional reporting by Associated Press

InformationSociety · Apr 12, 2014

Scammers target MH370 families

Yahoo!7 and wires April 12, 2014, 4:35 pm<object id="flashObj" classid="clsid :biggrin:

Scammers are targeting relatives of those aboard missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

A bogus email has been sent to the families of missing passengers suggesting compensation claims are possible even though the aircraft hasn't yet been found.

"At a minimum, an international aviation treaty allows the next-of-kin of the plane's MH370 passengers to seek up to US$175,000 equivalent in your local currency," it says.

This purports to come from Allen Helter of Malaysia Airlines and urges those claiming to contact Mohamed Bin Abd Wahab of the Eon Bank in Kuala Lumpur.

However, the email originates from an account in Hong Kong.

It appears to be a standard advance fee fraud, with those seeking compensation first required to pay administrative charges before funds can be released.

A woman, one of the relatives of Chinese passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 shows her mobile phone displaying a photo of her father, who was aboard the missing plane near the wall displaying messages of wishes for the passengers at a hotel in Beijing, China. Photo: AP

Focus turns on Malaysian authorities

Malaysia's government has begun investigating civil aviation and military authorities to determine why opportunities to identify and track Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 were missed in the chaotic hours after it vanished, two officials said.

The preliminary internal enquiries come as tensions mount between civilian and military authorities over who bears most responsibility for the initial confusion and any mistakes that led to a week-long search in the wrong ocean.

"What happened at that time is being investigated and I can't say any more than that because it involves the military and the government," a senior government official told Reuters.

In an interview with Reuters last weekend, Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said internal enquiries were under way, although he declined to give details.

A government spokesman did not respond to Reuters questions over whether an investigation had been launched. The senior government source said it was aimed at getting a detailed picture of the initial response. It was unclear which government department was in charge or whether a formal probe had been opened.

Malaysia's opposition coalition has demanded a parliamentary inquiry into what happened on the ground in those first few hours. Government officials have said any formal inquiry should not begin until the flight's black box recorders are found.

In this map provided on Friday, April 11, 2014, by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, details are presented on the search for the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean off the Australian west coast.. Photo: AP

The Boeing 777 was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it disappeared on March 8. Malaysia says it believes the plane crashed into the southern Indian Ocean after being deliberately diverted from its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.

A search effort is taking place well out to sea off the Australian city of Perth to try to locate any wreckage as well as the recorders which may provide answers to what happened onboard.

Authorities had narrowed down the search area for the plane to a 10-square kilometre radius as the hunt for the black box narrowed.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has briefed Chinese President Xi Jinping about the search for MH370, warning him there could be a long and painstaking road ahead.

Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) co-pilot squadron leader Brett McKenzie, left, and Flight Engineer Trent Wyatt sit in the cockpit aboard a P-3 Orion on route to search over the southern Indian Ocean looking for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Photo: AP

Mr Abbott updated President Xi on the Australian-led search effort for the Malaysia Airlines plane in the Indian Ocean during a bilateral meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The prime minister said Australian authorities had very much narrowed down the search area to some kilometres after receiving "strong detections" from what they're confident is the plane's black box.

But he didn't mince words, warning his Chinese counterpart there was still a long way to go.
"This will be a very long, slow and painstaking process," he said.

News limited websites have reported Mr Abbott told the Chinese President that the Australian ship Ocean Shield had narrowed down the search area in the Indian Ocean where pings from the flight recorders were detected to a grid of around 10km by 10km.

Mr Abbott's comments came after a day of somewhat mixed messages from authorities leading the search for MH370, which has been missing for five weeks, since March 8.

The prime minister told business leaders in Shanghai on Friday that the search in the Indian Ocean was narrowing.

"We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometres," Mr Abbott said.

A short time later Australian search coordinator, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, indicated there was little change in the search area.

"On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370," Mr Houston said.

He said signals apparently detected by an Australian search aircraft on Thursday were ruled not to have come from a black box flight recorder.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre issued a statement on Friday saying the search area still totalled 46,713 square kilometres - vastly different from Mr Abbott's statement.

Still, there remains strong hope that the flight's all-important black box recorder could be found.

Its batteries are expected to expire soon, so time remains critical.

The Australian vessel Ocean Shield has to date recorded four signals that are believed to have come from at least a black box recorder.

The Ocean Shield on Friday was in an area about 2200km northwest of Perth continuing sweeps of its pinger locator to detect further signals.

Orion aircraft were also continuing the search.

PrivateEyes · Apr 13, 2014

MH370 co-pilot tried phone call mid-flight, report says

Plane flew low enough over Penang for signal to be picked up, Malaysian newspaper says

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 13 April, 2014, 5:41am
UPDATED : Sunday, 13 April, 2014, 7:36am

Agence France-Presse in Kuala Lumpur

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott appeared to step back from his comments on Friday when he voiced great confidence that signals from the "black box" had been detected. Photo: AP

The co-pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 attempted to make a mid-flight call from his mobile phone just before the plane vanished from radar screens, a Malaysian newspaper reported yesterday, citing unnamed investigators.

The call ended abruptly possibly "because the aircraft was fast moving away from the [telecommunications] tower", the New Straits Times quoted a source as saying.

But the report also quoted another source saying that while Fariq Abdul Hamid's "line was reattached", there was no certainty that a call was made.

The report - titled a "Desperate call for help" - did not say whom he was trying to contact.

Meanwhile the search for the plane continued in the southern Indian Ocean as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott appeared to step back from his comments on Friday when he voiced great confidence that signals from the "black box" had been detected.

Abbott repeated his confidence in the search, but stressed the difficulties remaining.

"We do have a high degree of confidence the transmissions we have been picking up are from flight MH370," Abbott said in Beijing on the last day of a visit to China. But he added: "No one should underestimate the difficulties of the task ahead of us.

"Yes, we have very considerably narrowed down the search area but trying to locate anything 4.5 kilometres beneath the surface of the ocean about a thousand kilometres from land is a massive, massive task and it is likely to continue for a long time to come."

The search area now covers 41,393 square kilometres and the core of the search zone lies 2,330 kilometres northwest of Perth.

The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared soon after taking off on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.

Fariq and Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah came under intense scrutiny after the plane vanished.

The NST report said flight 370 flew low enough near Penang island on Malaysia's west coast for a telecommunications tower to pick up the co-pilot's phone signal. The phone line was "reattached" between the time the plane veered off course and blipped off the radar.

Malaysia's Transport Ministry said it was examining the report.

PrivateEyes · Apr 14, 2014

Malaysia rejects reports of phone calls from missing jet

AFP-Xinhua | 2014-4-14 1:03:01

Malaysia on Sunday rejected claims that phone calls were made from Flight MH370 before it vanished, but refused to rule out any possibility in a so far fruitless investigation into the jet's disappearance.

Malaysia's New Straits Times, quoting an anonymous source, reported Saturday that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid made a call which ended abruptly, possibly "because the aircraft was fast moving away from the (telecommunications) tower."

There had also been unconfirmed reports of calls by the Malaysia Airlines plane's captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah before or during the flight.

Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters Sunday that authorities had no knowledge of any calls from the jet's cockpit.

"As far as I know, no," he said when asked if any calls had been made.

However, he added that he did not want to speculate on "the realm of the police and other international agencies" investigating the case.

"I do not want to disrupt the investigations that are being done now not only by the Malaysian police but the FBI, MI6, Chinese intelligence and other intelligence agencies," he said.

The police chief also clarified last week that passengers had not categorically been cleared since the investigation was ongoing.

Several theories have been put forward during the investigation including hijacking, a terrorist plot or a pilot gone rogue. But authorities are clutching at straws as to the fate of the plane without crucial data from the jet's "black box" flight recorder, which has yet to be located, and without any wreckage.

Several sonic "pings" which authorities have said are consistent with a black box have been detected in the search area in South Indian Ocean.

But Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said Sunday that another 24 hours had passed without a confirmed signal, increasing fears that batteries in the beacons attached to the plane's two black boxes may now have run flat.

There were 12 aircraft and 14 ships combing a 57,506 square kilometer area on Sunday.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Chinese media the search was narrowing, with "a high level of confidence" that the black box will be located.

PrivateEyes · Apr 15, 2014

Unmanned submersible set to scour Indian Ocean seabed in hunt for missing flight MH370

PUBLISHED : Monday, 14 April, 2014, 7:22pm
UPDATED : Monday, 14 April, 2014, 11:36pm

Agencies in Perth

Bluefin 21, the autonomous underwater vehicle, is hoisted back onboard the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield after test in the southern Indian Ocean. Photo: Reuters

Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC), speaks at a press conference in Perth. Photo: Xinhua

An unmanned submarine was last night due to be lowered into the Indian Ocean to scour the seabed for wreckage from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, as an oil slick spotted by a ship's crew provided another glimmer of hope that the hunt is coming to an end.

The Bluefin 21 will replace the "towed pinger locator" that was being pulled along by the ship Ocean Shield in an attempt to trace signals from the Boeing 777's black boxes.

Four possible signals were detected from April 5 to 8, but after six days of silence experts fear the batteries from the flight recorders may have died.

Angus Houston, who is heading the search operation, said yesterday: "We haven't had a single detection in six days so I guess it's time to go underwater."

The submarine will use sonar technology to compose a high-resolution 3D map of the seabed, which should reveal any wreckage on the ocean floor.

But it will be working at its limits as it is built to operate at a maximum depth of 4,500 metres - the approximate depth of the ocean in the area that the search teams are targeting.

The current planned search area in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia. Photo: EPA

Houston warned it would be a "slow and painstaking process", with the craft covering just 40 square kilometres in each 24-hour period.

Houston described the ocean floor at the search site, where the plane and 239 people onboard may have come to rest, as "an area new to man".

"It's not sharply mountainous or anything, it's more flat and almost rolling, but we understand ... that part of the Indian Ocean has a lot of silt. That will complicate how things are on the bottom."

Meanwhile, Houston revealed that the crew of the Ocean Shield had detected an oil slick approximately 5.5 kilometres downwind from the vicinity of the "pings" heard last week. Two litres of the oil have been scooped up for analysis, although it will be several days before the sample can be taken ashore and tested.

Associated Press, Agence France-Presse

PrivateEyes · Apr 15, 2014

More than half of Malaysians believe government withheld MH370 information

PUBLISHED : Monday, 14 April, 2014, 2:19pm
UPDATED : Monday, 14 April, 2014, 4:36pm

Andrea Chen
[email protected]

Malaysian Defence Minister and acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussin hugs a family member of a missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 during his visit in Putrajaya on March 29, 2014. Photo: EPA

Over half of Malaysians say their government have been withholding information in the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, a survey by a Malaysian opinion research firm has found.

The poll results, reported in news portal The Malaysian Insider, indicated that 54 per cent of the 1,029 respondents believed the Malaysian government hid information about Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Boeing 777-200 plane disappeared from civilian radar screens hours after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing on March 8.

Some 26 per cent of the respondents said the government had been truthful, while one fifth said they were unsure.

Almost all of the ethnic Chinese Malaysians who took part in the poll, along with a slight majority of Malay and Indian respondents, said they doubted the government had been transparent about information on the missing flight.

The survey was conducted by the opinion research firm Merdeka Centre from March 24 to 30, according to The Malaysian Insider.

Over a thousand respondents, proportional to the population in each parliamentary constituency, were selected through random stratified sampling methods in line with ethnicity, gender and age, said the firm.

The survey results did not surprise Wan Saiful Wan Jan, Chief Executive Officer of the Kuala Lumpur-based think tank Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, who said the Malaysian government had a reputation for keeping information to itself.

“In fact, having press conferences on a daily basis is unthinkable before the MH370 crisis,” said Wan Saiful.

A common practice of the Malaysian government in handling domestic issues, he said, was to make announcement without taking any questions from the press.

Malaysian authorities have attracted much criticism for its poor handling of the missing jet crisis, especially during the first week when different government bodies were busy giving conflicting statements, and were later revealed to have withheld crucial radar data.

“The government is not willing to give away military secrets like the radar capability, and that it does not have the technical capability to confirm much of the information, and lacks efficient communication among different government departments,” said James Chin, a political science scholar.

The professor from Monash University in Malaysia said the half-century-long authoritarian leadership led to the state’s lack of transparency.

“Malaysia is a semi-authoritarian state. The ruling party has been in power since the founding of the country, and it is not used to being questioned,” said Chin.

Nearly a month into the search, Malaysia’s acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on April 5 that an independent investigator would be appointed to try and find out what happened to flight MH370.

Wan Saiful said the disappearance of MH370 has thrust the Malaysian government into the international spotlight and thus forced it to become more transparent to the media.

“There has been great improvement, thought we are still far from meeting the international standard,” he added.

But Chin was not as optimistic.

“It [Malaysian government] will go back to their common practice after the flight saga ends. Unless there’s a change in power, there will be no chance for a more transparent government.”

PrivateEyes · Apr 15, 2014

Undersea drone hunt for Malaysian plane may take two months

By Lincoln Feast and Byron Kaye
SYDNEY/PERTH, Australia Tue Apr 15, 2014 6:25am EDT

The Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield sails in the southern Indian Ocean as it continues to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in this picture released by the Australian Defence Force April 15, 2014. REUTERS-Australian Defence Force-Handout via Reuters

(Reuters) - A U.S. Navy underwater drone sent to search for a missing Malaysian jetliner on the floor of the Indian Ocean could take up to two months to scour a 600 sq km area where the plane is believed to have sunk, U.S. search authorities said on Tuesday.

The prediction coincided with the end to the abbreviated first mission by the Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle six hours into what was meant to be a 16-hour operation on Monday after it exceeded its 4.5 km (14,750 feet) depth limit and was automatically returned to the surface.

The introduction of the undersea drone marks a new slower paced phase in the search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 which disappeared on March 8 and is presumed to have crashed thousands of km (miles) off course with the loss of all 239 people on board.

Authorities, who soon plan to scale back the air and surface search, are confident they know the approximate position of wreckage of the Boeing 777, some 1,550 km (960 miles) northwest of Perth, and are moving ahead on the basis of four acoustic signals they believe are from its black box recorders.

But having not heard a "ping" for almost a week and with the batteries on the locator beacons two weeks past their 30-day expected life, the slow-moving "autonomous underwater vehicle" was launched on Monday to try and locate wreckage.

"The AUV takes six times longer to cover the same area as the towed pinger locator. It is estimated that it will take the AUV anywhere from six weeks to two months to scan the entire search area," Lt. J.G. Daniel S. Marciniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet, said in a statement.

From its aborted first mission, the Bluefin-21 produced six hours of data which authorities analyzed to find no objects of interest, Marciniak added. The drone was expected to embark on its second search mission late on Tuesday.

The robot, which takes two hours to descend another two to return to the surface, as well as several hours to download data, will build up a detailed acoustic image of the area using sophisticated "sidescan" sonar. It hopes to repeat its success in finding a F-15 fighter jet which crashed off Japan last year.

It is capable of spending up to 16 hours scouring the sea floor. If it detects possible wreckage, it will be sent back to photograph it in underwater conditions with extremely low light.

Officials are focusing their acoustic search on an area equivalent to a medium-sized city - 600 sq km (230 sq miles). But the much broader search area off the Australian coast covers about 60,000 sq km, according to the government.

The deep sea area now being searched, the Zenith Plateau, has never been mapped in detail because it is not in any country's economic zone.

However the sea floor is likely covered in "foraminiferal ooze", a sludge formed by microscopic marine organisms, which would show up any large metallic object clearly, James Cook University marine geologist Robin Beaman told Reuters.

"A sidescan is very good at detecting the difference in the acoustic return of a hard object versus a soft, muddy sea floor," he said. "This is quite a good environment for looking for wreck debris, albeit deep."

The Bluefin's main challenge was to remain within 50 meters (165 feet) of the seabed to ensure the best quality sidescan detection without exceeding its 4.5 km depth limit which could risk damaging it, Beaman said.

Malaysian authorities have still not ruled out mechanical problems as causing the plane's disappearance, but say evidence suggests it was deliberately diverted from its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

An aircraft's black box records data from the cockpit and conversations among flight crew and may provide answers about what happened to the missing plane.

The search for the missing plane is on track to be the most difficult and expensive search and recovery operation in aviation history.

(Additional reporting by Matt Siegel in SYDNEY; Editing by Michael Perry and Ron Popeski)

PrivateEyes · Apr 16, 2014

Malaysia Airlines MH370: Wreck hunter confident plane will be found

ABC
By Adam Harvey April 16, 2014, 5:32 am<object id="flashObj" classid="clsid :biggrin:

One of the world's foremost wreck hunters believes searchers have found the crash site of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, and recovering the plane's black boxes is inevitable.

"I think essentially they have found the wreckage site," the director of the UK-based Bluewater Recoveries, David Mearns, told 7.30.

"While the Government hasn't announced that yet, if somebody asked me: 'Technically, do they have enough information to say that?' my answer is unequivocally 'Yes'."

Mr Mearns solved one of the nation's greatest maritime mysteries when he found the wreck of HMAS Sydney deep in the Indian Ocean.

He was awarded an honorary Order of Australia for his work.

His advice was also crucial in helping to find the wreckage of Air France flight 447.

His confidence is based on the strength of the sonar "pings" emitted from the plane's black box recorders.

Those signals appear to have now stopped as the device ran out of battery strength.

"You just don't hear these signals randomly in the ocean. These are not fleeting sounds - they have got four very, very good detections, with the right spectrum of noise coming from them. It can't be from anything else," Mr Mearns said.

However, he understood why the searchers were being cautious.

The leader of the joint taskforce searching for MH370, Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, says he will wait to see wreckage before confirming the plane has been found.

"Obviously for the sake of the families and for everybody else they will want photographic proof and that will be coming shortly," Mr Mearns said.

A robotic submarine, the Bluefin21, is already scanning a five-kilometre-by-eight-kilometre area of the seabed - 4,500 metres below the surface of the Indian Ocean.

It was due to stay down for 24 hours, but automatically ascended after just two hours of scanning when it reached its maximum operating depth.

Mr Mearns says he would be surprised if the sonar search turned up anything quickly.

He expected it would take weeks, if not months, to recover the black boxes from the Boeing 777.

The plane's cockpit voice recorder and data recorder are separate devices.

He says the real breakthrough in the investigation was made during the analysis of MH370's flight path.

"Somewhere out of some place, fantastic pieces of intelligence were put together to really narrow it down to a small, small area," he said.

"And that's how these guys have been able to find it so quickly.

"The Ocean Shield was out there a couple of days and they got a hit. That has been a tremendous success and miraculous. People were searching for a miracle. This was one."

PrivateEyes · Apr 17, 2014

Robot sub makes first complete search for missing flight MH370

Unmanned sub makes first search for Debris from Flight MH370 not cut short by technical problems

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 17 April, 2014, 9:34am
UPDATED : Thursday, 17 April, 2014, 11:31am

Associated Press in Perth

Crew aboard the Ocean Shield move the US Navy’s Bluefin-21 into position to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The sub made it first complete scan on Thursday. Photo: AFP

A robotic submarine has completed its first full 16-hour mission scanning the floor of the Indian Ocean for wreckage of the missing Malaysian airliner after two previous missions were cut short by technical problems and deep water, authorities said on Thursday.

The Bluefin 21 had covered 90 square kilometres of the silt-covered sea bed off the west Australian coast in its first three missions, the search co-ordination centre said on Thursday. While data collected by the sub from its latest mission, which ended overnight, was still being analysed, nothing of note had yet been discovered, the centre said.

A total of 12 planes and 11 ships were to join what could be the final day of the surface ocean search for debris from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

Thursday’s search would cover a 40,300-square-kilometre patch of sea about 2,200 kilometres northwest of the Australian city of Perth, the centre said.

When the sea bed search began this week, authorities announced that the days of the fruitless surface search were numbered as the chances of success dwindled.

But a sample of an oil slick found this week about 5.5 kilometres from where underwater sounds that could be from an aircraft black box beacon were heard has been shipped to Perth for analysis, the centre said.

The analysis could provide further evidence that the hunt for Flight 370 was headed in the right direction. Searchers have yet to find any tangible proof that the sounds that led them to the sea floor were from the ill-fated jet.

On Wednesday, Chinese relatives stormed out of a teleconference meeting in Beijing to protest against the Malaysian government for not addressing them in person.

Relatives of Chinese passengers onboard the missing flight walk out from a video-conference with Malaysian officials in protest at communication difficulties on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

More than 100 relatives of Chinese passengers on the plane walked out of a teleconference meeting with senior Malaysian officials, an act of defiance over a lack of contact with that country’s government and for taking so long to respond to their demands.

They had gathered at a hotel where Malaysia Airlines had provided lodging and food but filed out shortly before the call with Malaysia’s civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, was about to start.

“These video conference meetings often don’t work, the sound stops and it’s constantly disrupted. Is that how we are going to communicate?” said Jiang Hui, one of the family members, after the walkout. “Do they need to waste our time in such a way?”

Jiang said the Malaysian government had not met demands the relatives had presented to them weeks ago in Malaysia – an apology for the way they’ve handled the matter along with meetings with the Malaysian government and airline officials. They also asked to sit down with executives from Boeing and Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer of the plane and its engines.

The Boeing 777 vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Radar and satellite data show it flew far off-course for an unknown reason and would have run out of fuel over the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia.

A ship-towed device detected four signals underwater that are believed to have come from the airliner’s black boxes shortly before the beacons’ batteries died. The sounds helped narrow the search area to the waters where the Bluefin 21 is now operating.

The US Navy’s unmanned sub cut short its first mission on Monday because it exceeded its maximum operating depth of 4,500 metres. Searchers moved it away from the deepest waters before redeploying the sub to scan the seabed with sonar to map a potential debris field.

In addition to finding the plane itself, investigators want to recover the black boxes in hopes the cockpit voice and flight data recorders contain answers to why the plane lost communications and flew so far off-course before disappearing.

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PrivateEyes · Apr 17, 2014

Plane search rethink within a week: PM

AAP
April 17, 2014, 1:32 pm<object id="flashObj" classid="clsid :biggrin:

PM Tony Abbott says the best leads in the search for flight MH370 will be exhausted within a week.AAP PM Tony Abbott says the best leads in the search for flight MH370 will be exhausted within a week.

The best leads in the underwater search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 will be exhausted in about a week, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Mr Abbott said if the Bluefin-21 underwater drone scanning the Indian Ocean's seabed in the search area fails to locate wreckage, a rethink would have to take place.

"We believe that search will be completed within a week or so," Mr Abbott said.

"If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider."

Mr Abbott said he was confident searchers were looking in the right place for the plane based on the electronic signals, possibly from the aircraft's black boxes, detected by equipment towed by Australian naval vessel ADV Ocean Shield on April 5 and 8.

The prime minister's latest comments come as the US media questions the Australian government's use of the single Bluefin-21 in the search area after its first two missions were aborted.

The man who led the search for aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart's plane in the Pacific Ocean has been critical of the Bluefin-21.

"I can tell you it didn't work for us," Richard Gillespie, founder of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, told CNN.
<object id="flashObj" classid="clsid :biggrin:

PrivateEyes · Apr 18, 2014

Another dead end for MH370 search as tests show oil slick was not from plane

Unmanned sub makes first search for Debris from Flight MH370 not cut short by technical problems

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 17 April, 2014, 9:34am
UPDATED : Friday, 18 April, 2014, 1:38am

Associated Press in Perth

Seaman Morgan Macdonald observes markers dropped from a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P3K Orion after an object was sighted in the southern Indian Ocean during the continuing search for the missing flight. Photo: Reuters

Investigators who analysed samples of an oil slick in the hunt for the missing Malaysian airliner say that it did not come from the plane.

The search co-ordination centre said the oil tested in the western Australian city of Perth came up negative for aircraft oil or hydraulic fluid. The oil was collected earlier this week from a slick about 5.5 kilometres from the area where equipment picked up underwater sounds consistent with an aircraft black box.

The Military Sealift Command dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Cesar Chavez conducting a replenishment-at-sea with the Royal Australian frigate HMAS Toowomba to support the international effort to locate Malaysia flight MH370. Photo: AFP

It had been hoped that the oil would be evidence that officials are looking in the right place for flight 370, which vanished March 8 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. Searchers have yet to find any physical proof that the sounds that led them to the ocean floor were from the ill-fated jet.

The centre has begun analysing data collected by a robotic submarine that completed its first successful scan of the seabed yesterday.

The unmanned sub's first two missions were cut short by technical problems and deep water, but the Bluefin 21 finally managed to complete a full 16-hour scan of the silt-covered seabed far off Australia's west coast.

Crew aboard the Ocean Shield move the US Navy’s Bluefin-21 into position to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The sub made it first complete scan on Thursday. Photo: AFP

While data collected during the mission was still being analysed, nothing of note had been discovered, the centre said. There are fears that wreckage could have been enveloped in a thick layer of m&d-like silt on the ocean floor, complicating detection and eventual recovery.

The US Navy's unmanned submarine cut short its first mission on Monday because it exceeded its maximum operating depth of 4,500 metres. Searchers moved it away from the deepest waters before redeploying the sub to scan the seabed with sonar to map a potential debris field.

But the centre said yesterday that officials are now confident that the sub can safely go deeper than was thought, allowing it to cover the entire search area, which has been narrowed based on further analysis of the four underwater signals.

Earlier this week, the search effort leader, Angus Houston, had said the surface hunt would be ending within days. But the search coordination centre said crews would continue searching the ocean surface into next week. Malaysia's defence minister, Hishamuddin Hussein, confirmed that the search would continue through the Easter weekend, but acknowledged that officials would have to rethink their strategy at some point if nothing is found.

"There will come a time when we need to regroup and reconsider, but in any event, the search will always continue. It's just a matter of approach," he said.

Radar and satellite data show the Boeing 777 flew far off course for an unknown reason and would have run out of fuel over a desolate patch of the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

PrivateEyes · Apr 19, 2014

MH370 search to be most costly ever at $100 mln: analysts

AFP
April 18, 2014, 2:51 pm

Sydney (AFP) - The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is set to be the most expensive in aviation history, analysts say, as efforts to find the aircraft deep under the Indian Ocean show no signs of slowing.

The Boeing 777 vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board, after veering dramatically off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and is believed to have crashed in the sea off Australia.

Australia, which is leading the search in a remote patch of water described as "unknown to man", has not put a figure on spending, but Malaysia has warned that costs will be "huge".

"When we look at salvaging (wreckage) at a depth of 4.5 kilometres (2.8 miles), no military out there has the capacity to do it," Transport and Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Thursday.

"We have to look at contractors, and the cost of that will be huge."

Ravikumar Madavaram, an aviation expert at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, said Malaysia, Australia and China, which had the most nationals onboard the flight, were the biggest spenders and estimated the total cost up to now at about US$100 million (72 million euros).

"It's difficult to say how much is the cost of this operation ... but, yes, this is definitely the biggest operation ever (in aviation history).

"In terms of costs this would be the highest," he told AFP.

- Hopes rest on submersible -

In the first month of the search -- in which the South China Sea and Malacca Strait were also scoured by the US, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam -- the Pentagon said the United States military had committed US$7.3 million to efforts to find the plane.

Meanwhile the Indian Ocean search, in which assets have also been deployed by Australia, Britain, China, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand, has failed to find anything conclusive.

Hopes rest on a torpedo-shaped US Navy submersible, which is searching the ocean floor at depths of more than 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) in the vicinity of where four signals believed to have come from black box recorders were detected.

David Gleave, an aviation safety researcher at Britain's Loughborough University, said the costs "will be of the order of a hundred million dollars by the time we're finished, if we have found it (the plane) now".

But he said the longer it took to find any wreckage, the more costs would mount because scanning the vast ocean floor "will take a lot of money because you can only search about 50 square kilometres (19 square miles) a day".

Salvaging anything would also depend on how deep the ocean is at the crash point and how dispersed the wreckage, with weather and politics also complicating factors, he said.

The fate of MH370 has drawn parallels with the hunt for Air France Flight 447 which plunged into the Atlantic in 2009.

The two-year operation to recover its black box, which involved assets from France, Brazil and the US, has been estimated to have cost 80-100 million euros, according to figures cited by France's Investigation and Analysis Bureau (BEA).

- 'One of the most difficult searches ever' -

Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre says its main focus is still on finding flight MH370.

"It is one of the most difficult searches ever undertaken and could take some time," JACC said in a statement to AFP.

"The cost of the search is significant. The exact figure has not yet been calculated.

"The cost is being shared by our international partners who have contributed their people and military and civilian assets to help with the search."

As the search continues, all international partners are meeting their own costs. But governments and militaries will need to consider the broader cost implications of the search down the track, said Kym Bergmann, editor of Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter.

"I don't think that the Australians would be getting any change at all out of Aus$1 million day," he told AFP.

Bergman said it would likely be the most expensive aviation search given how long it had already dragged on.

"It must be starting to worry military planners," he said, adding that any decision to scale back would cause heartache to the families involved.

Malaysia-based Madavaram agreed, saying at present it was still "politically insensitive" to cut spending.

"I think they will continue one or two months irrespective of the costs," he said. "But then if nothing is found, it will become a wild goose chase, and people will start questioning it."

PrivateEyes · Apr 19, 2014

Mini-sub dives deeper in search for plane

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 19 April, 2014, 12:01am
UPDATED : Saturday, 19 April, 2014, 1:21am

Agencies in Perth

indian_ocean_australia_malaysia_missing_plane_42383603.jpg

The unmanned Bluefin-21, which maps the seafloor by sonar, has searched 110 square kilometres so far. Photo: EPA

The mini-sub searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had reached depths well beyond its normal operating limits, officials said yesterday, as it made its fifth dive to the seabed.

Searchers have extended the hunt beyond the normal 4,500-metre depth range of Bluefin-21, the US Navy's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV).

"The AUV reached a record depth of 4,695 metres during mission four," the US Navy said. "This is the first time the Bluefin-21 has descended to this depth. [It] does carry with it some residual risk to the equipment and this is being carefully monitored."

With no results to show since the Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared on March 8, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has stepped up the timetable to locate the plane, which is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean west of Perth.

The unmanned Bluefin-21, which maps the seafloor by sonar, has searched 110 square kilometres so far. But the data retrieved has not yet revealed anything of value.

Abbott was quoted on Wednesday as saying that "we believe [the underwater] search will be completed within a week or so. If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider".

Asked to clarify Abbott's comments, his office said he was only suggesting that authorities may change the area being searched by the Bluefin-21, not that the search would be called off.

Malaysia's acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, promised that the search would continue even if there was a pause to re-evaluate the mission, including the best area to scour.

Suggestions have emerged that more sophisticated - and very expensive - deep-diving equipment may be needed for the search.

"We have to look at contractors, and the cost of that will be huge," he said, though he indicated that such concerns were not yet testing the resolve of multinational search partners.

Analysts have said they expect the search will be the most expensive in aviation history, with Ravikumar Madavaram, an aviation expert at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, estimating the bill at US$100 million so far.

"This is definitely the biggest operation ever," he said. "In terms of costs, this would be the highest."

Malaysian media, meanwhile, reported that Canberra and Kuala Lumpur would sign a deal specifying who handles any wreckage that may be recovered, including the crucial "black box" flight data recorders.

Malaysia was drafting the agreement "to safeguard both nations from any legal pitfalls that may surface during that [recovery] phase,"
The
New Straits Times reported.

"The memorandum of understanding spells out exactly who does what and the areas of responsibility," civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman was quoted as saying.

The New Straits Times quoted a source with "intimate knowledge" of the deal saying that it also specified where any passenger remains would be taken to and who would be responsible for autopsies.

Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Bloomberg

PrivateEyes · Apr 20, 2014

Australian officials say current underwater search for MH370 complete in 5-7 days

Underwater search using US Navy deep-sea autonomous underwater vehicle could end within a week, Australia says as Malaysia describes search as at a 'critical juncture'

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 19 April, 2014, 1:44pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 19 April, 2014, 4:55pm

Reuters in Sydney and Perth

Leading Seaman, Boatswain's Mate, William Sharkey searches for possible debris in the southern Indian Ocean in the continuing search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in this picture released by the Australian Defence Force April 17, 2014. Photo: Reuters

Australian officials supervising the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 said on Saturday that an underwater search for the black box recorder based on "pings" possibly from the device could be completed in five to seven days.

Malaysia said the search was at a “very critical juncture” and asked for prayers for its success.

A US Navy deep-sea autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is scouring a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean floor for signs of the plane, which disappeared from radars on March 8 with 239 people on board and is believed to have crashed in the area.

After almost two months without a sign of wreckage, the current underwater search has been narrowed to a circular area with a radius of 10 kilometres around the location in which one of four pings believed to have come from the black box recorders was detected on April 8, officials said.

"Provided the weather is favourable for launch and recovery of the AUV and we have a good run with the serviceability of the AUV, we should complete the search of the focused underwater area in five to seven days," the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre told reporters in an e-mail.

Officials did not indicate whether they were confident that this search area would yield any new information about the flight, nor did they state what steps they would take in the event that the underwater search were to prove fruitless.

The comment came in response to a request for clarification from the agency, after it said in a statement on Thursday that previous media reports suggesting the underwater search could take as long as several months were inaccurate.

Search planes and ships from a half dozen countries have tried in vain to catch any glimpse of the wreckage after nearly two months of daily sorties, making this the most expensive such operation in aviation history.

After almost two weeks without a signal, and long past the black box battery’s 30-day life expectancy, authorities are increasingly reliant on the US$4 million US Bluefin-21 drone, which on Saturday was expected to dive to unprecedented depths.

Because visual searches of the ocean surface have yielded no concrete evidence, the drone and its ability to search deep beneath the ocean surface with "side scan" sonar has become the focal point of the search 2,000 kilometres west of the Australian city of Perth.

The search has thus far centred on a city-sized area where a series of "pings" led authorities to believe the plane’s black box may be located. The current refined search area is based on one such transmission.

After the drone’s searches were frustrated by an automatic safety mechanism which returns it to the surface when it exceeds a depth of 4.5 kilometres, authorities have adjusted the mechanism and have sent it as deep as 4,695 metres, a record.

But hopes that it might soon guide searchers to wreckage are dwindling with no sign of the plane after six deployments spanning 133 square kilometres. Footage from the drone’s sixth mission was still being analysed, the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said on Saturday.

“It is important to focus on today and tomorrow. Narrowing of the search area today and tomorrow is at a very critical juncture,” Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a media conference in Kuala Lumpur, asking for people to pray for success.

Malaysia was asking oil companies and others in the commercial sector to provide assets that might help in the search, Hishammuddin added, after earlier saying more AUVs might be used.

On Monday, the search co-ordinator, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, said the air and surface search for debris would likely end by midweek as the operation shifted its focus to the ocean floor.

But the air and surface searches have continued daily, and on Saturday the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said up to 11 military aircraft and 12 ships would help with the day’s search covering about 50,200 square kilometres across three areas.

PrivateEyes · Apr 21, 2014

Malaysian minister talks to MH370 families about financial help

As submarine continues search, relatives are urged to submit a plan for cash assistance

PUBLISHED : Monday, 21 April, 2014, 12:28am
UPDATED : Monday, 21 April, 2014, 12:28am

Associated Press in Perth

Malaysia's Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Hamzah Zainuddin. Photo: AP

A Malaysian minister yesterday met relatives of passengers on missing flight MH370 and discussed ways of providing them with financial assistance.

The move came as an unmanned submarine continued to search for any signs of the Malaysia Airlines jet.

Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Hamzah Zainuddin met families in Kuala Lumpur to talk about where to go next. Financial assistance was discussed and family members were urged to submit a plan for consideration. He declined to elaborate further, but said a fund could possibly be set up by the government or Malaysia Airlines.

"We realise this is an excruciating time for the families of those on board," said Hamzah, who heads a committee overseeing the needs of the next of kin. "No words can describe the pain they must be going through. We understand the desperate need for information on behalf of the families and those watching around the world."

He added that he would soon visit Beijing to shore up bilateral relations between Malaysia and China. Two-thirds of the missing plane's 227 passengers were Chinese, and many of their family members have been angered by Malaysia's handling of the investigation, with some accusing the government of lying, incompetence or participating in an outright cover-up.

After nearly a week of sweeping the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean with sonar, the unmanned sub began its eighth mission yesterday. The yellow device has already covered about half of its focused search area, but has yet to uncover any clues that could shed light on the mysterious disappearance of the plane more than six weeks ago.

The US Navy's Bluefin 21 has journeyed beyond its recommended depth of 4.5 kilometres to comb the silt-covered seabed off the coast of western Australia. Its search area forms a 10-kilometre radius around the location of an underwater signal that was believed to have come from the aircraft's black boxes. The search centre said the sonar scan of the sea floor in that area is expected to be completed this week.

On Saturday, Malaysia's acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, stressed the importance of the weekend submarine missions in the ocean, but said that even if no debris was recovered, the scope of the search may be broadened or other assets used.

Meanwhile, yesterday up to 11 aircraft and 12 ships continued to scan the ocean surface for debris from the Boeing 777, which disappeared on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Radar and satellite data show the jet mysteriously veered far off course for unknown reasons and would have run out of fuel in the remote section of the southern Indian Ocean where the search has been focused. Not one piece of debris has been recovered since the massive multinational hunt began.

There have been numerous leads, but all have turned out to be false.

Malaysian flight with 239 people aboard missing, including 153 Chinese nationals

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