MALAYSIAN Airlines flight en route to China is missing.

[Semaj2357]

Missing plane is finally found... according to British tabloid.

oh dearie...all of us were wrong then, thought it landed in the sun and to look for it there after (red sails in) the sunset

 

[GoldenPeriod]

This guy is the m&d top gun. He can single handedly shoot down all RSAF fighter jets.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing...under-radar-investigators-20140317-hvjlf.html
March 17, 2014 05:50 GMT
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 dropped to altitudes as low as 1524 metres (5000 feet) using a dangerous flying technique called “terrain masking” to avoid radar in at least three countries, investigators believe.

Terrain masking is used by military pilots for stealth flights. The dangerous evasive flying technique would have allowed the passenger aircraft to beat radars in at least three countries, the report said citing investigators.

"The person who had control over the aircraft has a solid knowledge of avionics and navigation and left a clean track. It passed low over Kelantan, that was true," an unidentified official told the daily.

"It is possible that the aircraft had hugged the terrain in some areas that are mountainous to avoid radar detection."

 

[steffychun]

This guy is the m&d top gun. He can single handedly shoot down all RSAF fighter jets.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing...under-radar-investigators-20140317-hvjlf.html
March 17, 2014 05:50 GMT
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 dropped to altitudes as low as 1524 metres (5000 feet) using a dangerous flying technique called “terrain masking” to avoid radar in at least three countries, investigators believe.

Terrain masking is used by military pilots for stealth flights. The dangerous evasive flying technique would have allowed the passenger aircraft to beat radars in at least three countries, the report said citing investigators.

"The person who had control over the aircraft has a solid knowledge of avionics and navigation and left a clean track. It passed low over Kelantan, that was true," an unidentified official told the daily.

"It is possible that the aircraft had hugged the terrain in some areas that are mountainous to avoid radar detection."

RSAF only good for national day.

 

[Sinkie]

Here is the motive, guys!

I remember reading very early on the Malaysian idiots saying "piracy".............so they knew it all along.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/17/mh370-could-have-flown-low-5000ft-avoid-radar

The accusation of it being a flight crew member was made because of the radio communication being made after the last ACARS transmission; the accusation being that the system had been turned off. However, we now know that the ACARS only transmitted every 30 minutes! last transmission ACARS 01.07 (next expected 01.37). Last Transmission from the Flight Crew 01.19! So something happened between 01.19 and 01.37 - possible hijack or loss of aircraft? The RADAR image has yet to be confirmed as MH370 and the satellite ping could be a false reading (this is not unknown and occurred post 9/11).
I agree with the Chinese - the handling of the whole investigation seems to be run by people who are out of their depth. I wonder if the rumours of FBI and US Air Investigators having taken over now?
One Chinese forum was stating that the cargo manifest contained insurable items worth close to a billion dollars???, and that this is an insurance scam - thats just as believable as anything else at the moment! Lets see the cargo manifest.

 

[GoldenDragon]

RSAF only good for national day.

And Open House too.

 

[eatshitndie]

And Open House too.

rsaf is pretty good by world standards. don't play play.

 

[ykhuser]

no bullet liao.all bullet stole by Narong Wongwan in action

 

[GoldenPeriod]

rsaf is pretty good by world standards. don't play play.

Can they fly 777 at 5k feet across 3 countries without radar detection?

 

[eatshitndie]

Can they fly 777 at 5k feet across 3 countries without radar detection?

range will be shorter as flying at lower altitudes burns more fuel. moreover, very dangerous across mountainous regions with peaks above 5k feet.

 

[JHolmesJr]

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 dropped to altitudes as low as 1524 metres (5000 feet) using a dangerous flying technique called “terrain masking” to avoid radar in at least three countries, investigators believe.

"It is possible that the aircraft had hugged the terrain in some areas that are mountainous to avoid radar detection."

Meanwhile passengers were cheering every low pass the pilot made.

 

[Sinkie]

Walau!! Even the Taliban said "did not see".........like that, gone liao lah.

 

[steffychun]

Walau!! Even the Taliban said "did not see".........like that, gone liao lah.

there's still the Bedouins.

 

[InformationSociety]

Top politician Anwar Ibrahim denies link to captain of missing Malaysia Airlines jet

Anwar Ibrahim reveals he saw pilot at party meetings but didn't know him personally, as he accepts China's criticism over handling of hunt

PUBLISHED : Monday, 17 March, 2014, 11:46pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 18 March, 2014, 2:31am

Adrian Wan in Kuala Lumpur [email protected]

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim answers questions about the plane's disappearance in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim had seen the captain of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane at meetings of his political party, he told the South China Morning Post yesterday.

But he did not know him personally and criticised attempts to link the captain's political affiliations to the plane's disappearance 10 days ago.

He also said China's condemnation of Malaysia's handling of the search for the Boeing 777 was "absolutely justified".

Flight MH370 lost contact and disappeared from civilian radar screens less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8 under the command of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah. There were 239 passengers and crew on board, including 154 Chinese.

"I don't recollect the name, but when the photographs were shown I remembered I had seen him at party meetings," Anwar said of Zaharie at the headquarters of his People's Justice Party outside Kuala Lumpur. "He doesn't hold positions in the party, but is an active member in the sense that he has been seen with the party's parliamentary leaders, taking photographs with them," Anwar added.

He said they had had no personal contact, but said Zaharie was a follower of his Twitter account. Hours before the plane took off on its doomed flight to Beijing, Anwar was sentenced to five years in jail after a Malaysian court overturned his 2012 acquittal on a sodomy charge.

But there is no evidence to suggest Zaharie was responsible for the plane disappearing in reaction to the ruling.

Malaysia says "deliberate action" in the cockpit led to the flight's disappearance and police have searched the homes of Zaharie and First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid. But little has emerged to implicate either man.

Attention on Zaharie has focused on his support for Malaysia's opposition and the flight simulator he built in his home.

Initial investigations showed it was Fariq who spoke the last words - "All right, good night" - to Malaysian air traffic controllers, acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said yesterday. He also said both pilots had passed psychological tests.

Anwar said he thought the government was deploying its media to associate the missing plane with him. He said "they really should be focusing on carrying out transparent and objective investigations, instead of aligning it with me".

Beijing has demanded that Malaysia increases its efforts to find the missing plane and said there was "too much confusion" in the information released.

Anwar said Chinese officials he had met were all "extremely polite". But he added: "In this case, they lost their patience and came out with a stinging statement against the Malaysian government's lack of transparency.

"It is absolutely understandable for the Chinese to express anger and even disgust."

He added that Beijing spent millions of dollars on a search of the South China Sea when the plane had turned the other way.

"Feeling angry is absolutely justified, especially with so many of its nationals on board."

 

[InformationSociety]

'Tens of thousands' of sites where missing Malaysian Airlines jet could have been landed

PUBLISHED : Monday, 17 March, 2014, 11:41pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 18 March, 2014, 4:54am

Stephen Chen in Beijing [email protected]

Based on the Boeing 777's potential flight time, one popular list shared on the internet showed the locations of 634 airfields in 26 countries where the missing MH370 could have touched down.

The number of suitable landing sites that could have been used by a pilot to touch down the missing Malaysia Airlines flight could far exceed estimates of 600 quoted in foreign media, Chinese engineering and aviation experts said last night.

Based on the Boeing 777's potential flight time, one popular list shared on the internet showed the locations of 634 airfields in 26 countries where the plane could have touched down, in an area stretching from Pakistan to Japan and Australia.

But within that vast area, there could be tens of thousands more locations suitable for landing a jet, if pilot expertise and wide open spaces were taken into account, experts said.

Speculation that the plane is still intact and landed safely has been swirling in the absence of any evidence that it crashed, despite a 10-day hunt.

The WNYC radio station compiled the list of airstrips which was quickly picked up online.

Professor Gao Peiwei, who studies rapid construction and repairing technology for runways at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said a Boeing 777 could be put down in various environments - even on highways and dirt strips - if the pilots had "knowledge and training for the specific location".

To receive an inbound 777 in a state of emergency, an airstrip would normally need to meet several requirements, he said.

The surface of the runway, be it cement or dirt, must be hardened to take the weight of the jet's wheels and be long enough to allow for adequate braking.

"But of course, you can also land on a relatively soft surface and brace yourself for big bumps, if you don't care whether the landing gear or the plane can fly again," Gao said.

Any relatively large and flat area without high hills or tall buildings immediately in front of it could be used as a landing area, potentially adding tens of thousands more locations to the list.

"Large airports are equipped with sophisticated communications systems and supportive facilities such as lighting to make sure that every take-off and landing would be successful. If the purpose was to land the plane once and for all, most facilities are not necessary," Gao said.

One possibility to explain the disappearance of flight MH370 is that it landed at a private airstrip or on a military base and for political or other reasons, its arrival has not been made public.

"This is a wild guess, but with the information released by Malaysian authorities, anything is possible," Gao added.

Yang Xiaoguang, an aeronautics scientist at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, agreed with Gao that it was feasible the plane had landed on a small or temporary airstrip.

But he said it would take at least six months of work on the ground to prepare a suitable strip that could safely take such a huge aircraft. "You would need quite a few workers and machines to even the ground, if the site was chosen at a remote area," he said.

"To carry out such a task without it being detected is hard to believe, but that's the best we can hope for the passengers on board and their families."

Yang said contradictions between the Malaysians' early statements on the plane's disappearance and their more recent comments had made the Chinese aviation community suspicious that not all relevant information had been made public.

"We have a strong feeling that some information has been held back," he said.

 

[virus]

i m waiting for hollywood to make a movie outta this.

 

[steffychun]

i m waiting for hollywood to make a movie outta this.

how when they dont know the ending? and then they will use wrong nationalities to play the Malaysians.

Though it would be nice to know which actor would play Najib.

 

[InformationSociety]

Re: MALAYSIAN Airlines flight en route to China is STILL missing.


Insight - Planning could hold key to disappearance of Flight MH370

Reuters
March 18, 2014, 2:15 am

A Japan Coast Guard takes photos out of a window of the Gulfstream V Jet aircraft, customized for search and rescue operations, during a search for the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane over the waters of the South China Sea March 15, 2014. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Whether by accident or design, whoever reached across the dimly lit cockpit of a Malaysia Airlines jet and clicked off a transponder to make Flight MH370 vanish from controllers' radars flew into a navigational and technical black hole.

By choosing one place and time to vanish into radar darkness with 238 others on board, the person - presumed to be a pilot or a passenger with advanced knowledge - may have acted only after meticulous planning, according to aviation experts.

Understanding the sequence that led to the unprecedented plane hunt widening across two vast tracts of territory north and south of the Equator is key to grasping the motives of what Malaysian authorities suspect was hijacking or sabotage.

By signing off from Malaysian airspace at 1.19 a.m. on March 8 with a casual "all right, good night," rather than the crisp radio drill advocated in pilot training, a person now believed to be the co-pilot gave no hint of anything unusual.

Two minutes later, at 1.21 a.m. local time, the transponder - a device identifying jets to ground controllers - was turned off in a move that experts say could reveal a careful sequence.

"Every action taken by the person who was piloting the aircraft appears to be a deliberate one. It is almost like a pilot's checklist," said one senior captain from an Asian carrier with experience of jets including the Boeing 777.

There is so far no indication whether the co-pilot was at fault or had anything to do with turning off the transponder. Pilots say the usual industry convention is that the pilot not directly responsible for flying the plane talks on the radio.

Police have searched the premises of both the captain and co-pilot and are checking the backgrounds of all passengers.

Whoever turned the transponder to "off", whether or not the move was deliberate, did so at a vulnerable point between two airspace sectors when Malaysian and Vietnamese controllers could easily assume the airplane was each others' responsibility.

"The predictable effect was to delay the raising of the alarm by either party," David Learmount, operations and safety editor at Flight International, wrote in an industry blog.

That mirrors delays in noticing something was wrong when an Air France jet disappeared over the Atlantic in 2009 with 228 people on board, a gap blamed on confusion between controllers.

Yet whereas the Rio-Paris disaster was later traced to pilot error, the suspected kidnapping of MH370's passengers and crew was carried out with either skill or bizarre coincidences.

Whether or not pilots knew it, the jet was just then in a technically obscure sweet spot, according to a top radar expert.

Air traffic controllers use secondary radar which works by talking to the transponder. Some air traffic control systems also blend in some primary radar, which uses a simple echo.

But primary radar signals fade faster than secondary ones, meaning even a residual blip would have vanished for controllers and even military radar may have found it difficult to identify the 777 from other ghostly blips, said radar expert Hans Weber.

"Turning off the transponder indicates this person was highly trained," said Weber, of consultancy TECOP International.

Not in the manual

The overnight flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur is packed year-round with business people, Chinese tourists and students, attracted in part by code-sharing deals, regular travellers say.

The lockdown of MH370 may have begun as early as 40 minutes into the flight at a point when meals are being hurriedly served in time to get trays cleared and lights dimmed for the night.

"It was a red-eye flight. Most people - the passengers and the crew - just want to rest," a Malaysia Airlines stewardess said. "Unless there was a reason to panic, if someone had taken control of the aircraft, they would not have noticed anything."

At some point between 1.07 a.m. and 1.37 a.m., investigators believe someone switched off another system called ACARS designed to transmit maintenance data back to the ground.

While unusual, this may not necessarily raise alarms at the airline and the passengers would not have known that something was amiss, said some of the six pilots contacted by Reuters, none of whom agreed to be identified because of company rules.

"Occasionally, there are gaps in the communications systems and the guys in ground operations may not think much of it initially. It would be a while before they try to find out what was wrong," said one captain with an Asian carrier.

Cutting the datalink would not have been easy. Instructions are not in the Flight Crew Operating Manual, one pilot said.

Whoever did so may have had to climb through a trap door in full view of cabin crew, people familiar with the jet say.

Circuit-breakers used to disable the system are in a bay reached through a hatch in the floor next to the lefthand front exit, close to a galley used to prepare meals.

Most pilots said it would be impossible to turn off ACARS from inside the cockpit, though two people did not rule it out.

Malaysia Airlines said 14 minutes elapsed between the last ACARS message and the transponder shutdown that - in the growing view of officials - confirmed a fully loaded jet was on the run. The ACARS must have been disabled within 16 minutes after that.

In the meantime a voice believed to be that of the co-pilot issued the last words from MH370 and the transponder went dead.

Hiding in full view?

The northeast-bound jet now took a northwestern route from Kota Bahru in eastern Malaysia to Penang Island. It was last detected on military radar around 200 miles northwest of Penang.

Even that act of going off course may not have caused alarm at first if it was handled gradually, pilots said.

"Nobody pays attention to these things unless they are aware of the direction that the aircraft was heading in," said one first officer who has flown with Malaysia Airlines.

The airline said it had reconstructed the event in a simulator to try to figure out how the jet vanished and kept flying for what may have been more than seven hours.

Pilots say whoever was then in control may have kept the radio on in silent mode to hear what was going on around him, but would have avoided restarting the transponder at all costs.

"That would immediately make the aircraft visible ... like a bright light. Your registration, height, altitude and speed would all become visible," said an airline captain.

After casting off its identity, the aircraft set investigators a puzzle that has yet to be solved. It veered either northwards or southwards, within an hour's flying time of arcs stretching from the Caspian to the southern Indian Ocean.

The best way to avoid the attention of military radars would have been to fly at a fixed altitude, on a recognised flight path and at cruising speed without changing course, pilots say.

Malaysian officials dismissed as speculation reports that the jet may have flown at low altitude to avoid detection.

But pilots said the best chance of feeling its way through the well-defended northern route would have been to hide in full view of military radar inside commercial lanes - raising awkward questions over security in several parts of the Asia-Pacific.

"The military radar controllers would have seen him moving on a fixed line, figured that it was a commercial aircraft at a high altitude, and not really a danger especially if he was on a recognised flight path," said one pilot.

"Some countries would ask you to identify yourself, but you are flying through the night and that is the time when the least attention is being paid to unidentified aircraft. As long as the aircraft is not flying towards a military target or point, they may not bother with you."

Although investigators refused on Monday to be drawn into theories, few in the industry believe a 250-tonne passenger jet could run amok globally without expert skills or preparation.

"Whoever did this must have had lots of aircraft knowledge, would have deliberately planned this, had nerves of steel to be confident enough to get through primary radar without being detected and been confident enough to control an aircraft full of people," a veteran airline captain told Reuters.

 

[GoldenPeriod]

i m waiting for hollywood to make a movie outta this.

To be honest, in these cases the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. What probably happened was some kind of malfunction/suicide/pilot error/whatever and it crashed into the South China Sea where it has yet to be found.

But the Malaysians come up with all these about seeing it on their radar, when no one else did, turning west, flying through several countries, going to Kazakhstan/Taliban and all sorts of stuff. So it became super complicated.

I think they should just resume searching in the South China Sea.

 

[InformationSociety]

New timeline places doubt on hijack theory

AFP
March 18, 2014, 6:19 am

Officials revealed a new timeline Monday suggesting the final voice transmission from the cockpit of the missing Malaysian plane may have occurred before any of its communications systems were disabled, adding more uncertainty about who aboard might have been to blame.

The search for Flight 370, which vanished early March 8 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, has now been expanded deep into the northern and southern hemispheres. Australian vessels scoured the southern Indian Ocean and China offered 21 of its satellites to help Malaysia in the unprecedented hunt.

With no wreckage found in one of the most puzzling aviation mysteries of all time, relatives of those on the Boeing 777 have been left in an agonizing limbo.

Investigators say the plane was deliberately diverted during its overnight flight and flew off-course for hours. They haven't ruled out hijacking, sabotage, or pilot suicide, and they are checking the backgrounds of the 227 passengers and 12 crew members, as well as the ground crew, to see if links to terrorists, personal problems or psychological issues could be factors.

Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said finding the plane was still the main focus, and he did not rule out that it might be discovered intact.

"The fact that there was no distress signal, no ransom notes, no parties claiming responsibility, there is always hope," Hishammuddin said at a news conference.

Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein shows the map of northern search corridor. Photo: AP

Malaysian Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said an initial investigation indicated that the last words heard from the plane by ground controllers — "All right, good night" — were spoken by the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid. Had it been a voice other than that of Fariq or the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, it would have clearest indication yet of something amiss in the cockpit before the flight went off-course.

Clarification that the voice was most likely that of First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid came during a press conference at which Malaysian officials hit back at "irresponsible" suggestions that they had misled the public -- and passenger's relatives -- over what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and his co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid have become a primary focus of the investigation, with one of the key questions being who was in control of the aircraft when it veered off course about an hour into its flight to Beijing.

The nonchalant-sounding last message from the cockpit -- "All right, good night" -- came around the time that two of the plane's crucial signalling systems were manually disabled.

"Initial investigations indicate it was the co-pilot who basically spoke," said Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.

The last signal from the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was received 12 minutes before the co-pilot's final words.

The plane's transponder -- which relays the plane's location -- was switched off just two minutes after he spoke, and a few minutes later the aircraft turned back on its flight path.

Yahya said it was not clear precisely when the ACARS system, which sends a signal every 30 minutes, was disabled. Officials had previously maintained it was manually turned off before the final cockpit message.

The new information opened the possibility that both ACARS and the plane's transponders, which make the plane visible to civilian air traffic controllers, were turned off at about the same time. It also suggests that the message delivered from the cockpit could have preceded any of the severed communications.

The Malaysian authorities have stressed that the backgrounds of all the passengers and crew were being checked, as well as engineers who may have worked on the plane before take-off.

'Contradictory information'

But Michael McCaul, chair of the US House Homeland Security Committee, said US intelligence briefings had seemed to lead "towards the cockpit, with the pilot himself, and co-pilot".

The plane went missing early on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew aboard, spawning a massive international search across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean that has turned up no trace of wreckage.

A girl writes a message for passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, at a shopping mall in Petaling Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur. Photo: AP

China's damning assessments of Malaysia's crisis management continued Monday.

Premier Li Keqiang in a phone call asked his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak to provide more detailed data and information about the missing flight "in a timely, accurate and comprehensive manner", state news agency Xinhua reported.

The state-controlled China Daily said the "contradictory and piecemeal information Malaysia Airlines and its government have provided has made search efforts difficult and the entire incident even more mysterious".

Relatives of the Chinese passengers also voiced anger and frustration after a meeting with airline officials in Beijing.

"Only the Malaysia government knows the truth. They've been talking nonsense since the beginning," said Wen Wancheng, whose son was on Flight 370.

At Monday's press briefing, Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein reacted angrily when a foreign journalist suggested Malaysia should apologise for its handling of the crisis.

"I think it is very irresponsible of you to say that," he shot back.

Twenty-six countries are now involved in searching for the jet after satellite and military radar data projected two dauntingly large corridors the plane might have flown through.

The northern corridor stretches in an arc over south and central Asia, while the other swoops deep into the southern Indian Ocean towards Australia.

Satellite and radar data from countries in the northern corridor should allow investigators to confirm within "two or three days" whether it crashed in that area, a foreign member of the investigative team told AFP.

Malaysia announced that it was deploying its navy and air force to the southern corridor, where Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said his country would take the lead in searching a vast area off its west coast.

Three officials from France's civil aviation accident investigation agency arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Monday to share their experiences of the search for Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.

Political dimension?

The "black boxes" from that crash were eventually recovered nearly two years later from a depth of more than 3,800 meters (12,500 feet).

Malaysian police have searched both pilots' homes and are examining a flight simulator that Captain Zaharie, 53, had assembled at his home.

Associates say Zaharie was an active supporter of Malaysia's political opposition headed by veteran politician Anwar Ibrahim.

In a highly controversial case, Anwar was convicted of sodomy -- illegal in Muslim Malaysia -- just hours before MH370 took off.

But friends said Zaharie exhibited no extreme views.

Fariq, meanwhile, was accused in an Australian television report of allowing two young South African women into the cockpit of a plane he piloted in 2011, breaching security rules imposed after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

But acquaintances have attested to his good character, and reports said he planned to wed his flight-school sweetheart.

 

[Ash007]

The Chinese government condemning the mudlaysian of being incompetent!

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/848809.shtml#.Uyd8EdIW34A

Malaysian government incompetent leader of MH370 search effort
Global Times | 2014-3-16 18:33:01
By Yao Shujie

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Since Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) went missing on March 8, over a week has passed, and there is still no sight of the plane. The lack of progress in the search has scorched the Malaysian government and Malaysian Airlines, and left grieving relatives feeling even more helpless.

On Saturday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak held a press conference, at which he confirmed that the plane's communications had been deliberately disabled and it had flown for more than six hours off course.

He also stated that the radar of Malaysia's air force had picked up the traces of the jet heading westward. It is probable that the plane has crossed over the Malaysian Peninsula and headed to the northern part of the Strait of Malacca.

Many presumptions such as technical failures can no longer hold water. The plane may well have been hijacked, which although has not been officially confirmed by the Malaysian government.

But no matter how dramatic the turn is, it still cannot shift the public's attention from the lousy job that the Malaysian government has been doing since the plane went missing.

The concerns about what direction the jet was flying after it lost contact with air traffic control have been hovering for days, and the Malaysian government is unable to give credible answers.

In the very first few days when search and rescue is of vital importance, vessels from many countries such as China, Vietnam and the US, rummaged almost every corner of the Gulf of Thailand. They acted based on the statement of the Malaysian government, which said the plane might have crashed after it lost contact before it reached the east coast of Malaysia.

However, they found no reliable trace of the plane. When hope gradually faded away in this area, some Western media and US intelligence agencies thought the plane might have headed westward into the Indian Ocean.

After the search area was widely expanded, India also joined in the operation on Friday, searching the areas near the border of the Indian Ocean. The Indian army has sent planes to blanket hundreds of isles over the Andaman Islands.

In the meantime, two of China's nine ships, which were initially deployed at the Gulf of Thailand, also turned and sailed into the Strait of Malacca. Bangladesh and the US also shifted their attention to this new search area.

Tracing the plane has now become an international effort. More than 10 countries and tens of vessels are involved in the search, which is also expanding as new information emerges. But at the initial stage, information released by the Malaysian government has not been helpful, but has created chaos in the search. This incident shows that the country's air defense and monitoring are very weak.

The lack of national strength and experience in dealing with incidents has left the Malaysian government helpless and exhausted by denying all kinds of rumors. The communication failures make the search and rescue process harder.

As time passes, the Malaysian government has lost authority and credibility on this issue. Exact information is key to any rescue effort, but the Malaysian government has been offering only ambiguous messages. It even got the direction of the flight wrong after it lost contact and traversed the peninsula. Last week's efforts were in vain.

After these failures, the Malaysian government will face the stern eyes of other countries. If the search continues to be fruitless even following the new information, Malaysia would be better off handing over its command in the international rescue operation.

No country can conduct such a massive operation alone no matter how powerful it is. Miracles can only be made together. More collaboration will be badly needed in the next step of the search and rescue operation.

The author is Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham. [email protected]