MALAYSIAN Airlines flight en route to China is missing.

[po2wq]

iz strait from n ian fleming book! ... dey shud call in james bond! ...



Malaysian Airlines MH370: Why it’s thought provoking to recall James Bond thriller Thunderball

The very first time I read the news of Malaysian Airlines' missing Flight MH370, I felt I knew exactly how the story was going to unfold. Because Ian Fleming wrote all about it in Thunderball, his prescient James Bond thriller, published way back in 1961.

Admittedly, there's a difference: Flight MH370 is no fiction, and it was carrying 239 passengers, whose families have been going through great anxiety and grief. Nevertheless, it's thought-provoking to recall Thunderball.

Its plot begins with an aircraft that turns sharply off course during a routine night flight and proceeds to vanish off the face of the earth. The cause is a rogue pilot who has been bribed to hijack the aircraft. He has smuggled a tube ofBSE -0.40 % cyanide gas on board, and once the aircraft reaches a pre-determined point on its flight path, he says goodnight to the other crew members, puts on an oxygen mask, quietly releases the cyanide, and settles back to watch what is about to happen.

Reel Life

Soon, as Fleming describes with ghastly detail, the other crew members begin to writhe and clutch their throats, fighting for air. The last to go is the captain, who "groped towards the microphone, said something indistinctly, got half to his feet, turned slowly, so that his bulging eyes, already dead, seemed to stare at him, and then thudded down on top of the body of the co-pilot."

The rogue pilot then calculatedly adjusts the cabin pressurization to clear the poison gas and changes the aircraft's course through the night skies. Ignoring the air traffic controller's increasingly urgent messages, he turns the aircraft into the busy stream of regular trans-Atlantic commercial air traffic, and disappears. Commercial radar is too imprecise to track him, he knows, and military radar will just mistake him for an airliner that's strayed off course. By the time anybody realizes what's happening, he will have vanished without a trace.<br> <br> The rogue pilot flies almost to the American coastline, then pushes the aircraft into a tight turn, and heads south, into the final, low-level leg of his journey towards the Bahamas. He needs no runway: guided by a beacon he has been briefed to follow, he inches the huge aircraft down over the shallow waves and belly-lands precisely on the moonlit sea. He is picked up by a waiting boat, and the aircraft then settles slowly onto the shallow, sandy sea-bed just below. All that remains to be done is for a team of frogmen to draw camouflage netting over it, and the aircraft has vanished completely.<br> <br> But what happens in the interim is the central point of Fleming's plot: Western governments receive a terse letter from an international terrorist organization threatening that unless certain demands are met, they will detonate two nuclear bombs that were on board the missing aircraft.<br> <br> Given the way the current mystery has been developing, change a few details of the Thunderball plot — replace the Bahamas with, say, a remote Andaman island or a Central Asian desert, and replace Fleming's fictitious global terrorist organization with, say, al Qaeda, or Chinese separatists — and we end up with something strangely like the MH370 story. Fleming, let us not forget, used to work for <a href="/topic/British-intelligence" pg="asTopicL1" target="_blank">British intelligence</a>, and while his James Bond character may be somewhat overthe-top, his plots themselves are born of an insider's knowledge of the covert world, combined with an imagination that thought up various successful real-life counter-intelligence operations.


Into Thin Air

Aviation professionals are an unexcitable and unimaginative breed, by nature as well as by training, and airline pilot friends I've asked about Flight 370 have given me various mundane technical explanations, ranging from an inherent flaw in the 777's fuselage to electrical fire, shutdown of communications systems and hypoxia, combined with the autopilot and the aircraft's extended range, which would have caused it to fly on till it ran out of fuel and finally fall out of the sky.

Yet — despite some suspicious flotsam spotted off the Australian coast recently — there's no real evidence of any of this having happened. And two weeks have gone by without any clue — unprecedented in modern aviation history.

And, of course, there's no shortage of them — from talk of some high-tech "invisibility cloak", developed by US company, Freescale (which, coincidentally, had 20 employees on board that flight), to Pitbull and Shakira's song "Get It Started", which contains the eerie lyrics "...now it's off to Malaysia/Two passports, three cities, two countries, one day", preceded by "...I know it ain't fair/Only ball I drop, New Year's Times Square", and "...Mumbai/All lit up like a December night, 4th of July."

The fact is that with every additional day that the mystery remains unsolved, it becomes more likely that something out of the ordinary has happened, and that something really nasty is going to be revealed to us concerning Flight 370. As the witch in Macbeth said, "By the pricking of my thumbs/Something evil this way comes." We just have to wait and watch what happens next.

 

[YouMakeMyDreams]

​

 

[YouMakeMyDreams]

Police never mistreated me, says distraught mother of missing MH370 passenger

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 23 March, 2014, 4:24pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 23 March, 2014, 4:26pm

Danny Lee in Kuala Lumpur
[email protected]

Liu Guiqui is pictured during the March 19 press conference where she protested at the lack of information on the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. Photo: EPA

The mother of a passenger on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has denied she was mistreated by Malaysian police before an emotionally-charged press conference.

Liu Guiqui, who became the face of anguish and anger on behalf of families with loved ones on board the vanished flight when she was pictured at a press conference protesting against the handling of the case, claimed airline authorities left her in the dark when they told her the plane carrying her son Li Le “never took off” from Kuala Lumpur.

Speaking for the first time since the press conference, Liu denied she was mistreated by police at the press conference, saying that in fact they were there to stop her panicking and shield her from the media.

The conduct of the security personnel is the focus of an investigation launched by the Malaysian government looking at what happened after Liu was forcibly removed.

Liu told state-run CCTV she had travelled to Kuala Lumpur airport for answers after learning that the flight was missing. She went to the press conference to protest, and to ask the Malaysian politicians what happened to her son.

While there, along with a handful of family members, she evaded a wall of security to unfurl a banner: "We protest against the Malaysian government withholding information and holding up search efforts."

"Where are my sons, I need to know where they are," she wailed during the March 19 press conference. "Not one Malaysian official has said one comforting word to us.

“How is it at this stage we have no information?” she asked, explaining that she can’t understand why there has been no news.

Ms Liu spoke of her confusion that her son’s plane never arrived in Beijing on March 8. She said Malaysia Airlines told her that the “plane never took off”.

At home, she watched news reports that confirmed Li’s plane was missing. She shook her head in disbelief during the interview, her bewilderment turning to heartbreak as she realised it was not a mistake.

“I kept telling myself my son was going to be alright,” she said.

Liu explained she flew to Kuala Lumpur to be the first person he greeted off the plane – yet, 16 days into the search, investigators have no idea what happened to the plane, let alone the missing 239 passengers and crew.

The middle-aged mother described her son as a “kind-hearted, good person” who is “loyal… [and] treats everyone with respect.”

Li is a father-of-one. Liu said the family was trying to shield her daughter from the potentially tragic news.

Liu now doesn’t believe Malaysia’s handling of the case has been bad. But she said all she wanted was “my son to return”.

 

[YouMakeMyDreams]

French satellite shows debris in search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

Improved weather conditions see search times extended in area 2,300 kilometres west of Perth

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 23 March, 2014, 11:33am
UPDATED : Sunday, 23 March, 2014, 7:10pm

Danny Lee in Kuala Lumpur [email protected]

The satellite image released by China yesterday showing suspected debris in the southern corridor of the intensified search area in the Indian Ocean. Photo: SCMP

New French satellite images show possible debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 deep in the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysia said on Sunday, adding to growing signs that the plane may have gone down in remote seas off Australia.

The latest lead comes as the international search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 entered its third week, with still no confirmed trace of the Boeing 777 that vanished with 239 people on board.

France is the third country to announce a sighting of debris, with Australia and China both having earlier released images showing objects floating in the Indian Ocean.

"This morning, Malaysia received new satellite images from the French authorities," Malaysia’s transport ministry said in a statement. "Malaysia immediately relayed these

images to the Australian rescue co-ordination centre."

The ministry did not give any other details on the satellite images.

The development will further cement belief that the airliner, carrying 239 passengers and crew, crashed into the ocean after it disappeared from radar on March 8.

A massive search of the southern corridor, led by Australia with the assistance of China, Japan and the US, has been under way for the last four days.

It also emerged on Sunday that, in a telephone conversation with Australian Chief of Defence Force David Hurley, China's PLA chief of staff Fang Fenghui called for both sides to step up cooperation in the search.

Search times were extended into Sunday late evening as weather conditions improved, to locate possible wreckage – linked or not – to the missing Malaysia Airlines jet in the remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean.

A growing international fleet of aircraft and vessels in an Australia-led Indian Ocean surveillance mission resumed the search on day four in a concentrated area some 2,300 kilometres west of Perth.

Eight aircraft are searching today: four civil jets and four military aircraft are involved in visual operations.

Officials in the state capital Canberra said a sighting by a team member of a wooden pallet was a “possible lead”.

Photo released by Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) shows satellite image of objects that may be possible debris of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean. Photo: Xinhua

Mike Barton, a rescue coordinator for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), said on Sunday that search teams spotted the wooden pallet “and a number of other items… [including] strapping belts of different lengths.”

“But we have to be very certain that this is a pallet because pallets are used in the shipping industry as well,” Barton said.

It is hoped that other objects of interest identified by Chinese satellites on Saturday can be ruled out or provide clues to investigators still short of answers to what happened to the Boeing 777, and to search teams anxious to narrow search areas and eventually recover flight MH370’s black box voice and flight data recorder.

More than two weeks after the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines MH370 disappeared, the new image shows an object 120 kilometres southwest of where suspected wreckage was previously spotted.

A relative of Chinese passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines, flight MH370 cries as others protest after a briefing by Malaysian government representatives at a hotel in Beijing, China. Photo: AP

AMSA’s Barton said it had been able to search a smaller “defined area” based on two previous satellite images released on Friday showing possible objects in the immediate vicinity.

Aircraft have so far not been able to detect the objects from the fresh sighting. “You only have to be off a few hundred metres in a fast travelling aircraft,” Barton said.

It had been feared that Tropical Cyclone Gillian, due in the area, would make operations “very challenging” for ships, with rough seas and strong currents.

A man covers his face as he walks out from a room reserved for relatives of Chinese passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines, MH370, in Beijing, China. Photo: AP

But on Sunday afternoon conditions looked to be improving, although not without bringing new challenges.

“Actually determining what it is from an aircraft at a lot lower altitude looking into the sun, or with the haze, is proving difficult to relocate these items,” Barton added.

Separately, Nasa will reposition satellites to the areas in the southern Indian Ocean to speed-up investigations in the area.

Warren Truss, Australia’s deputy prime minister, said: “I hope…we are able to conclusively say once and for all that we are close to finding where this plane may be located and there can be some kind of closure for families.”

However, Malaysian authorities have asked the US for help with underwater surveillance.

In a phone call to defence secretary Chuck Hagel, Malaysia’s defence minister and acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein “requested that the US consider providing some undersea surveillance equipment”, Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said.

Hagel assured his counterpart that he would “assess the availability and utility of military undersea technology for such a task and provide him an update in the very near future”, Kirby said in a statement.

Earlier, Australia’s Maritime Search Agency released a statement saying it was taking “drift modelling” into account in the resumed search for the objects spotted by satellites.

Yesterday, China provided a satellite image to Australia possibly showing a 22.5 metre floating object in the southern Indian Ocean. AMSA plotted the position and it fell within yesterday’s search area. The object was not sighted during yesterday’s search.

The RNZAF P3 Orion dropped a datum marker buoy to track the movement of the material. Further attempts were made today to establish whether the objects sighted are related to MH370.

Yesterday, China provided a satellite image to Australia possibly showing a 22.5 metre floating object in the southern Indian Ocean. AMSA plotted the position and it fell within yesterday’s search area. The object was not sighted during yesterday’s search.

AMSA has used this information in the development of the search area, taking drift modelling into account."

 

[steffychun]

Soon they will have to use all the secret weapons and technology to find MH 370.

 

[looneytan]

Malaysian Airlines MH370: Why it’s thought provoking to recall James Bond thriller Thunderball

The very first time I read the news of Malaysian Airlines' missing Flight MH370, I felt I knew exactly how the story was going to unfold. Because Ian Fleming wrote all about it in Thunderball, his prescient James Bond thriller, published way back in 1961.
............

We just have to wait and watch what happens next.

wat huppen 2 yr engrish 2dey?

 

[Seee3]

So all the countries operating assets out of Perth are doing the wrong thing? Where do you think they should be?

Let's be clear that we are shifting our discussion again. The issues in question now are :
1. Is it wrong to deplore asserts, based on unconfirmed information?
2. Where should the assists be correctly deplored?

My view to question 1 is that it is not wrong for assets to be deployed to the west of Perth, if the level of deployment is scaled according to the credibility of the info. The current level of search is adequate. However, to rush more assets to a single area just simply because it is the only lead available or because everybody felt the compulsion to do something, then it may be childish.

For question 2, the situation has already reached a state where the speed of finding the plane will not affect the chance of survivor. Hence, there is no need to deplore any physical asserts if there is no reliable fresh leads. However, for PR reason, Malaysia and China may have to continue with some level of physical deployment to pacify the relatives.

The northern corridor is land mass so satellite image couldn't help much. The southern is ocean so it becomes easier to use satellite image. Could this be the reason for the focus on the south or is there other information that I have missed that caused the shift in their focus to the southern corridor

 

[steffychun]

iz strait from n ian fleming book! ... dey shud call in james bond! ...



Malaysian Airlines MH370: Why it’s thought provoking to recall James Bond thriller Thunderball

The very first time I read the news of Malaysian Airlines' missing Flight MH370, I felt I knew exactly how the story was going to unfold. Because Ian Fleming wrote all about it in Thunderball, his prescient James Bond thriller, published way back in 1961.

Admittedly, there's a difference: Flight MH370 is no fiction, and it was carrying 239 passengers, whose families have been going through great anxiety and grief. Nevertheless, it's thought-provoking to recall Thunderball.

Its plot begins with an aircraft that turns sharply off course during a routine night flight and proceeds to vanish off the face of the earth. The cause is a rogue pilot who has been bribed to hijack the aircraft. He has smuggled a tube ofBSE -0.40 % cyanide gas on board, and once the aircraft reaches a pre-determined point on its flight path, he says goodnight to the other crew members, puts on an oxygen mask, quietly releases the cyanide, and settles back to watch what is about to happen.

Reel Life

Soon, as Fleming describes with ghastly detail, the other crew members begin to writhe and clutch their throats, fighting for air. The last to go is the captain, who "groped towards the microphone, said something indistinctly, got half to his feet, turned slowly, so that his bulging eyes, already dead, seemed to stare at him, and then thudded down on top of the body of the co-pilot."

The rogue pilot then calculatedly adjusts the cabin pressurization to clear the poison gas and changes the aircraft's course through the night skies. Ignoring the air traffic controller's increasingly urgent messages, he turns the aircraft into the busy stream of regular trans-Atlantic commercial air traffic, and disappears. Commercial radar is too imprecise to track him, he knows, and military radar will just mistake him for an airliner that's strayed off course. By the time anybody realizes what's happening, he will have vanished without a trace.<br> <br> The rogue pilot flies almost to the American coastline, then pushes the aircraft into a tight turn, and heads south, into the final, low-level leg of his journey towards the Bahamas. He needs no runway: guided by a beacon he has been briefed to follow, he inches the huge aircraft down over the shallow waves and belly-lands precisely on the moonlit sea. He is picked up by a waiting boat, and the aircraft then settles slowly onto the shallow, sandy sea-bed just below. All that remains to be done is for a team of frogmen to draw camouflage netting over it, and the aircraft has vanished completely.<br> <br> But what happens in the interim is the central point of Fleming's plot: Western governments receive a terse letter from an international terrorist organization threatening that unless certain demands are met, they will detonate two nuclear bombs that were on board the missing aircraft.<br> <br> Given the way the current mystery has been developing, change a few details of the Thunderball plot — replace the Bahamas with, say, a remote Andaman island or a Central Asian desert, and replace Fleming's fictitious global terrorist organization with, say, al Qaeda, or Chinese separatists — and we end up with something strangely like the MH370 story. Fleming, let us not forget, used to work for <a href="/topic/British-intelligence" pg="asTopicL1" target="_blank">British intelligence</a>, and while his James Bond character may be somewhat overthe-top, his plots themselves are born of an insider's knowledge of the covert world, combined with an imagination that thought up various successful real-life counter-intelligence operations.


Into Thin Air

Aviation professionals are an unexcitable and unimaginative breed, by nature as well as by training, and airline pilot friends I've asked about Flight 370 have given me various mundane technical explanations, ranging from an inherent flaw in the 777's fuselage to electrical fire, shutdown of communications systems and hypoxia, combined with the autopilot and the aircraft's extended range, which would have caused it to fly on till it ran out of fuel and finally fall out of the sky.

Yet — despite some suspicious flotsam spotted off the Australian coast recently — there's no real evidence of any of this having happened. And two weeks have gone by without any clue — unprecedented in modern aviation history.

And, of course, there's no shortage of them — from talk of some high-tech "invisibility cloak", developed by US company, Freescale (which, coincidentally, had 20 employees on board that flight), to Pitbull and Shakira's song "Get It Started", which contains the eerie lyrics "...now it's off to Malaysia/Two passports, three cities, two countries, one day", preceded by "...I know it ain't fair/Only ball I drop, New Year's Times Square", and "...Mumbai/All lit up like a December night, 4th of July."

The fact is that with every additional day that the mystery remains unsolved, it becomes more likely that something out of the ordinary has happened, and that something really nasty is going to be revealed to us concerning Flight 370. As the witch in Macbeth said, "By the pricking of my thumbs/Something evil this way comes." We just have to wait and watch what happens next.

Thunderball? It wasn't much of a disappearance. Federick Forsyth's the Afghan is much more like it--a tanker ship disappears and suddenly returns as another.

 

[po2wq]

wat huppen 2 yr engrish 2dey?

dat 1 no nid 2 type ... kopi n pastry can oredi ...

 

[scroobal]

I think this is a humanitarian mission and the eyes of the world are on those that are in a position to help. The passengers and their relatives are certainly top of mind. It better to err in terms of commitment and scale. It is single and only piece of probable evidence when first revealed and there is nothing else to go on. The Australians took 4 days (16 to 20th) to confirm image as a probable. It was not announced to the World within hours. No PM in the world is going to put his head on a chopping world on hunch.

France, Japan, Korea and UAE have got no reason to be involved as it not even near their coast. Yet the France team came in in day 7to KL. All 4 have no territorial aspiration or need to have a sphere of influence in this part of the world yet they are there. I am sure the French people would not have minded if their govt was not involved but I am also sure they are proud and delighted that their country is providing help.

We can be cautious of the US because of their own agenda but the 4 countries conduct is exemplary.

Also closure to everyone including all stakeholders besides the relatives are not just limited to survivors but to find out what happened and can we prevent another such incident. Boeing, MAS, Rolls Royce, including air passengers around the world want to know the answers.

I am also certain that 99% of the world thinks that they all dead including me.

Leaving street lights on near deserted roads at the wee hours of the night are not economical but we do it just the same and the same logic applies.

Let's be clear that we are shifting our discussion again. The issues in question now are :
1. Is it wrong to deplore asserts, based on unconfirmed information?
2. Where should the assists be correctly deplored?

My view to question 1 is that it is not wrong for assets to be deployed to the west of Perth, if the level of deployment is scaled according to the credibility of the info. The current level of search is adequate. However, to rush more assets to a single area just simply because it is the only lead available or because everybody felt the compulsion to do something, then it may be childish.

For question 2, the situation has already reached a state where the speed of finding the plane will not affect the chance of survivor. Hence, there is no need to deplore any physical asserts if there is no reliable fresh leads. However, for PR reason, Malaysia and China may have to continue with some level of physical deployment to pacify the relatives.

The northern corridor is land mass so satellite image couldn't help much. The southern is ocean so it becomes easier to use satellite image. Could this be the reason for the focus on the south or is there other information that I have missed that caused the shift in their focus to the southern corridor

 

[steffychun]

I think this is a humanitarian mission and the eyes of the world are on those that are in a position to help. The passengers and their relatives are certainly top of mind. It better to err in terms of commitment and scale. It is single and only piece of probable evidence when first revealed and there is nothing else to go on. The Australians took 4 days (16 to 20th) to confirm image as a probable. It was not announced to the World within hours. No PM in the world is going to put his head on a chopping world on hunch.

France, Japan, Korea and UAE have got no reason to be involved as it not even near their coast. Yet the France team came in in day 7to KL. All 4 have no territorial aspiration or need to have a sphere of influence in this part of the world yet they are there. I am sure the French people would not have minded if their govt was not involved but I am also sure they are proud and delighted that their country is providing help.

We can be cautious of the US because of their own agenda but the 4 countries conduct is exemplary.

Also closure to everyone including all stakeholders besides the relatives are not just limited to survivors but to find out what happened and can we prevent another such incident. Boeing, MAS, Rolls Royce, including air passengers around the world want to know the answers.

I am also certain that 99% of the world thinks that they all dead including me.

Leaving street lights on near deserted roads at the wee hours of the night are not economical but we do it just the same and the same logic applies.

France was asked to be involved given its experience with the Air France incident. As a EU nation under economic strain, France wouldn't have bothered. In any case, they didn't send any military equipment so far. The UK in contrast loves to be involved given their development/humanitarian drive--finally sending one ship.

 

[eatshitndie]

malaysia is still the lead on this unfortunate event. the correct international protocol is to pass info to malaysian authorities ahead of time for them to coordinate the release of reliable info before making any public release announcements or do so independently. otherwise, it will be like sbf, with every attention seeking whore starting their own threads based on info gleaned from others. inmarsat alerted malaysian authorities very early of the pings they were getting, but malaysia took too long to get their act together. the frustration with malaysian authorities not being sharp and decisive enough resulted in some countries leaking vital clues to the press ahead of mal releases. nonetheless, time is of the essence to find debris and hoping debris will lead to orange boxes as the clock is ticking. 13 days and counting, and they only have a 2-mile range with their clicks. the aussie pm broke protocol but he also alluded to the operation being a "rescue mission", hoping to find survivors. that was plain out simple giving false hope. aside from victims' families clinging to every shred of info hoping for a miracle, everyone should know they are all already dead. at least the prc had the courtesy to inform the mal authorities first about sat images before releasing them, even though they bear the bulk of the passenger manifest.

 

[Sinkie]

I really do not think the plane is in the south indian ocean.

These 2 pilots or someone made deliberate flight changes............only to end up in the ocean?? Give me a break please.

More like the scenario of an AWACS plane taking control of the flight remotely and now end up in Diego Garcia.

Or else it's the Taliban and now the plane is in Pakistan, ready to be re-deployed as a flying bomb.

The 20 engineers of Freescale are of what calibre? No one talks about them, but 20 engineers in the same flight is
a dead giveaway. I've never come across a company that puts so many of its engineers on the same flight, if the
nature of their work in Freescale is that of electronic warfare and military radar......and a cloaking (invisible) product.
How ironic...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world...-ELECTRONIC-WARFARE-and-radar-defence-company

 

[TeamDrifter]

The 20 engineers of Freescale are of what calibre? No one talks about them, but 20 engineers in the same flight is
a dead giveaway. I've never come across a company that puts so many of its engineers on the same flight, if the
nature of their work in Freescale is that of electronic warfare and military radar......and a cloaking (invisible) product.
How ironic...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world...-ELECTRONIC-WARFARE-and-radar-defence-company

"Twelve were from Malaysia, while eight were Chinese nationals. " engineers from these nationalities can be considered high calibre? Very doubtful.

 

[steffychun]

malaysia is still the lead on this unfortunate event. the correct international protocol is to pass info to malaysian authorities ahead of time for them to coordinate the release of reliable info before making any public release announcements or do so independently. otherwise, it will be like sbf, with every attention seeking whore starting their own threads based on info gleaned from others. inmarsat alerted malaysian authorities very early of the pings they were getting, but malaysia took too long to get their act together. the frustration with malaysian authorities not being sharp and decisive enough resulted in some countries leaking vital clues to the press ahead of mal releases. nonetheless, time is of the essence to find debris and hoping debris will lead to orange boxes as the clock is ticking. 13 days and counting, and they only have a 2-mile range with their clicks. the aussie pm broke protocol but he also alluded to the operation being a "rescue mission", hoping to find survivors. that was plain out simple giving false hope. aside from victims' families clinging to every shred of info hoping for a miracle, everyone should know they are all already dead. at least the prc had the courtesy to inform the mal authorities first about sat images before releasing them, even though they bear the bulk of the passenger manifest.

Malaysia is suffering unnecessarily from all this thanks to the heartless media.

 

[JHolmesJr]

Consider this:

JI or some other group has turned the copilot to their cause...he neutralise the cockpit crew, turns off the transponder and sets course for the nearest destination that is one of asia most tempting economic targets, a staunch ally of the west and offers a broad swathe of foreign civilians as targets, all partying or gambling their asses off on saturday night. The image of this plane buried in the broad sweep of this building is almost reminiscent of what happened 12 years ago.

However the country in question spots the incursion, scrambles jets and shoots it down. There is no time to confer with china or the us....it is literally a shoot first ask questions later situation.

Now most governments know what has happened and the fate of te 239 on board but how can you tell the world yes we shot it down....imagine the shit storm....provide proof.....lawsuits.....recriminatory action....its all too much trouble.

Much easier to just act blur, search here there, do it for years.....while the fuselage and blackbox have already been disposed off.

 

[InformationSociety]

Missing plane timeline: The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

Mar 23, 2014 15:52
By Jessica Best

A fortnight after the plane carrying 239 people went missing, we look back at major developments in one of the most complex mysteries the aviation world has ever known

Today marks two weeks since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared without trace.

After taking off from Kuala Lumpur on Friday March 8, it vanished around an hour into its flight with 239 people onboard.

It made no distress call, and despite a huge search operation involving dozens of countries, reported satellite signals and false leads, investigators have failed to find any trace of it.

Here we look back at how the last 14 days have unfolded.

Saturday, March 8

• Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 Flight departs at 12:41am (1441 GMT Friday), and is due to land in Beijing at 6:30am (2230 GMT) the same day. On board the Boeing 777-200ER are 227 passengers and 12 crew.
  
• Airline loses contact with plane between 1-2 hours after takeoff . No distress signal and weather is clear at the time.
• Missing plane last has contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.
• Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam says plane failed to check in as scheduled at 17:21 GMT while flying over sea between Malaysia and Ho Chi Minh City.
• Flight tracking website flightaware.com shows plane flew northeast over Malaysia after take off and climbed to altitude of 35,000 feet. The flight vanished from website's tracking records a minute later while still climbing.
• Malaysia search ships see no sign of wreckage in area where flights last made contact. Vietnam says giant oil slick and column of smoke seen in its waters.
  
• Two men from Austria and Italy, listed among the passengers on a missing Malaysia Airlines flight, are not in fact on board. They say their passports were stolen .

Sunday, March 9

• Malaysia Airlines says fears worst and is working with U.S. company that specialises in disaster recovery.
  
• Radar indicates flight may have turned back from its scheduled route to Beijing before disappearing.
  
• Interpol says at least two passports recorded as lost or stolen in its database were used by passengers, and it is "examining additional suspect passports".
• Investigators narrow focus of inquiries on possibility plane disintegrated in mid-flight, a source who is involved in the investigations in Malaysia tells Reuters.

Monday, March 10

• The United States review of American spy satellite imagery shows no signs of mid-air explosion.
  
• As dozens of ships and aircraft from seven countries scour the seas around Malaysia and south of Vietnam, questions mounted over whether a bomb or hijacking could have brought down the Boeing airliner .
• Hijacking could not be ruled out, said the head of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Authority, Azharuddin Abdul Rahmanthe, adding the missing jet was an "unprecedented aviation mystery".
  

Tuesday, March 11

• Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble names the two men who boarded jet with stolen passports as Iranians, aged 18 and 29, who had entered Malaysia using their real passports. "The more information we get, the more we are inclined to conclude it is not a terrorist incident," Noble said.
  
• Malaysian police chief said the younger man appeared to be an illegal immigrant. His mother was waiting for him in Frankfurt and had been in contact with authorities, he said.
• Malaysian police say they are investigating whether any passengers or crew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that might shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or mechanical failure .
• Malaysia's military believes missing jet turned and flew hundreds of kilometres to the west after it last made contact with civilian air traffic control off the country's east coast, a senior officer told Reuters. The jet made it into the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping channels, along Malaysia's west coast, said the officer.
• A Colorado-based company has put "crowdsourcing" to work in search for a missing jet, enlisting Internet users to comb through satellite images of more than 1,200 square miles (3,200 square km) of open seas for any signs of wreckage.

Wednesday, March 12

• The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet expands to an area stretching from China to India , as authorities struggle to answer what had happened to the aircraft that vanished almost five days ago with 239 people on board.
  
• Its revealed that the finals words spoken by one of the pilots from the cockpit of the plane to ground control were "all right, good night" . The comment came as the plane flew from Malaysian into Vietnamese air space.

Thursday March 13

• A Chinese satellite picture appears to show the outline of wreckage floating in the South China Sea, but Vietnamese search teams failed to find any sign of the objects.
  
• Aviation experts say they believe the missing airliner could have flown for an extra four hours, after it lost contact with traffic controllers. The new theory was based on data downloaded automatically from the jet's engines.
• It was also revealed that satellites picked up faint electronic pulses from MH370 after it went missing.
• China said that they would not stop searching for the missing aircraft so long as there is a "glimmer of hope".
• Investigators began looking into suggestions that the plane may have been deliberately flown towards the Andaman Islands

Friday March 14

• A satellite company revealed it had received signals for MH370 five hours after it disappeared, suggesting the plane was still flying and had not crashed, and the search was dramatically shifted to large parts of the Indian Ocean.
  

Saturday March 15

• The investigation into the disappearance shifted towards foul play, amid suggestions the plane was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course.
  
• Malaysian authorities then gave a press conference where they confirmed that they believed "deliberate action" had caused the plane to veer off course, and that someone deliberately shut down its communication and tracking systems.
  
• New satellite information suggests the plane was flown west into the Straits of Malacca, but could then have gone down either one of two huge north or south corridors, spanning large tracts of land and deep oceans.
• Police searched the homes of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid.

Sunday March 16

• Pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is picture wearing a T-shirt with a Democracy is Dead slogan, sparking fears he could have hijacked the plane as an anti-government protest.
• The number of countries involved in the search increased from 14 to 25, as Malaysian authorities revealed all passengers, crew and ground staff associated with the flight were under investigation.
• Investigators revealed a flight simulator had been found at Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's home, and taken away for further analysis.
• At a press conference, it was suggested that Flight MH370 could have been on the ground when it sent its final satellite signal, and that its transmission system was switched off after its final communication with ground control.

Monday March 17

• Flight engineer Mohd Kairul Amri Selamat, who was also one of the passengers on board the plane, comes under investigation. Police say they are looking at anyone on the plane who may have had aviation skills and knowledge.
  
• A theory emerges that the missing plane could be in a Taliban controlled base, where it could be being kept ready for use at a later date.
  
• It is also suggested MH370 may have secretly flown at just 5,000ft to avoid radar detection.

Tuesday March 18

• After days of frustration at the lack of confirmed information, relatives of some of the Chinese passengers on board the plane threaten to go on hunger strike.
  

Wednesday March 19

• The FBI joined the search for the Malaysia Airlines jet, with the agency dedicating resources to analysing computer hard-drives seized from the homes of the plane's pilots.
  
• Distraught relatives are bundled out of a press conference after storming in with a banner demanding more information.

Thursday March 20

• Search teams spot huge chunks of possible wreckage in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, 1,500 miles off the western coast of Australia. One is 78ft long, the other 25ft. The find prompts the launch of another focused air and sea search mission from Perth.
  
• Britain sends HMS Echo to join the search in the Indian Ocean.

Friday March 21

• The search off the Australian coast continues for a second day, but flights to the site where possible debris was spotted fail to find anything.
  
• The Australian Maritime Safety Authority say they continue to focus on locating any survivors.

Saturday March 22

• There was a dramatic moment at the Malaysian authorities' daily press conference when the country's transport minister was handed a note saying a Chinese satellite had spotted a "floating object" in the southern search corridor which could be debris.
  
• The object measured 22.5m by 13m and was 120k south west of where an Australian satellite had previously spotted two other objects.
• There were also angry scenes as at press conference in Beijing, where officials were briefing relatives of Chinese passengers who, frustrated at the lack of concrete information, demanded to know "the truth".
  
• Search missions in the southern Indian ocean failed to find anything for a third day.
  

Sunday March 23

• A French satellite became the third to spot objects in the southern search corridor, 1,430 miles from Perth.
• But again search crews setting off from Perth - including four military and four civilian planes - failed to find any sign of it.
  

 

[YouMakeMyDreams]

U.S. Navy black box locator joins search for missing Malaysian plane

By Jane Wardell and Matt Siegel
SYDNEY/PERTH Sun Mar 23, 2014 11:39pm EDT

One of two Japanese Government P-3 aircraft arrives at RAAF base Pearce March 23, 2014 in Bullsbrook near Perth. REUTERS-Jason Reed

(Reuters) - The United States Navy is moving one of its high-tech Black Box detectors closer to the search area for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane in remote seas off the Australian coast, bolstering hopes wreckage of the plane may be found soon.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board on a flight to Beijing on March 8.

The so-called Towed Pinger Locator will be crucial in finding the black box of the missing jetliner if a debris field is established by an Australian-led international search team scouring an area in the southern Indian Ocean some 2,500 km (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth.

"If debris is found we will be able to respond as quickly as possible since the battery life of the black box's pinger is limited," Commander Chris Budde, U.S. Seventh Fleet Operations Officer, said in an emailed statement.

Attention and resources in the search for the Boeing 777 have shifted in recent days from an initial focus north of the equator to an increasingly narrowed stretch of icy sea in the southern Indian Ocean.

Chinese and Japanese military aircraft were joining a 10-strong international fleet of planes scouring the area for the first time on Monday.

A flotilla of Chinese ships, including the icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, is also making its way south.

Budde stressed that bringing in the black box detector, which is towed behind a vessel at slow speeds and can pick up "pings" from a black box to a maximum depth of 20,000 feet, was a precautionary measure.

Similarly, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss stressed the challenges of the search.

"It's a lot of water to look for just perhaps a tiny object," Truss told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio.

"Today we expect the weather to deteriorate and the forecast ahead is not that good, so it's going to be a challenge, but we will stick at it," he said.

Two Chinese military Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft, two Australian P3 Orions and two ultra-long range civilian jets were in the early search party on Monday. Another ultra-long range jet, a U.S. Navy P8 Poseidon and two Japanese P3 Orions were due to depart later in the day.

FLOATING OBJECTS

Australia was analyzing French radar images showing potential floating debris that were taken some 850 kms (530 miles) north of the current search area.

"We only recently got this information and we are still examining it," an AMSA spokeswoman told Reuters by telephone. Malaysia said it received the images on Sunday and passed them on to Australia.

"We are taking it into account but at this stage we are still focused on the same search area," the spokeswoman said, contradicting earlier comments from Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss that the search area had been expanded north to take into account the French sighting.

Australia has used a U.S. satellite image of two floating objects to frame its search area.

The search planes are zeroing in on the areas around where the earlier sightings were made in an effort to find the object identified by China and other small debris, including a wooden pallet, spotted by a search plane on Saturday.

China said the object it had seen on the satellite image was 22 meters long (74ft) and 13 meters (43ft) wide.

It could not be determined easily from the blurred images whether the objects were the same as those detected by Australia, but the Chinese photograph could depict a cluster of smaller objects, said a senior military officer from one of the 26 nations involved in the search.

The wing of a Boeing 777-200ER is approximately 27 meters long and 14 meters wide at its base, according to estimates derived from publicly available scale drawings. Its fuselage is 63.7 meters long by 6.2 meters wide.

NASA said it would use high-resolution cameras aboard satellites and the International Space Station to look for possible crash sites in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. space agency is also examining archived images collected by instruments on its Terra and Aqua environmental satellites, said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel.

"Our satellites and space-based cameras are designed for long-term scientific data gathering and Earth observation. They're really not meant to look for a missing aircraft, and obviously NASA isn't a lead agency in this effort. But we're trying to support the search, if possible," Beutel said.

Truss said the aircraft flying on Monday would be focused on searching by sight, rather than radar, which can be tricky to use because of the high seas and wind in the area. Civilian aircraft, which can carry more people, have joined the search.

HIJACK OR SABOTAGE?

Investigators believe someone on the flight shut off the plane's communications systems. Partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and re-crossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot.

That has led them to focus on hijacking or sabotage, but investigators have not ruled out technical problems. Faint electronic "pings" detected by a commercial satellite suggested it flew for another six hours or so, but could do no better than place its final signal on one of two vast arcs north and south.

The lack of solid news has meant a prolonged and harrowing wait for families of the passengers, who have complained in both Beijing and Kuala Lumpur about the absence of information.

A Malaysian statement said a "high-level" team briefed relatives in Beijing on Sunday in a meeting that lasted more than six hours.

While the southern arc is now the main focus of the search, Malaysia says efforts will continue in both corridors until confirmed debris are found.

"We still don't even know for certain if the aircraft is in this area," Truss said of the southern Indian Ocean search.

"We're just clutching at whatever little piece of information that comes along to try to find the place we can concentrate the efforts."

(Additional reporting by Irene Klotz; Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Paul Tait)

 

[YouMakeMyDreams]

Rain hampers hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines plane as NASA joins the search

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 23 March, 2014, 11:33am
UPDATED : Monday, 24 March, 2014, 10:28am

Danny Lee and Angela Meng in Kuala Lumpur

Chinese Air Force Ilyushin aircraft at an Australian air force base near Perth yesterday. They will join the search from today. Photo: Reuters

A crew member of Chinese icebreaker Xuelong searches for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on the south Indian Ocean on March 23, 2014. Photo: Xinhua

Rain was expected to hamper the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet on Monday as search teams headed out at first light into an expanded are of the Indian Ocean.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority's rescue coordination centre said the search area had been expanded from 59,000 to 68,500 square kilometres, including a new separate area following radar information provided by France yesterday.

NASA said its scientific satellites were also being used to scour the ocean for objects and that it was trawling through archive data in an effort to spot any clues as to the plane's whereabouts.

Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said early Monday that “nothing of note” was found Sunday, which he described as a “fruitless day".

“It’s going to be a challenge, but we’ll stick at it,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio before the first aircraft left Perth at dawn.

“We’re just, I guess, clutching at whatever little piece of information comes along to try and find a place where we might be able to concentrate the efforts,” he added.

Malaysia yesterday received a batch of 'radar echoes' - electronic signals sent out that can bounce back information about the location of objects - this time from French authorities, showing possible debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane in the southern Indian Ocean.

An unnamed Malaysian official said yesterday the data was compiled on Friday. The location was about 930 kilometres north of where objects in images released by China and Australia were located.

"Malaysia immediately relayed [this] to the Australian rescue co-ordination centre," Malaysia's transport ministry said.

The satellite image released by China yesterday showing suspected debris in the southern corridor of the intensified search area in the Indian Ocean. Photo: SCMP

Two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft will today start searching for potential wreckage in an isolated stretch of the Indian Ocean. It is hoped that any objects recovered may lead to clues on the whereabouts of the plane and the 239 people it was carrying, 154 of whom were Chinese.

A growing international fleet of aircraft and vessels in an Australia-led Indian Ocean search mission found nothing on the fourth day of scouring an area 2,300 kilometres west of Perth.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement Monday that it “reiterates this is a challenging search operation”.

“The flight has been missing since March 8 and AMSA continues to hold the gravest of concerns for the passengers and crew on board the missing flight.”

Photo released by Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) shows satellite image of objects that may be possible debris of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean. Photo: Xinhua

Today’s search is split into two areas within the same proximity covering a cumulative 68,500 square kilometres,” it said.

“The weather forecast in the search area is expected to deteriorate, with rain likely," it added.

Ships and aircraft scrambled to search for a wooden pallet and other debris after a civilian search plane spotted the objects on Saturday, 14 days after Beijing-bound Flight MH370 vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

Mike Barton, who is a rescue co-ordinator for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), said the search team saw "a wooden pallet and a number of other items … [including] strapping belts of different lengths".

An official with Malaysia Airlines confirmed last night that the plane was carrying wooden pallets but provided no further details. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of company policy preventing the official from being named.

NASA said it would use high-resolution cameras aboard satellites and the International Space Station to look for possible crash sites in the Indian Ocean.

The US space agency is also mining archived images collected by instruments on its Terra and Aqua environmental satellites, said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel.

"Our satellites and space-based cameras are designed for long-term scientific data gathering and Earth observation. They’re really not meant to look for a missing aircraft, and obviously NASA isn’t a lead agency in this effort. But we’re trying to support the search, if possible," Beutel said.

A relative of Chinese passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines, flight MH370 cries as others protest after a briefing by Malaysian government representatives at a hotel in Beijing, China. Photo: AP

A man covers his face as he walks out from a room reserved for relatives of Chinese passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines, MH370, in Beijing, China. Photo: AP

After more than two weeks of not knowing the fate of the vanished aircraft or any of its passengers, the world awaits any news on the objects of interest identified by French, Australian and Chinese satellites. Search and rescue teams have been struggling to narrow search areas.

The plane's black box - which will be critical in determining what actually happened on board the flight - has only about 13 days of battery left.

Barton said AMSA had been able to search a smaller "defined area" based on two previous satellite images showing possible objects in the immediate vicinity.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said yesterday: "Obviously, we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope, no more than hope, that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen."

Additional reporting by Associated Press

 

[eatshitndie]

prc plane spotted debris in water.