[Kharon]

Why, FCOL, someone tell me why?



Closely following D.C. electrics and hydraulics in my lexicon of boring or not understood things, (due massive interest failure) comes politics and the actions of politicians and their minders.  Whether they are opening their mouths to change feet or setting fire to their feet to keep their hands warm, it simply remains one of the many things I fail to understand.  Not 'thick' you understand, just the hard wiring is different.


For example; MH 370 ranks up there with the Titanic as a disaster and a mystery.  Perhaps even a bigger mystery; which was always (as demonstrated) going to draw a large crowd.  That crowd keeping a watchful eye on the many layers of vested interest, Government, manufacturer, safety agencies, military, secret services etc. etc.  Australia's SAR obligations soon became apparent and, to their credit, the government responded quickly and properly.  Rapidly despatching our very competent search crews and aircraft into the wide, wild Indian Ocean; heeding neither the cost or risk, in an attempt to locate survivors and the airframe.  The laudable SAR exercise was conducted by the first class Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) and someone had the good sense to deal Angus Houston into the game.  It was all peerlessly managed, honest, open and correct.  First class and bloody well done; by all; from the cleaning crew to Houston.  Bravo.


Long before the 'theorists' got going for real, there were difficult questions, of a technical nature to answer.  Conspiracy and piracy aside, there was enough 'smell' coming off the known facts to warn even the most naive, politically insensitive of creatures that this incident had the potential to turn very ugly, very fast.


So, why would anyone put the undermanned, under-skilled, under funded, discredited Australian Air Transport Safety Board (ATSB) management 'front of house' to replace the peerless AMSA and the impeccable Houston?.... Sure, it's an 'aviation' matter but without an aircraft to investigate and considering the world wide talent pool analysing the available 'aeronautical' data, the ATSB was pretty much one of the banjo players in the orchestra pit.  Their practical value would be 'dubious', the clever folk, with the expensive toys would, eventually pass along their information; but not until 'they' were certain of their facts and results; at best ATSB would be an also ran in the information and analysis stakes.


Then, to crown this, a short sighted, blatant PR attempt to 'resurrect' the tarnished Bea-Cur reputation by his golfing mates.  He is shoved centre stage of the MH 370 production.  This mind you following closely on the heels of a 'lacklustre' performance in a Senate inquiry which clearly identified several areas of incompetence, went very close to calling the duck-up of the cover up a collusive conspiracy, shamed Dolan and by extension discredited the entire ATSB, as an entity.  No one blamed the coal face troops, but mud does have it's own methodology.


Which ever way it plays out, MH 370 has the makings of a first class political disaster.  What I fail to understand is why throw more fat into the fire by putting the Mrdak/Dolan duo into a very fierce spotlight?, when they're joined at the hip.    One whiff of involvement in anything remotely resembling the Pel-Air debacle and the government will catch the blame; probably not all of it, but enough to 'shorten' their credibility.  If any form of cover up is ever proven and with these two, already 'suspect' under a Senate exposed 'cover up' cloud, standing front and centre it will be very hard to deny Australian complicity; given the proven track record in domestic matters.  Even if there never was a cover up of any sort; the international press are no where near as tame, frightened or benign as the local variety.


Nope, just don't get it – from a chance to shine by continuing with the great job done by AMSA and Houston to being tarred by a very dirty brush; in one ill considered, badly advised move.  No matter, Julia will sort it all out, being a Bishop on a chess board, rather than an Abbott running a monkery.  

Selah.. 

[Peetwo]

Foley update to MH370 SIO deep water & debris drift search to the Senate RRAT committee:

MTF...

[Peetwo]

Quote from Shine Lawyers Aviation blog 27 Feb 2015:

Inmarsat airliner global tracking concept trial


February 27, 2015 by Joseph Wheeler

Earlier this month ICAO agreed on the adoption of a new 15 minute tracking standard for commercial aircraft, and this is expected to be the subject of new standards and recommended practices later in 2015.  The resolution was a reaction to the global demand for the prevention of aircraft disappearances like MH370.

Inmarsat, the company whose data and calculations have significantly informed the present search for flight MH370, is partnering with Airservices Australia and other Australian aviation stakeholders to develop a trial of global flight tracking using Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Contract (ADS-C) satellite technology in Australia’s oceanic regions.

ADS-C provides air traffic controllers with a continually updated surveillance picture of their airspace, which allows safe and efficient oceanic air operations.

About 11,000 commercial aircraft are already equipped with an Inmarsat satellite connection, representing over 90% of the world’s long haul commercial fleet.

Airlines which will participate in the trial include Qantas and Virgin Australia.
 
Written by Joseph Wheeler

Well apparently the miniscule was roused from his normal Sundy slumber to make a formal announcement of Airservices involvement in the ICAO trial - the following article is courtesy of Aunty (the other Aunty):

MH370: Warren Truss announces trial to improve aircraft tracking nearly a year after flight disappeared

Posted 44 minutes ago Sun 1 Mar 2015, 3:25pm

Photo: The measures were announced in response to the disappearance of flight MH370 nearly a year ago. (AFP: Mohd Rasfan)

Australia will take part in a joint trial to improve aircraft tracking in response to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 nearly a year ago, Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss has announced.

Under the new system, planes flying over remote oceanic areas would be tracked every 15 minutes, rather than at intervals of 30 to 40 minutes.

Mr Truss said the tragedy put the spotlight on aircraft monitoring.

"This new approach enables immediate improvements to monitoring long haul flights and will give the public greater confidence in aviation, without requiring any additional technology investment by airlines," he said.

"This initiative adapts existing technology used by more than 90 per cent of long haul passenger aircraft and would see air traffic control respond more rapidly should an aircraft experience difficulty or an unexpected deviation from its flight plan.

"I especially welcome the involvement of both Indonesia and Malaysian Air Traffic Control providers to make this a truly regional initiative."
Airservices Australia chairman Sir Angus Houston said the new measures would allow authorities to track planes more accurately and respond more quickly to any abnormal events.

"It's also important to recognise that this is not a silver bullet, but it is an important step in delivering immediate improvements to the way we currently track aircraft while more comprehensive solutions are developed," he said.

"Major airlines are also supporting this important safety initiative and have recognised the value in working collaboratively as part of a regional approach that will, ultimately, contribute to global action."

The trial will see long haul flights in the airspace managed by Airservices, which covers 11 per cent of the world's surface, tracked by satellite-based positioning technology.

Both the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have announced their endorsement of moves toward increased surveillance of aircraft in remote airspace in the future.

The Malaysian government in January declared the disappearance was officially classified as an accident, and all 293 passengers, including six Australians, were believed to have died.

Australia has led the nearly year-long hunt for the missing plane.

The current search phase is focused on the sea floor about 1,600 kilometres west of Perth.

 
However in a more critical appraisal of the miniscule's announcement,  Ben Sandilands from Planetalking does not spare many words in his scathing attack on the miniscule and his minders (err..spin doctors.. ) -  Absurd MH370 related tracking statement made by Minister Truss :

The statement blithely ignores the fact that Australia has been using ADS-C since 1999.  Let’s put this down to the Minister relying on others to serve up this rubbish, rather than any deliberate effort to mislead.


The history and purpose of ADS-C is set out with brevity and clarity at this link.


What Mr Truss’s carers appear to have him saying is that following MH370, and in response to sluggish deliberations that have occurred among industry bodies since then, Australia is actually going to be part of a trial of doing something it could have been doing more widely and consistently with ADS-C for the last 16 years.

MTF...

[Peetwo]

The trouble with Chinese whispers is they tend to have a life of their own; take the story - unbeknownst to us downunda folk - that somehow filtered across the pacific, across mainland USA and into the Big Apple, all apparently while we were sleeping...

Here 'tis from the New York Times:

Australia Says Hunt for Missing MH370 Jet May Be Called Off Soon

By REUTERS
MARCH 1, 2015, 4:04 P.M. E.S.T.

CANBERRA — The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 cannot go on forever, Australia's deputy prime minister said, and discussions are already under way between Australia, China and Malaysia as to whether to call off the hunt within weeks.

No trace has been found of the Boeing 777 aircraft, which disappeared a year ago this week carrying 239 passengers and crew, in what has become one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

MH370 vanished from radar screens shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing, early on March 8. Investigators believe it was flown thousands of miles off course before eventually crashing into the Indian Ocean.

The search of a rugged 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq mile) patch of sea floor some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) west of the Australian city of Perth, which experts believe is the plane's most likely resting place, will likely be finished by May.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told Reuters that a decision would have to be taken well before then as to whether to continue into the vast 1.1 million sq km area around the primary search zone if nothing has been found.

Discussions had already begun about what to do in that event, including the possibility that the search might be called off, said Truss, who is also transport minister.

"For many of the families onboard, they won't have closure unless they have certain knowledge that the aircraft has been located and perhaps their loved ones' remains have been recovered," Truss said in an interview.

"We clearly cannot keep searching forever, but we want to do everything that's reasonably possible to locate the aircraft."

Truss compared the search, already the most expensive of its kind, with another great mystery from an earlier era, the hunt for missing aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, who disappeared in 1937 during an early attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

Four vessels owned by Dutch engineering firm Fugro, equipped with sophisticated underwater drones, have searched about 40 percent of the previously unmapped expanse of sea floor that has been designated the highest priority.

DECISION TIME
Australia and Malaysia contributed to evenly split the costs, estimated at up to A$52 million ($40.5 million), but Truss warned that continuing the search beyond that area would be impossible without more international help.

"We put in the amount of money that we believed was necessary to do this job well and thoroughly with the best available equipment," he said. "We have to make other decisions, then, about how long the search should continue."

Military radar showed the plane turned back across Peninsular Malaysia after contact with it was lost. A handful of faint "pings" picked up by a commercial satellite for around another six hours helped narrow down its likely final location.

Martin Dolan, Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau which is leading the search, said he remained confident that the plane would be found in the remainder of the so-called "priority search area".

If, however, the search has to be expanded into the much larger surrounding area, the costs could prove prohibitive.
"It's almost impossible to get your head around the scale of what's involved here," he told Reuters.

"If you take the theoretical maximum of the possible area for the aircraft – 1.1 (or) 1.2 million sq km – you're talking about orders or magnitude in terms of cost and time above what we're currently doing, and that's something that governments will obviously have to bear in mind."

Most of those on board the lost flight were Chinese or Malaysian.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Australia, China and Malaysia had cooperated closely on the search.
"The Australian side has put in a large amount of personnel and material resources and we are deeply grateful for their help," Hong said. "The search effort is still ongoing and we hope the relevant work will produce progress."

The Malaysian government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Loss-making Malaysia Airlines, whose fortunes worsened when another of its Boeing 777's was shot down over Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board, was delisted at the end of 2014 as part of a $1.8 billion government-led restructuring.

Rounding out a bad year for Malaysian-affiliated carriers, an Indonesia AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore crashed on Dec. 28, killing all 162 people on board.

      
Then it filters backwards & forwards evolving again &.. again, till the latest on twitter is that it will be quite literally a matter of weeks till the official MH370 search will be called off...sheesh talk about snowball effect...

Fortunately here in Oz - in aviation journalist circles - we have our resident Tendentious Blogger Ben Sandilands who is very good at sifting out the facts from the bollocks, so here is his take on the NYT MH370 apparent scoop: 

Australia is keen to quit MH370 search soon, but why?

Ben Sandilands | Mar 02, 2015 11:21AM

Recent well placed hints by Australia that it is looking to winding up the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have made it to the New York Times. The implications of this need to be carefully considered.

‘Looking to’ isn’t the same as ‘has decided’ as Canberra made clear this morning after the US story hit the internet. Australia would not reach such a decision without the agreement of the Malaysia authorities, and there have been no structured discussions with Malaysia or China, as to striking a tripartite agreement to end the search.

The ending of a search obligation by a country such as Australia which is a party to a set of ICAO protocols isn’t something lightly done, but Australia has been exemplary in its conduct of the detailed sea floor search since last year once there was sufficient preliminary bathymetric mapping of the terrain to safely deploy towed side scanning sonar devices (or towfish).

The NYT story itself would be a very good catch up for Australians who have given up trying to follow the MH370 mystery disappearance, but not much use to those who have been parsing every word to come out of the JACC, the ATSB or the Minister responsible for aviation, and Deputy PM, Warren Truss.

Unless the current and well resourced search of the ‘priority areas’ gets lucky within a matter of weeks, it is likely that Australia, Malaysia, and China, will contemplate the non-extension of the efforts to find the lost Boeing 777-200ER, which vanished with at least 239 people on board, almost a year ago on 8 March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The search organisation needs to declare this in advance of the completion of the priority search area this May in order to give proper notice to the operators of the four ships which have been variously mapping, sonar scanning, and in one case, closely examining target areas on the complex sea floor with a deep sea automated submersible vehicle.

The risk in doing what may on the available evidence seem the logical course of action is that of feeding conspiracy scenarios. And some of those scenarios contain hard to dismiss elements of concern, while others are just wacko.

Malaysia’s authorities have lied to or grievously misled the public and the relatives of the lost on a number of counts, they have kept part of the cargo manifest secret for so long nobody will believe anything they might say about it the future, and have, no doubt for some good reasons, been opaque about the criminal investigations that have been made made in parallel to the physical search.

It is the performance of the Malaysia authorities that makes quitting so risky, but at a technical level, it has also been the fierce critiques applied to the official view as to where and at what speed and altitude the jet flew to its doom that will continue to be controversial.
With good reason. Much of that good reason comes from the self styled, and exceedingly well credentialed, Independent Group who with some difficulty, eventually engaged the ATSB which, like the JACC, manages the search. (The ATSB/JACC thing isn’t worthy of space for the purpose of this story, which is to explore the implications of ending the search.)

This is a good place to start to understand the Independent Group’s work. It requires your careful and undivided attention.
In recent weeks Mike Chillit, an indefatigable ship tracker, has been following the activities of the search flotilla, and picked up indications that at least some of them have widened their scan tracking, which would work against finding small pieces of wreckage, but radically improve the chances of picking up evidence of big chunks, like the two engines, and the main undercarriage assembly of the jet by exploring a larger area in the same time.

There is no doubt that the search is a determined one, and conducted with confidence that MH370 is in or very near the general area of the priority search. But the problem is the quality of the data on which the search priorities have been framed.

Mike Chillit, who can be followed on Twitter @MikeChillit, has summarised the plausible variations as to where MH370 might be if some tightly held assumptions are incorrect, in this morning’s diagram (below). It makes discontinuing the search graphically understandable.

Which is all very interesting, however IMO one thing is for certain the MH370 exit strategy by the JACC/ATSB/OzGovt is now firmly in play....

MTF...

[Peetwo]

MH370: Australia has no plans to abandon search  


Brendan Nicholson

Defence Editor
Canberra



The MH370 search vessel Go Phoenix. Source: Supplied



TRANSPORT Minister Warren Truss has insisted that Australia, China and Malaysia have no plans to abandon the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 off Western Australia.  

Mr Truss’s spokesman issued a statement today denying that the three nations were discussing calling off the search.
“Discussion are not under way to call off the search,” the spokesman said.

“Discussions are ongoing about the search.”

Reuters new agency had quoted Mr Truss as saying the search could not go on forever and discussions were already being held with China and Malaysia about whether to call the search off within weeks.

MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew vanished on March 8 last year while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

No trace of the aircraft or those aboard has been found.

Mr Truss’s spokesman said that with more than 40 per cent of the 60,000 square kilometre priority area searched so far, the government remained cautiously optimistic about finding the aircraft.

“If, however, the plane is not found at the completion of the search, expected around May 2015, then discussions will be had between Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and potentially others on the next steps,” the spokesman said.

“But to be clear. We are not in discussions to call off the search.”

 
And so ends (until next time) the Chinese whisper trail...

[Peetwo]

UPDATE: Truss announcement of - Inmarsat airliner global tracking concept trial.

The following is the full Truss Media Release 01 March 2015 - Australia leads oceanic trial to improve aircraft tracking

Media Release

WT055/2014
01 March 2015

In the wake of the tragic disappearance of Malaysian flight MH 370, Australia's Air Traffic Control manager, Airservices Australia, will conduct a trial with its regional partners in Malaysia and Indonesia to more closely track aircraft through the skies over oceanic areas.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss said the MH 370 mystery has galvanised the three nations in a bid to improve aircraft monitoring, resulting in a trial that tracks long haul flights at least every 15 minutes.

While airlines flying over continental Australia are already tracked in real time by radars or continuous position reporting, the new minimum tracking interval for remote oceanic areas of 15 minutes improves on the previous tracking rate of 30–40 minutes. This can also now increase to real time monitoring should an abnormal situation arise.

The initiative, which adapts existing technology used by more than 90 per cent of long haul passenger aircraft operating, would see Air Traffic Control able to respond more rapidly should an aircraft experience difficulty or unexpectedly deviate from its flight path.

Mr Truss said Airservices had worked closely with Qantas, Virgin Australia and global satellite provider Inmarsat to successfully develop the operational concepts and trial the new use of surveillance technology with selected aircraft domestically since the beginning of February.

“This new approach enables immediate improvements to monitoring long haul flights and will give the public greater confidence in aviation, without requiring any additional technology investment by airlines,” he said.

“I especially welcome the involvement of both Indonesia and Malaysian Air Traffic Control providers to make this a truly regional initiative.”

Airservices Chair Sir Angus Houston said that an increased aircraft reporting rate will ensure that air traffic control agencies have much better information about the position of flights in oceanic areas and earlier advice of any abnormal flight behaviour.

“This is a strong first step as international agencies consider approaches to comprehensively track flights and the trial will provide valuable information for the development of global standards,” he said.

“Major airlines are also supporting this important safety initiative and have recognised the value in working collaboratively as part of a regional approach that will, ultimately, contribute to global action.”

The trial will see long haul flights in the airspace managed by Airservices—which covers 11% of the world's surface, tracked by satellite-based positioning technology called Automatic Dependant Surveillance—Contract (ADS-C).

Implementation will be carefully monitored and performance data will be used to inform ongoing international efforts to develop global standards and comprehensive solutions for future aircraft tracking solutions.

Both the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have announced their endorsement of moves toward increased surveillance of aircraft in remote airspace in the future.

Note: Broadcast quality A/V materials explaining the technology and for media use are available online at:

• Animation only (1min 02sec): https://vimeo.com/airservices/review/120...5926013baa
  
• Full version (2min 03sec): https://vimeo.com/airservices/review/120...c3da511ad7
  

And here is a link for the transcript from the press conference:

Transcript: Oceanic Tracking Trail Press Conference, Blue Room, Parliament House

Interview
WTC002/2015
01 March 2015

Topics: Oceanic Tracking Trial, MH 370, Liberal leadership, Coalition Agreement, NSW state election, Medicare Co-payment

Finally the following is an excerpt from a Sunrise interview with Truss this am:

Natalie Barr: Well nearly a year after the disappearance of flight MH370 aircraft monitoring is being ramped up in our region. Air Services Australia is trialling a new tracking method; it's for remote ocean areas like where the Malaysia Airlines flight is thought to have crashed. Location reports will come in every 15 minutes. Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss joins me now, thanks for your time....

...Natalie Barr: Okay onto this flight monitoring system; can the increased tracking of aircraft actually prevent incidents like MH370?

Warren Truss: Well not necessarily, because clearly it's very difficult to intervene from outside. What it will do is help us to identify when something is amiss much sooner. You see it was several weeks after the MH370 incident that we actually started searching in the place where the aircraft likely entered the sea because there was no immediate notice that it had in fact changed course; that only came to light weeks later as a result of detailed work done by some of the satellite owners and operators. So under this system we'd know within fifteen minutes if an aircraft had actually deviated from its path, or had undertaken some other kind of measure which suggested that something had gone wrong. So it will allow an earlier monitoring, and so if an incident did result in the loss of the aircraft the search could take place in the right location immediately.

MTF....P2

Addendum - Oceanic Tracking / MH370 Press Conference 1 March'15 - Part1 (YouTube)

[Peetwo]

Oceanic Tracking / MH370 Press Conference 1 March'15 - Part 2

{Note: At about 05:10 Angus Houston saves the miniscule's bacon - well sort of}

 

[Peetwo]

Oceanic Tracking / MH370 Press Conference 1 March'15 - Part3

Angus Houston's honest appraisal on MH370 & search progress - more is the pity that he is no longer in charge of the search.

MTF you bet! P2

[Peetwo]

Wow have had a read of the MH370 interim report released last Sunday...   

FACTUAL INFORMATION - SAFETY INVESTIGATION FOR MH370

Still reviewing/absorbing but to say it is a big read (yawn) would be an understatement!! However when you consider there is 377 pages of radio transcripts the remaining 204 pages becomes somewhat more manageable but is there anything that really stands out (besides the ELT expired battery) that we didn't already know? Well first impressions are not really, but I do get a gut feeling that it is more about what the authors don't tell us that is far more important than what they do regurgitate verbatim??

Perhaps one of the more insightful articles covering the MH370 SAR/investigation a year down the track is the one from Clive Irving - FLIGHT 370 DID NOT DISAPPEAR.  Like all such articles it is still devoid of some critical facts but does make some pertinent observations and draws attention - that sits like a woolly Mammoth at the back of the room - to the many failings, the lack of transparency & the bizarre information vacuum & the sometimes strange conduct by various authorities & governments that are involved (in particular the Malaysian government) in the MH370 tragic mystery.

From - AN INVISIBLE PLANE AND AN INVISIBLE INVESTIGATION:

It was also pointed out to me that the foul play theory – either by the pilots or intruders - would conveniently serve industry interests far more than the discovery of a technical emergency or an operational failure for which there would be considerable legal liabilities.

 
“There are many interests here, and they don’t all necessarily align with 100 percent full and candid disclosure at an early date,” a very experienced accident investigator cautioned. “In fact, the motivation for full and candid disclosure by all parties hardly ever occurs in serious accidents, for some very important financial, political, liability and social reasons.”

     
"a cut from Occam's Razor":

"WHICH HYPOTHESIS MAKES THE FEWEST ASSUMPTIONS: THAT SOMEONE DELIBERATELY DISCONNECTED THE TRANSPONDER AND ACARS, OR THAT THEY WERE DISABLED BY AN ELECTRICAL FAILURE OR FIRE?"

From - A DIALOG WITH THE DEAF:

"IT SEEMS ABSURD TO STILL BE DEPENDENT ON A PRINCIPLE DATING FROM THE 1950s THAT ALL THE DATA REQUIRED BY CRASH INVESTIGATORS SHOULD GO DOWN WITH THE AIRPLANE."

Note: The bit that I found most disturbing and IMO simply unacceptable was this...

The IATA’s Aircraft Tracking Task Force, formed after Flight 370 was lost, and an industry team formed by the ICAO, together finally came up with this masterpiece of fudge in January: “The group will ask ICAO to debate and finalize the concept of operations as a first step in creating new global standards…” 

Observe the classic and contradictory code words: “ask” “debate” “concept” and “first step.” 

Dive into the fine print and it emerges that it would not be until 2025 that all the systems required to provide a state-of-the-art tracking system would be in place and “fully compliant.”

However for mine the most pertinent part of the Irving offering comes in the last five paragraphs and brings my post full cycle i.e. to the woolly Mammoth steadily gaining weight at the back of the room... :

...As the 777 flew west above the Straits of Malacca it passed through overlapping radar zones operated by Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. There was a lack of coordination between civilian and military radars – Thai military radar had indeed picked up the flight but did not report this until 10 days later. There was no coherent and practiced system to swing into action in an emergency and no playbook to give priority to search and rescue operations.

 
There cannot be variations in airline safety regimes according to who runs a country or how. These days everybody wants to fly everywhere. There needs to be an international standard of safety that passengers can trust is being enforced consistently, no matter on what continent. That standard has to include, as well as the airlines, the management of airports and airspace and all the background support services like airport security, maintenance checks and crew recruitment, training and regular proficiency testing of pilots.
 
And then there is the issue of the investigation. Nobody I have spoken to in the industry is happy with the way this is going. The protocols for the conduct of an investigation seem far from clear. To be sure, there is no precedent in the history of commercial aviation for the task facing the investigation into Flight 370, combining such a great loss of life with the absence of any physical evidence for this long. As one expert said to me: “We will not know what happened here to a high probability until and unless we get real and conclusive data from actual key parts of the aircraft.”
 
Not having that data is no justification for the continued lack of transparency from the investigation – after a year we should really be told, at the very least, where the primary focus of the investigation is headed. This transparency should reflect the strong public interest in understanding what has so far emerged and the implications for future passenger safety. In the absence of reliable information this has been fertile ground for speculation and conspiracy theories, all of which damages public confidence in air travel.
 
The parties to the investigation include Boeing, Rolls Royce, Malaysia Airlines and Malaysian police and regulators as well as investigative teams from the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has restricted itself to regular technical reports on the underwater search and the science behind the choice of search area. After over-optimistic statements by the Australian prime minister and other Australian officials, the drift toward foot-in- -mouth disease was halted. None of these parties is talking or, it would seem, is aware of the outrage of their silence...

In the words of former Careflight Flight Nurse Karen Casey - a victim of our government(s) repeated denial that the PelAir cover-up indicates systemic safety issues within our aviation safety agencies...

"Just stop the BS & tell the truth!"

{For the PelAir cover-up story refer to AuntyPru blog series - Whodunnit & why? e.g.  #Whodunnit & Why : Chapter 3.5 – In the eyes of the investigator & TOE }

MTF..P2

[Gobbledock]

So a year has gone by and the Malaysians issue an internal report that could have almost been lifted directly from the 'spin, bullshit and pooh' department of our very own ATSB! Amazing stuff. So let me get this straight - the aircraft departs, transponder is turned off, the aircraft disappears into one of the deepest areas of ocean on this planet, and not one shred, iota, ounce or pin prick of evidence is found, yet our friends in Malaysia conclude that the disaster is probably due to unmanifested lithium batteries????? Has Geoffery Thomas and Beaker been advising them? The smell of pooh surrounding this unfortunate event equals the smell of pooh surrounding 'Pel Air gate'!! Has aviation entered some kind of new paradigm where the most ridiculous and ludicrous assumptions are now believed and accepted, where the absurd and bizzare is the 'new black'? Are the public living in some kind of fantasy land or matrix where this type of bullshit is accepted? Quite simply it's just not good enough. Now I can see how a crock of shit like this would be accepted by an imbecile such as Lookleft and his PPrune Moderator fan club, but not the rest of us.

Tick tock

[Peetwo]

From Reuters out of Toronto:

U.N. aviation agency names Chinese veteran as secretary general


TORONTO (Reuters) - The United Nations aviation body's governing council elected Fang Liu, a veteran of China's aviation authority, as its new secretary general on Wednesday, the first woman to hold the position in the agency's 70-year history.

Liu, who has worked at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) since 2007, is director of its Bureau of Administration and Services. She ran against candidates from Australia, India and the United Arab Emirates.

Liu will start her three-year term on Aug. 1, replacing Raymond Benjamin of France.

ICAO's Secretary General oversees the Montreal-based agency's secretariat, acting as its chief executive officer, and reports to its 36-member governing council which is currently led by Nigeria's Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu.

From 1987 to 2007, Liu held a series of positions at the Civil Aviation Administration of China's international affairs department, which works with ICAO.

The agency is under pressure to improve safety in the airline industry after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and the downing of another Malaysian airliner in Ukraine last year.

At a major safety conference last month ICAO member states endorsed a plan to track aircraft flying outside radar, and a proposal to build a website where states can share information about risks to planes in conflict zones.

The agency is not a regulator, but its standards typically become regulatory requirements in its 191 member states.

(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Diane Craft)

 
Wise move ICAO..  

Q/ In light of some of the disturbing findings in the latest MH370 interim investigation report I wonder how long it will be before a full blown ICAO USOAP safety audit is conducted in Malaysia?

It would seem that there has been calls for this to occur for sometime now by some of the opposition ranks in the KL Parliament, the following is from the daughter of the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim currently residing in gaol in KL:

The Malaysian Government Must Reveal Findings of The ICAO Audit On Malaysia’s Commercial Radar System Following Release of MH370 Preliminary Report

Posted on Sunday, 4 May, 2014

Media Statement
For Immediate Release
3 May 2014
I refer to the Initial Incident Report MH370, issued by the Office of the Chief Inspector of Air Accidents, Ministry of Transport Malaysia days ago.

While welcomed, the preliminary report, which was made available for public viewing, raised more questions than answers.

Among other things, the Preliminary Report touched on the flight timeline, a summarised transcript of radio transmissions, follow up search and rescue (SAR) efforts, as well as a proposal to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to introduce a real time tracking system for civilian aircrafts.

Currently, there are no legal provisions requiring Malaysia Airlines to upgrade their system software in facilitating the tracking of aircrafts with greater efficiency.

I have personally raised the issue of air traffic safety as early as July 2012, and again in the aftermath of the radar system breakdown – for nearly two hours- at the Subang Airport in September 2012. i had demanded then for Malaysia’s air traffic system to be audited by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The last International Civil Aviation Organization audit took place in 2005.

As per the preliminary report, recordings from the military radar showed the possibility of an aircraft similar to MH370 flying west across Peninsular Malaysia. However, questions arising from an unidentified flying aircraft into the Malaysian airspace and our corresponding actions must be answered.

This matter should not be taken lightly as it involves the safety of travelling individuals as well as threats to the national security. It bears reminding that the September 11 attacks in America were performed using commercial jetliners.

It is hoped that the Full Report following this Preliminary Publication will prod the Malaysian government to give more attention to air safety in Malaysia and enhance existing standards including necessary software upgrades by airliners to ensure greater tracking efficiency.

In mid-April 2014, the acting Minister of Transport stated that an ICAO safety audit will be conducted at KLIA2.

The ICAO audit results must be made public soonest. At the least, it must be made available for Parliamentary scrutiny. I have been consistently pushing for such an audit since 2012 to ensure that the Malaysia will not be affected by any weaknesses and to identify the follow-up measures to improve airspace defence preparedness. We must aim to secure MH370 and avoid a repeat of such tragedy.

Nurul Izzah Anwar
Member of Parliament, Lembah Pantai
Vice President of KEADILAN

   
TICK..TOCK Malaysia...    

Ps While your at it ICAO USOAP might be worth taking a look at this...?? - RE: Was ICAO mislead?

Pps Nancy where the bloody hell are you??

[Peetwo]

Following on from my last post I read a most disturbing story that Nural Izzah has been arrested for sedition on speaking out about her Father's incarceration on what would appear to be trumped up, bogus charges of sodomy. This leaves many commentators suggesting that Malaysia is drifting towards authoritarianism - Malaysia’s Creeping Authoritarianism  

Kind of makes our woes & disillusionment in a disinterested, disassociated government and overruling bureaucracy seem kind of minor in comparison..   However the calls from Nural Izzah for proper oversight and transparency in the government aviation safety agencies has a fairly familiar ring to it, here was where she backed up those calls in October last year:

Izzah demands audit reports on air traffic safety


October 27, 2014

She reminds the Transport Minister that she raised the issue of aviation safety before MH370 went missing.

PETALING JAYA: Lembah Pantai MP

Nurul Izzah Anwar has asked the Transport Ministry to release the results of audits on Malaysia’s air traffic safety systems by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

In a press release commenting on Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai’s statement about next week’s ICAO meeting in Canada, she expressed “full support” for Liow’s “desire to improve the safety of flights worldwide”. But she said the Malaysian public was “expecting improvement in safety measures on the home front” as well.

She reminded Liow that she had raised the issue of air traffic safety twice, more than a year before Flight MH370 went missing last March 8. The first time she did so was in July 2012 and the second time in September 2012 following a two-hour breakdown of Subang Airport’s radar system.

“I demanded then for Malaysia’s air traffic system to be audited by the ICAO,” she said. “The last ICAO audit had taken place in 2005.”
She noted a statement that Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein made after the MH370 disappearance, in which he claimed to have ordered the Director of Civil Aviation to hold discussions on air traffic safety with stakeholders.

“Hishamuddin also claimed then that ICAO will run a safety audit on KLIA2,” she added. “However, the scope of this audit is as of yet unknown. If these audits have been completed, I ask that the Transport Minister reveal the findings and make steps towards improving the safety of our airspace.

“As per the preliminary report of the MH370 incident, recordings from the military radar showed the possibility of an aircraft similar to MH370 flying west across Peninsular Malaysia. However, questions arising from an unidentified aircraft flying into Malaysian airspace and our corresponding actions have yet to be answered.

“As I have pointed out before, this matter should not be taken lightly as it involves the safety of travelling individuals as well as threats to the national security. It bears reminding that the September 11 attacks in America were performed using commercial jetliners.”

    
With the release of the recent MH370 1st yr interim report there is now further documented evidence of extreme incompetence in the crucial early SAR phases of MH370 - see Christine Negroni's blogpiece here for a scathing summary of the crucial errors by the Malaysian authorities - with further calls from other Malay MPs for action: 

We had half an hour to respond but we did nothing – Julian Tan, Steven Sim

Published: 16 March 2015 2:37 PM

First of all, we want to welcome the Ministry of Transport Interim Report on MH370.
The report however, reinforces our call for greater accountability and transparency on the tragedy.

From 1.21 am when MH370 was believed to have taken a u-turn (Air Turn Back) off north-west of Kota Baru in the South China Sea to cross Peninsula Malaysia until it reached south of Penang at around 1.52am, more than half an hour passed.
 
Within 1.21am to 1.52am, a full 31 minutes, MH370 on a rogue flight path was within our radars, both civil and military! We do not want to speculate, but if actions were taken within that considerably long timeframe it re-crossed Peninsula Malaysia, perhaps we will have a lot more answers today.

It must also be noted that at around 1.39am, Ho Chih Min Air Traffic Centre (HCM ATCC) contacted KL ATCC to inform that no communication was established with MH370 a full 20 minutes after it was supposed to communicate with the plane. At this time, MH370 was estimated to have just re-entered Peninsula Malaysia flying through Kota Baru.

This means, authorities in Malaysia were alerted of a potential crisis on the one hand and the crisis was taking place within our radars on the other hand, and yet, no emergency response was initiated.

One minute is a long time in aviation. Every minute, a plane can have a rate of descent of up to 8,000 feet.

Everyone was furious to read that the KL ATCC supervisor was asleep and had to be woken up by his subordinate at 5.20 am. But the sad truth is, many more people were sleeping, whether their eyes were shut or not, on that fateful day. No one felt it fit to respond to a rogue plane flying for over half an hour across the airspace we control, and even though we were alerted of the crisis by Vietnam!

Breach of Malaysia-Vietnam Operational Agreement

The Interim Report cited the Operational Letter of Agreement between DCA Malaysia and the Vietnam Air Traffic Management which stipulated that “the accepting unit shall notify the transferring unit if two-way communication is not established within five (5) minutes of the estimated time over the TCP (Transfer of Control Point)”

The TCP occured at about 1.19am. However, despite the lost of communication, only at about 1.39am did Ho Chih Min Air Traffic Control Centre (HCM ATCC) contact KL ATCC for the whereabouts of MH370.

Did Ho Chih Min breach this important agreement through its failure to comply with the five minutes timeframe and instead waited until 20 minutes before alerting KL? The communication lodge between HMC ATCC and the KL HTCC even recorded the latter questioning  the former on this five (5) minutes rule.

Once again, one minute is a long time in aviation.

Delay in DETRESFA message

The last communication between KL ATCC and MH370 was at 1.19 am. When the next contact did not happen, a distress message should have been triggered within roughly an hour later. However, the first distress message was released 5 hours and 13 minutes later at 6.32am.
According to the Manual of Air Traffic Services,
“when an aircraft fails to make a position report when it is expected, commence actions not later than the ETA for the reporting point plus 3 minutes and,
(a) the following actions shall be taken:
.
(ii) Notify the RCC that Uncertainty Phase exist...
(b) full overdue action: not later than 30 minutes after the declaration of the Uncertainty Phase:
(i) Notify the RCC that Alert Phase exists
(ii) notify the RCC that Distress Phase exists if:
– 1 hour has elapsed beyond the last ETA for the destination; or
–  the fuel is considered exhausted; or
– 1 hour has elapsed since the declaration of Uncertainty Phase

In other words, within 3 minutes after 1.19am, the Uncertainty Phase must be declared, triggering all on high alert and by around 2.22am, the Distress Phase should have been declared.

However, no one took any action until 6.32am. Anything could have happened in between.

What’s next after the Interim Report?

The Interim Report alone is obviously not enough to do justice to the victims of the tragedy and their families, as well as to regain the confidence to the aviation industry. The Report highlighted shortcomings, non-compliances and weaknesses of our national airline, our aviation authorities and our military.

What actions are taken to ensure that shortcomings and weaknesses are rectified?
Where is the post mortem report from the military?
Where is the result of police investigation?

The Prime Minister must give a full account on these questions before the end of this Parliamentary sitting. He must emulate his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbot who moved a motion to debate MH370 on March 5, 2015 in the Australian Parliament and gave Opposition Leader equal time to the Prime Minister to debate the said motion. – March 16, 2015.

[i]Note:
Uncertainty phase (INCERFA): a situation wherein uncertainty exists as to the safety of an aircraft and its occupants.[/i]
Alert phase (ALERFA): A situation wherein uncertainty exists as to the safety of an aircraft and its occupants.
Distress phase (DETRESA): A situation wherein there is a reasonable certainty that an aircraft and its occupants are threatened by grave and imminent danger and require immediate assistance.

*Julian Tan Kok Ping is the MP for Stampin, and Steven Sim Chee Keong is the MP for Bukit Mertajam.
- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sidev...HNjJ2.dpuf

  
 These Malay pollies seem very well briefed and have an above average understanding of the major issues involved in regards to the MH370 disappearance and its greater implications to aviation safety in their country.

What I find passing strange is if these MPs can identify these significant safety issues why then doesn't the JIT promulgate safety recommendations to address these issues? It is quite obvious that even with the proactive action so far on the Preliminary report SR...

"....It is recommended that the International Civil Aviation Organisation examine the safety benefits of introducing a standard for real time tracking of commercial air transport aircraft..."

 ...that in the case of the Malaysian ATC/SAR authorities it may have made little difference to the bizarre disappearance of MH370, such was the level of incompetence on display that fateful morning March 8th 2014.

Excerpt from Interim report statement:

8. The Investigation Team is now conducting analysis of the factual information

and is considering the following areas:

8.1 Airworthiness & Maintenance and Aircraft Systems;
8.2 ATC operations from 1719 to 2232 UTC on 7th March 2014 [0119 to
0632 MYT on 8th March 2014];
8.3 Cargo consignment;
8.4 Crew Profile;
8.5 Diversion from Filed Flight Plan route;
8.6 Organisational and Management Information of DCA and MAS; and
8.7 Satellite Communications (SATCOM).

9. Along with these activities, the Investigation Team has also prepared Standard
Operating Procedures (SOP) and Checklists for investigation in accordance
with Doc. 9756 AN965 in preparation for the recovery of the aircraft, once it is
located by the search team.

10. In the months ahead, the Investigation Team will need to analyse to draw

conclusions and safety recommendations based on the factual information that

have been gathered. In addition to the analysis and the conclusion phase of the

investigation, steps taken will also include further validation of the factual

information on emergence of new evidence.

11. The Investigation Team expects that further factual information will be available
from the wreckage and flight recorders if the aircraft is found.

Issued by:

The Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370

8th March 2015

     
ICAO Annex 13 Ch 6 para 6.6 states...

"..6.6 If the report cannot be made publicly available within twelve months, the State conducting the investigation shall
make an interim statement publicly available on each anniversary of the occurrence, detailing the progress of the investigation
and any safety issues raised..."

and under Safety Recommendations:

6.8 At any stage of the investigation of an accident or incident, the accident or incident investigation authority of the State
conducting the investigation shall recommend in a dated transmittal correspondence to the appropriate authorities, including
those in other States, any preventive action that it considers necessary to be taken promptly to enhance aviation safety.
Note.— Precedence for the issuance of safety recommendations from an accident or incident investigation should be given to the State conducting the investigation; however, in the interest of safety, other States participating in the investigation may issue safety recommendations after coordinating with the State conducting the investigation.

6.9 A State conducting investigations of accidents or incidents shall address, when appropriate, any safety recommendations arising out of its investigations in a dated transmittal correspondence to the accident investigation authorities of other State(s) concerned and, when ICAO documents are involved, to ICAO.
Note.— When Final Reports contain safety recommendations addressed to ICAO, because ICAO documents are involved,
these reports must be accompanied by a letter outlining the specific action proposed.

Maybe there is some informal arrangement within the JIT to allow the Malaysians time to act on the identified organisational safety issues highlighted in the interim report?? Maybe the ICAO safety audit of KLIA2 has occurred and the KL government is now acting on those findings? However..maybe not?

IMHO: In the interest of transparency - & safety risk mitigation of the travelling public transiting that neck of the woods - other members of the JIT please consider the para 6.8 note and issue a SR calling for the ICAO safety audit findings and all proposed safety actions to be made public..

Cheers...P2     

  

[Kharon]

P2 - 10. In the months ahead, the Investigation Team will need to analyse to draw conclusions and safety recommendations based on the factual information that have been gathered. 

In addition to the analysis and the conclusion phase of the investigation, steps taken will also include further validation of the factual information on emergence of new evidence.

Read the P2 quoted statement above again; carefully.   Sound familiar - Seems to me PAIN called the end game scenario for MH 370 fairly well, certainly from the Australian point of view anyway.  Looking through the latest on Paper-li the inevitable fall out and bucket of crap that was always heading in Australia's direction looks to be getting set up to dump on the Minuscule, despite the debates and window dressing.   We are left to wonder now if the carefully staged managed exit strategy can withstand the blast.  Anyone who understands the way thing work could see all this coming last year.  Politics will always trump the public interest, everyday.  If the purblind, naive Australian government believes for one moment that the Malaysians will not use any and all means possible to keep the family skeletons firmly concealed, then they need a new tea leaf reader.  The only question for Australia now is how complicit can they afford to be seen to be, damage control in full swing.

Slatts, P777 and good number of the other associates make a compelling argument for some form of 'criminal' act.  Given the narrow range of investigative 'hard' options, the resources, the level of intelligence gathering made available and the powers of the Malaysian government, it's a bollocks to keep claiming 'mystery'.  Someone, somewhere knows exactly what happened; the why, where and how of it.  Considering there is not, as yet, a wreck to examine, you have to wonder if the obfuscation is just a play for time.  Time to dim the memory and public interest; time to allow the unpalatable truths to be filtered, manipulated and diluted to a point where the shock can do minimal political, fiscal and emotional damage. A gift from a caring, humane government, if you like.  Remember, the Australian government had no scruple to do exactly this and more with the Pel-Air crash investigation, so why on earth should MH 370 be different for the Malaysians?.  

Along side the theories and those desperately trying to convince the world that 'their' pet version is the 'right' version, the questions keep coming don't they though.  But is there is a supportable case for a stand away and rethink? – probably not; it won't be allowed. Not with the public pressure and interest waning.  Anyway - who would have faith in a Malaysian 'inquiry', even if they should live long enough to see the result?

The press are of little value; I have never read so much rehashed clap trap.  Every media outlet redrafting the same tired, sad story.  Social media squabbling over the carefully controlled, quietly released crumbs and developing evermore bizarre theories; assumption upon assumption, nary a whisper of 'fact' or in some cases even the truth.   Apart from the inestimable Sir Tim, no one has challenged the 'official' line.  In the recently published interview/article, - HERE - for mine (and PAIN money) he asks all the right questions and; between the lines, provides, subliminally, most of the right answers.   Unanimously acknowledged as 'the man'.  Bravo Tim Clark...

P2 – "However for mine the most pertinent part of the Irving offering comes in the last five paragraphs and brings my post full cycle i.e. to the woolly Mammoth steadily gaining weight at the back of the room."  

Amen to that: ET may well have done it; but it's a dollar to a pound of Kangaroo pooh Vlad Putin didn't knock it off.   But someone who has been very naughty has capitalised very nicely on the preconditioned, predictable response from government and human nature.   However it plays out, like the Mt Erubus, and Lockhart river accidents, the ghosts will not be easily laid to rest, despite the best efforts of those stage managing this farce.  Mind you, Dolan and his word weasels, in cahoots with the Malaysian version have yet to set to work.    

Got a BRB competition running; to see who can get the coup de grâce exit strategy and excuse story closest to date and word perfect.  PAIN wise owls are holding the bets and copy, so, when the time is right, we'll let the BRB panel decide a winner, drink the wagers then relegate MH 370 to cruise conversation; until someone is prepared to reveal the real reasons, defining how and why a 777 was disappeared, without a trace.  Unbelievable?  Yes children, that's right, it most certainly is...... ..

[Peetwo]

P2 - 10. In the months ahead, the Investigation Team will need to analyse to draw conclusions and safety recommendations based on the factual information that have been gathered. 

In addition to the analysis and the conclusion phase of the investigation, steps taken will also include further validation of the factual information on emergence of new evidence.

Read the P2 quoted statement above again; carefully.   Sound familiar - Seems to me PAIN called the end game scenario for MH 370 fairly well, certainly from the Australian point of view anyway.  Looking through the latest on Paper-li the inevitable fall out and bucket of crap that was always heading in Australia's direction looks to be getting set up to dump on the Minuscule, despite the debates and window dressing.   We are left to wonder now if the carefully staged managed exit strategy can withstand the blast.  Anyone who understands the way thing work could see all this coming last year.  Politics will always trump the public interest, everyday.  If the purblind, naive Australian government believes for one moment that the Malaysians will not use any and all means possible to keep the family skeletons firmly concealed, then they need a new tea leaf reader.  The only question for Australia now is how complicit can they afford to be seen to be, damage control in full swing.

Slatts, P777 and good number of the other associates make a compelling argument for some form of 'criminal' act.  Given the narrow range of investigative 'hard' options, the resources, the level of intelligence gathering made available and the powers of the Malaysian government, it's a bollocks to keep claiming 'mystery'.  Someone, somewhere knows exactly what happened; the why, where and how of it.  Considering there is not, as yet, a wreck to examine, you have to wonder if the obfuscation is just a play for time.  Time to dim the memory and public interest; time to allow the unpalatable truths to be filtered, manipulated and diluted to a point where the shock can do minimal political, fiscal and emotional damage. A gift from a caring, humane government, if you like.  Remember, the Australian government had no scruple to do exactly this and more with the Pel-Air crash investigation, so why on earth should MH 370 be different for the Malaysians?.  

Along side the theories and those desperately trying to convince the world that 'their' pet version is the 'right' version, the questions keep coming don't they though.  But is there is a supportable case for a stand away and rethink? – probably not; it won't be allowed. Not with the public pressure and interest waning.  Anyway - who would have faith in a Malaysian 'inquiry', even if they should live long enough to see the result?

The press are of little value; I have never read so much rehashed clap trap.  Every media outlet redrafting the same tired, sad story.  Social media squabbling over the carefully controlled, quietly released crumbs and developing evermore bizarre theories; assumption upon assumption, nary a whisper of 'fact' or in some cases even the truth.   Apart from the inestimable Sir Tim, no one has challenged the 'official' line.  In the recently published interview/article, - HERE - for mine (and PAIN) money he asks all the right questions and; between the lines, provides, subliminally, most of the right answers.   Unanimously acknowledged as 'the man'.  Bravo Tim Clark...

P2 – "However for mine the most pertinent part of the Irving offering comes in the last five paragraphs and brings my post full cycle i.e. to the woolly Mammoth steadily gaining weight at the back of the room."  

Amen to that: ET may well have done it; but it's a dollar to a pound of Kangaroo pooh Vlad Putin didn't knock it off.   But someone who has been very naughty has capitalised very nicely on the preconditioned, predictable response from government and human nature.   However it plays out, like the Mt Erubus, and Lockhart river accidents, the ghosts will not be easily laid to rest, despite the best efforts of those stage managing this farce.  Mind you, Dolan and his word weasels, in cahoots with the Malaysian version have yet to set to work.    

Got a BRB competition running; to see who can get the coup de grâce exit strategy and excuse story closest to date and word perfect.  PAIN wise owls are holding the bets and copy, so, when the time is right, we'll let the BRB panel decide a winner, drink the wagers then relegate MH 370 to cruise conversation; until someone is prepared to reveal the real reasons, defining how and why a 777 was disappeared, without a trace.  Unbelievable?  Yes children, that's right, it most certainly is...... ..

Exit..err..stage SIO??

Reading about the lengths the KL government go to shutdown any sort of criticism from opposition pollies, media & social network makes our  Murky Mandarin & Beaker appear raw amateurs in the game of spin & bulldust obfuscating balls-ups & cover-ups.

On twitter last night our little pirate frog @oceankoto drew my attention to a Ben Sandilands comment on PT that summarised perfectly my personal sentiments on the KL obfuscation of MH370 - https://twitter.com/i/notifications:

Ben Sandilands

Posted March 14, 2015 at 10:55 am | Permalink

Simon,
In relation to the initial claim that military radar saw MH370 after the transponders went off line this is the sequence of events as i recorded it.
1. There was a high quality leak from the military that they saw the diversion.
2. This was hastily and emphatically denied by the authorities.
3. The authorities then conceded that there was something that might have been MH370 on that radar record, and had sought the opinion of the NTSB.
4. After consulting with the NTSB the authorities confirmed that it may well have been MH370, then segued into ‘it was MH370′ and that the last radar trace seen by Malaysian military was at 29,500 feet offshore from Phuket travelling NW.
5. Having been earlier forced to publicly deny the leaks the military then stood beside the Malaysian authorities confirming that the original leak was correct.
Fast forward to 1 May, and on the night of the release of the interim report HH posted a Facebook entry confirming that cabinet knew the plane had turned westwards across the Malaysia Peninsula on the morning that MH370 disappeared.
This is the core reason for my concluding that the authorities hit the ground lying from early on 8 March and that they deliberately lied to their search partners and knowingly diluted the search effort by insisting on further searching of the South China Sea and the other remoter northern ‘possibilities’ for almost two weeks.

Once the search effort was focused on the South Indian Ocean the apparent haste with which the authorities persuaded the Australian managed search to move away from the scenes of potential debris fields by spotted by satellites, including a radar sat, which registered returns from solid objects remains a legitimate concern.

These events support a conclusion that the authorities knew something about the disappearance of MH370 very very early in the story and have been determined to keep it secret.

As a consequence I think that missing information is of critical importance to understanding what might have happened to MH370.
Several other things. In the report just released it is said that civil radar did also see MH370 during its diversion from its intended path several times, fitting in with the military claims. I make no comment on whether those claims are true or false, I simply note them for further reference.

On the night of the disappearance of an airliner with 239 people on board the responses of the airline and officials in Malaysia was delinquent and desultory. The indifference shown to the disappearance is unprecedented in my experience in the loss of a major airliner.
I have not seen any real evidence of MH370 flying at either 43,000 or 45,000 or so low it was hedgehopping across the peninsula. I believe those reports to be concoctions from within the media echo chamber of those early days.

I further note from the indefatigable work of Mike Chillit that in recent weeks there has been substantial rescanning of sections of the sea bed previously covered, much of it with the new deep sea AUV capability, consistent with the official statement that there were ‘holes’ or difficult places where wreckage might not have been detected by the first scan runs over them.

I do not have a dogmatic nor precise explanation or theory as to the cause of this disappearance. But I do know official lying when I see it, I do not expect this was frivolous but instead purposeful, and we need to understand that purpose to assist us in our search for answers.
I deeply appreciate your efforts and those of other competent and quizzical observers who have contributed so generously to our discussion.

      
Excellent stuff Ben...P2  

Ps OK & I had some fun after that poking fun at Beaker (DD..Dolan) -  https://twitter.com/oceankoto/status/577785418428604416

Pps Perhaps we should start a MH370 Timeline of embuggerance?? - #Whodunnit & Why : Chapter 3.5 – In the eyes of the investigator & TOE - See more at: http://auntypru.com/whodunnit-why-chapte...alknb.dpuf ...

[Peetwo]

Courtesy of the Weekend Oz:

The Maldive islanders who say they can help find MH370  

• by: HEDLEY THOMAS
  
• From: The Australian
  
• April 04, 2015 12:00AM
  

National Chief Correspondent
Brisbane


Did locals see MH370?1:57

• Play video
  

Residents of a small island in the Maldives claim to have seen a plane similar in appearance to Malaysia Airlines MH370 shortly after the plane went missing. Footage: Lyndon Mechielsen



Looking for MH370. Source: TheAustralian 

 The tiny Indian Ocean island of Kuda Huvadhoo is the sleepy fishing community that the world forgot. Some of its villagers believe an aircraft they saw on the morning of March 8 last year could hold the key to modern aviation’s most confounding mystery — the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.  

Some of the locals on the 60ha of sand and coral in the Maldives chain do not understand why, after more than a year, invest­igators involved in the search for the Boeing 777 have not come to hear first-hand about the large, low-flying passenger jet they insist they saw that fateful morning.

They wonder why the year-long search has not ventured here to listen to accounts from witnesses who were surprised by the unidentified aircraft. Two told The Weekend Australian they could see distinctive red and blue markings — similar to the striping on the missing plane which was heading west towards the Maldives when last spotted on radar after departing Kuala Lumpur.

Their suspicions are no match for the highly sophisticated calculations based on satellite connections with MH370, which have put its likely crash zone along an arc about 1800km southwest of Perth.

Intriguingly, however, acoustics scientists are not ruling out the possibility that a distinctive high-energy noise they measured about the time of the presumed crash might have come from the aircraft hitting the ocean or imploding at depth in an area near the ­Maldives.

A speck on the atoll of Dhaalu in the Maldives chain, the island receives few visits from outsiders. Wealthy tourists, some of whom arrive by private jet at the airport near the country’s capital, Male, and then take a sea plane about 180km south to the pampered ­luxury of a resort costing more than $2000 a night, sometimes charter a small boat to briefly look at the modest lives here.

But, for most of the time, the area is left alone. The villagers’ days revolve around fundamental needs — their food (the fish and occasional lobster pulled from the turquoise waters), Islamic prayer five times a day, family, work and friends.

An interesting event on Kuda Huvadhoo is a small twin-prop sea plane swooping nearby. An unusual event is seeing the contrails of a large jet at high altitude — they seldom cross the southern atoll. A remarkable event, something the locals relate to us with the intensity of people who fear they are doubted, is watching a large passenger jet, like a Boeing 777, flying low about the time MH370 would have been close to running out of fuel.

“I watched this very large plane bank slightly and I saw its colours — the red and blue lines — below the windows, then I heard the loud noise,’’ says Abdu Rasheed Ibrahim, 47, a court official and the ­island’s keenest hobby fisherman, as he speaks of what he saw from the beach that morning. “It was unusual, very unusual. It was big and it was flying low. It was a holiday (Saturday) and most people had gone to bed after praying.”

When he went home with his catch, a barracuda tied to his bicycle’s handlebars, Abdu spoke to other villagers about the strange, large aircraft. Some saw it. Others only heard it. They say they were talking about it hours before they knew MH370 had gone missing. Later that morning, at an extra-curricular class at school, ­Humaam Dhonmamk, 16, talked excitedly to Abdu’s daughter, Aisath Zeeniya, about seeing it — he also described the distinctive blue and red striping. It flew over as he took his clothes from the outside line.

“I saw the blue and red on a bit of the side,’’ ­Humaam says. “I heard the loud noise of it after it went over. I told the police this too.”

The Australia-led search has been focused for the past year on a lengthy arc in the southern Indian Ocean, more than 5000km away, as a result of complex calculations of probable weather conditions, fuel exhaustion, distances, time of impact and other variables.

All of this has been primarily driven by a handful of “electronic handshakes”, or pings, that were transmitted between a satellite and MH370 as it flew for hours, undetected by radar and in radio silence after departing Kuala Lumpur and deviating from its ­intended Beijing-bound flight path with a series of unexplained turns.

There were no mayday transmissions from Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah or first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid. No frantic mobile telephone attempts. No claims of responsibility by hijackers.

Unofficial theories are led by the one thought most plausible, mass murder-suicide by one of the crew, possibly the captain, determined to ensure the aircraft crashed where its secrets would lie undiscovered. Another theory suggests a sudden cockpit fire could have knocked out communications and overcome the crew, and that the aircraft had been on autopilot until it fell from the sky.

Amid mounting concern over the costs of the search and the lack of a single fragment of wreckage, there is still a “high degree of confidence” that the official investigation is looking in the right part of the planet. Sophisticated modelling supports the proposition which hinges on the satellite’s data — but if this data is wrong or defective, the search zone co-ordinates will be too.

Prior to the extensive modelling that produced the search zone, the last “sighting” of MH370, according to military radar, had it on a westerly heading — a flight path towards the Maldives. Its seemingly purposeful turn west was a radical deviation from the heading north it should have taken to its scheduled destination, Beijing. Although no radar shows it altering course radically again to the south, where the search is now concentrated in the bleakness of the southern Indian Ocean, analysis of the “pings” suggests this is where MH370 had headed. It is why the Australian Transport Safety Bureau oversees a massive operation in a vast area some 1800km southwest of Perth, with about half of the priority area being combed so far.

The technology and logistics matter little, however, to the villagers of Kuda Huvadhoo, the capital of an atoll lacking radar in a country with outdated and sev­erely limited defence and air traffic equipment. Several people we spoke to believe they saw MH370 about 6.30am (9.30am in Malaysia) that day.

Zuhuriyya Ali, 49, who watched it from her home’s courtyard, still “feels strange when thinking about the people on it”. “I consider it a lot,’’ she says. “I am concerned there is a connection to the Malaysia plane.”
Ahmed Shiyaam, 34, an IT manager at the local medical clinic who was riding with his daughter, Uyoon, 6, along one of the island’s sandy paths that morning, stopped and looked up on March 8 last year — they had never seen such a large plane fly so low.

“I’m very sure of what I saw on a very clear and bright day, and what I saw was not normal — the plane was very big, and low. I did not know until later that other people saw it too. I don’t know if it’s the Malaysia plane.”
Ahmed Ibrahim, 40, who saw it from his garden, also described it to us in confident detail.

“This was not a normal sight — the plane was different,’’ he says. “It was very big, very noisy, flying low. Later that afternoon on the beach I was told the news about the missing plane. I think this is the same flight.”

Back on the exact spot where he was standing on March 8 last year when he saw the aircraft, Abdu Rasheed Ibrahim says: “First, I saw the plane flying towards me over water. When it was over my head I saw it starting to turn away. At first glance, I did not know it was a missing plane. I didn’t know that a plane was missing. I went straight home and told my wife about it. I told my family, ‘I saw this strange plane’. This is the biggest plane I have ever seen from this island. My family says, ‘It might be the Malaysian plane’. I have seen pictures of the missing plane — I believe that I saw that plane. At the time it was lost, I strongly felt those people who were searching should come here.”
The Weekend Australian spent three days interviewing locals, all of whom described the incident in a similar way. Six of the key witnesses we spoke to were interviewed last year by police at the direction of authorities in Male, and each signed statements of their versions. A senior source familiar with the police probe confirmed the witness accounts were regarded as truthful and consistent. The office of the new President in Male declined to comment; his immediate predecessor is languishing in a nearby prison.

“These people were not seeking attention and they did not go to the police about it, the police went to them after hearing about this,’’ the source says. “They are not dishonest and they have no motive to lie. They all told the police it was big, low and noisy. If it was not the missing plane, then which plane was it? We do not see planes close and low to Kuda ­Huvadhoo. Nobody knows what has really happened.”

There were other reasons the people of Kuda Huvadhoo were not taken seriously. The Maldives National Defence Force, responsible for guarding the security and sovereignty of the low-lying country, issued a statement in March last year ruling out any such aircraft movement over its air space. The locals were surprised and felt humiliated. Several of those we spoke to in Kuda Huvadhoo were scornful, accusing their defence chiefs of seeking to save face and not wanting to admit to their ­people or the world that the limitations of Maldives radar and other equipment could not detect such flights.

Around this time, Malaysian authorities agreed that the aircraft’s “pings” — like breadcrumbs being left in a trail — meant MH370 should have crashed somewhere along one of two potential arcs. The arcs are in opposite hemispheres, but the most probable extended in the Indian Ocean west of Perth where vessels and aircraft are engaged in a search across a massive haystack for an infinitesimally small needle.

Another wildcard is the little-known work of Alec Duncan and fellow scientists from Curtin University’s Centre for Marine Science and Technology, whose monitoring of sensitive underwater acoustics equipment, known as hydrophones, identified “a clear acoustic signal at a time that was reasonably consistent with other information relating to the disappearance of MH370”.

The scientists knew the crash of a large aircraft in the ocean would be a “high energy event and expected to generate intense underwater sounds” — either from the impact with the ocean or a subsequent implosion of sinking wreckage. In their initial location estimates, Dr Duncan placed the noise’s source in the ocean relatively close to the Maldives and Kuda Huvadhoo. However, he cautions it could have been a geological event. The official ATSB search team for MH370 carefully considered the acoustics data.

After months of further analysis, Dr Duncan told The Weekend Australian this week: “Unfortunately the reality is that there are so many ifs, buts and maybes involved in all this that it would be more correct to say that our team has identified an approximate possible location for the origin of a noise that is probably of geological origin, but cannot be completely ruled out as being connected with the loss of MH370.” Dr Duncan explained that two key factors “make us reluctant to completely rule out the possibility that these signals are related to MH370”.

One is “the calculated time of the acoustic event, shortly after the final “partial handshake” between the satellite and the aircraft”, the other is that if the sound was generated by the implosion of some part of the aircraft as it sank ... (and) at a depth of about 1000m then the resulting sound would propagate effectively in the deep sound channel and could conceivably be detected at ranges of thousands of kilometres”.

However, like the island of Kuda Huvadhoo, “the calculated position is completely inconsistent with the satellite handshake data that is the basis of the current search area”.

If the satellite handshake data ever “proved to be seriously flawed”, says Dr Duncan, further acoustics analysis should be done. And if this eventuates, the people of a tiny island in the Maldives might be asked again about the large passenger jet they insist they saw on the morning of March 8 last year.

Nine weeks ago, Malaysia’s civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, described the loss of MH370 as an accident: “We have concluded that the aircraft exhausted its fuel over a defined area of the southern Indian Ocean and that the aircraft is ­located on the sea floor close to that defined area. This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is also an area with adverse sea conditions with known depths of more than 6000m.”

MTF...P2

[Sheikh Yer Booti]

The elephant is in the room. Why is the Australian Government spending millions on this? Under ICAO Annex 13, we are not the State of Registry, not the State of the Operator and not the State of Manufacture. As the State of Occurrence is unknown, why are we, with Beaker who is an international embarrassment, trying to pretend to lead the way? Interesting that Boeing has not taken a leading role in this with the NTSB!!!
Someone knows more than we do!

[Gobbledock]

Interesting indeed Sheikh. One is almost inclined to say it smells like complete pooh! The chances of this aircraft simply vanishing, when you consider the amount of spy satellites and technology that exists, are unlikely. I would guess that neither the Americans nor the Chinese would like people to know that they were monitoring areas they probably shouldn't have been looking at?
On a seperate note also of interest is the recent ICAO USOAP audit of the Thai DCA. Thailand reportedly only satisfied 21 out the 100 requirements inspected during the USOAP audit, which covers legislation and regulations, organisation and safety oversight functions, personnel licensing, aircraft operation supervision, aircraft accident and incident investigation, and the airworthiness of aircraft. I wonder how many of these elements Australia would be compliant with if ICAO came back for another audit? Remember there were a number of findings about the regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the incident and accident investigator, and AirServices Australia, that reflected poorly on their performance, and subsequently on the governmental and it's oversight.

Tick tock.................

[Peetwo]

Interesting indeed Sheikh. One is almost inclined to say it smells like complete pooh! The chances of this aircraft simply vanishing, when you consider the amount of spy satellites and technology that exists. I would guess that neither the Americans nor the Chinese would like people to know that they were monitoring areas they probably shouldn't
have been looking at?
On a seperate note also of interest is the recent ICAO USOAP audit of the Thai DCA. Thailand reportedly only satisfied 21 out the 100 requirements inspected during the USOAP audit, which covers legislation and regulations, organisation and safety oversight functions, personnel licensing, aircraft operation supervision, aircraft accident and incident investigation, and the airworthiness of aircraft. I wonder how many of these elements Australia would be compliant with if ICAO came back for another audit? Remember there were a number of findings about the regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the incident and accident investigator, and AirServices Australia, that reflected poorly on their performance, and subsequently on the governmental and it's oversight.

Tick tock.................

Pot kettle black - from the Oz:

Safety regulator watching Thai Airways  



Steve Creedy

Aviation Editor
Sydney


Australia’s air safety regulator has increased scrutiny of Thai Airways flights after an inter­national audit found problems with safety standards in the southeast Asian nation.  

The audit by the Internat­ional Civil Aviation Organisation registered significant concerns with the country’s regulation of its aviation industry, primarily with procedures used to license airlines. The UN agency is working with Thai authorities to resolve the issue but countries including Japan and South Korea have banned additional flights from Thailand, while others such as Singapore and Australia have increased scrutiny on Thai operators.

The Australian regulator said in a statement that it was aware of the issues in Thailand and it was talking to Thai Airways as well as with Thai regulators.

Thai Airways, which has been struggling financially in the face of competition from budget ­carriers, is a participant in the International Air Transport ­Association Operational Safety Audit, which requires member airlines meet certain standards.

“CASA has increased the number of ramp inspections of Thai Airways flights operating into Australia,’’ the Australian regulator said. “These inspections look at the condition of aircraft as well as flight and aircraft documentation.

“At this stage CASA has not placed any additional restrictions on Thai Airways flights to and from Australia. This is subject to the results of increased surveillance and any additional information that may be provided by Thai Airways and the Thai air safety regulator.”
CASA said any request from Thai Airways for additional flights or changes to its approved operations would be considered in light of the issues raised by the safety audit.

ICAO has not posted its results from the January audit but a spokesman told the BBC that the organisation did not review aviation safety in a country, its airlines or airports.

“Rather, our audits continuously monitor the capability of state civil aviation authorities to adequately resource and ­manage aviation safety oversight responsibilities in their ­jurisdictions,” he said.

However, a failure to ­adequately address the issues raised by ICAO could prompt the US Federal Aviation Administ­ration to downgrade Thailand’s safety rating to category 2, which would put it at the same level as Indonesia.

And this from the Daily Mail - Thai Airways has been banned from flying to China, Japan, and South Korea over safety fears - so why does it still fly to Australia? 

"Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has placed higher safety restrictions on Thai Airways, but avoided following the footsteps of its Asian neighbours by banning future flights.

China, South Korea and Japan have all banned new charter flights of Thai carriers after an audit by the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reported that it found 'significant safety concerns' with the country's aviation safety to Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation."

"An ICAO spokesperson told AFP that some of the concerns with Thailand's aviation related to 'air operator certification procedures'.

A statement from the Thai ministry did not give details of the ICAO's concerns or recommendations.

It said that it planned to inform countries about the status of Thailand's aviation safety and 'the solutions to fix the faults that were found in the inspection as soon as possible.'

Japan has since temporarily lifted their ban for the next two months on the condition of stricter inspections, due to a huge number of travellers hoping to visit the country."

CASA may not want to be too heavy handed in case it draws attention from ICAO down our way, not to mention the possible negative impact to the tourism trade - money always speaks louder than aviation safety!

Ben didn't waste any time drawing the obvious comparisons:

Thai carriers under threat of air safety downgrade  

Ben Sandilands | Mar 31, 2015 4:50PM



Thailand is at risk of an aviation safety downgrade by ICAO and is taking urgent action under martial law powers to avoid the damaging commercial consequences that would follow such a decision.


It’s a story that ought to be of concern to Australian international carriers, given factors that could also cause a similar outcome because of the scandals and failures associated with CASA and the ATSB in recent years, and the inability of regulatory reform programs to meet declared targets under successive Labor and Coalition governments.

Most of the world’s aviation sectors, including those of Thailand and Australia, are rated as Level 1 states when it comes to having comprehensive, properly functioning and resourced air safety regimens.

But the dog’s breakfast of the Pel-Air scandal, where the regulatory shortcomings were actively suppressed and denied, and then saw an ATSB accident report failed in critical parts by a peer review by its Canadian counterpart, persists nearly five and a half years after that particular air ambulance flight was ditched near Norfolk Island in 2009.

It isn’t necessary to have a recital of the many past stories about these problems to understand the seriousness of issues that Thailand is now attempting to address and how equivalent sanctions or restrictions on Australian flag carriers could prove damaging.

Should Thailand, or for that matter Australia, be busted down to Level 2 status,  the flag carriers of each country would be prohibited  from starting new services or adding capacity to existing flights to the US, or codesharing with US carriers, or face similar restrictions in some countries in Asia, with the latter situation already a problem for some Thai carrier access to Japan and South Korea as set out in the story linked to above.

Such sanctions applied to Qantas or Virgin Australia would be manifestly unfair. However they apply to the flag carriers of countries in which the public administration of air safety is derelict by standards, resources and effectiveness.

A potential case of airlines of the highest standard being punished for the sins of the bureaucracy supposed to regulate them, and the governments supposed to be deeply and meaningfully engaged in their performance as measured by an audit process.

Thailand’s problem is not with what its goals or ambitions for aviation administration might be, but with their current state of delivery. Critics of CASA and the ATSB have in the recent past documented the poor state of such administration in Australia, but neither the previous government nor the current one have lifted their game above taking the advice of the very bureaucracies that are failing to perform.

Taking the advice of the Australian public service that everything is fine in the administrative side of aviation for which those same bureaucrats are responsible can bring the Australian airline sector undone.

The Thai situation ought to jolt the Australian government into taking a similar interest in the aviation industry. It probably won’t.

TICK..TOCK indeed Gobbles...P2

[Peetwo]

Interesting indeed Sheikh. One is almost inclined to say it smells like complete pooh! The chances of this aircraft simply vanishing, when you consider the amount of spy satellites and technology that exists. I would guess that neither the Americans nor the Chinese would like people to know that they were monitoring areas they probably shouldn't
have been looking at?
On a seperate note also of interest is the recent ICAO USOAP audit of the Thai DCA. Thailand reportedly only satisfied 21 out the 100 requirements inspected during the USOAP audit, which covers legislation and regulations, organisation and safety oversight functions, personnel licensing, aircraft operation supervision, aircraft accident and incident investigation, and the airworthiness of aircraft. I wonder how many of these elements Australia would be compliant with if ICAO came back for another audit? Remember there were a number of findings about the regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the incident and accident investigator, and AirServices Australia, that reflected poorly on their performance, and subsequently on the governmental and it's oversight.

Tick tock.................

Pot kettle black - from the Oz:

Safety regulator watching Thai Airways  



Steve Creedy

Aviation Editor
Sydney


Australia’s air safety regulator has increased scrutiny of Thai Airways flights after an inter­national audit found problems with safety standards in the southeast Asian nation.  

The audit by the Internat­ional Civil Aviation Organisation registered significant concerns with the country’s regulation of its aviation industry, primarily with procedures used to license airlines. The UN agency is working with Thai authorities to resolve the issue but countries including Japan and South Korea have banned additional flights from Thailand, while others such as Singapore and Australia have increased scrutiny on Thai operators.

The Australian regulator said in a statement that it was aware of the issues in Thailand and it was talking to Thai Airways as well as with Thai regulators.

Thai Airways, which has been struggling financially in the face of competition from budget ­carriers, is a participant in the International Air Transport ­Association Operational Safety Audit, which requires member airlines meet certain standards.

“CASA has increased the number of ramp inspections of Thai Airways flights operating into Australia,’’ the Australian regulator said. “These inspections look at the condition of aircraft as well as flight and aircraft documentation.

“At this stage CASA has not placed any additional restrictions on Thai Airways flights to and from Australia. This is subject to the results of increased surveillance and any additional information that may be provided by Thai Airways and the Thai air safety regulator.”
CASA said any request from Thai Airways for additional flights or changes to its approved operations would be considered in light of the issues raised by the safety audit.

ICAO has not posted its results from the January audit but a spokesman told the BBC that the organisation did not review aviation safety in a country, its airlines or airports.

“Rather, our audits continuously monitor the capability of state civil aviation authorities to adequately resource and ­manage aviation safety oversight responsibilities in their ­jurisdictions,” he said.

However, a failure to ­adequately address the issues raised by ICAO could prompt the US Federal Aviation Administ­ration to downgrade Thailand’s safety rating to category 2, which would put it at the same level as Indonesia.

And this from the Daily Mail - Thai Airways has been banned from flying to China, Japan, and South Korea over safety fears - so why does it still fly to Australia? 

"Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has placed higher safety restrictions on Thai Airways, but avoided following the footsteps of its Asian neighbours by banning future flights.

China, South Korea and Japan have all banned new charter flights of Thai carriers after an audit by the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reported that it found 'significant safety concerns' with the country's aviation safety to Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation."

"An ICAO spokesperson told AFP that some of the concerns with Thailand's aviation related to 'air operator certification procedures'.

A statement from the Thai ministry did not give details of the ICAO's concerns or recommendations.

It said that it planned to inform countries about the status of Thailand's aviation safety and 'the solutions to fix the faults that were found in the inspection as soon as possible.'

Japan has since temporarily lifted their ban for the next two months on the condition of stricter inspections, due to a huge number of travellers hoping to visit the country."

CASA may not want to be too heavy handed in case it draws attention from ICAO down our way, not to mention the possible negative impact to the tourism trade - money always speaks louder than aviation safety!

Ben didn't waste any time drawing the obvious comparisons:

Thai carriers under threat of air safety downgrade  

Ben Sandilands | Mar 31, 2015 4:50PM



Thailand is at risk of an aviation safety downgrade by ICAO and is taking urgent action under martial law powers to avoid the damaging commercial consequences that would follow such a decision.


It’s a story that ought to be of concern to Australian international carriers, given factors that could also cause a similar outcome because of the scandals and failures associated with CASA and the ATSB in recent years, and the inability of regulatory reform programs to meet declared targets under successive Labor and Coalition governments.

Most of the world’s aviation sectors, including those of Thailand and Australia, are rated as Level 1 states when it comes to having comprehensive, properly functioning and resourced air safety regimens.

But the dog’s breakfast of the Pel-Air scandal, where the regulatory shortcomings were actively suppressed and denied, and then saw an ATSB accident report failed in critical parts by a peer review by its Canadian counterpart, persists nearly five and a half years after that particular air ambulance flight was ditched near Norfolk Island in 2009.

It isn’t necessary to have a recital of the many past stories about these problems to understand the seriousness of issues that Thailand is now attempting to address and how equivalent sanctions or restrictions on Australian flag carriers could prove damaging.

Should Thailand, or for that matter Australia, be busted down to Level 2 status,  the flag carriers of each country would be prohibited  from starting new services or adding capacity to existing flights to the US, or codesharing with US carriers, or face similar restrictions in some countries in Asia, with the latter situation already a problem for some Thai carrier access to Japan and South Korea as set out in the story linked to above.

Such sanctions applied to Qantas or Virgin Australia would be manifestly unfair. However they apply to the flag carriers of countries in which the public administration of air safety is derelict by standards, resources and effectiveness.

A potential case of airlines of the highest standard being punished for the sins of the bureaucracy supposed to regulate them, and the governments supposed to be deeply and meaningfully engaged in their performance as measured by an audit process.

Thailand’s problem is not with what its goals or ambitions for aviation administration might be, but with their current state of delivery. Critics of CASA and the ATSB have in the recent past documented the poor state of such administration in Australia, but neither the previous government nor the current one have lifted their game above taking the advice of the very bureaucracies that are failing to perform.

Taking the advice of the Australian public service that everything is fine in the administrative side of aviation for which those same bureaucrats are responsible can bring the Australian airline sector undone.

The Thai situation ought to jolt the Australian government into taking a similar interest in the aviation industry. It probably won’t.

TICK..TOCK indeed Gobbles...P2

The following excellent article - from the AAP & hosted by Yahoo7 - follows on from the above and places potential further pressure on the apathetic Aussie government & its aviation safety bureaucracy to get their heads out of the sand or not ..

Asian aviation confronts safety concerns


AAP – Thu, Apr 9, 2015 11:01 AM AEST

•  

For Asia's aviation industry, the growing pains have just begun.

A year of disasters, the disappearance of Flight 370 and financial turbulence highlight the challenges confronting the world's biggest air travel market, where governments, regulators and airlines are struggling to keep up after a decade of astonishing growth.

A UN agency's warning about airline safety in Thailand, one of the world's top tourist destinations, is just the latest sign of ferment in the industry.

The boom has been driven by the region's explosive economic growth and market liberalisations that have allowed dozens of new discount carriers to flourish, turning the airline business on its head.

The strains are also showing in recurring pilot shortages and shortcomings in air traffic control systems and airport infrastructure that countries are scrambling to upgrade, especially in big Southeast Asian nations such as Indonesia.

"We're in uncharted waters," said Desmond Ross, principal at DRA International aviation consultants and former head of the Pacific Aviation Safety Office, which oversees airline safety for South Pacific islands. "I don't think the world has seen this sort of growth before."
A third of aeroplane accidents in the Asia-Pacific region from 2008 to 2012 "involved deficiencies in regulatory oversight," the International Civil Aviation Organisation said in a report this year. Another 27 per cent involved "deficiencies in safety management".

Meanwhile, the agency's recent audit of Thailand has produced disquieting revelations about what lies below the surface of a country that has marketed itself to the world as a safe and welcoming destination.

The agency informed governments in March of "significant safety concerns," prompting several Asian nations to step up inspections of Thai airlines or block them from launching new flights and modifying schedules.

The leader of Thailand's military government, which ousted its civilian predecessor in a 2014 coup, blamed years of neglect for allowing problems to accumulate to a critical mass. He said the civil aviation department had only 12 inspectors, a figure unchanged for years despite huge growth in tourism.

The dictator has vowed to use his authoritarian powers to overhaul aviation, but it's unclear whether sweeping changes can be implemented fast enough to avoid a damaging downgrade of Thailand's safety rating.

Ross said Thailand's problems were not unique and stem from the "superfast expansion that's been taking place over the last 10 years". Aside from hurting tourism, the ICAO warning could also prompt insurance companies to raise their rates for airlines operating in Thailand.

Passenger numbers in Asia-Pacific have risen by a third over the past five years to 1.1 billion, and the region now accounts for 33 per cent of global air passenger traffic, according to the International Air Transport Association. That proportion is forecast to grow to 42 per cent within the next two decades as an extra 1.8 billion passengers take to the skies.

Another big source of concern is Indonesia, where in December an AirAsia jet carrying 162 people plummeted into the sea as it ran into stormy weather on its way from Surabaya to Singapore.

The disaster, the first ever fatal plane crash for the popular budget operator, was one of five suffered by Asian carriers in a 12-month period. The flight itself was unauthorised by Indonesian authorities, showing up laxness in its aviation oversight.

IATA is worried that regulations and infrastructure aren't being updated fast enough to keep pace with Indonesia's expansion. The Southeast Asian country's air travel market is forecast to triple over the next 20 years to 270 million passengers, making it the world's sixth biggest.

"I am very concerned about safety in Indonesia," IATA director general and former Cathay Pacific Airways CEO Tony Tyler said in a speech to Indonesian aviation officials in Jakarta in March. He noted the country has had at least one crash in which a plane has been written off every year since 2010.

"There is a safety problem here," he said. "It's not going to solve itself."

Tyler pointed out that the country needs to upgrade its air traffic management system to cope with the rising number of aircraft in the skies and future increases. Airlines have more than 800 new aircraft on order.

Despite the high profile of airline disasters in 2014, stemming in part from the double Malaysia Airlines tragedies, the airline industry asserts it was a relatively safe year for flying.

The total of 12 fatal accidents was below the five-year average of 19 and so called "hull losses," the write-off of aeroplanes from accidents fatal or nonfatal, was its lowest ever. From another perspective, however, it was a particularly tragic year. Including Flight 17 shot down over Ukraine which isn't included in the industry's accident tally, 939 people were killed in planes last year compared with 210 the previous year.

But what experts say is most relevant is whether safety will be compromised as air travel expands relentlessly in a region where countries range from advanced to among the world's poorest with huge differences in capacity to manage the safety of their air space.
"I think we're at a turning point where we either maintain this relatively good level of safety" in Asia "or it declines," said Ross.

    
TICK..TOCK miniscule & PM TA...this isolationism policy will not work forever & the SE Asians and ICAO are on the march South...

MTF...P2

Ps Oh & Mr Abbott the Malaysians are taking the piss with the MH370 investigation...

[Peetwo]

From the Oz on tomorrow's Tripartite meeting...

MH370 search to be reviewed at meeting in Kuala Lumpur


Steve Creedy

Aviation Editor
Sydney



The search area for ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Source: Supplied

 

Every angle we've seen on MH370 2:28

• Play video
  

As it has unfolded, the mystery of missing flight MH370 and the incredible twists and turns in world news coverage.

 
Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss will meet his counterparts from China and Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to review the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.  

Mr Truss’s office declined to comment yesterday but Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said in statement that the ministers would be “reviewing the search efforts to date and collectively deciding on next steps based on advice by the experts from the search strategy working group’’.



Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss. Picture: Jack Tran Source: News Corp Australia 
 
The search has been underway in the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia since last year and the four vessels now involved have covered about 61 per cent of the search area. The ships are searching a 60,000 sq km area deemed as the most likely crash site based on a complicated analysis of “handshakes’’ between an Inmarsat geostationary satellite and the plane.

The search of the high probability area is due to be completed by the end of May, depending on factors such as weather. The meeting, which will also include Chinese Transport Minister Yang Chuantang, will almost certainly discuss what will happen if no wreckage is found.

The Boeing 777 went missing on March 8 last year while travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. No wreckage has ever been found and the disappearance has become one of the great aviation mysteries. Searchers have also been looking at drift modelling to see if there is any way of determining where wreckage may have come ashore.

Australia has committed $90m to the search while Mr Liow said Malaysia had committed more than $60m.

The Malaysian minister said the parties were “wholeheartedly committed’’ to completing the search of the priority zone.

 
MTF...P2