[Kharon]

In Memoriam.

A hand that can be clasp'd no more—
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door. (A.L-T).

A memorial – to what, exactly? Almost any place you go, you will find a war memorial, where the names of those lost during the conflict are written. This is to honour those who consciously and willingly laid down their lives so we, today, may haver a better one. There was a purpose to their sacrifice and it is proper that they should be remembered. Lest we forget.

But, to build a memorial to MH 370 is a cynical ploy. Some artsy-fartsy plonker will get a commission and a chance to prattle about ‘symbolism’ or some such clap-trap, while pocketing a large cheque and gaining ‘recognition’ for the work on some appalling day time ‘morning show’ squeezed in between the cash cow and the latest beautifying product. Some politicians will grab a few moments of ‘air time’, puff out their chests and try to pedal the notion that they are fit to run the country, etc. Desperately trying to convince you that they are warm, sensitive souls who care. It’s bollocks.

We’ll end up with a pigeon shit covered monstrosity which will end up a graffiti target. The council will, eventually end up passing an inflated ‘clean up’ cost to the rate payer, based on the initial cost of cleaning up the bunches of flowers and cheap stuffed toys left by those vampires; who although they have no grief, no personal stake and little interest take vicarious pleasure in haunting any tragedy – when the media is about; hoping their little performance may be seen.

Well: I’m sorry, but it gives me a dose of the screamings. There is an aircraft ‘missing’: a large, modern, reliable commercial aircraft with over two hundred souls on board – disappeared into thin air, without trace, explanation or even apology; and these fools want to build a bloody monument - to that. It will be a cynical monument indeed to deceit, incompetence and cover up at best.

Find the aircraft, find some answers, prevent this from ever happening again; or, live forever damned with the shame of it.

Selah.

[Peetwo]

In Memoriam.

A hand that can be clasp'd no more—
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door. (A.L-T).

A memorial – to what, exactly? Almost any place you go, you will find a war memorial, where the names of those lost during the conflict are written. This is to honour those who consciously and willingly laid down their lives so we, today, may have a better one. There was a purpose to their sacrifice and it is proper that they should be remembered. Lest we forget.

But, to build a memorial to MH 370 is a cynical ploy. Some artsy-fartsy plonker will get a commission and a chance to prattle about ‘symbolism’ or some such clap-trap, while pocketing a large cheque and gaining ‘recognition’ for the work on some appalling day time ‘morning show’ squeezed in between the cash cow and the latest beautifying product. Some politicians will grab a few moments of ‘air time’, puff out their chests and try to pedal the notion that they are fit to run the country, etc. Desperately trying to convince you that they are warm, sensitive souls who care. It’s bollocks.

We’ll end up with a pigeon shit covered monstrosity which will end up a graffiti target. The council will, eventually end up passing an inflated ‘clean up’ cost to the rate payer, based on the initial cost of cleaning up the bunches of flowers and cheap stuffed toys left by those vampires; who although they have no grief, no personal stake and little interest take vicarious pleasure in haunting any tragedy – when the media is about; hoping their little performance may be seen.

Well: I’m sorry, but it gives me a dose of the screamings. There is an aircraft ‘missing’: a large, modern, reliable commercial aircraft with over two hundred souls on board – disappeared into thin air, without trace, explanation or even apology; and these fools want to build a bloody monument - to that. It will be a cynical monument indeed to deceit, incompetence and cover up at best.

Find the aircraft, find some answers, prevent this from ever happening again; or, live forever damned with the shame of it.

Selah.

Update 06/01/18: Via the Oz

---

MH370: Ocean Infinity attempts to solve the mystery



Doctor David Griffin, left, and Doctor Andreas Schiller, oceanographers at the CSIRO in Hobart, have assisted in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

The Australian 12:00AM January 6, 2018

EAN HIGGINS




Sometime soon, maybe next week, an extraordinary, futuristic scene will play out in a remote swath of the southern Indian Ocean in a new quest to find the holy grail of aviation and unlock its mysteries.

An impressive but somewhat bizarre-looking ship with a massive helipad cantilevered over its bridge and a gigantic crane on the rear deck will stop in its tracks.

One after another, the crew will launch eight yellow unmanned boats and eight orange torpedo-like unmanned mini-submarines. The robot boats will stay in contact with the robot mini-submarines as they dart around on their own a few kilometres deep, hunting for the remains of an airliner that disappeared four years ago with 239 souls on board.

And with that, a new, audacious capitalist bid to find Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, after a previous search run by Australian bureaucrats failed, will be on.

The passage of time has done nothing to dampen the world’s fascination with the enigma of how a modern airliner on a regular scheduled flight could just disappear.

The Boeing 777 took off from Kuala Lumpur airport after midnight on March 8, 2014, headed for Beijing. About 40 minutes into the flight something very strange happened: radio contact ceased, the plane’s secondary radar transponder was turned off, and it turned around, flew a course near the Malaysia-Thailand airspace border, turned north up the Strait of Malacca, then headed south on a long track to the southern Indian Ocean.

At the request of Malaysia, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau led a two-year underwater search of a 120,000sq km target zone that ended a year ago without finding a trace of the aircraft. That failed search cost $200 million, paid for by the taxpayers of Australia, Malaysia and China.

Now private enterprise, with American can do-ism coupled with British and European technical skill, is stepping up to the plate.

The people who run Ocean Infinity — a crack international team of engineers, information technology experts, hydrographic surveyors, underwater robot submarine experts and others — and its shareholders have taken a big gamble on their own ability.

A few months ago Ocean Infinity, based in Houston, Texas, and London, put a juicy offer to the Malaysian government, which under international law is ultim­ately responsible for the investigation into the loss of the aircraft.

Ocean Infinity proposed to launch a new hunt for the aircraft on a “no find, no fee” basis — the Malaysian government would agree to pay a sizeable fee if the company found it. But if no wreckage were found, Ocean Infinity would have gone to all that effort for not a penny’s compensation.

Malaysia’s talkative Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi gave some indication of the size of the deal. The government’s cabinet, he said in October, had agreed “to prepare a special allocation to the Ministry of Transport amounting to between $US20m ($25.46m) and $US70m if MH370 aircraft wreckage is successfully found within 90 days”.

So keen are the people who run Ocean Infinity to get started that this week they ordered the captain of the vessel they have leased, the Seabed Constructor owned by the Swire group, to set sail from Durban in South Africa for the new search zone, even though a final contract with the Malaysian government has yet to be signed.

It looks like a goer, though.



On Wednesday Malaysia’s Transport Minister, Liow Tiong Lai, told journalists: “We are making preparations and we will announce it next week, after we finalise the contract.”

Putting them side-by-side, what Ocean Infinity is about to do makes the previous hunt organised by Australian bureaucrats look like kids’ stuff. The ships in the ATSB-led search used a single tethered “towfish” at a time, or a single mini-submarine, known as an autonomous underwater vehicle. One ship managed to crash its towfish into an underwater mud volcano, breaking the towline, and it was lost for a while until recovered.

Beijing’s contribution to the ATSB-led hunt was a Chinese government survey vessel that was supposed to deploy a single AUV. But that vessel, the Dong Hai Jiu 101, hardly ever did any actual searching; as revealed by The Australian, it spent most of its nearly year-long deployment docked in Fremantle or just offshore, probably spying on Australian submarine and other military movements, according to security experts.

By contrast, Ocean Infinity sounds like a pretty serious mob. Its website describes the company as “ocean explorers mapping the unknown”.

“We go to unmapped locations to survey the seabed using the most advanced fleet of autonomous vehicles in the world.”

David Griffin, a CSIRO drift-modelling scientist who led a project commissioned by the ATSB to work out where MH370 came down based on where a few bits of the aircraft were washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean, met the Ocean Infinity people in London last month to brief them on the first search.

“It’s a very impressive organisation,” Griffin told Inquirer. “They have got terrific equipment.”

Ocean Infinity plans to use eight AUVs at a time on independent search missions, enabling it to scan the seabed for MH370 much faster than in the first search.

They are mind-blowing machines. In their 6.2m bodies they carry side scan sonar, a multi-beam echo-sounder, a sub-bottom profiler, a high-definition camera, a conductivity/temperature/depth sensor, a self-compensating magnetometer, a turbidity sensor, and a methane and laser sensor.

The most important pieces of equipment for this search are the side-scan sonar, which can create images of things on the sea floor and distinguish metal; the multi-beam echo-sounder, which can produce three-dimensional im­ages; and the magnetometer, which can confirm if objects are metallic. The AUVs can message the surface robot ships known as unmanned surface vehicles about what they are doing, using acoustic positioning telemetry. They have on-board cameras and machine-vision software that can enable them to keep an eye on what’s ahead of them and dodge underwater cliffs or other obstacles.

The batteries can keep them going underwater for up to 60 hours — 2½ days.

The issue, however, is this: no matter how sophisticated the technology, it can’t find what it’s looking for unless the searchers have the right strategy of where to look.

Most expert observers think that had MH370 been in the ATSB’s 120,000sq km target zone, it would have been found; while the process was slower than what Ocean Infinity is planning, it still used high-quality technology that picked up things such as two shipwrecks with surprisingly high-definition.

The question being asked in the air crash investigation and airline pilot community is whether Ocean Infinity has the right assumptions as it heads into its new search. The plan is to look in a new 25,000sq km zone immediately to the north of the previous one.

It was, in fact, the ATSB and a panel of Australian and international experts including Griffin who had identified this zone as promising even before the old search had been brought to an end.

There are three main clues to where MH370 may be.

One is automatic hourly electronic “handshakes” between transmitters in the engines of the Boeing 777 and an Inmarsat satellite, relayed to ground stations. While not really designed to track aircraft in this way, experts think the seventh handshake shows the arc MH370 was travelling on the long final leg south. That “seventh arc” shows the final track but not the point on it where the aircraft came down.

But that is where the second main clue comes in. Years after it went down, bits of MH370, some quite large and intact, started washing up on the other side of the Indian Ocean on the coast of Africa and the islands off it, including a flaperon and a flap, which are movable parts of the wings.

Griffin and his team did a painstaking analysis of the drift modelling, even building models of the flaperon with adjustments made to reflect damage on the real one, and put them in the ocean and tracked them to see how they reacted to wind, waves and current.

That study determined that the aircraft came down just north of the completed search area.

There’s one other clue that turned up in August last year.

Four satellite images of what could be debris, taken two weeks after MH370 went missing, have been re-examined, prompting Geo­science Australia and the CSIRO to home in on two narrow strips, no larger than 10km to 30km each. Their report places the likeliest location of the aircraft “with unprecedented precision and certainty” at 35.6 degrees south, 92.8 degrees east.

The satellite images contain up to 70 objects, of which up to 12 were “possibly man-made”, ­according to Geoscience Australia. Their dimensions match some of the plane debris that washed up on African beaches last year.

Griffin says while these photos have been available all along, the concentration was on the southern search area, and when the decision was made to look to more northerly scenarios, the ATSB asked to re-examine them in high resolution — a slow process.

Griffin has seen the images and says you can clearly see “large, white objects” consistent with debris from “an aircraft hitting the ocean and breaking up into parts”.

“It’s hard to see what sort of other marine objects these might be,” Griffin says.

The part of the seventh arc where Ocean Infinity is going to start searching is, in fact, consistent with this new clue: The Economist got the first interview with the company about the search this week and reported the plan is to begin at about 35 degrees south and work north from there. Because Ocean Infinity thinks it can survey 1200sq km a day using the eight AUVs, the maths work out that the 25,000sq km search zone could be covered in three weeks.

So does Griffin think this hunt will find MH370? “We think there is a very good chance,” he says. “If you are prepared to take the risk and search, this is the most likely place. How likely, I can’t estimate.”

There is, however, one nagging doubt in the professional aviation and air crash investigation community: the ATSB’s theory of what happened on MH370 and how it came down, which it used to determine the old search area and the new one. The ATSB worked on the basis that at the end of the flight the pilots were incapacitated and the aircraft crashed down fast after fuel exhaustion.

Most professional pilots believe the evidence points to Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacking his own aircraft, depressurising the cabin to kill the passengers and crew while he was on the pilot’s more extended oxygen supply, flying the aircraft to the end, and ditching it in a deep spot of his own choosing to sink it in as close to one piece as possible.

They have now been joined by two of the world’s best known and most experienced air crash investigators: American John Cox and Canadian Larry Vance, who have examined photos of the flap and flaperon, which were mostly intact but had damage to the trailing edge. Vance, who is writing a book on MH370, believes this evidence clearly points to a ditching with flaps down.

He says had the plane crashed down rapidly as the ATSB says it did, they would have been pulverised, as was found in one high-profile investigation he helped lead, Swissair Flight 111, which in 1998 crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia after an on-board fire.

“In the Swissair crash the hydrodynamic forces of hitting the water basically exploded the aircraft from the inside out,” Vance told Inquirer.

When Inquirer sought comment from the ATSB on Vance and Cox’s analysis and whether it still believed its “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory, its spokesman Paul Sadler referred this and other inquiries to the federal government’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre, whose spokesman said such questions should go to the Malaysian government.

Cox does not think that Ocean Infinity should not be conducting the search; even if the ditching theory is right, Zaharie would have flown it somewhere, and the drift modelling and satellite photos show that may well be where the AUVs are about to look.

“Ocean Infinity has ideas about the location of the aeroplane,” Cox told Inquirer. “There is one certainty: we won’t find the aeroplane if we don’t look for it. Therefore, I’m glad they are looking.”

---

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update 09/01/18: Via the West Oz.

High-tech hunt is best chance for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370


Geoffrey Thomas and Steve Creedy
Tuesday, 9 January 2018 7:30AM



https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j...1126190754

---

The final search by US-based Ocean Infinity for missing airliner MH370, which will start off WA in the next week, features a big improvement in technology from the previous search, according to a leading expert.

Charitha Pattiaratchi, professor of coastal oceanography at the University of WA, told The West Australian the Ocean Infinity survey systems used from the Seabed Constructor vessel would cover 100,000sqkm in just 90 days.

“The previous search took 21/2 years to cover 120,000sqkm,” Professor Pattiaratchi said.
“This is a major step change and I am amazed at what they can do.”


The Seabed Constructor is on its way to the area identified by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and CSIRO as the most likely crash site. It sits just outside the previous search area.

That location is at latitude 35.6°S and longitude 92.8°E on the seventh arc defined by satellite data from the missing Boeing 777. The ATSB-CSIRO area of interest covers 25,000sqkm from 35.6°S to 33°S.

The ATSB location is supported by the re-analysis of four images from the French Pleiades satellite. The images, which show unusual shapes, were captured on March 23, 2014, to the north-west of the seventh arc in an area not searched by aircraft during the surface search.

It is where debris is likely to have drifted in the two weeks after MH370 was lost if the aircraft had hit the water close to the seventh arc around latitude 35°S. If it is not found at the ATSB location, the Seabed Constructor will move north and cover all the major locations that various groups say is the final resting place of MH370.

The plane disappeared on March 8, 2014, with 239 people aboard. Professor Pattiaratchi believes MH370 lies just below latitude 32°S on the seventh arc, while the Independent Group says it could be as high as 30°S.

IG states that "based on some evidence, it is possible it is there (at 30°S), and the search should continue at least that far north, and ideally further north, if not found. We agree with the search strategy of starting with the 25,000 sq km and proceeding north."
To arrive at its location Professor Pattiaratchi said that UWA was offered free computer time at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth, the largest in the southern hemisphere.

“We were able to run 50,000 debris drift simulations to arrive at our location,” Professor Pattiaratchi said. The area identified by UWA is not an area that the ATSB was able to do a bathymetry survey of in 2014.

Ocean Infinity will use six torpedo-shaped HUGIN vessels launched from the mothership, which will communicate with them using an acoustic modem as they search in parallel for the debris field.

Each submersible is powered by lithium polymer batteries that allows them to remain on station for up to 60 hours as they scan the ocean bed with downward-facing and side-scan sonars. Apart from occasional pings to update the HUGINS’ inertial navigation systems to keep them on course, the robots keep their findings stored on an onboard hard-drive to be downloaded on their return.

The robots can dive to depths of 6000m but it is unlikely they will need to do so in the 25,000sqkm search area designated by experts in 2016, where the maximum depth is believed to be about 5000m.

If the wreckage is found, it will be up to the Malaysian Government to decide what should be retrieved from the ocean floor, how it should be retrieved and who should do the work.



Most important are the plane’s “black boxes” — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders and the plane’s quick access recorder. These are most likely to give some insight into the mystery behind the crash.

Other items include memory from avionics and personal electronic devices and specific parts of the aircraft structure.

A logical move would be to send any recovered items to ATSB headquarters in Canberra for assessment by globally recognised experts.

Australian authorities began planning a recovery operation while the initial search was being conducted.

The plan envisaged recovery operations of up to 30 days at a time co-ordinated by the ATSB in consultation with other agencies and the governments of Malaysia, China and Australia.

A decision to remove human remains would involve a multinational and multi-jurisdictional operation.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update 15/01/18: The hunt is back on..

Via the Oz:

MH370 search ready for launch

12:00amEAN HIGGINS, AMANDA HODGE

The hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is back on and due to start next week.

---

The hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is back on and due to start next week, with the head of the underwater survey company conducting it saying it has “a realistic prospect of finding it”.

Ocean Infinity chief executive Oliver Plunkett said the ship Seabed Constructor was expected to be in the search zone in the southern Indian Ocean next Wednesday.

“It will launch almost ­instantly,” Mr Plunkett said, referring to the eight autonomous underwater vehicles, or torpedo-like unmanned mini-submarines with side-scan sonar that Ocean Infinity will simultaneously use to try to find wreckage of the Boeing 777 at great depths.

On the way from its last port of call in Durban, South Africa, Mr Plunkett said the crew and scientists had conducted some trial dives of the AUVs.

“We have had some pretty good results, as far as I can tell, a dive down to 5800m, which is pretty cool,’’ he said.

Mr Plunkett said the search would first concentrate on areas identified by Australian authorities and scientists as the most likely based on their “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory that the plane’s pilots were incapacitated and the plane crashed after fuel exhaustion.

But if it is not found there, Mr Plunkett said, it was possible to divert the Seabed Constructor to another target zone preferred by international airline captains Byron Bailey and Simon Hardy, who believe a rogue pilot ­hijacked his own aircraft and flew it to the end, ditching it.

“I think assuming all of the aviation analysis is right, then I think we have a realistic prospect of finding it,” Mr Plunkett said.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, mainly Chinese nationals.

A two-year, $200 million search led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau at the request of Malaysia failed to find a trace of the plane in a 120,000sq km search zone, and that survey ended a year ago.

Ocean Infinity, a Houston- based ocean survey outfit owned by several British investors, made an offer to the Malaysian government late last year that it would launch a new search on a “no find, no fee” basis.

& from NZ'ed's Stuff:

MH370 Kiwi's widow wants Boeing to pay for retrieval ahead of new search for missing airliner

OLIVER LEWIS

Last updated 20:34, January 14 2018



SUPPLIED

Paul and Danica Weeks on their wedding day. The couple lived in Christchurch until they moved to Perth in 2011.

As the search for missing airliner MH370 enters a new phase, the widow of a Kiwi passenger wants plane manufacturer Boeing to help pick up the retrieval bill should it be found.

Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul Weeks was on the plane when it vanished during a 2014 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is suing the American aerospace company as she believes the Malaysia Airlines-operated Boeing 777 disappeared along with its 229 passengers and crew due to mechanical fault.

Weeks, who has also filed proceedings against the airline, said Boeing needed to prove its aircraft were safe and helping to pay for MH370's recovery – if it was found – would help to do that.

CELESTE GORRELL ANSTISS

Danica Weeks, the widow of MH370 passenger Paul Weeks, with the couple's two children, Lincoln, now aged 7, left, and Jack, now 4.

"If they've got nothing to hide then, why not? They've got the money, they've got the resources," the Sunshine Coast, Australia woman said on Sunday. 

"So let's hear from them, let's hear from the horse's mouth that those planes are safe, because quite frankly their silence has been pretty scary.

REUTERS

Squadron leader Brett McKenzie marks the name of another search aircraft on the windshield of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion aircraft searching for missing MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean in March 2014.

"I'm not suing for money. The beauty of aviation law is they have to prove they weren't negligent, not the other way round."

Another aeroplane manufacturer, Airbus, helped fund part of the search for Air France Flight 447 after one of its 330s crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, killing 228 people.

The search for what remains of missing airliner MH370 resumes this week after the Malaysian Government signed a memorandum of understanding with American seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity to find it within three months.

A ship chartered by the company, the Seabed Constructor, was expected to reach and begin searching the 25,000 square kilometre area in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday, following earlier extensive searches.

Weeks said court action was her only way to get one of the largest aerospace companies in the world to talk.

"We're so sick of not hearing anything from them, it's really a slap in the face.The people that manufactured this plane should be helping us find out what happened to it."

FINDING HUSBAND 'STILL THE END GOAL'

Weeks' husband and the father of her two children was from Christchurch. The young family lived in the city before moving to Perth in 2011.

"I just want to find him. That was the start goal and that's still the end goal – to find Paulie," she said.

"I know it's been four years and the boys have grown so much, but it feels just like yesterday for me.

"Since day one we're no further ahead. They say time heals, but time doesn't heal in this. We still don't know."

Weeks said their eldest son, Lincoln – who was born in Christchurch on the day of the September 2010 earthquake – remembered his father and would tell stories about him to his brother Jack, 4.

"I don't know if anyone has been able to start grieving yet, because it's so surreal and so unprecedented – as Malaysian Airlines likes to say – that we just have to handle it day by day."

Weeks had yet to hold a memorial or funeral service for her husband and said it was too soon to do so until she knew what had happened to the engineer.

Sara Weeks, Paul Weeks' sister, said every year around the anniversary of the MH370's March 8 disappearance she and other family members and friends gathered in Christchurch to "share a couple of drinks for Paul".

Weeks said she supported her sister-in-law's court action: "If it helps her through her journey through this awful situation that's fantastic and if it leads to some answers that would be great, too".

She said "hope" was the wrong word to describe the latest efforts to find the plane. However, she said the search – payment for which was dependent on a result – was a good thing, as it would help provide closure.

"I can't mourn, I can't move on until I know what happened to my brother. There's just nothing you can do. We need to have some clear, hard facts – 'This is what happened to the plane', 'This is where it is' – so we can process it," she said.

Boeing has been approached for comment.
 - Stuff

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update 15/01/18: The hunt is back on..

Via the Oz:

MH370 search ready for launch

12:00amEAN HIGGINS, AMANDA HODGE

The hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is back on and due to start next week.

---

The hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is back on and due to start next week, with the head of the underwater survey company conducting it saying it has “a realistic prospect of finding it”.

Ocean Infinity chief executive Oliver Plunkett said the ship Seabed Constructor was expected to be in the search zone in the southern Indian Ocean next Wednesday.

“It will launch almost ­instantly,” Mr Plunkett said, referring to the eight autonomous underwater vehicles, or torpedo-like unmanned mini-submarines with side-scan sonar that Ocean Infinity will simultaneously use to try to find wreckage of the Boeing 777 at great depths.

On the way from its last port of call in Durban, South Africa, Mr Plunkett said the crew and scientists had conducted some trial dives of the AUVs.

“We have had some pretty good results, as far as I can tell, a dive down to 5800m, which is pretty cool,’’ he said.

Mr Plunkett said the search would first concentrate on areas identified by Australian authorities and scientists as the most likely based on their “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory that the plane’s pilots were incapacitated and the plane crashed after fuel exhaustion.

But if it is not found there, Mr Plunkett said, it was possible to divert the Seabed Constructor to another target zone preferred by international airline captains Byron Bailey and Simon Hardy, who believe a rogue pilot ­hijacked his own aircraft and flew it to the end, ditching it.

“I think assuming all of the aviation analysis is right, then I think we have a realistic prospect of finding it,” Mr Plunkett said.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, mainly Chinese nationals.

A two-year, $200 million search led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau at the request of Malaysia failed to find a trace of the plane in a 120,000sq km search zone, and that survey ended a year ago.

Ocean Infinity, a Houston- based ocean survey outfit owned by several British investors, made an offer to the Malaysian government late last year that it would launch a new search on a “no find, no fee” basis.

& from NZ'ed's Stuff:

MH370 Kiwi's widow wants Boeing to pay for retrieval ahead of new search for missing airliner

OLIVER LEWIS

Last updated 20:34, January 14 2018



SUPPLIED

Paul and Danica Weeks on their wedding day. The couple lived in Christchurch until they moved to Perth in 2011.

As the search for missing airliner MH370 enters a new phase, the widow of a Kiwi passenger wants plane manufacturer Boeing to help pick up the retrieval bill should it be found.

Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul Weeks was on the plane when it vanished during a 2014 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is suing the American aerospace company as she believes the Malaysia Airlines-operated Boeing 777 disappeared along with its 229 passengers and crew due to mechanical fault.

Weeks, who has also filed proceedings against the airline, said Boeing needed to prove its aircraft were safe and helping to pay for MH370's recovery – if it was found – would help to do that.

CELESTE GORRELL ANSTISS

Danica Weeks, the widow of MH370 passenger Paul Weeks, with the couple's two children, Lincoln, now aged 7, left, and Jack, now 4.

"If they've got nothing to hide then, why not? They've got the money, they've got the resources," the Sunshine Coast, Australia woman said on Sunday. 

"So let's hear from them, let's hear from the horse's mouth that those planes are safe, because quite frankly their silence has been pretty scary.

REUTERS

Squadron leader Brett McKenzie marks the name of another search aircraft on the windshield of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion aircraft searching for missing MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean in March 2014.

"I'm not suing for money. The beauty of aviation law is they have to prove they weren't negligent, not the other way round."

Another aeroplane manufacturer, Airbus, helped fund part of the search for Air France Flight 447 after one of its 330s crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, killing 228 people.

The search for what remains of missing airliner MH370 resumes this week after the Malaysian Government signed a memorandum of understanding with American seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity to find it within three months.

A ship chartered by the company, the Seabed Constructor, was expected to reach and begin searching the 25,000 square kilometre area in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday, following earlier extensive searches.

Weeks said court action was her only way to get one of the largest aerospace companies in the world to talk.

"We're so sick of not hearing anything from them, it's really a slap in the face.The people that manufactured this plane should be helping us find out what happened to it."

FINDING HUSBAND 'STILL THE END GOAL'

Weeks' husband and the father of her two children was from Christchurch. The young family lived in the city before moving to Perth in 2011.

"I just want to find him. That was the start goal and that's still the end goal – to find Paulie," she said.

"I know it's been four years and the boys have grown so much, but it feels just like yesterday for me.

"Since day one we're no further ahead. They say time heals, but time doesn't heal in this. We still don't know."

Weeks said their eldest son, Lincoln – who was born in Christchurch on the day of the September 2010 earthquake – remembered his father and would tell stories about him to his brother Jack, 4.

"I don't know if anyone has been able to start grieving yet, because it's so surreal and so unprecedented – as Malaysian Airlines likes to say – that we just have to handle it day by day."

Weeks had yet to hold a memorial or funeral service for her husband and said it was too soon to do so until she knew what had happened to the engineer.

Sara Weeks, Paul Weeks' sister, said every year around the anniversary of the MH370's March 8 disappearance she and other family members and friends gathered in Christchurch to "share a couple of drinks for Paul".

Weeks said she supported her sister-in-law's court action: "If it helps her through her journey through this awful situation that's fantastic and if it leads to some answers that would be great, too".

She said "hope" was the wrong word to describe the latest efforts to find the plane. However, she said the search – payment for which was dependent on a result – was a good thing, as it would help provide closure.

"I can't mourn, I can't move on until I know what happened to my brother. There's just nothing you can do. We need to have some clear, hard facts – 'This is what happened to the plane', 'This is where it is' – so we can process it," she said.

Boeing has been approached for comment.
 - Stuff

& via the ABC:

MH370: Evidence points to Malaysia Airlines wreck being at 35 degrees south in Indian Ocean

By Anne Barker
Updated Sat at 2:47pmSat 13 Jan 2018, 2:47pm

Play (2.3 MB)

There's a particularly tantalising reason why the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may indeed be found inside the proposed new search area at 35 degrees south in the southern Indian Ocean.

It's the lack of any debris from the plane found on Australia's west coast.

Other than a small towelette in Malaysia Airlines packaging found on a WA beach in 2015 — which may or may not have come from MH370 — every piece of debris known to have come from the missing plane washed up on the east coast of Africa, or nearby islands.

This is significant, given Australian investigators believe there were five possible autopilot control modes the plane could have been on at the time it ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean.

Calculations based on four of those settings point to a crash site further south (36-39 degrees south) or further north (33-34 degrees south), where the ocean currents in the days after the plane disappeared ran in an easterly direction, and would be expected to wash at least some debris towards Australia.



Photo: Evidence points to the wreck being near the seventh arc. (Supplied: Geoscience Australia)

One source close to the investigation says only one of the five auto pilot settings — constant magnetic heading (CMH) — would lead to a crash site at 35S, where the ocean current at the time ran in the opposite direction, towards Africa.

Nevertheless, other evidence in the weeks and months after the plane disappeared — namely the satellite "pings" picked up from the aircraft by Britain's Inmarsat satellite, and the assumption another autopilot setting was used — prompted the Australian-led search team to focus on a 120,000-square-kilometre area around 36 degrees or further south, a search which ultimately proved fruitless.

Only now, since the examination of the various debris and studies on ocean drift patterns, has the likely wreck site shifted north to an area around 35 degrees south, straddling the imaginary line known as the "seventh arc" — which shows possible locations of the plane at the time of the seventh "ping".

We asked you to leave your thoughts on the search for MH370 in the comments below.

Debris discovery location leaves 35S the 'only option'



Photo: More than 20 items of debris have washed-up on coastlines across Africa, Madagascar and La Reunion Island. (Reuters: Stringer France)

The Malaysian Government this week confirmed it had signed an agreement to pay a US seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity between $20 million and $70 million if it finds the missing aircraft within 90 days of embarking on a new search.

Its search ship Seabed Constructor is already heading to the new search zone and will begin scouring the ocean floor as early as next week.

Ocean Infinity is confident of finding the plane if indeed it is inside the search area.

"We can roughly cover 1,200 square kilometres a day," chief executive Oliver Plunkett said.

"Which means that we will finish the first 25,000 within first three to four weeks of the search."

The data behind the MH370 search



The data gathered during the Australian Government-led search for flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean.

Dr David Griffin, an Australian oceanographer at the CSIRO, led the drift analysis that last year helped narrow down the search zone to an area no bigger than 25,000 square kilometres, where Ocean Infinity will focus its search.

"The oceanographic reason for why 35 [degrees south] is more likely than say 34, or 33, or 32, is that at all those latitudes the current is going to the east," Dr Griffin said.

"So if the crash had been in any of those latitudes then there'd be a high chance of at least one or two things turning up in Australia. Whereas there've been 20 or 30 or so items turned up in Africa, and not a single one come to Australia.

"Once you start looking in the vicinity of 36 to 32, then 35 is the only option."
Interest revived in dismissed French satellite images



Photo: Debris from the missing Boeing airline has been recovered but previous searches have failed to find the rest of the plane. (Reuters: Andrew Winning, file)

The autopilot settings and the discovery of debris in Africa — including a flaperon confirmed to have come from flight MH370 — are not the only evidence supporting the theory that the missing plane is in the proposed new search zone, north of the area already searched.

French satellite images first seen in March 2014, a week or so after the plane disappeared, showed white objects in this same area, at 35S.

At the time the objects were dismissed as unimportant.



Photo: French satellite photos showed the objects around 35 degrees south in the days after the disappearance of MH370 in 2014. (Supplied: French Military Intelligence Service)

Other photos had showed similar "blobs" elsewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, many of which were later ruled out as shipping containers, general ocean rubbish or even pods of dolphins.

The French photos were also of poor quality, making it almost impossible to see what the objects were.

But as other evidence began to point further north — the results of the CSIRO drift study and the discovery of more debris linked to the missing plane — investigators suddenly remembered the satellite images.

They asked the French for better copies. And only then did they realise the photos were more significant than first thought.

"When anyone looks at them you think, if they're not bits of plane, what are they? Because for lots of those other objects you can find an explanation, but for these you can't," Dr Griffin said.

Finding wreck now is unlikely to solve the mystery



Photo: The recovered aircraft flaperon suggests the pilot was not in control when the aircraft crashed. (Supplied: CSIRO)

The drift analysis included retrospective calculations to gauge where the objects might have been in the hours after MH370 disappeared. And sure enough, it was around 35S, the new zone where Ocean Infinity is preparing to search.

When Ocean Infinity reaches its destination next week, it won't be the first time that seabed vessels have searched along the seventh arc at 35S.

In the weeks after MH370 first disappeared, searchers scoured the ocean floor along the same trajectory from about 32 to 39 degrees south, and found nothing.

What debris and the ocean told modellers



CSIRO's Dr David Griffin says he's never been "so completely consumed by a scientific question" as he has during the MH370 search. Read more CSIRO analysis of the search.

But Dr Griffin says that search was very narrow — barely 20 kilometres either side of the arc.

The new search will scan a wider area. Although evidence including the plane's flaperon, which was found in Tanzania, supports the theory that the aircraft went through a rapid descent once it ran out of fuel and landed close to the "seventh arc".

Examination of the flaperon indicates it was retracted at the time of impact, debunking the theory that the pilot was still in control and trying to glide the plane as far as possible before it crashed.

Evidence in a report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau in late 2016 assessing satellite communications from the plane, known as the Doppler Shift Burst Frequency Offset, is also consistent with a rapid descent and the wreck site being closer to the seventh arc.

The new search is due to begin next week. To qualify for its multi-million-dollar pay day, Ocean Infinity must find the debris field or the flight recorders within 90 days.
And even if the plane is found, there may never be a satisfactory explanation for why MH370 disappeared.

"If they find it, will it be financially viable to bring it up? And even if they did, what information could it give us?" aviation specialist Trevor Jensen said.

"The flight recorders, the voice recorders, would all be so damaged now."

 

MTF...P2

[ventus45]

Ocean Infinity's Seabed Constructor has passed 75E on it's way to David Griffin's search zone.



Richard Cole is again tracking the new Oceean Infinity search, as he did the original Fugro search.
His website is: http://recole.org.uk/

The image below is from Richard, to which I have added my ditch point.

webPost-Seabed_Constructor.jpg Size: 414.63 KB  Downloads: 64

Richard Cole 18Jan2018 - V45.jpg Size: 184.21 KB  Downloads: 67

[P7_TOM]

Dear “V”.

Seems to me the whole 370 world is in a ‘betting’ mood. I’m having an ale with ‘the lad’ this evening, before he arrived I snuck into the darts room and reversed the board – to see the odds he’s offering the BRB & IOS punters; those who like a flutter. There, chalked on the back of the dart board are the odds.

1 Choc frog gets you 70 – they won’t find the ‘hull’.

1 Choc frog gets you 60 – they won’t find anything of relevance or value.

1 Choc frog gets you 50 – they won’t find anything near the ’Beaker’ search zone.

2 Choc frogs gets you 2 – the CSIRO will claim ‘they’ were right all along; irrespective.

5 Choc frogs gets you 4 – the 370 ‘parasites’ have an argument prepared to support the result: whatever that may finally be. Can’t get a bet on how many ‘books’ will be written – not for profit  - of course.

10 Choc frogs gets you 6 – that the ‘media’ will be in full hysterical mode and buggering up the reports.

100 Choc frogs gets you 1 the Malaysian government is having a beer and a chuckle; right now, certain their money is as safe as a Swiss bank.

The reason the odds are on the back of the dart board – well; you need to really believe in Karma and have a suspicious mind to want to look at the back of the dart board – and; to know what ‘K’ is thinking.

Bon chance, good hunting, calm seas and fair weather is the best I can manage. Expect the worst, and hope (like hell) for the best.

No! Not my shout – it ain’t. Old I may be; but, I can count (Cheeky beggars).

[Peetwo]

MH370 search MKII: And so it begins!!

Via the ABC 0730 program:

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Play
Press play then disable your screen reader. Use space bar to pause or play, and up and down arrows to control volume. Use left arrow to rewind and right arrow to fast forward.H
 7.30 Report
Australian research could solve MH370 mystery
Posted Mon 22 Jan 2018, 8:00pm
Updated Mon 22 Jan 2018, 8:02pm
Expires: Wednesday 24 July 2019 8:00pm
[size=undefined]
Nearly four years ago, MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing. It was due to touch down just six hours later. Instead, it vanished along with 239 people on board. Now there's hope that a new search will at last reveal why the plane went missing.[/size]

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&..

MH370: Families of missing passengers relieved search resuming for Malaysia Airlines plane
7.30 
By Tracy Bowden
Updated about 3 hours ago



Grace Nathan misses her mum every day.

"She was the person in our family that held us all together," Ms Nathan said.
"She was the person who was a constant in my life. She was always there for me, for my sister. Our dreams were always her dreams."

For almost four years, Ms Nathan has been waiting and hoping. Hoping for answers about what happened to her mother Anne Daisy and the other 238 passengers and crew on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

The plane disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"Not understanding what was going on in the plane, not knowing, or maybe never knowing what my mother was feeling, just being in constant limbo has been something that is very, very difficult to live with," Ms Nathan, who lives in Kuala Lumpur, told 7.30.

A three-year search for the wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean was suspended early last year, but now the search is set to resume, based on new research by CSIRO oceanographer Dr David Griffin.

Ms Nathan has mixed emotions about what might be revealed in the coming weeks or months.

"I'm relieved that the search is finally back on," Ms Nathan said.

"We fought so hard ever since the plane disappeared for the search to continue. But at the same time it's so hard to be optimistic because at every single junction in the past we've always been met with disappointment.

"Every search has returned empty. We've always been faced with more and more bad news."

'Are we going to find you today?'

4
Jeanette Maguire from Brisbane has endured the same frustration and anguish. Her sister and brother-in-law, Cathy and Bob Lawson, were also on the ill-fated plane.

"We can't move on," Ms Maguire said.



[b]PHOTO:[/b] Jeanette Maguire's sister and brother-in-law were on MH370. (ABC News)

"When you go through grief, you generally get to say goodbye to people, you can go to a funeral, you see the coffin.

"We haven't got any of that. We are not at peace with ourselves and you live every day going, 'I wonder where they are'."

Ms Maguire said news of the search restarting was "obviously very heart-wrenching".

"We are back on the roller coaster," she said.

"I still get out of bed every day and look at the sky and I think, 'Is today the day? Are we going to find you today?'

"We have to find them. The likelihood of getting anyone home is non-existent, but to know where they are brings us closer.

"It will help us to get the peace that we need."

'I really hope the plane is found'

[b]PHOTO:[/b] Grace Nathan, right, wants answers about what happened to her mother, Anne Daisy, left. (Supplied: Grace Nathan)

Ms Nathan is hopeful but at the same time anxious.

"Finding the plane would be very painful for us — a painful realisation that this flight has ended in such a tragic way," she said.

"But also I believe it is a necessary evil, because if we don't find the plane then when will our healing really properly begin?

"How will we begin to attain closure? And more importantly, when will all the questions be answered?

"It's something that must happen. I really, really do hope that the plane is found

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MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

MH370 MKII Search - Weekly Report 1 

Via the Malaysian MH370 response team: English Version
MH370 Search Weekly Report 1.pdf
Download
Details

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MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update 02 Feb '18:  

Looks like Higgins is not going to let HVH & CSIRO Griffo off the hook now that the IO search has all but concluded the CSIRO/ATSB higher probability 'best guess' for MH370 -

Via 'that man' & the Oz:

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No finds in hunt for MH370

12:00amEAN HIGGINS

---

The new underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has covered the area in the southern Indian Ocean scientists predicted with “unprecedented precision and certainty” the Boeing 777 would be, without finding the aircraft.

But the CSIRO scientist who led the drift modelling studies that determined the new target zone, David Griffin, told The Australian it was early days and the sonar imagery data gathered thus far had to be fully assessed.

The Malaysian government yesterday issued its first report on the progress of the new search being conducted on a “no find, no fee” basis by the ­Houston-based, British-financed Ocean Infinity maritime survey company. The report says the vessel, Seabed Constructor, leased by the company for the project, began searching on January 22, and has covered the 4500sq km “Phase 1” section of the overall 25,000sq km primary target zone. The Malaysian statement said there had been “no significant contacts identified to date”.

The “Phase 1” area was the eastern section of two parallel arms of the southernmost part of the new search zone where Dr Griffin’s team and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau determined it was most likely MH370 came down after it disappeared on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.

In August, Dr Griffin and his team issued a report that analysed new satellite images of an apparent surface debris field taken soon after the aircraft disappeared, adding to earlier “reverse drift modelling” of pieces of MH370 found washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean.

The report said: “We think it is possible to identify a most ­likely location of the aircraft, with unprecedented precision and certainty. This location is 35.6 [degrees south], 92.8 [degrees east].”

Dr Griffin yesterday confirmed that position was part of the “Phase 1” area and had now been covered in the new search.

He said while he had no ­independent information on the conduct of the search, if Ocean Infinity was following the ­guidance he and his colleagues provided, the Seabed Constructor would move to the parallel arm to the west to search next.

That area contained two other highly promising likely positions of the aircraft, he said.

Dr Griffin said the initial ­Mal­aysian report of “no significant contacts” did not necessarily mean no MH370 debris had been detected by the eight unmanned mini-submarines launched by the Seabed Constructor. Unlike a large sunken ship in one or two parts, the plane might be in several hundred ­pieces difficult to identify at first glance because “they all look like bits of rock”, requiring further analysis of data.

Senior airline pilots and crash investigators believe the new hunt is flawed because, like the first ATSB search, it ­relies on the ­bureau’s theory the aircraft was unpiloted at the end and went down rapidly after fuel exhaustion. Critics say the ­evidence points to a rogue pilot hijacking his own aircraft and ditching it outside the search area.

ATSB spokesman Paul Sadler would not say whether the ATSB still held to its “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory, referring questions to the federal government’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre.

The head of the JACC, senior public servant Judith Zielke, did not respond when The Australian referred those questions to her.

The hunt for MH370 has covered the area scientists predicted it would be, without finding the aircraft.

---

"...ATSB spokesman Paul Sadler would not say whether the ATSB still held to its “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory, referring questions to the federal government’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre.

The head of the JACC, senior public servant Judith Zielke, did not respond when The Australian referred those questions to her..." -  Hmm...wonder why not? - 


MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update 07/02/18:

Via the ABC today:

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MH370 conspiracy theory involves Seabed Constructor and chest from shipwreck
By Anne Barker
Updated about 4 hours ago
[b]PHOTO:[/b] Tracking of the Seabed Constructor shows the ship has stopped several times during the search for MH370. (Twitter: Kevin Rupp)

Wild conspiracy theories about Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have now spread to the search ship tasked with finding it.
Key points:

• Ocean Infinity signed a deal with the Malaysian Government to search 25,000 square kilometres over 90 days
  
• Seabed Constructor went dark on tracking websites
  
• Some suggest search ship retrieved chest from sea floor
  

For nearly a week some aviation buffs and MH370 followers have been debating online whether the missing plane has in fact been secretly found and — if not — why the ship's Automatic Identification System (AIS) was abruptly turned off for several days, preventing online observers from tracking its movements.

The ship, Seabed Constructor, suddenly went "dark" on tracking websites not long after it had completed a curious circle, several kilometres wide, prompting many on Twitter to question what was inside the circle on the sea floor.

The ship then headed south-west in a straight line, and a few kilometres later turned its AIS off.

"I'm sticking with my theory that the big circle is a piece of debris, and the line south was to locate the plane. When they think they found it they turned off AIS as protocol," one tweet said.

"This. Is. Strange. I have never seen a ship do this. Maybe there's an AUV lost down there?!?" said another.
[/url]

Kevin Rupp@LabratSR

#MH370 My night time update. Not sure what Seabed Constructor is up to . She has slowed to almost stop several times in this. 4 images. One track without the previous track and one with. A mid view and an overview
1:33 PM - Jan 31, 2018

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  See Kevin Rupp's other Tweets
  

Seabed Constructor has spent two weeks scouring the ocean floor in the southern Indian Ocean for the fuselage or debris from MH370.

Its operator Ocean Infinity — a Texas-based company — has signed a deal with the Malaysian Government to search a 25,000-square-kilometre area over 90 days, and will receive payment of between $US20 million and $US70 million only if it finds the missing plane.

Speculations ship made secret detour to chest

The decision to switch off the AIS prompted some to speculate that the ship had made a secret detour to a nearby shipwreck to retrieve a chest known to be on the sea floor.

The shipwreck was discovered in 2015 during the previous Australian-led search for MH370, in waters south-west of the current search zone.

The ship itself has all but dissolved over time, leaving only the metal frame and piles of nuts and bolts.

But Paul Kennedy, chief executive of Fugro — the company that carried out the first undersea search — confirmed in 2016 that a large chest was the only thing left intact.

What we know about MH370



Mystery still surrounds the case of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with investigators still to determine how the plane ended up in the Indian Ocean.

"It's a big chest, it's about three metres long, maybe one-and-a-half metres wide. And it's still closed," he told a conference in Perth.

"The whole ship has deteriorated. But there's a big chest in about 4,000 metres of water."

The ship's identity has not been confirmed, so it is impossible to know what, if anything, is in the chest.

Aviation buff, John Zwicker, tweeted the chest "may be a box of old socks".
Mr Kennedy said the WA Maritime Museum had no records of a ship that matched the wreck found.

But the anchor had "ceased manufacture" about 1820, meaning the vessel could be almost 200 years old.

Others have speculated that it could be a Peruvian-built transport ship, the S.V. Inca, which disappeared on its way to Australia in 1911.

Either way, Twitter has run hot with speculation that Ocean Infinity indeed took a deliberate detour to the wreck, presumably to retrieve the chest and any booty it might contain.

"Tomorrow I'll confirm the GPS I have for #Constructor down to the wreck and back. I've already confirmed it with my source. It happened. It isn't a big deal from my point of view," said Mike Chillit, a long-time MH370 follower.

He questioned whether Australians had a right to share the spoils of any bounty brought up from the deep.

Mike Chillit@MikeChillit

#MH370 Curious about #Constructor’s inactivity? An old pictorial overview from March 14, 2016 explains. Fugro’s Kennedy displayed some of it to attendees near Perth, #AU in January 2016. Does all of Australia have a share in what is being brought up? Paid for with #AU tax $$$.
7:26 AM - Feb 2, 2018

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  [url=https://twitter.com/MikeChillit]See Mike Chillit's other Tweets
  

Others are sceptical, given the strict 90-day deadline Ocean Infinity has to find MH370 if it wants to receive any payment.

"I don't see the point of OI going to have a look at the shipwreck now. They have a 90-day window, Malaysian 'observers' on board and a target: #MH370. They can look at it after the search if interested," aviation buff Juan Valcarcel said.

Seabed Constructor to dock in WA

Ocean Infinity has repeatedly declined media requests for interview, so it may never reveal why it turned its AIS system off, or whether it used the three to four "silent" days to visit the shipwreck.

The data behind the MH370 search



The data gathered during the Australian Government-led search for flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean.

The AIS was turned on only after the Seabed Constructor was apparently on its way to Fremantle in WA. It is due in port within the next 48 hours.

A spokesman for the company has told the ABC that the stop is "a quick turnaround of the vessel and then continuing with the search".

Aviation experts say even with the AIS turned off, the ship is still visible on marine radar systems, but not on live website tracking apps.

The Malaysian Government last night said the search has so far covered 7,500 of the 25,000-square-kilometre priority area.

So far two "points of interest" have been identified, but "upon further investigation, these POI's were classified as geological".

---

And the Malaysian search update yesterday: https://t.co/MJhjrrGQUC

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MTF...P2

Ps Thanks for the pix links etc. Pix...

https://twitter.com/ThePixiePress/status...5958914048

[Peetwo]

Update 09/02/18:

Via that man in the Oz..

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‘Dark’ ship hunting for MH370 goes on show in WA port



12:00am EAN HIGGINS.

The ship hunting for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 revealed its bizarre shape to the people of Western Australia yesterday, but its crew is understood to have been ordered to keep mum.

After a fortnight scouring what Australian experts believe were the most likely resting ­places of the Boeing 777 in the southern Indian Ocean, the Seabed Constructor docked at Henderson, south of Perth, to resupply. The ship is leased by Ocean Infinity, a Houston-based marine survey company that last month struck a deal with the Malaysian government to search for MH370 on a “no find, no fee” basis that could net it up to $US70 million ($89m).

MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

A weekly report from the Malay­sian government said the Seabed Constructor, which is using eight torpedo-like unmanned mini-submarines with sonar imaging equipment, has now covered 7500sq km of an initial 25,000sq km search zone. Maps provided by Malaysian authorities indicate the vessel has searched all three of the positions determined by the CSIRO and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau as being most likely to find MH370, based largely on drift modelling of parts of the aircraft found washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean.

Some days ago, the Seabed Constructor “went dark”, dis­appearing from real-time tracking, leading to wild speculation that it was hunting for treasure on a shipwreck found on the previous search by the ATSB, and was trying to keep its location sec­ret. Ocean Infinity spokesman Mark Antelme told The Australian: “As highlighted in the weekly report, there were a couple of points of interest identified last week. These turned out to be of no significance.

“Ocean Infinity did not want to give the impression they had found the wreckage.”

The ship turned off its transponder so the Twitterati watching its movements on ship-tracking sites would not conclude it had found MH370 as it hovered in one place.

Images of the two “points of interest” are displayed in the weekly report; geological seabed features that in one case look like underwater sand dunes, and the other some indentations. CSIRO oceanographer David Griffin, who led the drift modelling study, said one thing that intrigued him was the positions of the two features were right next to two of the three favoured sites he had identified.

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MTF...P2  

[Peetwo]

MH17 & MH370: Fighting words from Julie Bishop -  

Via the Oz yesterday:

Malaysia ‘must help families’


12:00amSAM BUCKINGHAM-JONES

Julie Bishop has urged her Malaysian counterpart to ensure he families of victims of flights MH17 and MH370 get support.

Malaysia Airlines must support victims’ families, Julie Bishop tells minister

---

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has met her Malaysian counterpart and urged him to ensure his country supports the families of victims of flights MH17 and MH370.

The Australian understands Ms Bishop had a lengthy discussion with Malaysian Minister of Foreign Affairs Anifah Aman on Tuesday while in Kuwait with other world leaders to discuss strategies to defeat Islamic State.

“The Australian government is aware that a number of families of Australian victims are seeking compensation from Malaysia Airlines,” Ms Bishop said. “We urge Malaysia Airlines to meet its obligations under the Montreal Convention in relation to compensation in a timely manner.”

It has been more than 3½ years since 298 people — including 38 Australian citizens and residents — died after MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine while travelling from Amsterdam in The Netherlands to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

A coronial inquest in NSW investigating the deaths of six victims who lived in the state found all died “as a result of a high altitude aircraft disintegration caused by the detonation of a warhead.”

Many families who lost loved ones remain locked in legal ­battles for compensation. Julia Robson, a close family friend of Tim Lauschet who lost his mother, Gabriele, on MH17, said prolonged legal action was taking its toll on Mr Lauschet.

“Every meeting, every email exhumes his bad memories,” she said. “It doesn’t allow him to move on. ”

Mr Lauschet, 25, was forced to sell his parents’ home after being laden with a large mortgage after his mother’s death. “He was once a really confident young man,” Ms Robson said.

“But when you have to cope with the thought of your loved one’s death, it has an impact.”

She said there had been promises of support from different bodies and calls from politicians for a speedy resolution to the legal disputes in the past.

“It has been very easy for Mal­aysia Airlines to set that aside and continue on their merry way,” Ms Robson said.

At least six other families — the Oreshkins, Lees, Horders, O’Briens, Guards and Rizks — are also seeking compensation in Australian courts.

Ms Bishop said yesterday Australia was “resolute” that groups responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 “be held to account and is supporting prosecution efforts in The Netherlands”.

Australia has agreed to prosecute those responsible for the murder of those on board MH17.

A spokeswoman for Clyde & Co, which is acting for Malaysian Airlines in their court proceedings, said: “Clyde & Co does not comment on confidential client matters.”

MH370, meanwhile, dis­appeared with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

After prolonged court cases, a number of the relatives of Aus­tralian victims have settled their cases.

Several are still battling for information and documents in their bid for compensation.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

HVH tries to abscond ATSB from MH370 -

Via 'that man' in the Oz today:

ATSB active in MH370 search
12:00amEAN HIGGINS

Australia is still involved in the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.

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The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has been forced to admit it is still involved in the investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, amid reports the Malaysian military has effectively taken over the inquiry from civilians.

The confirmation follows weeks of refusal by the ATSB and the federal government’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre to say whether or not it has an officer on the investigation team.

At a Senate estimates hearing yesterday, ATSB Chief Commissioner Greg Hood at first tried to distance the bureau from the MH370 affair, saying “the ATSB’s formal involvement in the search concluded last year”.

The ATSB led the first, failed underwater search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean, which cost Australian taxpayers $60 million out of a total $200m, with critics saying its search strategy was based on the wrong theory of what happened to the aircraft.

Questioned by South Australian senator Rex Patrick, Mr Hood admitted the ATSB did have continued involvement in the investigation into “what happened on that flight”.

Under International Civil Aviation Organisation provisions for air crash investigations, Mr Hood told the hearing, a panel was established to inquire into the loss four years ago of the Boeing 777 with 239 people on board.

“Australia has an accredited representative on that investigation team,” Mr Hood said.

The ATSB appears to have been particularly sensitive on the matter, with its spokesman Paul Sadler referring questions to the JACC, whose chief co-ordinator, senior public servant Judith Zielke, did not respond.

Ms Zielke’s spokesman later referred inquiries to Malaysian government authorities.

This month, the ABC reported the Malaysian military had edged out civilians on the eight-member investigation team.

The ABC said a “power struggle” had emerged in the Malaysian-led investigation, with four civilian air crash investigators, including the lead authority on analysing black box flight data, reportedly sidelined over reported budget constraints and replaced with Malaysian air force officers.

Neither Mr Sadler nor Ms ­Zielke would comment further on the ABC report.

A new hunt for MH370 by the Houston-based Ocean Infinity underwater survey group is now in its fourth week, with no reported sign of the aircraft.

Considerable mystery has surrounded the latest search for MH370, a “no find, no fee” contract between Ocean Infinity and the Malaysian government in which the company will only get paid — up to $US70m — if it finds the wreckage.

The search vessel leased for the operation, the Seabed Constructor, turned off its transponder for three days, and there was speculation that a rendezvous between that ship and one from Fremantle, the Maersk Mariner, was to drop off ATSB operatives.

But following questioning from Senator Patrick, Ms Zielke told the Senate committee no Australian officials had been on the Seabed Constructor.

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MH370 OI search update 06/03/18:

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And via the Malaysian Insight:

Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia’s website

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Low Han Shaun Updated 2 days ago · Published on 3 Mar 2018 6:32PM

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A family member of a passenger onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, lights a candle during the ‘Day of Remembrance for MH370’ event in Kuala Lumpur today. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Najjua Zulkefli, March 3, 2018.

DAILY updates on the search of Malaysian flight MH370 will be compiled into weekly reports for everyone on Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia’s (CAAM) website, said its chairman today.

Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said an operation centre has been established at CAAM’s office in Putrajaya and updates will be rolled out soon.

The hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 resumed on January 10 with Ocean Infinity Ltd a US seabed exploration firm.

Ocean Infinity will only get paid if it finds either the location of the aircraft’s wreckage or its flight recorder within 90 search days.

“It is 90 days of search operation, not counting the days of transiting to the port because one cycle of a ship is 26 days … for resupply and refuelling.

“So the search will end in June,” Azharuddin said at a press conference at the Day of Remembrance for MH370 in Kuala Lumpur today.

The initial search for MH370 that went missing on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was suspended in January last year after investigators scoured a 120,000 sq km search area determined via a satellite analysis of the plane's trajectory.

Azharuddin said Putrajaya was in discussions with various organisations and civil aviation agencies such as on the Australian Transport Safety Bureau on a recovery plan.
“This will be finalised in the next two weeks.”

A family member of a passenger onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, is pictured during the ‘Day of Remembrance for MH370’ event in Kuala Lumpur today. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Najjua Zulkefli, March 3, 2018.

Meanwhile, the Day of Remembrance for MH370 organised by Voice 370 saw tributes to the families of the victims, multifaith prayers, talks and performances.

Among the attendees were comedian Harith Iskander, Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng and Seputeh MP Theresa Kok.

Jacquita Gonzales, wife of steward Patrick Gomes said she has not lost hope.

“No matter what, they will never be forgotten. They will always be our heroes.

“Knowing Patrick, he would have done his best,” she said.

Volunteer Foo Yen Chien, 27, said it was meaningful to get everyone together for the event.

“Although I can’t help in the search, this serves as a way I can contribute,” she said.
Domnic Alexander, 48 who works in a control centre of an airport, said changes were made to the aviation industry since MH370.

“For Malaysia, it will soon be mandatory for all commercial air traffic to have tracking data for airports.

“I have seen steps taken from a logistical standpoint but it is not much because it is not easy to change a lot of these things mostly because they are expensive,” he said adding he and his wife came to support the famlies. – March 3, 2018.

A woman has her face during the ‘Day of Remembrance for MH370’ event in Kuala Lumpur today. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Najjua Zulkefli, March 3, 2018.

& via Ocean Infinity:

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MH370 4th anniversary interim statement etc. -

Via News.com.au:

New Ocean Infinity Search for MH370 encountering big problems

THE latest hi-tech, multimillion-dollar search for MH370 is floundering in the depths of the Indian Ocean, raising fresh fears the missing aeroplane will never be found.

Staff writers, AP
News Corp Australia Network MARCH 8, 20187:01PM


The search for MH370 has encountered unexpected problems. Picture: SuppliedSource:Supplied

IT’S 33 days and counting.

And as the latest search for MH370 struggles to locate the missing aircraft, fears are again growing the missing aircraft will never be found.

Ocean Infinity’s search with their 65-man vessel Seabed Constructor began their search amid much optimism, but exactly four years after the plane went down the latest search of the southern Indian Ocean has revealed nothing after 16,000sq km of the 25,000sq km area.

It was previously identified by an Australian Oceanographer as the “likely” resting place of the aircraft.

RELATED: Wreck Hunter’s controversial MH370 theory


One of Ocean Infinity’s autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) being deployed at sea. Picture: AFP


The New Straits Times reported those involved in the search are still optimistic about finding the plane but have encountered a number of unexpected problems thus far.

The Royal Malaysia Navy has two officers Azmi Rosedee and Adbul Halim Ahmad Nordin on board the Seabed Constructor, who send daily updates back to Kuala Lumpur on the search’s progress.

Those reports have revealed the struggles of the Norwegian search ship while enduring massive seas including 15m waves.

“It’s been more than 30 days now, but the search team remains optimistic,” Rosedee and Nordin said in written interview with the New Straits Times.

“We are giving our utmost to find the plane.

“We have gone through a number of rough days ... days which we would not have been able to survive without having perseverance and a strong will.

“Operations continue even when the sea is rough ... but it makes it difficult for us to deploy and recover the AUVs. This slows us down.



Relative of passengers on board MH370 have a moment of silence during the Day of Remembrance event in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month. Picture: AP


“Aside from that, the seabed of the search areas is hilly and uneven. This also disrupts the AUV’s capability to thoroughly sweep the areas.

“When this happens, the team has to send the AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) down again to areas that were not swept, or ‘painted’, by the side-scan sonar.

This is to ensure that the whole radius is covered.”

Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 vanished from radar en route from Kuala Lumpur to ­Beijing on March 8, 2014. No distress signal or message was sent and all 239 passengers and crew on the Boeing 777 are presumed dead.

The aircraft is believed to have made a radical change of course less than an hour after it took off and crashed in the ocean off Western Australia six hours later.

NEW MH370 SEARCH AREA SUGGESTED

In January an Australian oceanographer at the CSIRO suggested a new search area for MH370, where the Ocean Infinity vessel has focused its efforts.

Dr David Griffin, an Australian oceanographer at the CSIRO, has told the ABC that the missing plane could only be 35 degrees south in the southern Indian Ocean.

“The oceanographic reason for why 35 [degrees south] is more likely than say 34, or 33, or 32, is that at all those latitudes the current is going to the east,” he said.

“So if the crash had been in any of those latitudes then there’d be a high chance of at least one or two things turning up in Australia. Whereas there’ve been 20 or 30 or so items turned up in Africa, and not a single one come to Australia.

“Once you start looking in the vicinity of 36 to 32, then 35 is the only option.”

His claim that the plane could be at this location comes as Australian investigators believe there were five different autopilot control modes MH370 could have been on when it plunged into the ocean.

Calculations from four of those settings lead to a location 36-39 degrees south or further north at 33-34 degrees south.

But according to the ABC, a source close to the investigation said only one of the five autopilot settings — constant magnetic heading (CMH) — would lead to a crash site at 35 degrees south, where the ocean current was moving towards Africa.

This would explain why most of the debris believed to be from the MH370 flight has been recovered off the African coast in places like Mauritius, Reunion Island, Tanzania and Mozambique.

None of the debris has been found washed up near or on Australian shores.

The claim comes after the Australian Transport Safety Bureau released a report that narrowed the search zone for the missing plane down to an area half the size of Melbourne in August last year.

The report placed the most likely location of the aircraft “with unprecedented precision and certainty” at 35.6°S, 92.8°E — in between Western Australia and Madagascar.



Ocean Infinity's Seabed Constructor. Picture: Supplied


MILLIONS OFFERED TO FIND MH370

Malaysia’s government has vowed to pay US company Ocean Infinity up to $70 million if it can find the wreckage or black boxes of MH370 within three months

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said there was an 85 per cent chance of finding the debris in a new 25,000 square kilometre area — roughly the size of Melbourne — identified by experts.

The government signed a “no cure, no fee” deal with the Houston, Texas-based company to resume the hunt for the plane, a year after the official search by Malaysia, Australia and China in the southern Indian Ocean was called off.

“The primary mission by Ocean Infinity is to identify the location of the wreckage and/or both of the flight recorders ... and present a considerable and credible evidence to confirm the exact location of the two main items,” he told a news conference.

If the mission is successful within three months, payment will be made based on the size of the area searched.


HMAS Perth searches for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. Picture: Australian Defence/AFP


Liow said the government will pay Ocean Infinity $20 million for 5,000 square kilometres of a successful search, $30 million for 15,000 square kilometres, $50 million for 25,000 square kilometres and $70 million if the plane or recorders are found beyond the identified area.

Ocean Infinity Chief Executive Oliver Plunkett said the search vessel Seabed Constuctor, has eight autonomous underwater vehicles, which are drones fitted with hi-tech cameras, sonars and sensors dispatched to map the seabed at a faster pace. Plunkett said the underwater drones can cover 1,200 square kilometres a day and complete the 25,000 square kilometres within a month.

“We have a realistic prospect of finding it,” he said in January.

“While there can be no guarantees of locating the aircraft, we believe our system of multiple autonomous vehicles working simultaneously is well suited to the task at hand.”

The official search was extremely difficult because no transmissions were received from the aircraft after its first 38 minutes of flight. Systems designed to automatically transmit the flight’s position failed to work after this point, said a final report from Australian Transport Safety Board last January.

“I feel very happy but at the same time very panicky whether it can be found or not. Now it’s back to four years ago where we have to wait everyday (to find out) whether debris can be found,” said Shin Kok Chau, whose wife Tan Ser Kuin was a flight attendant on MH370.

Underwater wreck hunter David Mearns said the new search takes into account oceanographic models used to drastically narrow the possible locations of the crash and deploys state-of-the art underwater vehicles that will allow the company to cover far more seabed at a faster pace.

“There are no guarantees in a search of this type. However, notwithstanding that uncertainty, this upcoming search is the best chance yet that the aircraft wreckage will be found,” he said.

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Via NST:


Fourth MH370 Interim Statement in full



MH370 Investigation Head Datuk Kok Soo Chon announces MH370's interim report on TV1 in conjunction with the 4th anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of MH370. (NSTP/MOHD YUSNI ARIFFIN)

By NST - March 8, 2018 @ 4:37pm

The following is the full statement by The Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370 on ongoing efforts to locate the ill-fated Boeing 777 aircraft.

1. This 4th Interim Statement has been prepared under Chapter 6, paragraph 6 of Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation (ICAO Annex 13), to provide information on the progress of the investigation on the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, registered as 9M-MRO pending the completion of the Safety Report as required under ICAO Annex 13.

2. The Beijing-bound international scheduled passenger flight, with a total of 239 persons (227 passengers and 12 crew) on board, departed KL International Airport (KLIA) at 1642 UTC on 07 March 2014 [0042 MYT on 08 March 2014]. Less than 40 minutes after take-off, communications with the aircraft was lost after passing waypoint IGARI.

3. As a Contracting State of ICAO and in accordance with ICAO Annex 13 and under Regulation 126(1) of the Malaysian Civil Aviation Regulations 1996 (MCAR), on 25 April 2014, Malaysia established an independent international Air Accident Investigation Team, known as ‘The Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370’ (the “Team”) to investigate the disappearance of flight MH370. The Team, headed by the Investigator-in Charge, comprises 19 Malaysians and 7 Accredited Representatives of 7 safety investigation authorities from 7 countries.

4. On 08 March 2015, the 1st Interim Statement and the Factual Information on the Safety Investigation for MH370 were released to the public on the first anniversary of the disappearance of MH370. Subsequent Interim Statements were released on 08 March 2016 and 08 March 2017.

5. Aircraft debris possibly from MH370 are still being discovered around the southeastern coast of the African continent and the adjacent islands. An updated summary of the debris recovered was published on 30 April 2017 together with the debris examination reports. These are available on the Ministry of Transport (MOT) Malaysia and the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia Malaysia (KKMM) websites (the links to the websites are provided in footnote 6 below).

6. At the time of writing, as reported in the Interim Statement released in 2017, three items of debris remain as being confirmed from MH370, i.e., the right flaperon, a part of the right outboard flap and a section of the left outboard flap. A few other pieces of debris were determined to be almost certain from MH370 including some cabin interior items. There is continuing activity to retrieve and examine any new debris that is discovered.

7. Official search activities coordinated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau were suspended on 17 January 2017. On 03 October 2017, the ATSB published a report detailing the history of the search and made conclusions and recommendations relating to the search activities. The ATSB search report is separate and distinct from the Safety Report required under ICAO Annex 13.

8. To date, the main wreckage of MH370 has not been found. On 10 January 2018, the Malaysian Government entered into an agreement with Ocean Infinity to conduct a 90-day underwater search in an area that is considered the most likely location for the wreckage.

9. The publication of the detailed investigation report, that is the Safety Report, based on currently available information has been suspended pending the outcome of the latest search effort, since any new evidence uncovered is likely to significantly affect the investigation. In the event that the aircraft is found, the Team will conduct further investigation. If the aircraft is not found and a decision is made to discontinue the search, the Team will resume the completion of the report and release it in the months ahead.

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MH370 7th weekly update -

Via the mh370.gov.my website: http://www.mh370.gov.my/en/mh370-underwa...in-version

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MH370 OI search update -  

Via ABC radio PM program...

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5Image: 
ABC News: Robert Koenig-Luck
Malaysia seeks resumed Australian role in MH370 investigation


By Peter Lloyd on PM

•MP3 available 2.32 MB

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/radio/local_...covery.mp3

The ABC has learned that Australia has been formally asked by the Malaysian Government to take the lead role in examining debris and human remains if the wreckage of the missing airliner MH370 is found in the next few weeks.

PM has also obtained a copy of a wreckage recovery plan briefing that sets out the priority list of items wanted by investigators, and forecasts a three month operation based in Perth.

Duration: 5min 3sec
Broadcast: Tue 13 Mar 2018, 6:31pm

More Information

Featured: Arharuddin Abdul Rahman, team leader of the MH370 Response Team
KS Narendran, MH370 next of kin

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Bailey is back; & April Fool(s) comes early -

Courtesy Ross Coulthart, via twitter :

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Strong criticisms of Australia’s @ATSBnews by pilot Byron Bailey in @australian. Suggests the current  #MH370 search is doomed to fail because it’s based on a false assumption the pilot was incapacitated. Many millions spent on this - time for a re-think?


8:25 AM - 20 Mar 2018 

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Via the Oz:

Disappearing path of MH370

Four years ago this month, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, and as you read this, a ship with eight unmanned mini-submarines is scouring more of the southern Indian Ocean looking for it — in the wrong place, because the searchers are using the same flawed theory.

It’s extraordinary that four years on, and despite more and more evidence to the contrary from an ever-growing number of independent experts, the hunt for MH370 is still based on the false premise that no one was flying the plane at the end.

That’s the line still being run by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

No professional airline pilot I know, and few if any top-level international air-crash investigators, believes that scenario: everything points to captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacking his own aircraft, flying it to the end and ditching it to disappear it farther southwest than the first search covered.

The new hunt, farther north from the previous target zone, is being undertaken by a Houston-based, British-owned deep-sea survey company, Ocean Infinity, on a “no find, no fee” basis, but the search strategy is still based on the ATSB’s misconceived theories.

Last week’s report on the search by the Malaysian government showed the vessel Seabed Constructor has covered ­almost all of Site 1, the area the ATSB and the CSIRO identified as likeliest to mark the resting place of the Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers and crew, and is now moving north.

The ATSB’s “ghost flight” ­theory of pilots being made unresponsive, possibly through depressurisation, and its “death dive” corollary of the aircraft crashing down rapidly after fuel exhaustion, are all based on an eight-second satellite communication “ping”.

But that one skerrick of “evidence” the ATSB uses for its “death dive” theory can be explained easily by a pilot being at the controls and pointing the nose down. The problem with the ATSB is that not only does it lack professional senior airline pilots in its ranks, but it appears to have not even consulted any.

MH370 departed Kuala ­Lumpur after midnight on March 8, 2014, for a scheduled flight to Beijing. Less than an hour after ­departure over the South China Sea, the aircraft suddenly disappeared from secondary radar. This disappearance occurred two minutes after the captain had said goodnight to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control.

This resulted in a frantic search during the next week for MH370 in the South China Sea.

However, strange events came to light.

Subsequent Malaysian military primary radar analysis revealed the aircraft had turned around and flown a course back across northern peninsular Malaysia, swinging past the beautiful island of Penang up the Strait of Malacca, around the northern tip of Sumatra and into oblivion.

It was apparent this aircraft was under the control of a highly qualified person, otherwise the aircraft would have flown itself to the programmed destination, Beijing, which means someone reprogrammed the flight management system computers.

In his first official statement live on television Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stated “this is a case of deliberate human intervention”. The Malaysian authorities subsequently went rather quiet on this.

Strange, therefore, that when the ATSB became involved it immediately went with an event that rendered the pilots unresponsive, such as depressurisation or fire — events that professional airline ­pilots are well trained to handle and are subjected to every six months in simulators.

Then came the brilliant work by a group of scientists in Britain who discovered hourly satellite automatic log-on pings to and from the aircraft that showed it was flying for another seven hours.

Zaharie in all likelihood never knew about these hourly “handshakes”.

Brilliant deductive work by these scientists calculated the MH370 position line arcs, ending with the final and vital seventh arc on which the search area could be calculated knowing the amount of fuel on board and therefore flight time.

Under international law, ­Malaysia is responsible for the ­investigation. Australia was asked and agreed to be responsible for the first search and this is where it gets baffling.

Why did the ATSB plan the survey area based on an end-of-flight scenario of unresponsive pilots when the mass of circum­stantial evidence pointed to Zaharie having hijacked his own aircraft?

The ATSB has steadfastly ­refused to respond to these points from me, British airline captain Simon Hardy and New Zealand-born captain Mike Keane, the ­former chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline, easyJet.

Hardy is a former British Airways Boeing 777 pilot who calculated accurately the final position of MH370 based on Zaharie being in control, and that was farther southwest than the ATSB searched.

We professional pilots look at the fundamental logic: Zaharie came up with a very thorough, complex plan to ensure no one ever found the aircraft. This included turning off the secondary radar transponder, flying the unusual route to a deep stretch of very remote ocean, and ceasing radio contact.

Having sent the co-pilot to the passenger cabin on an errand early on, Zaharie would have depressurised the cabin to put everyone else to sleep and then death after their short supply of oxygen ran out and he enjoyed his longer supply. That would have stopped anyone alerting authorities by mobile phone when the aircraft flew back over Malaysia. With everyone dead, Zaharie would have re-pressurised the aircraft and flown the rest of the trip in comfort.

It stands to reason that having gone to all this trouble and planning, Zaharie would have flown the plane to the end and ditched it to maintain full control of the outcome, including sinking it in as few pieces as possible.

Many former US National Transportation Safety Board air crash investigators, and Larry Vance, a top Canadian investigator who is writing a book about MH370, also had their views ­discarded by the ATSB.

Vance’s work is critical and new. He got his hands on detailed, high-resolution photographs of the flaperon and the flap that were found washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean. They clearly show they were in the lowered position. Lowering the flaps can be done only by a pilot, and it’s solid evidence that Zaharie did so in a bid to ditch the plane.

The ATSB’s bosses and media flacks have dug themselves even more deeply into their cave of ­silence, refusing to discuss Vance’s findings, apparently feeling no ­obligation to answer reporters’ questions aiming to inform the taxpaying public who pay their ­salaries.

I was amused to read that when The Australian’s Ean Higgins asked the ATSB’s spokesman Paul Sadler whether the bureau still ­believed its “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory, he referred the inquiry to the federal government’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre, headed by senior public servant Judith Zielke.

Zielke’s spokesman said the questions “should be directed to Malaysian officials”.

So that’s what it’s come to: you ask Australian government agencies what they think, and get told you have to ask the Malaysians.

The ATSB, after staunchly ­defending its decision to go with an unresponsive pilot scenario, much later begrudgingly admitted that Zaharie might have hijacked the aircraft but was unresponsive at the end of the flight. Really! So Zaharie was responsive two hours into the hijack when he turned MH370 south at the north end of Sumatra and became unresponsive when?

This absolutely does not make sense.

Then we know from flight plan information recovered by the FBI from Zaharie’s home computer flight simulator that he plotted a similar course; clearly this was carefully thought out from start to finish.

He would not have risked the aircraft on fuel exhaustion spiralling uncontrolled into a 1000km/h dive that would produce masses of debris, some of which would float for months. Rather, he would have tried a controlled ditching, which in those rough seas would most likely kill him and wreck the aircraft but leave it substantially ­intact to avoid floating debris.

English scientist Robin Stevens, an independent MH370 investigator, calculated the time of MH370 fuel exhaustion coincides with the local mean time of sunrise. This means Zaharie would minimise the time in daylight to avoid any detection from passing ships yet would have daylight available for a controlled ditching.

The sole argument the ATSB has pointing to an unresponsive pilot is an increasing doppler shift during the eight-second snapshot of the last satellite ping, which it says shows a rapid and accelerating descent — an uncontrolled dive. OK, so where is the debris and flotsam from such an impact?

And if the ATSB had bothered to ask any airline pilot about ­immediate action by a pilot suffering double engine failure at high altitude, they would get the same result. A pilot would stuff the nose down to initially lose altitude ­rapidly and increase airspeed for a variety of reasons, some of which are related to pressurisation. Flying at 40,000 feet is a dangerous place — the time of useful consciousness is about 10 seconds, and without engines running the aircraft will steadily depressurise.

Such a sharp descent ­manoeuvre would show up as an increasing doppler shift.

The ATSB also states in one of its reports that “a controlled ditching scenario requires engine thrust to be available to properly control the direction and vertical speed at touchdown and to provide ­hydraulic power to the flight ­controls”.

“This evidence is therefore ­inconsistent with a controlled ditching scenario.”

The ATSB investigators shot themselves in the foot with this one.

A Boeing 777 pilot, as I was, could have told them that with both engines flamed out, the ram air turbine automatically emerges from the body of the aircraft and extends into the slipstream. It uses the wind speed of the descending aircraft to drive a generator and hydraulic pump to power the flight controls. A pilot could easily ditch a Boeing 777 using this emergency hydraulic and electrical power.

The problem, of course, is that as the ATSB itself pointed out, if it was under the control of a pilot, after fuel exhaustion the aircraft had the capability to glide for a further 125 nautical miles — about 200km — and out of the search area defined by the bureau.

This raises the question of why the ATSB would not consider extending the search south to cover the pilot controlled glide theory, as extolled by many aviation experts.

This is where a possible deeper and darker motive begins to ­surface. Some aviation experts have pointed out that it is not in Malaysia’s interest to have MH370 found.

The liability and political ramifications would be enormous if it is proved that the MH370 captain meticulously planned and executed this hijack and the homicide of 238 innocent people. There is ­already enough circumstantial evidence to warrant a major criminal investigation.

When the Ocean Infinity search at more northerly latitudes concludes, this will enable the ­Malaysian government to issue a final report and call the case closed.

This is why I say there should be a proper inquiry into the conduct of the ATSB. Former transport minister Warren Truss and former ATSB chief commissioner Martin Dolan should be asked whether there was any agreement with Malaysia to deliberately stay with the death dive theory so the more likely southern pilot-controlled ditching area was not searched.

The final result of the ATSB sticking with the erroneous death dive theory was that the search was unsuccessful, at a cost of $200 million of which $60m was funded by Australian taxpayers. The hi-tech search equipment used, and the 175-tonne, 64m target means it would have been found if the right area had been searched.

The Malaysian government ­really had no choice but to accept Ocean Infinity’s offer — a no find, no fee search. Some overseas ­experts consider the revised CSIRO drift modelling results on which the search is being based as intrinsically unreliable.

The fear is that this new search will be unsuccessful because Ocean Infinity has linked itself to the ATSB stance and will pack up and go home at the completion of the agreed 25,000sq km search area, expected in June or July.

Surely the Australian government could ask Ocean Infinity to try the southerly area where a pilot controlled ditching likely occurred.

As independent MH370 investigator Dawna Kaufmann points out, it needs a brave politician to step forward and shake the tree. Only a proper investigation will suffice.

Byron Bailey, a veteran commercial pilot with more than 45 years’ experience, is a former RAAF fighter pilot and trainer. He was a senior captain with Emirates for 15 years, during which time he flew the same model B777 as MH370.

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While on the endless- - reruns etc. of MH370 hypotheses, I note that in recent days Australian mechanical engineer has led most of the international MSM up the garden path with this bollocks:  'MH370 found, with bullet holes'

Fortunately for Aussie credibility Zielke's team at the JACC have sidelined Hoody from taking the April Fool's bait...

NB: View from about 01:45:

...and swatted away any further MH370 rumour mongering and/or fairytales...

ATSB (read Zielke) reacted strongly to McMahon's claim and accused him of making "spurious claims".

"Mr McMahon contacted ATSB via Facebook and its general enquiries email in 2016 and 2017 respectively. At no stage did the ATSB suggest his evidence could be missing flight MH370," a spokesperson was quoted by Newshub as saying.

"The images sent to ATSB by Mr McMahon, below, were captured on 6 Nov 2009, over four years before the flight disappeared.

"Spurious claims such as these must be particularly upsetting for the family and friends of those lost on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370."

Finally here is an excellent video summary (courtesy Richard Cole, via Victor Ianello) of OI's Seabed Constructor activities in the CSIRO/ATSB secondary (7th arc) search area, from 10 March till 18 March (2nd swing):

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[ventus45]

Just a quick overview of the Ocean Infinity search for MH370.




Just the track with the Arc and the 3 new Ocean Infinity Search Areas.