[Peetwo]

Update on ATSB MH370 final report -

Via the ABC:

Image: 
Supplied
MH370 "almost inconceivable" mystery: ATSB
By Naomi Woodley on PM
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/radio/local_...report.mp3

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has acknowledged that it is unacceptable to society that Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has never been found.

The ATSB released its final report on the search for the plane, which went missing somewhere over the southern Indian Ocean in March of 2014.

The wife of one of the passengers says the report should prompt the Malaysian government to resume the search.

Duration: 3min 13sec
Broadcast: Tue 3 Oct 2017, 6:15pm

MH370: ATSB says it's 'almost inconceivable' we don't know what happened to aircraft
By David Weber

Updated yesterday at 8:39pm
Authorities now have a much better understanding of where missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 is located but still do not know why it crashed, a new report has revealed.

In its final report into the search for the missing aircraft, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said the search area had been considerably narrowed to an area of less than 25,000 square kilometres that had the "highest likelihood" of containing MH370.



[b]PHOTO:[/b] A section of engine cowling from MH370 was found on a South African beach in early 2016. (Supplied: ATSB)

"The understanding of where MH370 may be located is better now than it has ever been," the report found.

The aircraft was lost during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 2014, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members.

Its disappearance is one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

The surface and underwater searches which followed off the coast of Western Australia were the biggest in history.

"At the time the underwater search was suspended in January 2017, more than 120,000 square kilometres of seafloor had been searched and eliminated with a high degree of confidence," the report found.

We asked if you thought we'd ever find out what happened to missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.



[b]INFOGRAPHIC:[/b] A map of MH370 showing the location of items recovered in the search. (Supplied: ATSB/Malaysian Government)

The ATSB said debris found on islands in the Indian Ocean and on the coast of Africa helped establish that the aircraft was "not configured for a ditching at the end-of-flight".

Recent re-analysis of satellite imagery taken two weeks after the aircraft disappeared had also identified objects which may have been debris from MH370, it found.

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.

The Malaysian Government was continuing work on the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the loss of the aircraft, the ATSB added.

"It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era with 10 million passengers boarding commercial aircraft every day, for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board," the report said.

However, the ATSB said reasons for the loss of the aircraft "cannot be established with certainty until the aircraft is found".

"The ATSB expresses our deepest sympathies to the families of the passengers and crew on board MH370," the bureau said.

"We share your profound and prolonged grief, and deeply regret that we have not been able to locate the aircraft, nor those 239 souls on board that remain missing."







«

Page 1 of  440

From PT:

ATSB ‘last’ report on MH370 highlights data on pilot’s flight simulator


Ben SandilandsOct 3, 2017 2 Comments

Some very raw questions remain unanswered as ATSB drops its closing MH370 search report

& via the Oz:

‘Closer than ever on MH370’

1:17pm

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has published its final 440-page report into the search for the missing plane.

---

Air tracking interval ‘too wide’

12:00am RICK MORTON

The mandated 15-minute interval between tracking of commercial aircraft may not be frequent enough to narrow search areas.

Finally from Victor's blog:

ATSB Releases Final Report on MH370
by Victor Iannello Posted: Monday, 10/2/2017


The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released a report entitled “The Operational Search for MH370”. It is a long document (440 pages) that is meant to provide final documentation of all of the ATSB’s activities related to this incident. There are no new conclusions, although we can gain some new insights:

• MH370 flew over or near IFR waypoints a cluster of waypoints near Kota Bharu called ABTOK, KADAX, and GOLUD and later PUKAR as it flew towards Penang. This implies that MH370 was following waypoints after the transponder stopped operating after the turn back.
  
• The registration of the first officer’s cell phone on a tower on Penang Island is officially acknowledged for the first time. A footnote citation says, “This information was obtained by the Royal Malaysian Police and reported to the Ministry of Transport Malaysia. Though a formal report was not available to the ATSB, information relevant to the search was shared.” Of course, this begs the question as to why the ATSB only learned of this information after the RMP report was leaked.
  
• The two sources of the primary surveillance radar (PSR) data revealed to be the civilian radar at Kota Bharu and the military radar on Penang Island on Western Hill. The military radar captures are described as “not continuous” with no further explanation.
  
• After passing Penang Island, the report says the “Radar data shows the aircraft then headed to the northwest, eventually aligning with published air route N571 from IFR waypoint VAMPI. The validity of this section of the radar data was verified using the track of a commercial flight that followed N571 about 33 NM behind MH370.” This implies the radar captures shown to the NOK in Beijing on March 21, 2014, at the Lido Hotel, are valid. The performance of the military radar was verified by comparing the civil radar data to the military data as another commercial aircraft, likely to be EK343, trailed 33 NM behind MH370.
  
• The data recovered from the captain’s home flight simulator is discussed for the first time in an official report. An overview of the data is presented, suggesting a flight from Kuala Lumpur up the Strait of Malacca, and then towards the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO), ending in fuel exhaustion. The flight path recovered from the simulator did not match the MH370 flight paths that were reconstructed from the Inmarsat satellite data.
  
• The ATSB pegs the date of the simulator session as February 2, 2014. We know that the deleted file fragments were found in a Shadow Volume with the date February 3, 2014, so likely the session was created on or shortly before that date. It is not explained how the ATSB can be sure the session was created on exactly February 2, 2014, but this would be significant.
  
• There is mention that the last data point in the SIO suggested there was a user input of an altitude of 4,000 ft. (The evidence that the simulator’s user manually changed the altitude and other parameters during the flight was first presented in a paper by me and Yves Guillaume.)
  
• There is acknowledgement that the simulator data shows a beginning sequence that is similar to the flight the captain flew from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on February 4, 2014. (The significance of the similarities in path and timing between the simulator data and the captain’s flight MH150 to Jeddah was first discussed on this blog.)
  
• Although the ATSB does not speculate that the captain was responsible for the diversion, and although the simulator data was not deemed useful for reconstructing possible flight paths of MH370, based on the presentation of this data in the report, it is clear that the ATSB considers the simulator data to be significant evidence.
  
• Based on examination of the debris and a detailed study of the final BFO data, the ATSB believes that MH370’s flight ended in a steep, uncontrolled descent. This will serve to limit the distance from the 7th arc for future searches.
  
• Although there was an attempt by the official investigators to discern information about the crash site from an investigation of the marine ecology attached to the recovered debris, all results were inconclusive.
  
• No new drift analyses are presented. The ATSB reaffirms its belief that the most likely crash site is 35.6S, 92.8E, based on the drift analyses by CSIRO.
  

So, although there are no new conclusions in this report, there are some interesting new pieces of information. It is also important to note that Malaysia chose to omit key pieces of evidence from the Factual Information (FI) released in March 2015 that are presented in the new ATSB report. These pieces of evidence include details about the radar data, information regarding the simulator data found on the captain’s home computer, and the data related to the registration of the first officer’s cell phone as the aircraft flew near Penang. Although these omissions have been discussed in detail on this blog, perhaps with the release of the ATSB report, more will question why Malaysia chose to not disclose, and even deny the existence of, important evidence.

On a final note, the ATSB chose to acknowledge the contributions of some of the independent investigators, including many that comment here. The ATSB was kind enough to give a special recognition to Blaine Gibson:

The ATSB acknowledges the extensive contributions that many individuals and groups have made during the underwater search for MH370. Many contributors have provided credible, alternate and independent approaches and analysis of the limited data available. In particular, the ‘MH370 Independent Group’ comprised of scientists, researchers and individuals who have cooperated across continents to advance the search for MH370. The ATSB is grateful for their work collectively and individually including Duncan Steel, Mike Exner, Victor Iannello, Don Thompson, and Richard Godfrey. The ATSB also acknowledges the extensive and detailed contributions provided by Simon Hardy, Bobby Ulich and Robin Stevens.

The search for MH370 was significantly advanced after the first debris from the aircraft was found on La Reunion Island in July 2015. The subsequent efforts of Blaine Gibson in searching for and locating MH370 debris on east African coastlines did much to raise public awareness of the importance of the MH370 debris which led to many more items of debris being handed in. Mr Gibson met and communicated with ATSB during his 2015-2016 search expeditions and he is acknowledged for his outstanding efforts in communicating his debris finds to Malaysia, ATSB, the next of kin and the wider world.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Update on ATSB MH370 final report -

Via the ABC:

Image: 
Supplied
MH370 "almost inconceivable" mystery: ATSB
By Naomi Woodley on PM
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/radio/local_...report.mp3

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has acknowledged that it is unacceptable to society that Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has never been found.

The ATSB released its final report on the search for the plane, which went missing somewhere over the southern Indian Ocean in March of 2014.

The wife of one of the passengers says the report should prompt the Malaysian government to resume the search.

Duration: 3min 13sec
Broadcast: Tue 3 Oct 2017, 6:15pm

MH370: ATSB says it's 'almost inconceivable' we don't know what happened to aircraft
By David Weber

Updated yesterday at 8:39pm
Authorities now have a much better understanding of where missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 is located but still do not know why it crashed, a new report has revealed.

In its final report into the search for the missing aircraft, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said the search area had been considerably narrowed to an area of less than 25,000 square kilometres that had the "highest likelihood" of containing MH370.



[b]PHOTO:[/b] A section of engine cowling from MH370 was found on a South African beach in early 2016. (Supplied: ATSB)

"The understanding of where MH370 may be located is better now than it has ever been," the report found.

The aircraft was lost during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 2014, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members.

Its disappearance is one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

The surface and underwater searches which followed off the coast of Western Australia were the biggest in history.

"At the time the underwater search was suspended in January 2017, more than 120,000 square kilometres of seafloor had been searched and eliminated with a high degree of confidence," the report found.

We asked if you thought we'd ever find out what happened to missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.



[b]INFOGRAPHIC:[/b] A map of MH370 showing the location of items recovered in the search. (Supplied: ATSB/Malaysian Government)

The ATSB said debris found on islands in the Indian Ocean and on the coast of Africa helped establish that the aircraft was "not configured for a ditching at the end-of-flight".

Recent re-analysis of satellite imagery taken two weeks after the aircraft disappeared had also identified objects which may have been debris from MH370, it found.

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.

The Malaysian Government was continuing work on the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the loss of the aircraft, the ATSB added.

"It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era with 10 million passengers boarding commercial aircraft every day, for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board," the report said.

However, the ATSB said reasons for the loss of the aircraft "cannot be established with certainty until the aircraft is found".

"The ATSB expresses our deepest sympathies to the families of the passengers and crew on board MH370," the bureau said.

"We share your profound and prolonged grief, and deeply regret that we have not been able to locate the aircraft, nor those 239 souls on board that remain missing."







«

Page 1 of  440

From PT:

ATSB ‘last’ report on MH370 highlights data on pilot’s flight simulator


Ben SandilandsOct 3, 2017 2 Comments

Some very raw questions remain unanswered as ATSB drops its closing MH370 search report

& via the Oz:

‘Closer than ever on MH370’

1:17pm

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has published its final 440-page report into the search for the missing plane.

---

Air tracking interval ‘too wide’

12:00am RICK MORTON

The mandated 15-minute interval between tracking of commercial aircraft may not be frequent enough to narrow search areas.

Finally from Victor's blog:

ATSB Releases Final Report on MH370
by Victor Iannello Posted: Monday, 10/2/2017


The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released a report entitled “The Operational Search for MH370”. It is a long document (440 pages) that is meant to provide final documentation of all of the ATSB’s activities related to this incident. There are no new conclusions, although we can gain some new insights:

• MH370 flew over or near IFR waypoints a cluster of waypoints near Kota Bharu called ABTOK, KADAX, and GOLUD and later PUKAR as it flew towards Penang. This implies that MH370 was following waypoints after the transponder stopped operating after the turn back.
  
• The registration of the first officer’s cell phone on a tower on Penang Island is officially acknowledged for the first time. A footnote citation says, “This information was obtained by the Royal Malaysian Police and reported to the Ministry of Transport Malaysia. Though a formal report was not available to the ATSB, information relevant to the search was shared.” Of course, this begs the question as to why the ATSB only learned of this information after the RMP report was leaked.
  
• The two sources of the primary surveillance radar (PSR) data revealed to be the civilian radar at Kota Bharu and the military radar on Penang Island on Western Hill. The military radar captures are described as “not continuous” with no further explanation.
  
• After passing Penang Island, the report says the “Radar data shows the aircraft then headed to the northwest, eventually aligning with published air route N571 from IFR waypoint VAMPI. The validity of this section of the radar data was verified using the track of a commercial flight that followed N571 about 33 NM behind MH370.” This implies the radar captures shown to the NOK in Beijing on March 21, 2014, at the Lido Hotel, are valid. The performance of the military radar was verified by comparing the civil radar data to the military data as another commercial aircraft, likely to be EK343, trailed 33 NM behind MH370.
  
• The data recovered from the captain’s home flight simulator is discussed for the first time in an official report. An overview of the data is presented, suggesting a flight from Kuala Lumpur up the Strait of Malacca, and then towards the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO), ending in fuel exhaustion. The flight path recovered from the simulator did not match the MH370 flight paths that were reconstructed from the Inmarsat satellite data.
  
• The ATSB pegs the date of the simulator session as February 2, 2014. We know that the deleted file fragments were found in a Shadow Volume with the date February 3, 2014, so likely the session was created on or shortly before that date. It is not explained how the ATSB can be sure the session was created on exactly February 2, 2014, but this would be significant.
  
• There is mention that the last data point in the SIO suggested there was a user input of an altitude of 4,000 ft. (The evidence that the simulator’s user manually changed the altitude and other parameters during the flight was first presented in a paper by me and Yves Guillaume.)
  
• There is acknowledgement that the simulator data shows a beginning sequence that is similar to the flight the captain flew from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on February 4, 2014. (The significance of the similarities in path and timing between the simulator data and the captain’s flight MH150 to Jeddah was first discussed on this blog.)
  
• Although the ATSB does not speculate that the captain was responsible for the diversion, and although the simulator data was not deemed useful for reconstructing possible flight paths of MH370, based on the presentation of this data in the report, it is clear that the ATSB considers the simulator data to be significant evidence.
  
• Based on examination of the debris and a detailed study of the final BFO data, the ATSB believes that MH370’s flight ended in a steep, uncontrolled descent. This will serve to limit the distance from the 7th arc for future searches.
  
• Although there was an attempt by the official investigators to discern information about the crash site from an investigation of the marine ecology attached to the recovered debris, all results were inconclusive.
  
• No new drift analyses are presented. The ATSB reaffirms its belief that the most likely crash site is 35.6S, 92.8E, based on the drift analyses by CSIRO.
  

So, although there are no new conclusions in this report, there are some interesting new pieces of information. It is also important to note that Malaysia chose to omit key pieces of evidence from the Factual Information (FI) released in March 2015 that are presented in the new ATSB report. These pieces of evidence include details about the radar data, information regarding the simulator data found on the captain’s home computer, and the data related to the registration of the first officer’s cell phone as the aircraft flew near Penang. Although these omissions have been discussed in detail on this blog, perhaps with the release of the ATSB report, more will question why Malaysia chose to not disclose, and even deny the existence of, important evidence.

On a final note, the ATSB chose to acknowledge the contributions of some of the independent investigators, including many that comment here. The ATSB was kind enough to give a special recognition to Blaine Gibson:

The ATSB acknowledges the extensive contributions that many individuals and groups have made during the underwater search for MH370. Many contributors have provided credible, alternate and independent approaches and analysis of the limited data available. In particular, the ‘MH370 Independent Group’ comprised of scientists, researchers and individuals who have cooperated across continents to advance the search for MH370. The ATSB is grateful for their work collectively and individually including Duncan Steel, Mike Exner, Victor Iannello, Don Thompson, and Richard Godfrey. The ATSB also acknowledges the extensive and detailed contributions provided by Simon Hardy, Bobby Ulich and Robin Stevens.

The search for MH370 was significantly advanced after the first debris from the aircraft was found on La Reunion Island in July 2015. The subsequent efforts of Blaine Gibson in searching for and locating MH370 debris on east African coastlines did much to raise public awareness of the importance of the MH370 debris which led to many more items of debris being handed in. Mr Gibson met and communicated with ATSB during his 2015-2016 search expeditions and he is acknowledged for his outstanding efforts in communicating his debris finds to Malaysia, ATSB, the next of kin and the wider world.

Hoody: "...It's just a jump to the left!!..." 

In Hoody's unreal world, of ATCB transport safety investigation, everything appears to be  stuck in a timewarp:

&..

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

MH370 wrap up by Florence de Changy

Via SCMP, a long but excellent read/overview for those loyal MH370 followers - Well

done Florence...  

Malaysia Airlines flight 370 search: why give hope when there was none?

After three years, Australia finds one certitude in its search for the airliner – it was not where authorities were so adamant it would be. One could be forgiven for seeing only an exercise in media management
By Florence De Changy
14 Oct 2017

A search team looks for MH370. Photo: AFP

It has been three years and seven months since flight MH370 vanished in the heart of a quiet night above the South China Sea. The Boeing 777 had been travelling northeast from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, where it was scheduled to land at 6.30am on March 8, when the co-pilot signed off from Malaysian airspace with the now infamous words “Good night, Malaysia 370”.


By the time the search was suspended in January 2017, authorities’ much heralded efforts had come to little. Photo: EPA

That was the last ever heard from the 239 people on board, 153 of whom were Chinese, and the last time the whereabouts of the doomed flight can be calculated with any real certainty. After 10 days of frenzied media speculation, in which the Malaysian authorities’ complete (and embarrassing) lack of knowledge of the flight’s location was broadcast across the world, Australia took the lead role in the search. That move was heralded at the time as “the pros” taking over – a confidence that in hindsight can be seen as completely misplaced given Australia’s aviation watchdog closed its investigation last week, not an inch closer to the truth.

But in the swirling confusion that followed the disappearance, hopes were high that those “pros” could make a breakthrough that would put an end to the (mostly flawed) theories that had begun to circulate in the international media – was it a hijack (where could it land without detection?), was it terrorism (why did no group claim responsibility?), was it pilot suicide (why no note and why such a complicated route?).


Click to enlarge.

Indeed, what the “pros” did next was remarkably successful in helping the authorities regain control of the media narrative, in helping to reassure a worried public that, even if the plane’s exact location was not known, everything was nevertheless under control.
Seemingly against all odds and logic, those in charge declared the plane’s final resting place to be somewhere in the Southern Indian Ocean – thousands of kilometres in the opposite direction from where it was heading.

So certain were they in this counter intuitive conclusion that one of the largest marine searches ever undertaken took place. That search continued for 1,046 days, cost A$198 million (HK$1.2 billion) and mapped 710,000 sq km of sea floor (the largest ever single hydrographical survey) – 120,000 sq km of it in high resolution. Yet by the time the search was suspended in January 2017, those – much heralded – efforts had come to little. Four shipwrecks had been discovered, but no trace of MH370 was ever found.

An Australian navy ship scans the southern Indian Ocean for signs of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Photo: AP

“It is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era … for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board,” the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said in its final report, published on October 3.

Remembering the boldly confident statements that punctuated the search process, this admission of blatant defeat may come as a surprise to the public.

But a closer look at the operation, its initial legitimacy, and the vague premises on which the search area was based, shows this mission had every reason to fail, from day one.
That raises uncomfortable questions: to what extent did the authorities ever believe the search would succeed? Did they believe their own bluster and, if not, why not? Was the entire process an elaborate charade, aimed more at silencing a braying media than it was at finding the truth? An attempt to delay that admission of defeat until a time when pictures of the weeping relatives of 239 lost souls were not leading daily news bulletins across the world?

From the beginning, various authorities involved in the search did their best to give the impression that, amid the countless unknowns surrounding the flight’s fate, there were nevertheless at least some things they did know.

A little more than two weeks after the plane disappeared, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, in a news flash on March 24, announced with seeming certainty something the Australians were unable to prove in more than three years of searching for the plane: “[MH370’s] last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth”.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was among those who believed MH370’s last position was ‘in the middle of the Indian Ocean’. Photo: Reuters

Next of kin were informed by text message: “Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived.”

This was a new hammer blow for the relatives, who were being asked to accept their loved ones should be declared lost forever – without a single piece of debris having been found.

WIZARDS OF OZ

The truth is, in late March 2014, there was enormous confusion over the case. Malaysia had lost control of events to such an extent that the international media gathered in Kuala Lumpur were having a field day. It looked like anyone could do a better job than the Malaysians. Since Australia had already taken on the mantle of “head of search and rescue operations” down under, it somehow seemed natural and reassuring that the Australians took the lead of the overall search operation now that it was moving south.

Certainly, this was the view of former US naval officer Stephen Ganyard, who told Good Morning America, “The good news, here, is that we have the Australians now in charge of this investigation. We’ve seen a lot of inconsistency out of the Malaysian authorities all week. But now we have the real pros on the scene.”

The Australian navy searches for MH370. The Australians were described as the ‘real pros’ by former US naval officer Stephen Ganyard. Photo: AFP

Not everyone shared his optimism. That Australia helped coordinate the surface search was one thing. But that it should be in charge of the underwater phase puzzled many, including American aviation journalist and author of The Crash Detectives, Christine Negroni.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) was still tainted by its shoddy investigation into another aviation disaster in which a Pel-Air WestWind air ambulance was forced to ditch near Norfolk Island in 2009, having found itself unable to land in bad weather and with insufficient fuel to divert. The two and a half year investigation by the ATSB prompted a national scandal when a television documentary aired allegations of misconduct by the ATSB. A subsequent Senate inquiry found the ATSB’s accident report was deeply flawed and had unfairly blamed the pilot.

“It seemed to me that the Australians including the [head of the ATSB] Martin Dolan were eager to become the heroes in solving the world’s most riveting air mystery. In an interview in June 2014, Dolan told me enthusiastically that coordinating the search was ‘the challenge of a career’,” recalled Negroni.

Beset by public humiliation, did the ATSB see the MH370 mission as an opportunity for redemption? To cleanse its name and bury past shame? Possibly.

Whether it was up to the task is another matter. The man appointed to head the initial search effort was the much decorated Angus Houston, former Chief of the Australian Defence Force, who had a great reputation in the military but no previous experience of civil aviation accidents nor of underwater searches.

Relatives of Chinese passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 attend prayers in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: EPA

Indeed, while Australia was willing, it was not Malaysia’s first choice. That distinction went to the French air accident investigation bureau for its role in investigating the fate of AF447 – a case with striking similarities to that of MH370. The Air France A330 jet had crashed during the night in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009, in 3,980 metres of water. Its hull and black boxes were located and recovered in less than two years after a search that cost just US$40 million (including the recovery) – a quarter of that spent on looking for MH370.

The Malaysian government approached the French team but Jean-Paul Troadec, the bureau’s former director who lead the search for AF447, declined.

Legally, Australia was under no obligation to take charge of the operation, let alone at its own expense (initially it had shared the cost with Malaysia). Almost 3,000km from the Australian coast, the search area is in international waters. Therefore, any search and rescue responsibilities Australia may have had would have been limited to saving lives – not locating wrecks. Yet, with unclear motives and poor credentials, Australia volunteered. Why?

SEARCH FOR A SEARCH SITE

Of course, the Australians can’t be blamed for not finding the plane if the plane was simply not there in the first place. But neither can Malaysia be blamed for identifying the wrong search site. During his March 24 television address, Najib clearly said he had been “briefed by representatives from the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch. They informed me that Inmarsat [a British satellite communications company] has been performing further calculations on the data.”

In other words, the Malaysian prime minister was just repeating what the British had told him.

And what the Brits had told him was based on some rather flimsy evidence. They had established the crash location solely on the basis of “handshake pings” – the tiny, invisible signals that bounced between MH370, a ground station in Perth, Australia, and an Inmarsat satellite 36,000km above earth. There were just seven such “pings” on the night of MH370’s disappearance yet this was apparently enough for mathematical extrapolations to establish “beyond reasonable doubt” the fate of the plane and its 239 passengers.

Wang Yulian, whose daughter was on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, cries before a meeting with Malaysia Airlines officials in Beijing. Photo: EPA

Even if we put full faith in those extrapolations, in trying to deduce the flight route, the scientists had to make substantial assumptions about the speed and altitude of the plane, assumptions for which there is no proof. The slightest inaccuracy in any of these assumptions would change the final crash site drastically. With so many vagaries, how can anyone be sure of anything?

To make matters worse, Inmarsat withheld its full set of raw data for years from independent experts, inexplicably taking an attitude that was both secretive and hostile to the media rather than proudly explaining how it had helped solve the mystery.

About three years ago, I contacted British astrophysicist Duncan Steel to share my concerns about Inmarsat’s mind-boggling calculations. Steel is one of the leading scientists of the self-named Independent Group that worked separately but in cooperation with the Australian team. Instead of reassuring me, Steel highlighted further complications, including the inclination of the Inmarsat satellite, which had been greater than normal at the time. Another complication was that Inmarsat’s software had been designed when its ground bases were only in the northern hemisphere, and had not been fully updated to account for the ground base in Perth. In three years of investigating, I have not come across a single person – even in the satellite industry – who felt confident in the extrapolations based on the satellite’s “handshake pings”.

The final report into the search succinctly sums it up: “The data available was very limited. The type of data and the scientific methods used for its analysis were never intended to be used to track an aircraft or pinpoint its final location.”

So, to sum up, the search was based on a small sample and an untested method – something that would alarm any scientist. The biggest challenge of this search was that it was impossibly vague.

FOLLOW THE DEBRIS

The only tangible thing that could have lent credence to the projections would have been to find debris. Yet at the time the search was launched no debris whatsoever had been found. Indeed, to this day, only a few pieces of debris that can categorically be linked to MH370 have been found – despite numerous claims that other debris “almost certainly” from MH370 has appeared on the southeastern coast of Africa, a region where several plane crashes have occurred in the last decades, involving Boeing planes on several instances.

A piece of debris, washed on to Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, said to be from missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370. Photo: AFP

Launching the search then contradicted a maxim known to everyone involved in investigating plane crashes over water: “Find debris first, work out the crash zone second, look underwater third.”

“First and foremost, you must find pieces of debris and formally identify them as coming from the plane. The ocean is a dustbin – and from a long way out you arrive in the whirling currents of the Indian Ocean Gyre,” said Troadec, who led the search for AF447.
Troadec said it would be useless to begin underwater searches with such uncertainty about the crash position. “Once you have debris, experts can work out the point of crash by drift calculations based on winds and currents. But the margin of uncertainty rises quickly as the days go by,” explained Troadec. Time is of the essence.

With every passing minute, any debris is breaking apart, becoming water logged, sinking and dispersing, making the task of identifying the crash zone ever more difficult.

Planes are made of millions of components, all built as light as possible, meaning most parts are buoyant. Even when a plane stays mostly in one piece after impact – as AF447 did – thousands of pieces break away and float for a while. About 90 per cent of AF447 sank in one piece, with most passengers still belted to their seats, even so, several thousand pieces of debris and several bodies were collected from the surface.

“You find everything in the sea. The sea doesn’t hold on to things. And if debris is found, the aircraft will be found,” a British naval officer told me shortly after MH370 disappeared. He mentioned French solo sailor Eric Tabarly, whose body was found in 1998 in the Irish Sea by fishermen 40 days after he had fallen overboard.

The absence of debris was not due to a lack of investigation. In May 2014, a meeting between Australia, Malaysia and China in Canberra heard that Australia had carried out 334 air patrols, involving 3,137 hours of air reconnaissance. Its search had involved 10 civilian aircraft, 19 military aircraft and 14 ships. Chinese efforts had involved 21 satellites, 18 ships (including eight equipped with helicopters) and five aircraft, covering an area of 1.5 million sq km. China had also asked 88 Chinese-registered vessels inside the zone (68 merchant ships and 20 fishing vessels) to help. Despite all this, as well as dozens of beach cleanings along the western and southern coasts of Australia, no debris that could be conclusively linked to MH370, its fuselage, its cargo or its passengers was found.

GOING UNDER

This complete absence of debris did not dishearten the Australians, nor did it lead anyone to double check the assumptions on which the search area was based. Everyone was happy to pretend this mission impossible was feasible and under control. And so the underwater search launched with great fanfare and hope.

The imposing Australian Border Force Ocean Shield cast off from Perth, with its gleaming red hull 110 metres long, its crane, its helicopter landing pad and all the acoustic equipment needed to listen for the “pings” emitted from MH370’s black box beacons. It had just days before the beacons would stop transmitting, leaving little time to make good use of the cutting edge equipment on loan from the US navy.

The towed pinger locator on the deck of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield, in the Indian Ocean. Photo: EPA

A Towed Ping Locator (TPL) resembles a small, bright, yellow stingray. Once in the water, it can detect black box signals from up to 2km away. But the black box beacons are powered by a battery that lasts about a month, after being triggered by contact with water. The beacon’s job is to transmit an inaudible ultrasonic signal, saying “Find me. I am here”. The ping locator’s job is to pick this up and transmit it to the surface crew.

In all likelihood, only one of MH370’s two black boxes was actually emitting (the one attached to the cockpit voice recorder). As revealed in the interim report Factual Information, published in March 2015, the flight data recorder’s beacon had expired in December 2012. This fact was not admitted at the time of the crash and is not even mentioned in the latest report. Such an admission would have embarrassed Malaysia Airlines for its appalling maintenance standards and cut by half the success chances of the Australian search. Why share such bad news when the motto was “hope”?

So it was with near zero chance of success that the Ocean Shield lowered the ping locator into the water.

Yet once again, this did not prevent authorities from providing an illusion of success, helping to satiate a public hungry for progress. Within minutes of entering the water, the ping locator appeared to strike gold, detecting a ping. Almost simultaneously, a Chinese ship hundreds of kilometres away also detected pings and soon after that another TPL picked up yet more pings. A press release was issued on April 5 saying “signals consistent with those emitted by aircraft black boxes” had been found.

This was cause for false optimism. Black box pings have an unmistakable identity that derives from a combination of two features: their frequency of 37.5 kHz and their intermittence, a one second interval between each signal. None of the pings matched these criteria. But the show was too good to be spoiled. Television stations were breaking audience records.

“Call it a triumph of science, or incredible luck, but on the very first path, the Ocean Shield [towing the TPL …] detected a steady series of pings,” CNN commented on April 8 – one month after the plane was lost, when the beacons’ battery lives would already have been in overtime.

The Australian navy ship Ocean Shield. Photo: AP

CNN, intoxicated by raptures of the deep, kept serving up its Australian pings 24/7, but scientists familiar with underwater searches were growing increasingly alarmed. “I went on CNN about 15 times to try and make people understand there was absolutely no chance the pings detected were from MH370,” said Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a globally respected wreck hunter. A former naval officer and clearance diver, he has led countless underwater assignments including six expeditions to the Titanic since 1986. He was also part of the search for AF447.

“I know the US Navy people who were on board [Ocean Shield], they would never make such elementary mistakes. A 33 kHz ping, or a 35 kHz ping, cannot become or be treated as ‘similar’ to a 37.5 kHz ping, either because of the pressure or because of failing batteries as I heard it explained. That’s sheer nonsense,” said Nargeolet.

William Meacham, a former archaeology professor at the University of Hong Kong, tried to warn CNN it was making a big mistake in suggesting the pings could come from the MH370 black boxes. Pointing out that pingers were also used by scientists to tag marine creatures, he drew up a list of those that may well have been inside the search zone: 86 loggerhead sea turtles, 30 flat-backed turtles, 30 hawksbill turtles, 14 green turtles, seven humpbacked whales and five dugongs – not to mention a great white shark carrying a 36 kHz pinger, which had crossed the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Australia’s west coast. Was the Australians’ greatest hope nothing more than a great white?

As irrelevant as these detections were, they created so much excitement in the news that the Australians decided to launch the autonomous submarine Bluefin-21 to feed the media appetite for anything ping-related.

“There was one signal which has been analysed very closely, which was a very strong signal and it had all the characteristics of being from a man-made device and the characteristics of the transmission were very, very similar to those … from an emergency locator beacon; our experts have established a datum on the ocean floor – probably the most likely place where you might find wreckage of the aircraft or a black box,” Angus Houston told a Chinese journalist from Xinhua, adding he was “very hopeful that we will find something”.

When, at the end of May 2014, Michael Dean, the US Navy’s deputy director of Ocean Engineering, said on CNN that everyone now agreed the pings had not come from the black boxes, a US Navy spokesman appeared on the same channel a few hours later to dismiss the comments as “premature and speculative”.

It was as if confusion about the true nature of all these erroneous pings was supposed to last a little bit longer.

One question lingers: was this incredible fiasco due to incompetence on the Australians’ behalf or was it an orchestrated show primarily aimed at satiating a media hungry for MH370-related news?

Tony Abbott, Australia’s former prime minister. Photo: AP

MISLEADING LEADS

The absence of any real leads did not stop authorities from showering the media with hopeful announcements. And when it came to such announcements, the Australian prime minister at the time, Tony Abbott, was in a class of his own.

Abbott announced “new and credible information”, the “best leads so far”, felt “very confident” … “The best brains in the world are applying themselves to this task. All of the technological mastery that we have is being applied and brought to bear here, so if this mystery is solvable, we will solve it,” he boasted on March 31, while visiting the Pearce Air Base north of Perth, the air search headquarters. On April 11, during a trip to China, he went one step further. He was “very confident the signals we’re detecting are from the black box from MH370. We know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometres”.

Naturally, this unequivocal claim came as a shock to the families. Unfortunately, it was just a false statement that he was later challenged to explain in parliament.
Another questionable announcement came via Angus Houston on April 14, when “Ocean Shield detected an oil slick … approximately 5,500 metres down wind and down water from the vicinity of the detections picked up by the TPL on Ocean Shield”.

Was this supposed to be an indication of the MH370 crash site? The official narrative was that MH370 crashed having run out of fuel. And even with some remaining fuel in its tanks, did this experienced air force officer really think for a second a slick could still be found 38 days later? The plain answer is no. So, why pass on such information, as useless as it was misleading, while adding, to faint caution, that the liquid “still has to be analysed”?

Meanwhile, the Malaysian transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, was struggling to keep up with the Australians’ pace of mock good news. Seemingly out of the blue, he said on April 19 the next 48 hours were going to be “crucial”. Then, nothing more: no pings, no black boxes and no MH370 wreck. Nothing crucial, then.

Malaysia’s transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein hugs a relative of a victim of the missing flight. Photo: AFP

On April 28, 2014, three weeks after the last pings were picked up, the Australian prime minister threw in the towel and brought the ping hunt to an end, calling the sea search “the most difficult in human history”.

“We focused on the best leads we had,” he assured everyone, without detailing exactly what “leads” he had in mind. Abbot said it was now “highly improbable that we will find the slightest debris on the surface … 52 days after the crash, most of the debris would have become waterlogged and sunk.”

It was yet another statement that would be thrown overboard when, 500 days later rather than 52, the first significant piece of potential debris washed ashore on Reunion Island, a French territory. Abbott then declared, without waiting for confirmation that it was a piece of MH370, that the find was “very consistent with the search pattern we’ve been using for the last few months”.

The moment the flaperon was found on Reunion Island, several oceanographic institutes produced studies pointing to very different potential crash zones. In November 2014, the ATSB crash investigator Peter Foley himself had predicted that “something is going to wash up somewhere on the beach, most probably in Sumatra”. That’s a long way from the African coast...

Australia, then, would seem to run Malaysia pretty close when it comes to the art of bungling a search operation, and in terms of providing deliberate or accidental misinformation.

The fiasco surrounding the pings, the sudden and unexplained changes in search zones, the opportunistic switches in the official line, along with a string of totally unfounded declarations, were surely not what was expected from the “real pros”.

Nevertheless, the ATSB stayed in charge until January 2017, continuing to provide the public and the families with fleeting snippets of good news – snippets that would slowly sink without trace as soon as they were subjected to the slightest scrutiny.

A woman leaves a message of support and hope for the passengers of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in central Kuala Lumpur. Photo: Reuters

The natural conclusion of this sad story, if we are to follow the official line, is that a plane as big as a Boeing 777, loaded with electronics and equipped with several redundant communications systems – not to mention the hundreds of mobile phones of its passengers – can become perfectly stealthy in a few seconds, in one of the most closely monitored regions of the planet.

MH370 managed to do what decades and billions in research have not yet achieved for the most sophisticated military plane. Each and every one of the 10 million passengers who board a plane every day must hope their plane won’t be up to the same trick. ■

Florence de Changy has published her investigation into flight MH370 in French and Chinese. She is the Hong Kong correspondent for Le Monde and French National Radio

  
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[Peetwo]

Ocean Infinity gets KL green light -

From 'that man', via the Oz:

MH370 hunt on table for early 2018


Transport Minister Darren Chester.

Ean Higgins
The Australian
12:01AM October 27, 2017
@EanHiggins

The US underwater survey company given the green light to renew the hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could start scouring the seabed early next year, using advanced technology to cover a much reduced target area in a fraction of the time spent by the unsuccessful Australian-led teams.

But a leading international air crash investigator has warned that a new effort could be undermined if it relies on the same assumptions the Australian Transport Safety Bureau used in its $200 million failed search.

MH370 disappeared on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. After some days in which the Malaysian government played down reports it was about to announce a “no find, no fee” agreement with Houston-based marine survey group Ocean Infinity, Transport Minister Darren Chester issued a statement last week declaring a done deal, and Australia would provide technical assistance.

Canadian Larry Vance, who has worked on some of the biggest airliner accidents around the world over the past three decades, told The Australian the US searchers should abandon the ATSB’s theory that the pilots were dead in the latter part of the flight, and that the Boeing 777 crashed down rapidly after it ran out of fuel.

“To establish their previous search areas, they used the incorrect assumption of a ‘ghost aeroplane’, and a high-speed dive into the ocean,” Mr Vance said. “Anyone conducting a search should be aware of the actual scenario, which is a controlled ditching.”

Mr Vance and many other air crash investigators and senior international airline pilots believe the known facts — particularly a control surface section of MH370’s wing area found washed up mostly intact — indicates Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked the aircraft and flew it to the end. Such a scenario would dictate a different search area from that employed by the ATSB.

“I am in the final stages of writing a book about this, and it will provide solid evidence of a controlled ditching,” Mr Vance said.

Ocean Infinity had put a proposal to the Malaysian government some months ago, in which it would take all the financial risk of restarting the search and only charge an agreed fee if it found the plane. Sources said that if a contract were signed soon, Ocean Infinity could get a vessel searching the southern Indian Ocean within a few months, but rather than using one sonar imaging device, it would use several advanced ones.

When its two-year survey of 120,000sq km ended in January, the ATSB said it had identified a new search area just to the north of that already scoured, which had a high probability of being where MH370 came down. Mr Chester said the renewed search by Ocean Infinity would focus on the new target area identified by the ATSB, which is 25,000sq km.

The ships involved in the last search each deployed a single sonar scanning “tow fish”, or alternatively an untethered torpedo-like autonomous underwater vehicle which can be programmed to roam around on its own.

A recent press release from Ocean Infinity said the company had purchased two new AUVs, raising its total to eight.

“The fleet of AUV’s will be operated simultaneously, each AUV programmed with an independent mission plan,” the statement says. “Independence allows the systems to cover huge swaths of seabed quickly and accurately.”

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[Peetwo]

Update: 31 October 2017.

Ocean Infinity gets KL green light -

From 'that man', via the Oz:

MH370 hunt on table for early 2018


Transport Minister Darren Chester.

Via the ABC News online:

MH370: Ocean Infinity to be paid millions if new search turns up any trace of missing flight

By South-East Asia correspondent Adam Harvey
Updated yesterday at 8:10pm Mon 30 Oct 2017, 8:10pm
Photo: Extensive searches have failed to locate missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. (Reuters: Andrew Winning, file)

A US company will be paid between US$20 million and US$70 million ($26 to $91 million) if it finds any trace of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 within 90 days of beginning a new search.

Key points:

• US company Ocean Infinity will search for MH370 on seafloor previously identified by experts as likely location
  
• Australia will provide technical assistance in new MH370 search
  
• Ocean Infinity could be paid up to US$70 million ($91 million) if it finds a trace of missing flight
  

Australia will provide technical assistance for the search by seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity but will not contribute to the reward fee if the plane is found.

Malaysia's deputy transport minister says the nation's cabinet has accepted "in principle" an offer from Ocean Infinity to search a 25,000 square kilometre area for the plane.

Ocean Infinity offered to search for the plane on a "no-find, no-fee" basis.

Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Ab Aziz Kaprawi said that cabinet ministers had agreed "to prepare a special allocation to the Ministry of Transport amounting to between US$20 million up to US$70 million if MH370 aircraft wreckage is successfully found within 90 days".

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.

Australia's Transport Minister Darren Chester said Australia, at Malaysia's request, will provide technical assistance to the Malaysian Government and Ocean Infinity.

The ABC understands that Australia will not be contributing to any payment to Ocean Infinity.

Ocean Infinity will focus on searching the seafloor in an area that has previously been identified by experts as the next most likely location to find MH370, just to the north of the original search area.

MH370 vanished from radar screens on March 8, 2014, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.

Analysis of satellite data showed the plane had flown for six hours after contact was lost.
A sonar search of the seabed was suspended in January this year after failing to find any aircraft debris.

Video: The CSIRO narrowed down the potential search area for MH370 earlier this year (ABC News)

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[Peetwo]

Further update by 'that man' from the Oz: 

Malaysia allocates $91m for success fee for finding MH370
Malaysia Airlines.

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM November 1, 2017
  

The Malaysian government has allocated up to $US70 million ($91m) for a “success fee” if a US underwater survey company finds Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 within 90 days of starting a new search.

The move suggests there is considerable momentum to renew the hunt for the Boeing 777 that disappeared on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board in what remains one of the world’s greatest unsolved aviation mysteries.

Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said cabinet had agreed “to prepare a special allocation to the Ministry of Transport amounting to between $US20m and $US70m if MH370 aircraft wreckage is successfully found within 90 days”.

Several months ago, Houston-based Ocean Infinity made a “no-find, no-fee” proposal to the Malaysian government that it would assume full financial risk for a renewed search, claiming a payment only if it found the aircraft. Mr Aziz said cabinet had agreed to accept the offer “in principle”.

Sources told The Australian that the Australian government, which contributed $60m of the $200m cost of the previous two-year search, would not be a contributor to Ocean Infinity’s “success fee”. The failed search run by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau scoured 120,000sq km of the southern Indian Ocean, where automatic satellite tracking data indicates MH370 came down.

The ATSB identified a new ­potential search area of 25,000sq km immediately to the north of the last one, and Transport Minister Darren Chester has indicated that is where Ocean ­Infinity will look.

Sources told The Australian that if a contract with the Malaysian government were finalised soon, a new search could start early next year, providing a few months of comparatively favourable conditions before winter and its severe winds and seas sets in.
Ocean Infinity has indicated it would use far more advanced technology to conduct the search much faster than that run by the ATSB, using up to eight ­pilotless miniature submarines at any one time to run sonar scanning missions.

Mr Chester said that at Malaysia’s request, Australia would provide technical assistance to the Malaysian government and Ocean Infinity. “Australia has developed considerable experience given its role in the search to date, and stands ready to support the extended search if it goes ahead,” Mr Chester said.

Many aviation experts, however, believe the previous search failed because the ATSB’s assumptions were flawed. The aircraft reversed course about 40 minutes into a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with its radar transponder turned off and no radio communication.

A number of senior professional pilots and air crash investigators believe the evidence, including parts of the aircraft’s wing surface found mostly intact, shows MH370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own aircraft and flew it to the end, outside the ATSB’s search area.

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[Fori362]

Call me cynical, but the MYG's sudden enthusiasm for continuing the search looks too out of character unless they intend a carefully-crafted negative result.

I wonder if the contract conditions will be something like ...

1. You will search all the areas we tell you to first. (You will not find anything there but it will look like we've taken the experts' advice and done our best to find it.)

2. Then you can search wherever you want.

3. We've calculated that (1) will take you at least 90 days (and by then it will also be coming into winter).

4. You can't search after the 90 days without our further agreement.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the phrases: '... credible new evidence ...' and '... wouldn't be right to give the NOK false hope ...' don't creep in somewhere again.

Otherwise, why limit OI to 90 days? The MYG could simply let them run as long as OI want - no find, no fee = no financial risk to the MYG, no matter how long it takes.

Suspiciously odd contract terms.

[ventus45]

I agree Fori, and it is very strange, that in the the minister's latest video, (https://youtu.be/3Qz8lV3Fb5U) he stressed that the tripartite partners have to agree to the new search. Why ?

---

---

Not only that, but in the video he did say at 2:06 that, “the three countries involved in the search wanted to narrow it down to 5,000 sq km”.  

Why 5,000 square kilometres ?

That is only a box 100 x 50 km, a rediculously small area.  

One has to ask, what the hell are they playing at ?

[Fori362]

"I agree Fori, and it is very strange, that in the the minister's latest video, (https://youtu.be/3Qz8lV3Fb5U) he stressed that the tripartite partners have to agree to the new search. Why ?"

I wonder if there is an agreement in place between the players involved that no one releases any information unless all of the others agree, as exists in the MH17 investigation?

That would effectively allow the MYG to veto anything it wishes (and would explain a lot of the Aussies' refusal to release data so far) but may also require the MYG to obtain the other's agreement for searches, since that may also result in information being released?

[Peetwo]

Florence De Changy, via Radio NZ'ed  -

Failed MH370 search 'insult to human intelligence'
 
From Nine To Noon, 9:32 am on 2 November 2017

Listen

A need to feed the media, following false clues, and a desire to look like heroes, are just some of the reasons given by investigative journalist, Florence de Changy, for the failure to find MH370. Last month, Australian investigators delivered their final report into the jet's disappearance. Florence de Changy has spent several years following the mystery, and has written a book, and several articles on the subject. She says the only sentence she agrees with in the Australian report is that it was "almost inconceivable" the aircraft has not been found.

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[Peetwo]

OI MH370 'no find, no fee' search offer update -  

Is it just me or am I missing something?? However, it would appear that once again the Malaysians are stalling on what essentially should be a 'no brainer' offer from the US firm Ocean Infinity...

Courtesy the Star online:

Liow: Ministry will have to negotiate with US firm first on MH370 search

---

• Nation
  
• Monday, 13 Nov 2017
  1:20 PM MYT
  
• by tho xin yi
  

HONG KONG: The Transport Ministry will have to wrap up negotiations with US firm Ocean Infinity on the search for MH370 before it can discuss the matter with Australia and China, said Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.

The Transport Minister said the response team, led by Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Datuk Seri Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, has had three or four meetings with the US seabed exploration outfit.

"There is no deadline given for the negotiations. We still have time as we also have to wait for the ocean to be calmer in January before any search mission can be conducted," he said.

Liow was speaking to Malaysian reporters here after delivering a special address at the World Chinese Economic Summit here on Monday.

Beijing-bound Flight MH370 went off the radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014. It had 239 passengers and crew members on board.

Australia, China and Malaysia, which jointly coordinated and funded the search operation, had in January this year suspended the search for MH370 when traces of the Boeing 777 could not be found in the 120,000 sq km search area of the southern Indian Ocean.

Liow added that the ministry needed to ascertain the terms and conditions of Ocean Infinity's "No Cure, No Fee" promise.

"What kind of wreckage to find? If there's a fee, how much is it asking for?
"We need to reach an agreement before we bring it to the tripartite level," he said.


Read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/20...dmu0GvD.99

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[Curtis]

OI MH370 'no find, no fee' search offer update -  

Is it just me or am I missing something?? However, it would appear that once again the Malaysians are stalling on what essentially should be a 'no brainer' offer from the US firm Ocean Infinity...

Courtesy the Star online:
___

No, Peetwo, You are not alone.
Seems it is all about gaining time - i would not be surprised that the presentation of "final report" is subpoenaed , because they need to consider possible results from that new search, which they may or may not order - but use it for further delay of the report.

It was a shame in the past and will be a shame in the future.

And i bet i am not alone in fearing the report will not contain any new info about metallurgical analysis of the debris, raw radar data, and certainly not a word about the witnesses - e.g. about the ones that filed a police report about what they saw, and what the reasons were, to not consider them or try to find out more, let alone about trying to find more witnesses.

But i am not sure if we are right to condemn solely Malaysia for the mess.

Cheers
Curtis

[Fori362]

Curtis - "But i am not sure if we are right to condemn solely Malaysia for the mess."

No, I would agree it seems unlikely that the MYG is solely responsible, but rather it may be they are playing their part as directed, albeit in a bumbling and very 'Malaysian' way.

There was a suggestion that all was not right and above board when the MYG 'sealed' the ATC recordings, CCTV and radar data - just why would that be necessary - to prevent anyone getting their hands on a copy? Does even the ATSB (and others involved) have the raw radar data? They could have simply refused to release anything that may have impeded or compromised the criminal investigation, why go to the extreme of classifying it? The USA has apparently done the same with all MH370 related data it holds. Very odd.

It would seem this is not a 'normal' situation, but one which, although known about, cannot be made public for some reason. I'm reminded of one of Hishy's answers to journalists at one of the televised daily press conferences shortly after the event - it went something like: "Sometimes some people do terrible things that the public must never be told about". And he wasn't referring to the pilots, they weren't being blamed by the MYG - quite the opposite. Very odd as well.

So has something happened that needs to be covered up; and since it happened to/in one of their aircraft (and they're in charge of the investigation) the Malaysians have to play their part, and the aircraft isn't intended to be found since it would provide unwelcome evidence. Simple as that?

Perhaps something along the lines of Itavia flight 870 back in 1980?:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/j...atch.italy

"The investigating magistrate said he believed there had been a plot to shoot down a plane carrying Libya's Colonel Muammar Gadafy and that the commercial airliner had been unwittingly caught up in the "war-like scenario". He said the passenger jet had either been brought down by a missile or had plunged into the sea after swerving to avoid a mid-air collision with one of the jetfighters.

In his 5,488 page report, Mr Priore said he could not say for sure who had caused the deaths of the 81 people on board but he said that his investigation and previous investigations into the tragedy had been deliberately obstructed by the Italian military and members of the secret service, who had complied with requests from NATO to cover up the tragedy.

"Four Italian air force generals and five other people were indicted, charged with high treason and perjury. They denied all the charges and although the case went ahead, it collapsed because of time restraints and insufficient evidence."

P7 - Nicely into a nutshell Fori; good questions all. Have a Choc Frog.

[Curtis]

@Fori362
Re the Itavia there is more:
On German wikipedia there is list of connected deaths/murder (officers, radar specialists etc.) - the list is long.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itavia-Flug_870
This list is not available on the english page.

As for MH370:
Yes, it is all but normal.
We have to believe
that MAS did not bother to call the plane per satcom nonstop (but only twice),
that MAS/RR/Boeing did not bother when at 1737 ACARS was due but did not come in,
that RMAForce did not bother when a "big fat" blip is crossing their country,
that a lot of radar installations which could/should have noticed the plane during its record stealth flight were switched off (including OTH radar on Diego Garcia and in Pine gap),
that relog-on process started within a minute after leaving radar coverage in the straits,

that the published radar paths were changing over time, that the ping times also changed over time (starting with 1811 and so on, see my post some months ago or better first days publications or leaked RMP report appendix pages 127 ff)
that it is really a coincidence that the first reported ping time 1811 does fit with last SDU actiivity at 1707 (ACARS) and that the failed message 1802 did reset the timer) and that the 1825 relog-on time would fit as hourly interrogation by GES, IF the events at 1721 had triggered an out of the row ACARS-transmission,
that nearly all public known witnesses must have seen something else or dreamed it, and so on and on.
And all that combined with a 7+ hours flight allegedly into Nirwana/SIO for no known reason.

It really seems, as You said, there is something big at stake, in the middle of that geopolitcal hotspot - i really do hope it has a huge justification considering all the suffering of the NoK. Terrible.

Cheers.
Curtis

[Peetwo]

MH370, PelAir & the ELT connection -

Via RT News...

NASA crash tests plane to improve emergency beacon that failed on MH-370 (VIDEO)

Published time: 30 Jul, 2015 21:57Edited time: 30 Jul, 2015 22:56
Get short URL


© NASA / Flickr
94
US engineers dropped a Cessna 172 airplane from a tall crane to test its emergency beacons, which are meant to activate within 50 seconds of a crash, but frequently fail.

“Too often they fail to work as expected, in part, because of inadequate performance specifications in several areas including vibration, fire survivability, automatic activation, crash safety and system installation,” Chad Stimson, NASA Langley Emergency Locator Transmitter Survivability and Reliability (ELTSAR) project manager, following the first such test in a series of three earlier this month.

The US aeronautics agency, which has a search and rescue mission in addition to its more famed space program, is conducting the experiments to develop a fundamentally new beacon design.

While the first crash test plunged a vintage 1958 4-seater plane into concrete, the second released a plane of the same design from a greater height above a muddy patch, which NASA said mirrored realistic crash conditions more closely.

© NASA / Flickr

“It’s actually worse,” said Stimson, comparing the second test to the earlier one. While planes tend to skid on concrete before coming to a stop relatively intact, they often dig into mud “so all that force is absorbed by the airframe and the occupants.”

© NASA / Flickr

“No one would have walked away from this. They might be alive, but they’d need help right away. In that sense, it’s the perfect search and rescue case.”

The easiest way to call for such help would be through the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) which traditionally consists of two parts. The first is an internal signal box, which is activated by impact or changes in water pressure. If this happens, it prompts the second part, essentially a transmitter with an antenna, to beam a signal up to a satellite, which relays it to a search and rescue station in less than a minute. The system can also be activated manually if the plane’s crew anticipates trouble.

© NASA / Flickr

The test Cessna was equipped with five ELTs fixed in various locations within the fuselage, as well as 40 cameras and 64 data recording points, to accurately map which parts of the plane would be most vulnerable during a crash landing.

“This will provide very good data collection for us,” said Lisa Mazzuca, NASA’s Search and Rescue mission manager, who was present at the test site in Langley, Virginia. “This is exactly what we wanted. The nose hit the ground first.”

Despite being compulsory in the US since 1973, ELTs still have displayed a spectacular 75 percent failure rate, even after several modifications. Among the most common causes are the antenna detaching or becoming blocked, and the box sinking in water before it can send out a ping.

Many have speculated that MH 370’s ELT failed to send out a signal when the plane disappeared from radar screens on March 8 last year, somewhere near Indonesia, because it had crashed into water. If the ELT had worked, authorities could have avoided the 18-month search that has cost over $100 million dollars so far, and which may only now be coming to an end.n Twitter

From page 31 of PelAir cover-up MKII final report:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773678/ao..._final.pdf

..During the ditching impact, the aircraft’s 406-MHz beacon emergency locator transmitter (ELT) transmitted one alert signal. Although the alert was detected by a geostationary satellite, the single alert was insufficient for the search and rescue services to determine the location of the ELT...

Hmm...wonder if NASA will be testing the failure rate in water?


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OI update & John Cox joins pilot ditched crowd -  

By that man 'Iggins, via the Weekend Oz...  

MH370 pilot ‘likely ditched jet’

12:00amEAN HIGGINS

A private underwater survey company has made an audacious bid to launch a new hunt for the MH370.

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Lost MH370 sparks global flight tracking. 

From AAP, via SBS:

Lost MH370 sparks global flight tracking

The mystery of missing flight MH370 has sparked new technical standards to make tracking flights across the world via satellite seamless, a UN agency says.
Updated 6 hours ago

The UN has defined new technical standards to guarantee the seamless tracking of aircraft and to prevent flights from disappearing off the radar, the International Telecommunication Union says.

The UN agency has been working to integrate existing flight surveillance systems since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in 2014.

The Boeing 777 flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing with 239 passengers, including six Australians, and crew on board on March 8, 2014.

With the new technical standards that are already being implemented by some countries, different systems will be connected to exchange flight data.

The increased use of satellite technology will improve tracking in areas where there are no land-based data receivers, such as oceans or remote regions.

"The adoption of these technical principles for enhanced aircraft surveillance via satellite will make great strides in saving lives," ITU Secretary General Houlin Zhao said on Tuesday in Geneva.

A search covering hundreds of thousands of square kilometres in the Indian Ocean was called off in January with no result.

The Malaysian government entered into a "no find, no fee" arrangement in October with US company Ocean Infinity in a bid to recover the missing plane.
Source: AAP

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The shame of MH370 continues -

IMO Danica Week's nails it in a PerthNow article today -  :

Danica Weeks is upset by the planned MH370 memorial.Picture:Ian Munro

MH370: Danica Weeks wants WA and Federal governments to abandon Perth memorial plan

Peter Law, PerthNow
December 31, 2017 3:01AM

THE wife of Perth man Paul Weeks, who was on-board missing flight MH370, is pleading for the WA and Federal governments to abandon a “distasteful” plan to build a memorial in Perth to the lost passengers.

Danica Weeks said she was told by email on December 22 — the day of Paul’s 42nd birthday — about the decision to install the national monument on the banks of the Swan River at Elizabeth Quay.

“It’s totally distasteful to even think about a memorial when the plane hasn’t been found. I requested that they please don’t do it, especially just before Christmas,” she said.
“Do we need more reminders that our loved ones are missing, especially at a time when it hurts us the most? Clearly they didn’t listen to that plea and they went ahead and did it. I’m totally angered by it. To me, it’s like a slap in the face really.”

Ms Weeks received the email, sent by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the day after a tender for the memorial’s design was published by the Department of Premier and Cabinet in WA.


Paul Weeks who was onboard MH370.

The mother-of-two said there was no consultation with families of the missing.
A spokesman for Premier Mark McGowan said the WA Government understood the sensitivities and “expected consultation with families of those missing to be very thorough”.

“We will be following up on these concerns with the Federal Government,” he said.
The proposal was first flagged by former prime minister Tony Abbott, six months after MH370 vanished with 227 passengers and 12 crew.

Ms Weeks said the plan sent a message to relatives of the missing that their loved ones were “collateral damage” and that authorities “want to move on from MH370”.


Danica Weeks with sons Lincoln and Jack in 2014.Picture:Justin Benson-Cooper

She said: “It’s like they are saying, ‘We are doing you a memorial, here you go. Move on.’

“I wrote to them and said ‘what am I supposed to tell my kids now? The boys are old enough to hear about and ask if they have found dad and whether this is where he is now?’

“This should only happen when the plane has been found and we know exactly where it is. This doesn’t give us any sense of peace whatsoever.”

Ms Weeks was living with the couple’s two young sons in Perth when Paul boarded the Malaysia Airlines jet. The Boeing 777 aircraft disappeared shortly after taking off from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing, on March 8, 2014.

The search for the jet, in an area 2500km from Perth in the southern Indian Ocean, was suspended last January. US group Ocean Infinity was due to begin a new search next month.

Ms Weeks, who has since moved to Queensland, said a monument to the search teams would be appropriate, given it was co-ordinated from Perth; “but not for the plane”.

“We don’t even know if it’s there (in the Indian Ocean). Yes, we’ve been told that since they started looking, but it has been four years and they haven’t found it,” she said.

“I’m starting to believe, like the Chinese, that it’s not there. Until we know exactly where it is, let’s hold off on spending money on a memorial. They are putting the horse before the cart.”

Attempts to contact the ATSB were unsuccessful.

The Turnbull/Joyce government now owns the shame of the MH370 search cover-up/cock-up - TICK..TOCK for 2018 and MH370...

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http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/radio/local_...-angry.mp3

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Update 05 Jan '18: OI no find, no fee MH370 search.

By 'that man', courtesy the Oz

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New bid to solve MH370 mystery on ‘no-find, no-fee’ basis


Ocean Infinity's Seabed Constructor is about to start searching for the MH370.

The Australian 12:00AM January 5, 2018



EAN HIGGINS

A new hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is set to start next week, with the ocean search ­company confident it can find the aircraft within three weeks by using highly advanced technology.

Ocean Infinity, which is undertaking the search on a “no-find, no-fee” basis, confirmed the research vessel it has leased for the project left the South African port of Durban on Tuesday, bound for a new search zone in the southern Indian Ocean.

“Ocean Infinity is hopeful of receiving the final contract award for the resumption of the search for MH370 over the coming days,” spokesman Mark Antelme said.

“With a relatively narrow weather window, we are moving the vessel, Seabed Constructor, towards the vicinity of the possible search zone.”

Malaysia’s transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, said: “We are making preparations and we will announce it next week after we finalise the contract.”

Late last year, the Malaysian government revealed it had reached an in-principle agreement with Ocean Infinity, which is based in Houston, Texas and London, to conduct a new search for the Boeing 777 on the basis it would be paid only if it found the aircraft.

The Malaysian deputy transport minister, Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, said in October that cabinet had agreed “to prepare a special allocation to the Ministry of Transport amounting to between $US20m and $US70m if MH370 aircraft wreckage is successfully found within 90 days”.

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

About 40 minutes into the flight, radio contact was severed, the plane’s radar transponder was turned off and the aircraft was tracked by primary radar and automatic satellite data back over Malaysia and then on to a long track south.

A two-year underwater search of a 120,000sq km zone led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau at Malaysia’s request failed to find any trace of the aircraft, and it was called off a year ago.

Based largely on new CSIRO drift modelling of parts of the aircraft found washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean, the ATSB identified a 25,000sq km new search area directly to the north of the first one.

Then transport minister Darren Chester said the new zone was where Ocean Infinity would search.



Two of the world’s leading air-crash investigators, American John Cox and Canadian Larry Vance, have said they believe the mostly intact wing parts of the plane show the ATSB’s ­theory of the pilots being incapacitated and the aircraft crashing down rapidly is probably wrong, and more likely a rogue pilot flew the plane to the end and ditched it.

ATSB spokesman Paul Sadler referred inquiries on whether the bureau stuck to its “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory to the federal government’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre, whose spokesman referred them to the Malaysian government.

Reuters shipping data shows the Seabed Constructor’s next port of call is Perth on February 7.

The ships commissioned by the ATSB in the first search used a single tethered “tow-fish” or a single Autonomous Underwater Vehicle that can be programmed to conduct surveys independently, with sonar imaging.

Ocean Infinity will employ eight AUVs simultaneously.

The company’s technical director, Josh Broussard, told The Economist the new mission would be able to survey 1200sq km a day, meaning the whole search zone could be covered in three weeks.

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