[Peetwo]

Latest from OI on MH370 search.

Via OI:

Back to Newspage
MH370

Update on search for Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370
30/04/2018

Ocean Infinity, the technology company specializing in collecting high resolution seabed data, is today providing an update on its ongoing search for the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines MH370.

Seabed Constructor will shortly arrive in the Port of Fremantle for resupply and crew rotation.  After a brief stop it will head straight back to site for a final phase before the weather limits Ocean Infinity’s ability to continue working this year.
Since operations commenced at the end of January 2018, the Ocean Infinity team has searched nearly 80,000 km², covering up to 1,300 km² per day.

Oliver Plunkett, Ocean Infinity’s CEO, said:
“As the team head in to port after another six weeks’ hard work, I am pleased to say our technology has performed exceptionally well throughout the search and that we have collected significant amounts of high quality data in which we have full confidence. The results from the highly challenging Broken Ridge feature are particularly impressive.
Whilst it’s disappointing there has been no sign of MH370 in the Australian Transport Safety Bureau search area and further north, there is still some search time remaining.  Everyone at Ocean Infinity remains absolutely determined for the remainder of the search.”

MTF...P2

[Gobbledock]

THE RETURN OF BEAKER.....MI MI MI MI

Reluctantly I watched the 60 Minutes horse Pooh on MH370 tonight. I really should’ve known better. No new revelations, no nuggets unearthed and no new conclusions or assumptions. Well, that’s in my humble opinion anyway. It was somewhat nauseating to see that fool and complete Muppet, Beaker Dolan (with a beard) mumbling, bumbling and mi mi mi-ing in his normal fashion and dribbling crap from his mouth and looking like the prized buffoon we have all come to know. Foolishness knows no bounds. Even that other colossal wanker Geoffrey Thomas could have been more believable.

Four years and counting. It’s still sad that those left behind by this tragedy still don’t have closure. May the spirit of your loved ones Rest In Peace....

In sympathy
Gobbledock

[ventus45]

The 60 Minutes MH370 program tonight, Sunday 13th May 2018, is available here.  

[Peetwo]

The 60 Minutes MH370 program tonight, Sunday 13th May 2018, is available here.  

And via the Oz:

MH370 probe ‘ignored key evidence of hijacking by pilot’

Malaysian and Australian investigators examine a piece of aircraft debris found on Pemba Island off the coast of Tanzania. Picture: AFP

The Australian
12:00AM May 14, 2018
EAN HIGGINS

Reporter
Sydney
@EanHiggins


One of the world’s leading air-crash investigators has produced compelling evidence that a pilot on Malaysia Airlines Fight MH370 hijacked his own aircraft and flew it to the end to perform a controlled ditching, contrary to the ­assumptions of the Australian investigators who led the first failed underwater search for the aircraft.

Canadian Larry Vance, a former commercial pilot who worked as a senior air-crash investigator with Canada’s Transportation Safety Board and who now runs his own consultancy, reveals the findings in a new book, MH370: Mystery Solved.

MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, its radar transponder turned off and radio communications having ceased 40 minutes into the flight as it zigzagged over Malaysia then on a long track south.

The Australian today exclusively publishes the first extracts from Vance’s book, in which he says the Australian Transport Safety Bureau ignored clear evidence from parts of the aircraft found washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean that MH370 did not come down in a high-speed, unpiloted crash as the ATSB maintains, but in a controlled landing on the ocean.

Vance bases his assertions on careful examination of high-­resolution photographs of the recovered flaperon and flap of MH370, which he claims prove conclusively they were lowered as a pilot would do for a ditching, a conclusion contrary to the ATSB’s contention they were ­retracted.

Vance, who was deputy lead investigator on the 1998 high-speed diving crash of airliner Swissair 111 off the Canadian coast that saw the aircraft explode when it hit the water through hydro­dynamic pressure into two million parts, asserts the flap and flaperon would not have been left mostly intact had MH370 come rapidly spiralling down as the ATSB maintains.

He also says damage to the trailing edges of the two parts is consistent only with a ditching.

Vance says the ATSB and its panel of international experts fastened on too early to their theory of incapacitated pilots and the aircraft flying on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and plummeted. He suggests they at least subconsciously resisted changing tack when the new wreckage evidence came to hand, sticking with their “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory even though a controlled ditching could have taken MH370 outside their defined search area.

“The turning point for the ATSB’s investigation, away from the unpiloted airplane theory and towards the deliberate act theory, should have come on 29 July, 2015, with the discovery of the flap­eron from the right wing of MH370,” Vance writes.

His work has been commended by one of the world’s most respected air-crash investigators, US former airline captain John Cox. “ATSB makes the statement that the flaps were retracted but provides little supporting evidence for that conclusion,” Captain Cox told The Australian.

“On the contrary, Larry goes into detail of the evidence supporting the view that the flaps were not in the retracted position,” he said.

“This is important because extending the flaps requires a command from the pilot and there must be hydraulic power available to move the surfaces. Larry’s analysis is more compelling than ATSB’s published position.”

In an episode about MH370 on the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes last night, former ATSB chief commissioner Martin Dolan said: “I still think the weight of the evidence … is that, for whatever reason, it’s unlikely there were control inputs at the end of the flight, and the aircraft spiralled into the water and crashed.”

But he acknowledged it was possible that premise was wrong.

The ATSB officer who led the underwater search, Peter Foley, and the bureau’s media spokesman, Paul Sadler, did not respond to emails seeking comment.

&..

MH370: Foul play by pilot, incompetence by investigators



The Australian
MH370: Foul play by pilot, incompetence by investigators. Air crash investigator Larry Vance, author of MH370: Mystery Solve


The evidence clearly shows that MH370 disappeared because of the deliberate actions of a pilot. All of the evidence I used to explain what happened to MH370 was available to the official investigation, and yet they failed to uncover it.

The fact that such a high-profile investigation failed to uncover and disclose such basic evidence is cause for grave concern. What assurance can we have that future investigations will not suffer from equal ineffectiveness? Lessons must be learned about what went wrong, and why, and steps must be taken to prevent this from happening again.

When the investigation was turned over to the safety investigators, it seems the focus on looking for criminal involvement was lost.

By the time the flaperon was found, the safety investigation had already declared that MH370 was an unpiloted plane that ran out of fuel. It appears they examined the flaperon, and the section of the flap, with that evidence (bias) in mind. It will be debated whether intentional deception could have played a part in why the evidence on the recovered wreckage pieces was not discovered and disclosed. When the ATSB released its update in November 2016, which included its opinion that the flaps were retracted (up) at impact, I was shocked. How could they have missed such obvious evidence that actually pointed to the contrary?

It certainly looked like there was more to the story. Its conclusion at that time was a convenient fit with its rationale for continuing to search in the area where its calculations told it the wreckage would be. It provided justification for all the money spent, and for the further commitment of resources. It served the purposes of those who were dismissing the possibility of pilot involvement.

I find it difficult to believe that with all the expertise available to the MH370 investigation, nobody put the evidence together and presented it to those in charge. If that evidence was actually discovered and brought forward, and then suppressed, that would be intentional deception. If nobody discovered the evidence, that was incompetence. I believe it was incompetence.

In the case of MH370, a pilot-controlled ditching is the only theory that fits with every piece of evidence. The pilot’s motivation can be looked at with the knowledge that he planned for each aspect of the flight. The pilot knew exactly what he was going to be doing at each stage of the flight, from the departure to the controlled ditching. It is clear he knew what the consequences would be: certain death for everyone on the plane.

The evidence confirms that the aeroplane is at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean. It is in a location specifically chosen by the pilot to make it unfindable. The fuselage of the aeroplane is basically intact, and all the occupants are still inside.

A valid question is, will MH370 ever be found? My answer is that it probably will be found some day, but most likely it will be a long time from now. It will rest where it is until eventually someone finds it by using a technology that has not yet been invented.

In my view, it is unrealistic to conduct any further searches. Without the certainties of the unpiloted-plane theory, there are too many variables to allow realistic calculations about where to look.

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Malaysia Airlines pilot ‘planned MH370 crash’

The disappearance of MH370 is widely viewed as one of the greatest mysteries in the history of aviation. What could cause a huge Boeing 777 passenger aeroplane with 239 people on board to simply vanish into the night?

MH370 disappeared on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Evidence shows it flew to the southern Indian Ocean and that it is now resting at the bottom of the sea.

When the investigation authorities led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau suspended the official search for MH370 on ­January 17, 2017, after nearly three years of searching, many people were disappointed by the lack of definitive answers as to what caused the plane to disappear. The hope for answers was renewed when a privately funded search for wreckage was restarted in January this year. Once more, the renewed search has so far failed to find the wreckage.

The searches for the wreckage of MH370 were based on a belief by the ATSB and its panel of international experts that for more than six hours the aeroplane was tracking to the southern ­Indian Ocean as an unpiloted aeroplane. Their belief has been that during that time, MH370 was flying on autopilot, without pilot input, and that it eventually ran out of fuel. They believe that at the end of its flight, MH370 entered an out-of-control high-speed descent, ­followed by a high-speed crash into the ocean.

The evidence that I will present proves that the unpiloted-­aeroplane theory is not correct. The aeroplane did not dive at high speed into the ocean. Basic investigation techniques substantiate a very different scenario: the disappearance of MH370 was a man-made event. The evidence shows that the aeroplane was under the complete ­control of a pilot throughout the flight, and at the end of its flight, MH370 was intentionally ditched (landed in a controlled way) on the ocean surface.

The disappearance of MH370 was a deliberate, pre-planned act, conducted by a pilot who followed the exact sequence of events that he intended to follow. The pilot’s intention was to fly the aeroplane to a predetermined remote ­location in the southern Indian Ocean and to ditch the aeroplane in such a way that it would remain intact, and to cause the aeroplane to sink to the depths of the ocean without leaving a trace.

The turning point for the ATSB’s investigation, away from the unpiloted-aeroplane theory and towards the deliberate-act theory, should have come on July 29, 2015, with the discovery of the ­flaperon from the right wing of MH370. The physical evidence available from examining the ­flaperon should have proved to the ATSB that the aircraft’s flaps were ­extended (down) when it entered the water, and that the aeroplane was at a speed consistent with a pilot-controlled ditching.

After the recovery of the flap­eron, there should have remained little doubt that a pilot was controlling MH370 at the end of its flight.

The MH370 investigation went down the wrong path because of an over-reliance on hi-tech ­investigation efforts. The investigators failed to properly assess the available evidence that should have informed them they were not dealing with an unpiloted aeroplane. The most glaring failure was in the primary task of conducting proper wreckage analysis.

If MH370 had experienced a high-speed diving crash, it would have produced tens of thousands of pieces of floating debris. Only about 20 pieces of wreckage ­confirmed to be from MH370 have been recovered to date. Each ­recovered piece had drifted to the east coast of Africa, far away from where the aeroplane had ­entered the ocean. Most of these pieces had ­remained buoyant ­because of the honeycomb mat­erials used in their construction. A high-speed diving crash would have created at least hundreds of additional wreckage pieces with honeycomb-type construction. Had they actually been created, many more than 20 pieces would have already been discovered.

A high-speed diving crash would have created many pieces of other types of floating debris, ­including seat cushions, luggage pieces, clothing, life jackets, personal effects, neck pillows, etc. The wreckage field from a high-speed diving crash would contain countless items that would remain buoyant for a long time. Had they actually been created, we would have seen this type of debris arriving on the coast of Africa in significant amounts. The reason that more floating debris has not ­appeared is that it was never ­created in the first place. There was no high-speed diving crash.

All the evidence points to a relatively low-speed, pilot-­controlled ditching on the ocean surface. There is no evidence of a high-speed diving crash. In fact, there is overwhelming evidence to contradict that scenario.

In a relatively low-speed controlled ditching, the aeroplane will take a number of seconds to come to a stop. There will be damage, but the aeroplane structure can survive relatively intact. In a high-speed diving crash, the energy levels are extreme, and the aeroplane is completely destroyed in a fraction of a second.

Swissair 111 was a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 airliner that crashed at high speed into the ­Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Canada in 1998 due to an on-board fire progressively incapacitating the aeroplane’s systems. I was deputy investigator-in-charge of that ­investigation. When Swissair 111 hit the ocean at high speed off Nova Scotia, it exploded due to the hydrodynamic pressure of impacting with the water and came apart into some two million pieces, none anywhere near big enough or ­intact enough to be even identifiable as a flaperon or a flap. In the case of MH370, essentially, the ­entire right-wing flaperon was ­recovered on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion.

The flaperons are on the trailing edge of the wings and can be moved up and down. They are part of the flight-control system, helping the ailerons and spoilers to control the rolling movements of the aeroplane. On takeoff and landing, the ­flaperons also function as part of the flap system. They deflect down when the pilot selects the flaps to “down”. In normal circumstances, the flaps are partially extended (down) for takeoff, and fully ­extended (down) for landing. They are fully retracted (up) during cruise flight.

The official ATSB investigation contends that when MH370 struck the water in a high-speed diving crash, this flaperon was in its fully up position — that is, it was tucked neatly into the trailing edge of the wing, with no downward ­deflection, which is the position a flaperon would be in for cruise flight.

Photographs of the flaperon show it presents itself as being not deformed, or flattened, or squashed, or even dented. There is damage where it was ripped from its attachments, as would be expected.

A high-speed diving crash causes massive destruction and fragmentation of the aircraft’s structure, as with Swissair 111. The fuselage shatters and explodes outward, from the front all the way to the tail, creating countless numbers of pieces. The same destructive sequence takes place with the wings, and flaps, and flaperons, which are all hollow cavities.

The explosive rupture forces from the water would invade through the open leading edge, and rupture these pieces from the inside out.

Does it make any sense to you that the recovered flaperon could survive basically unscathed from an impact like that?

There is only one obvious ­answer — no.

You do not have to be an ­experienced investigator to make that judgment.

To me, it is inconceivable that any investigator, or anyone who claims to have investigation ­expertise, would not automatically think their way through this and do the calculations. They should realise that the high-speed diving-crash theory supported by the ­official investigation simply does not make sense, based on this evidence alone.

I am aware that other theories have been put forth to explain why the flaperon from MH370 did not sustain impact damage. Some people contend that the flaperon had already fallen off the aeroplane ­before the aeroplane hit the water. That did not happen.

In the case of “flutter” of control surfaces during a high-speed diving crash, there will be signs of ­repetitive pounding on the attachments that hold the piece to the aeroplane. Each individual ­vibration will potentially leave a pounding mark at the attachment, and there can be a countless number of ­vibrations. In MH370, there is no such damage.

Now that we have made observations about the general condition of the recovered right wing flaperon, let us turn to examining its trailing edge.

The flaperon is made primarily of composite material. We see at the trailing edge that it has been shredded away progressively, from the back towards the front. The original trailing edge is completely gone. It looks like it has been eaten away, or eroded.

Most certainly, this erosion damage does not fit in any way with the ATSB’s theory of a high-speed diving crash. It is not too difficult to envision how the trailing edge erosion on the recovered MH370 flaperon actually happened. Visualise the aeroplane in a controlled-ditching configuration, flying just above the water surface, with the landing gear retracted (up) and the flaps extended (down). The aeroplane would be in a slightly nose up attitude, flying at about 140 knots (259km/h), and slowing down. It would be slowly descending and about to touch the water surface. The engines, which are mounted under the wings, would be the first to contact the water by touching the tops of the swells and waves. The force of the water contact would rip the ­engines off very quickly. The ­extended flaps/flaperons would be next to touch the water. The trailing edges of the flaps/flaperons would start to touch the tops of the swells and waves, and then the ­entire flap system would be dragged through the water. This is the scenario that led to the erosion on the trailing edge of the flaperon, and there is very similar trailing edge damage on the flap also ­recovered from Africa.

The simplicity of the disappearance of MH370 comes down to this: either it was a criminal act or it was not. Either MH370 was caused by some technical event, which would make it an ­except­ionally complicated accident with a complicated chain of events, or MH370 was a man-made event — a devious but simple criminal act, with no complicated chain of events to ­unravel.

The evidence confirms it was a criminal act, committed by one ­individual who, as a pilot in the aeroplane, had a simple means to carry it out. That is what happened, and that is a fact.

This is an edited extract from MH370: Mystery Solved. Larry Vance started his career as a commercial transport pilot before joining the Canadian Transportation Safety Board as an air crash investigator. He left the TSB as deputy chief investigator, and now runs an accident investigation consultancy.

https://hvsaviation.com/

MTF...P2  

[Peetwo]

Update: HVH and the ATSB co-conspirators? 



Personally from the suntanned, bearded Beaker's performance I am not surprised but finally it appears the world is catching on to the suspiciously dodgy involvement and possible culpability of the ATSB in the original MH370 SIO search...  

From 'that man' via the Oz:

MH370 cover-up claim
EAN HIGGINS
The ATSB would be complicit in covering up mass murder on MH370 if its ‘ghost flight’ theory was knowingly wrong.

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MH370 cover-up complicity claim

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau would be complicit in covering up mass murder on ­Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 if it knowingly ignored evidence that its “ghost flight” theory about the aircraft was wrong, a senior aviation figure has claimed.

Mike Keane, the former chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline, easyJet, said it was time the ATSB abandoned its claim that the ­pilots on MH370 were incapacitated at the end of the flight, and that the Boeing 777 flew on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed in a steep spiral.

The ATSB used this scenario to design a 120,000sq km search zone for its $200 million underwater hunt for wreckage in the southern Indian Ocean, which ended in January last year without finding any trace of the aircraft.

New Zealand-born Captain Keane, who was previously a fighter pilot and intelligence officer in the Royal Air Force, said the ATSB should now accept and publicly state that MH370 ­captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah ­hijacked his own aircraft, and flew it to the end, ditching it outside the ATSB-­defined search area to make it disappear in as few pieces as possible.

Captain Keane’s remarks ­follow the unveiling of a new book by leading Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance, MH370: Mystery Solved, which provides compelling evidence of a controlled ditching, based on ­forensic examination of pieces of the aircraft found washed up on the African coast and on islands off it.

MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, with automatic satellite tracking showing it came down in the southern Indian Ocean.


Captain Keane published a forensic reconstruction of the MH370 flight in The Australian, which concludes Zaharie killed the passengers and crew by ­depressurising the aircraft while he was on the pilot’s long oxygen supply, and ditched the aircraft at the end.

He told The Australian yesterday: “You may recall my observation of ‘complicity to a crime’ if the ATSB cling to their version of events when they have knowledge to the contrary.

“Put bluntly, the MH370 ‘crash’ is undoubtedly a crime of the unlawful killing of 238 innocent people. The Australian government has also been remiss, they should have put pressure on the ATSB to listen, and act, on professional advice from the ­aviation community.”

In his book, extracts of which were yesterday published exclusively in The Australian, Vance writes that the ATSB should have abandoned its incapacitated ­pilots theory in July 2015 as soon as MH370’s right-wing flaperon was discovered mostly intact on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion.

Vance says other air crashes show the flaperon could not have survived in one piece in the high-speed impact the ATSB claims happened.

“If that evidence was actually discovered and brought forward, and then suppressed, that would be intentional deception,” Vance wrote. “I believe it was incompetence.”

A new search by Houston-based underwater survey group Ocean Infinity, which will be paid up to $US70m ($92.6m) by the ­Malaysian government only if it finds MH370, has covered 2½ of four sequential ­target zones.

Ocean Infinity’s leased vessel, Seabed Constructor, is now searching areas identified by an independent group of international scientists and engineers as the most likely.

But senior airline captains, ­including Australian Byron Bailey and Briton Simon Hardy, ­believe Zaharie flew the aircraft, either under power or gliding it after fuel exhaustion, farther southwest than the original search along what is known as the seventh arc of satellite tracking.

The leader of the ATSB’s failed underwater search for MH370, Peter Foley, and ATSB spokesman Paul Sadler did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Some handy AP references off Google search...

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Simply Marvellous Horse-pooh - Beaker the media magnet.

AuntyPru.com

&..from the blog:

Simply Marvellous Horse-pooh (SMH) 

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And a short historical note from P9...

More SMH, with dribble.

"[to] ensure that the entire 120,000 square kilometre area" – well it ain't that big, is it? not any longer, why not say how much of the original has been covered, they own 75% has been 'done'; so why spin it to seem a bigger task than it is?   Mi mi thinks I smell pony-pooh.

"[is] searched as effectively as possible."   Why not just plain old ordinary – effectively.  The "as possible" implies that the search may not be as effective as it should be.  So why bother at all – if you can't do it properly, QED.  Mi mi thinks I smell weasel -pooh 

"Safety of the search crews also remains a priority".  One of the pitiful, puerile excuses offered for the failure to recover the Pel-Air 'black boxes' from 49 meters of sheltered water, five clicks from the nearest pub was "safety" of the crews.  Mi mi thinks I can smell the glue factory down the road as the back door slides open.

The BRB predicted ATSB exit strategy, written some months ago is spot on; so far.  Started from when the Muppet poked it's ugly head up above the fox hole for a look-see to the imminent press conference.  (Chuckle), we may not be able to tell you where the aircraft was lost and where it ended up, but we can, with some accuracy, predict the behaviour of the ATSB boss, down to words expected to be used. 

I still cannot work out why the Malaysian government is not making ALL the announcements – or decisions for that matter; and, Beaker is no SAR guru, that's for certain sure.  I would have thought a statement to the effect that "with the agreement of China and Malaysia"; or, "in consultation with other expert SAR authorities"; or, "after consultation with Furgo" : even after a chat with his Mum, would make a graceful exit simpler, cleaner and much more believable.   But then again,  we are dealing with the ATSB, not AMSA; more the pity.  

Anyway – Toot toot.

Not that I like to gloat but we did tell you so...

Although we now appear to have a completely neutered RRAT committee, this is what that committee said in regards to the former ATSB Chief Commissioner's performance and veracity as a witness in regards to the PelAir cover-up Senate Inquiry: View the report as a single document - (PDF 1257KB)

Committee view

3.64 The committee finds the ATSB's refusal to retrieve the FDR incongruous and questionable. Furthermore, the committee takes a dim view of the ATSB's reliance on
a version of ICAO Annex 13 that only came into force in late 2010, nearly a year after the accident, to justify this decision. Mr Dolan's evidence in this regard is questionable and has seriously eroded his standing as a witness before the committee. Flight data recorders are routinely recovered around the world despite the existence of surviving crew. They provide objective records of how events transpired, and allow speech specialists and psychologists to determine stress levels and what was going on in the cockpit at the time.43 This could offer valuable lessons for the whole aviation industry, not just about why an accident occurred, but, in this case, how such a successful ditching was executed under extremely difficult circumstances.

3.65 The committee is of the view that the ATSB is taking a very loose
interpretation of its obligations under ICAO Annex 13. Furthermore, the committee
has evidence indicating that by early 2010 two lines had been attached to VH-NGA
which were strong enough to raise the wreckage. This evidence calls into question
whether the ATSB's argument concerning cost or associated occupational health and
safety concerns was valid, and reflects the fact that the ATSB was not overly
concerned to robustly examine options and costs.44

3.66 Having received in camera evidence on the likelihood of VH-NGA's flight
data recorder yielding useful information about the accident despite more than three
years passing since the event, the committee supports calls for the recorder to be
retrieved.

3.67 The fact is, the primary consumer of ATSB investigation reports is the
aviation industry. There is much to be learned about what led to this accident, and
how injuries were minimised upon impact.

Recommendation 1
3.68 The committee recommends that the ATSB retrieve VH-NGA flight data
recorders without further delay.

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&..from 02:20 here:

MTF? - Definitely...P2 
  

[Peetwo]

Update 16/05/18: OI not giving up yet?

Via the Oz:

Door still open for MH370 searchers
EAN HIGGINS

The company searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is ‘not closing the door’ on a new hunt.

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MH370 searchers ‘not closing door’ on mystery

The company searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is “not closing the door” on a new hunt, possibly in the area identified by senior airline pilots as likely to contain the aircraft but ignored by Australian officials.

Ocean Infinity, the British-owned undersea survey company based in Houston, is reaching the end of its “no find, no fee” search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean.

In a deal with the Malaysian government, Ocean Infinity has 90 days of actual searching to find the Boeing 777, and will receive a fee of up to $US70 million ($93m) only if the wreckage is found.

Ocean Infinity spokesman Mark Antelme said: “We’re coming to the end of the search in the next week or two.”

Mr Antelme said the search vessel leased by Ocean Infinity, the Seabed Constructor, had almost completed the 90 days. Its crew expected to have searched all target areas and needed to move on as difficult winter sea conditions closed in, he said.

“We’re not closing the door on future MH370 searches, but will not go straight into anything,” Mr Antelme said.

“When we have done the 90 days we return to other projects.”

MH370 vanished on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 passengers and crew on board. About 40 minutes into the flight, radio contact ceased, the aircraft’s radar transponder was turned off, and military radar and automatic satellite tracking data later revealed the plane had turned back over Malaysia before a long track to the southern Indian Ocean.

At the request of Malaysia. the Australian Transport Safety Bureau led a failed underwater search of 120,000 sq km, the target zone determined by its theory that the pilots were incapacitated at the end of the flight and the aircraft flew on auto­pilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed in a steep spiral.

Senior airline pilots, including Australian Byron Bailey and Briton Simon Hardy, maintain this theory is wrong and that evidence shows MH370’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, hijacked his own aircraft, killed everyone else on board by depressurising it while he remained on the pilot’s long oxygen supply, and flew it to the end before ditching it.

Because a pilot could have flown the aircraft farther than if on autopilot, including by gliding it after the fuel ran out, Captains Bailey and Hardy and some other airline pilots believe MH370 lies not far beyond the southern boundary of where the ATSB searched originally.

“Four of us came up independently with a ditching location 60 to 100 nautical miles south of latitude 38 degrees south, and if searched in that location MH370 has a high probability of being found,” Captain Bailey told The Australian. “It’s ridiculous that Ocean Infinity are now searching over 1000km north of 38 South at the behest of the ATSB,” he said, referring to the fact the new search plan was based on where the ATSB predicted would be the next best place to look.

Mr Antelme said Ocean Infinity was agnostic about whether the ATSB’s “ghost flight- death dive” theory or the rival controlled ditching scenario was the right one, saying it had based its search plan primarily on drift modelling done by the CSIRO and, separately, by the University of Western Australia.

The two studies both indicated a position farther north than the first search target zone.

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

Has the penny finally dropped on Aussie top-cover bureau?

Unlike former Senator Heffernan over two and a half years ago it would appear that finally the penny has dropped and at long last questions may be asked on how the ATSB were:

a) put in charge of the original MH370 SIO search (over the highly credentialed and marine experienced AMSA); and 
b) how the ATSB could so completely botch both the tender process and by implication the search itself.  

(P2 comment: I question the tender process based on a layman's overview/comparison between the current OI progress and territory covered in such a short amount of time, to that of the Fugro 2+ year search effort and wonder what OI could have achieved in the same timeframe??)  

Bureau faces MH370 grilling

EAN HIGGINS
Pressure is growing for a full investigation, maybe a royal commission, into the ATSB’s handling of the two-year hunt.

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Australian Transport Safety Bureau faces grilling over failed $200m search for MH370

Australian Transport Safety Bureau bosses face an intense Senate interrogation next week over claims they allegedly ignored clear evidence their theory of how Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went down was wrong, leading their $200 million underwater search for the aircraft to fail.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick told The Australian he would be asking questions of the ATSB about MH370 at a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday.

The move comes as pressure grows for a full investigation — some airline pilots want a royal commission — into the ATSB’s handling of the two-year hunt.

“In any circumstance where $200m of taxpayer money has been spent and credible sources raise questions as to the approach or efficacy, some form of inquiry is worthy,” Senator Patrick said.

The heightened scrutiny on the ATSB follows a new forensic analysis of MH370 wreckage by leading Canadian air-crash ­investigator Larry Vance published in The Australian this week.

A new book by Mr Vance, MH370: Mystery Solved, says the structure of the damage to the right flap and flaperon of MH370 found on islands off Africa clearly shows a pilot performed a controlled ditching of the aircraft, and rules out the ATSB’s theory of a high-impact pilotless steep dive.

Which scenario is correct is crucial to where MH370 lies, with Vance and several veteran airline pilots saying it was flown outside the 120,000sq km original search zone designed by the ATSB, which assumed the pilots were incapacitated at the end of the flight.

Airline pilots have called for a new search a bit south of the southern border of the ATSB target zone, claiming captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah could have flown the Boeing 777 further than would have occurred on ­autopilot.

Mr Vance writes that the ATSB’s failure to properly re-evaluate its search strategy after the flaperon was found in July 2015, realise the new evidence meant its “ghost flight-death dive” theory no longer worked, and redesign or call off the hunt, is unconscionable. “If that evidence was actually discovered and brought forward, and then suppressed, that would be intentional deception,” he writes. “If nobody discovered the evidence, that was incompetence. I believe it was incompetence.”

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, with primary radar and automatic satellite tracking showing it ended up in the southern Indian Ocean.

The former chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline, easyJet, Mike Keane, this week said that if the ATSB had knowingly ignored evidence which showed its search strategy was wrong, it would be complicit in covering up the mass murder of 238 people.

Queensland legal expert Greg Williams has said if supporting material becomes available he will help develop a case for prosecution under section 142.2 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act, under which federal public servants who engage in “dishonesty … according to the standards of ordinary people” can be jailed for five years.

The leader of the ATSB’s failed search for MH370, Peter Foley, and ATSB media spokesman Paul Sadler, did not respond to emails from The Australian.

---

Comment from Sandy...

 Albo shoved the ATSB out of his Department in mid 2009 to be yet another independent Commonwealth corporation. This model of governance doesn’t work because it’s incentives have changed, The political imperatives and Ministerial oversight is much reduced and it’s standard of investigation since ‘independence’ has been woeful So much so that the Senate forced ATSB to make another report on the PelAir, Rex subsidiary, Norfolk Island ditching. Even that they didn’t get right in the view of many. Independent Commonwealth corporates? Waste, mismanagement and stratospheric costs as they now pay ‘corporate’ rates. Make work salary factories the lot of them. MH 370 families should know the truth. Alex in the Rises.

And a slightly expanded take on that, courtesy the Daily Mail:

Bombshell MH370 hearing: Transport Bureau to face inquiry over claims their incompetence led to wasting time and $200 million searching the wrong area for missing plane

• Former easyJet pilot Mike Keane slammed Australian Transport Safety Bureau
  
  
• He said ignoring evidence 'ghost flight' theory is wrong is covering up murder
  
  
• Captain Keane believes MH370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah ­hijacked the plane
  
  
• ATSB bosses will soon be grilled by senators to see if they ignored evidence
  

By Charlie Moore and Sam Duncan For Daily Mail Australia
PUBLISHED: 01:58 AEST, 17 May 2018 | UPDATED: 11:04 AEST, 17 May 2018

Australian experts who led the search for MH370 will be grilled by senators next week over allegations they ignored key evidence about how the jet went down.
Canadian air-crash ­investigator Larry Vance wrote in his new book on the mystery that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau failed to expand its 12,000sq km search area when it was proved to be inadequate.

He claimed the structure of damage to debris from the plane's right flap found off Africa in July 2015 proved the pilot deliberately crashed the plane - and was therefore conscious at the controls until the end.

This meant the search area should have been expanded because the pilot could have flown further than if he was incapacitated and the plane was on autopilot. 


Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in 2014 with 239 people on board


+9
Mike Keane, a former easyJet chief pilot and Royal Air Force intelligence officer, said the ATSB (pictured examining MH370 debris) should change its 'ghost flight' theory of what happened to the missing jet


+9
Senators including Rex Patrick (pictured) have welcomed the chance to grill the ATSB over the failed search which has cost taxpayers $200million

But the ATSB stuck to its theory of a high-impact pilot-less dive and failed to find the wreckage.

Mr Vance wrote that he believes the mistake was due to incompetence not 'intentional deception.'

Senators have welcomed the chance to grill the ATSB over the failed search which has cost taxpayers $200million. 

'In any circumstance where $200m of taxpayer money has been spent and credible sources raise questions as to the approach or efficacy, some form of inquiry is worthy,' Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick told The Australian....


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5736443/Transport-Bureau-face-senate-botched-MH370-search.html#ixzz5FkIgGMxe 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The final question that needs to be asked, again in the words of the Heff , was this a 'cover-up or a balls-up'??

  

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

That man 'Iggins on a roll - 

Via the Oz this evening:

MH370 search based on unreliable satellite data, says air crash expert John Cox

• The Australian
  
  
• 9:57PM May 17, 2018
  

EAN HIGGINS


Reporter
Sydney
@EanHiggins

One of the world’s most respected air crash investigators has cast further doubt on the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s theory of how Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 came down, saying satellite data on which the ATSB relies for its unpiloted “death dive” ­assumption is not reliable.

John Cox, a veteran US airline pilot and investigator with the US National Transportation Safety Board, has also said suggestions that recovered parts of the aircraft including a flap and flaperon survived mostly intact because they flew off in flight are unsupported.

Captain Cox’s assessments come ahead of a Senate estimates hearing next week where ATSB bosses will be grilled over alle­gations they stuck with their MH370 theory even when solid evidence to the contrary became available relatively early on.

Veteran air crash investigator Larry Vance this week said recovered parts of the aircraft showed it ended in a controlled ditching.

MH370 vanished on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, and military radar and automatic satellite track­ing data showed it ended in the southern Indian Ocean. 

At the request of the Malaysian government, the ATSB led a two-year search of 120,000sq km of ocean seabed, which cost $200 million but found no trace of the Boeing 777. The ATSB based its strategy on the theory that MH370 was a “ghost flight” flying on autopilot during the final stretch with incapacitated pilots, and that it crashed down at a rapid rate after fuel exhaustion. It relies for this conclusion on a part of the satellite data known as the burst frequency offset, which it claims can measure MH370’s vertical movement. It consists of two “power-up” electronic transmissions at the start and finish of the flight, and five full two-way “handshakes” in between.

Captain Cox said the ATSB analysis of the sixth and seventh “pings” showed a vertical difference that was “very high (almost too high) indicating an extremely steep descent”. But the seventh and last ping between the aircraft and the satellite was a power-up exchange and the vertical information was not as accurate. 

In his new book MH370: Mystery Solved, Vance writes that experience of other airliner crashes into water shows that if MH370 had come down in a steep, high speed dive as the ATSB assumes, it would have been pulverised into millions of parts, and the flaperon and flap recovered on islands off Africa could not have survived mostly intact.

The leader of the ATSB’s failed search for MH370, Peter Foley, and ATSB media spokesman Paul Sadler did not respond to emails from The Australian.

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

MH370: The trouble with hypothesizing -   

Not that I really want to buy into the latest round of (ho..hum -  ) "he said - she said" MH370 hypotheses based on no new facts/evidence (other than a far greater portion of the infamous 7th Arc has now excluded several more best guesses -   ), however due to the '48 minutes of bullshit and 12 minutes of ads' latest bollocks MH370 exposé  I do believe we need some balance to the highly vocal 'pilot did it' crowd...

First from Mark D. Young an excellent blog-piece which IMO (other than nearly paying kudos to Beaker and the ATSB -  see: Senate to slap ATSB with a wet lettuce on MH370) totally nails the bizarre disconnection from reality that the 60 minutes program presented with no new evidence on the tragic disappearance and search for MH370:

5 March 2018
 

60 Minutes: How to create your own facts before the real ones are at hand

This past week-end saw the Australian public shown a television programme from the well known 60 minutes team.

The programme has been getting a lot of attention, as most episodes do.

Similar to the Carte Blanche segment on South African pay-tv station M-Net, 60 minutes has had some stellar moments of true investigative journalism during its run.

However, like Carte Blanche, the manner in which many programmes are put together is formulaic.

A script is devised and then a pre-determined set of outcomes is established prior to interviews being conducted. The selection of participants and the editing of footage is carefully undertaken to steer the selected narrative in the direction chosen by the production executives.

I have seen enough of both programmes to spot where and how they are edited, how shot selection is strategic and selective staging is used to ensure the script worked out by the production team achieves its goal.

A valid retort to anyone taking issue with the broadcasts of either programme is that "Well, we've merely presented some facts and opinions. We have got people talking. If anything changes, we will do a follow up."

From a purely legal point of view, they are - of course - correct. As they would need to be. One cannot keep your programme running if it upsets too many courts. However, the odd bit of legal controversy - actual or threatened - never hurts the ratings. That's show business.

This past Sunday's programme - from "The Situation Room" -  supposedly investigating and revealing new information on the fate of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, is a great case study, in my view, of how to go about doing what the team at 60 minutes does so well.
 
Get folk who apparently have complete expertise in the field being discussed into an impressively titled studio set to give their opinions. If you choose the music and selectively edit well enough, you can create a wrapper of atmosphere and supposed investigation effective enough to permit a public lynching to take place in such a subtle way that a non-thinking viewer, devoid of all the salient facts involved (in what is a very complex matter), can comfortably accept that the 60 minutes team had got to the heart of the matter and presented an irrefutable hypothesis.
 
Viewers can then go away into the world apparently 'fully informed' when they are nowhere near such a state.

Articles about the programme are trumpeting the fact that"aviation experts" have changed their views on what happened to MH370 and the "mystery" about what happened has now been resolved.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Great expense was involved in giving one guest the lion's share of the programme running time to ostensibly present two options (in a Boeing 777 simulator) of the end of flight situation. Both, however, were based on the same core premise for why the airliner was where it was at that stage of its flight. This was not investigation - it was a bludgeoning of a reputation using a personal opinion presented as fact.

Two other guests involved in the show put forward a similar view. Combined, they were given the majority of the airtime.
 
Counterbalancing these three was only one person who was actually at the sharp end of the official investigation. The edits made have effectively sidelined his attempts at presenting his views or asking for the factual basis of some of the claims made. His approach was, in fact, the only one grounded in the science of flight safety and not wild, headline grabbing  speculation.
 
The second person not pushing the pre-determined premise was an oceanographer who has, in the flow of things, made an entirely incorrect prediction of where the airliner lays. He was edited down to - roughly - a total of 90 seconds of speaking time during the entire exercise.
 
Balanced?
 
Hardly.
 
What of the lynching?
 
Well, that was of the Captain of flight MH370. He was, of course, not present to defend himself. Nor were any of his colleagues questioned on their views of the pre-determined theory.
 
No input was presented from the Malaysian authorities who had actually performed background checks on the pilot and his life-story.
 
Instead, the script used the few - extremely rare - incidents of malpractice by flight deck crews (and one of those is still highly disputed due to the possibility of misunderstanding of the culture of the pilot by foreign investigators) to try and corral the MH370 loss into the same pen.

A countervailing view can just as easily be that the very fact that they had to scrape the barrel to find - in the event - only one irrefutably proven case of pilot suicide/mass murder in the jet-liner era demonstrates just how rare that prospect is.

It hardly forms - from an aviation safety perspective - the basis of an explanation for this loss. It does not provide, in the remotest manner, a means of conclusively ruling out a sequence of events that provide an alternative explanation to the loss of the aircraft.

And looking at "coincidences" and "what the numbers tell us" is equally flawed as an investigative technique upon which to base conclusions that could affect all future journeys.

Assuming that the statistical safety of a design precludes a cause other than wilful action (or inaction) by the captain as postulated by "experts" prior to the full investigation's findings, has already proven to be a flawed foundation for the explanation of another Boeing 777 crash.
 
I, therefore, do not believe that the "statistical safety" of the Boeing 777 airliner can form the foundation upon which to dismiss any possibility of a rare, as yet unknown, combination of mechanical and other factors, which could explain the loss and prevent a recurrence of it with another aircraft.
 
BA flight 038 is the case in point. A Boeing 777 airliner - statistically the safest aircraft ever built and without an accident prior to the event - generated a set of circumstances which had, and have never, taken place before or since in the history of jet airline transportation. This set of one in 100 million (or more?) factors caused, however, the airliner to drop out of the sky on short final approach.
 
In that case the wreckage was readily at hand.
 
No-one was killed.
 
Yet, when the investigators could find no fault in the mechanical systems, "experts" - many within the technical division of the airline rightfully proud of their maintenance - postulated the only explanation for the crash, given the "statistics of the aircraft type" and the lack of other evidence of mechanical causes, was that the captain had "frozen at the controls".
 
In that case, even without fatalities having taken place, the investigators eschewed the "experts" views and set about a two year long search for the cause.

In the end, it was found that a particular set of circumstances, unique to that flight, airframe and route used on the day, had caused some freezing, not of the captain's responses, but of the fuel supply.

Had it not been for the instincts of the captain to survive and to save his passengers, there would have been fatalities. The Captain there proved that airline commanders are humans. They want, in my experience, to survive and do their best to ensure the safety of the passengers in their care.

I cannot but wonder how the same panel of experts on last week's 60 minutes programme would have set about blaming that captain were they to have been asked to do the same type of programme in regard to flight BA038 prior to the official findings of the painstaking investigation having been released?

And so I place on record my disappointment with the programme and its premise. I am also less than impressed with the manner in which the only true expert on this particular tragedy, Mr Dolan of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, was so obviously hung out to dry and sidelined when he asked valid questions of those postulating their theory.

In effect the panel was 4-2 against with the presenter asking only those questions that steered the discussion further along the pre-determined lines.

Mr. Dolan tried to take the sober view I would expect of a professional investigator. The only facts on hand are that the airliner was, at various intervals, at "some point" along arcs of distance from a satellite. Some wreckage has washed up indicating the airliner is most likely - based on drift analysis of oceanic data gathering bouys - somewhere in the southern Indian ocean. Other than that, there is no undisputed data on the flight as even the radar plots used as a given, undisputed piece of evidence in the "situation room" are of a questionable veracity and are only, officially, "presumed to be" of the missing airliner.
 
Notwithstanding all the noise around the matter, and his current lack of official involvement, Mr Dolan would still like the wreckage found and he is not prepared, like every official investigator I have encountered in my 30 year involvement in reporting on flight safety, to make any findings in regard to the causes of the loss until it is located and examined.

And I concur with his approach - for it is only once it is found and the available data on the recorders is analysed, or the wreckage examined, that any proper investigation can be undertaken and probable causes established.

He also made the point that there has already been learning from the loss - steps have been taken to ensure airliners will soon be tracked every inch of their journey and that a sole crew member cannot take control of an airliner.

While those steps - of themselves - do not support the predetermined, hurtful and highly speculative premise of the programme that "the pilot did it", it actually highlights how the industry learns from everything and takes steps to mitigate against similar losses in future.

As things stand, and this was mysteriously left out of the programme, the various search areas that were originally determined by various experts, as well as the revised areas and the one determined by the oceanographer who appeared on the programme, have been exhausted without a trace of the aircraft.

So, at present, only the places where drift analysis indicates the airliner crashed remain unsearched. Through a long, costly process of elimination, it is now - more than ever - known that the aircraft is not lying on the ocean floor below 28 degrees south on the last communication arc.

What is needed is that the search for the aircraft must be continued in the remaining, most logical areas - based on the physical evidence in the matter - until it is found. There cannot be a number placed on the safety of passengers on other flights.

As pertinent, in my view however, is that - as was said by a relative of one of the passengers in the 60 minutes programme- there cannot be a number put on the peace of mind of the relatives either.
 
"They must look until they find it." she said.

And that, I feel, must be the focus of all efforts in regard to MH370.
 
I, for one, am not comfortable to fly long haul flights knowing that there is an, as yet, unexplained set of circumstances that led to the loss of an airliner full of people.
 
And "the pilot did it deliberately" is not a comforting or reasoned answer.

It is a lazy, ill-advised and insulting cop-out without - as yet - any concrete evidence to support it.
 
Until the recorders are found, any programmes or news articles claiming to have "the real" answers will be nothing more than speculation.
 
Speculation did not get air transport safety to where it is today.
 
We should not let it start to play a role in the future of aviation safety now.
 
And, rather than spending money on speculative sessions in costly flight simulators, perhaps TV stations should rather band together and fund the final search needed to provide material for a real ratings hit and help to bring closure to the relatives?

Next, with a slightly less objective overview but on a similar vein, the following from C.Negroni:

“Bombshell” TV Program on Malaysia 370 Fueled by Alternative Facts
May 17, 2018 



In an earlier post, I accused the Australian 60 Minutes program of gender bias by excluding from its  Sunday show on the disappearance of Malaysia 370, the two women who wrote books on the subject, Florence de Changy author of Flight MH370 Did Not Disappear and me. In a lengthy broadcast claiming to feature the world’s “keenest minds”, 60 Minutes featured five men in a rousing exchange of maybes and coulda beens or what is otherwise known in the aviation community as hangar talk.

Best to let the men fly this plane because what’s fueling Channel 9’s MH370 coverage is not gender bias but agenda bias with a sizable load of alternative facts.

For years, the Nine Network has been trying to convince its viewers that Malaysia 370 was hijacked by the captain and flown into oblivion in a case of murder/suicide. Toward that end it has engaged in its own rampant speculation and poured oxygen on the far out pronouncements of a retired Canadian air safety investigator, Larry Vance.

I’d never heard of Vance until 2016 when Channel Nine, calling him, “one of the world’s leading air crash investigators” first presented his malicious intent theory, based, incredulously, on something he saw on TV; a wing flap that washed up on the shore of Reunion Island.

When he saw it he said, and I am not making this up, that “he knew right away what happened.” The flap was extended when it hit the water and from that he could conclude that the pilot was trying to make a controlled descent into the ocean. “There’s no other explanation,” he told the program.

Setting aside Vance’s propensity to make sweeping conclusions based on the thinnest of evidence, like uh, from a photo he sees on television, one might have expected him to have revisited that statement when a forensic examination showed the flaperon was very likely stowed, not deployed when the plane crashed.

“It was established from the debris that the aircraft was not configured for a ditching at the end-of-flight, ” the ATSB concluded.



Curiously, former ATSB chief Martin Dolan, another guest on the panel seemed unaware of this as he nodded a “yep, sure, could have happened that way,” to the presenter’s encouragement.

Who knows what was cut from the six-hour long conversation among these men? One gets the sense that Dolan and John Cox, a retired American pilot who participated in many air accident investigations on behalf of his union, tried to moderate the outlandish conclusions put forward by Vance and Simon Hardy, a Boeing 777 pilot who, even without a sewing machine handy made whole cloth to the delight of headline writers.

Looking at the radar track of MH370 on March 8, 2014, as the Boeing 777 inexplicably turned and headed back over the Malaysia peninsula, Hardy opined for Channel 9’s viewers that Capt. Zaharie Shah tipped the aircraft wing as he flew the plane over Penang in a farewell gesture to his hometown before carrying out his dastardly act.

The 60 Minutes’ program is the worst sort of journalism; a grinding hour of stitching scraps of information some true, some made up, to create a story that vilifies a pilot and to what end? It’s hangar talk given lift by Channel 9 which selected panelists who share a common viewpoint as well as a sometimes ill-informed understanding of the facts, and careful splicing of the conversation whenever Dolan and Cox start to challenge Vance and Hardy’s nonsense.

News organizations around the world – including those whose that should know better (I’m talking about you Washington Post and CBS News) have further elevated the preposterous conclusions in the 60 Minutes program by repeating the claims on their own sites.

Ladies and gents, thanks to 60 Minutes, pilots Vance and Hardy are in the cockpit. They’ve fueled up with alternative facts and are taking us on a flight to the absurd. Will we ever return from this remote region of reality?
Stay tuned.

 
   

MTF? - Hmm maybe...P2 

[Peetwo]

MH370: Senate wet lettuce inquisition update.   


Via 'that man' in the Oz:

Bureau faces heat on MH370

EAN HIGGINS

Australia’s air safety bureau has failed to explain an ­apparent double standard surrounding questions over the MH370 disaster.

---

MH370 questions unanswered

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has failed to explain an ­apparent double standard in which its officers divulge material supporting their theory of what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 but say information that runs against their hypothesis is restricted and cannot be ­released.

Pressure is mounting on the ATSB ahead of a Senate estimates hearing tomorrow where Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick ­intends to canvass claims the ­bureau allegedly ignored evidence about MH370 that should have changed its strategy for its failed $200 million search for the plane.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, and primary radar and automatic satellite tracking data showed it ended up in the southern Indian Ocean. At Malaysia’s request Australia led the first subsea hunt for the Boeing 777, and the ATSB defined a target zone based on a theory that the pilots were incapacitated and the aircraft flew on autopilot until running out of fuel and crashing down rapidly in a steep dive.

Senior airline pilots have long disputed that conclusion, saying the evidence points to captain ­Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacking his own aircraft, flying it to the end and ditching it.

Last week, The Australian published extracts from a new book by veteran Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance that claims a wing flap and flaperon from the aircraft found washed up off Africa in 2015 clearly show the aircraft was ditched by a pilot.

Mr Vance says ATSB investigators should have recognised their theory was wrong, but the bureau carried on with its original strategy.

Officers of the ATSB have had no hesitation in releasing information they claim supports their “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory.

In September 2016, when international experts were still examining the flap, the ATSB’s leader of the search, Peter Foley, said Australian analysis suggested it had not been deployed when it hit the water but was retracted inside the wing. A pilot attempting a soft landing would have extended the flaps.

“If it’s not in a deployed state, it ­validates, if you like, where we’ve been looking,” Mr Foley told Australian Associated Press.

But when The Australian recently requested any factual ­material that might have come over the past two years that indicated MH370 had been ditched, the ­bureau said that “to the extent documents exist they are likely to be classified as restricted information under section 3 of the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 and exempt from ­release”.

Subsequently it said “the documents sought do not exist in the records of this agency.”

Among other Freedom of Information requests ­refused by the ATSB was one seeking the opinions of a panel of international ­experts of satellite data the bureau claims supports its “death dive” theory. The original request was refused because their release could “cause damage to the international relations of the commonwealth”.

ATSB media spokesman Paul Sadler did not respond to emails.

 - I guess I'll have to tune in tomorrow to see what variety of wet lettuce is being presented by Senator Rex to HVH and his motley minions...  

For those remotely interested the ATSB is listed for an hour of wet lettuce slapping from 15:30-16:30 tomorrow and can be viewed via this link: https://www.aph.gov.au/News_and_Events/W...tent-panel

Please keep in mind that the Estimates timetable is nearly always running late, especially if the Chair Barry O'Obfuscation is running interference -   


MTF...P2 

[Gobbledock]

Of incompetent agencies and obsfucating Senators

P2;

“For those remotely interested the ATSB is listed for an hour of wet lettuce slapping from 15:30-16:30 tomorrow and can be viewed via this link: https://www.aph.gov.au/News_and_Events/W...tent-panel

Please keep in mind that the Estimates timetable is nearly always running late, especially if the Chair Barry O'Obfuscation is running interference -  Dodgy”

Yes indeed, let’s watch the Politicians at play as they (Barry O’obsfucate) covers, deflects, manipulates and spins the facts away from the ATSB’s incompetence and malfeasance. They screwed up, big time. Foley was the fall guy for a politically Beakerised joke of a department.

Message to Barry; you can fool the media, brain dead and other politicians but you can’t fool the IOS. We’ve got your number and we are on top of our game. You flinch mate and we will push even harder to expose you and your obsfucating Miniscue.....

TICK TOCK Barry, we are putting YOU on notice.

[Peetwo]

Of incompetent agencies and obsfucating Senators

P2;

“For those remotely interested the ATSB is listed for an hour of wet lettuce slapping from 15:30-16:30 tomorrow and can be viewed via this link: https://www.aph.gov.au/News_and_Events/W...tent-panel

Please keep in mind that the Estimates timetable is nearly always running late, especially if the Chair Barry O'Obfuscation is running interference -  Dodgy”

Yes indeed, let’s watch the Politicians at play as they (Barry O’obsfucate) covers, deflects, manipulates and spins the facts away from the ATSB’s incompetence and malfeasance. They screwed up, big time. Foley was the fall guy for a politically Beakerised joke of a department.

Message to Barry; you can fool the media, brain dead and other politicians but you can’t fool the IOS. We’ve got your number and we are on top of our game. You flinch mate and we will push even harder to expose you and your obsfucating Miniscue.....

TICK TOCK Barry, we are putting YOU on notice.

MH370:  Hot from the Senate (yawn -  )

From that man Higgins, via the Oz:

Search chief admits MH370 rogue pilot possible

The MH370 ‘ghost theory’ is yet to be ruled out

The Australian

7:29PM May 22, 2018
EAN HIGGINS

Reporter
Sydney
@EanHiggins

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has admitted a rogue pilot might have flown Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to the end and ditched it outside the search area the bureau designed based on its “ghost flight” theory.

“We haven’t ever ruled out someone intervening at the end,” Peter Foley, the director of the ATSB’s failed $200 million underwater search for the aircraft, told a Senate Estimates hearing this afternoon.

For the first time, Mr Foley publicly said what he is understood to have told some privately: that the ATSB believes a pilot was in control of the aircraft for at least the first hour and a half after it veered off course 40 minutes into the flight, its radar transponder turned off and radio contact broken.

“It’s absolutely evident … an aircraft doesn’t turn itself,” Mr Foley said.
“Certainly there were flight controls early in the flight.”

But Mr Foley said the scenario in which a pilot was still flying the aircraft at the end of the flight and ditched it under control remained “unlikely”.

He said all the information available still supported the ATSB’s conclusion that the pilots were incapacitated at the end and the Boeing 777 crashed down in a spiral dive after running out of fuel on autopilot.

“We have quite a lot of evidence to support no control at the end,” Mr Foley told the Senate’s Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee.

This evidence included a determination that a flap from MH370 found washed up off Africa had most likely not been deployed for a ditching on water as would normally be done, satellite tracking data suggesting the aircraft was in a high and accelerating rate of descent at the end, and the fact that the wreckage recovered included some from the interior of the aircraft, suggesting there was “significant energy at impact.”

“That’s the totality of the evidence,” Mr Foley said.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with primary radar and automatic satellite tracking showing it flew back over Malaysia to Penang, up the Straits of Malacca, and then turned again on a long track south to end up in the southern Indian Ocean.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick told the hearing he was still troubled by the fact the ATSB seemed so certain that a pilot was doing strange things flying MH370 early in the flight, but also certain that no pilot was doing strange things flying it at the end.

Senator Patrick said it remained the case that the ATSB had no ability to give any definitive explanation of the absolute end of the flight, because there was no data available at all for the last minutes the bureau believes it took MH370 to descend.


Peter Foley, Program Director for Australian Transport Safety Bureau's search for MH-370. Picture: Kym Smith

Mr Foley admitted there was “nothing conclusive” in the evidence on this point, but said he could not imagine why a pilot would deliberately fly an aircraft at the high dive speed indicated by the satellite data, and not deploy the flaps.

Mr Foley agreed with the committee chairman, Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan, that the ATSB’s failure to find the aircraft “torments your soul”.

Mr Foley said the anguish of the families of those lost on MH370 “really motivated us to bust our gut for four years to find that aircraft.”

From the Estimates 22 May 2018 hearing, via Youtube:

MTF...P2 

[ventus45]

Part 3

[Peetwo]

MH370 in the Senate - Update: Videos & tabled docs -  

Of incompetent agencies and obsfucating Senators

P2;

“For those remotely interested the ATSB is listed for an hour of wet lettuce slapping from 15:30-16:30 tomorrow and can be viewed via this link: https://www.aph.gov.au/News_and_Events/W...tent-panel

Please keep in mind that the Estimates timetable is nearly always running late, especially if the Chair Barry O'Obfuscation is running interference -  Dodgy”

Yes indeed, let’s watch the Politicians at play as they (Barry O’obsfucate) covers, deflects, manipulates and spins the facts away from the ATSB’s incompetence and malfeasance. They screwed up, big time. Foley was the fall guy for a politically Beakerised joke of a department.

Message to Barry; you can fool the media, brain dead and other politicians but you can’t fool the IOS. We’ve got your number and we are on top of our game. You flinch mate and we will push even harder to expose you and your obsfucating Miniscue.....

TICK TOCK Barry, we are putting YOU on notice.

MH370:  Hot from the Senate (yawn -  )

From that man Higgins, via the Oz:

Search chief admits MH370 rogue pilot possible

The MH370 ‘ghost theory’ is yet to be ruled out

The Australian

7:29PM May 22, 2018
EAN HIGGINS

Reporter
Sydney
@EanHiggins

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has admitted a rogue pilot might have flown Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to the end and ditched it outside the search area the bureau designed based on its “ghost flight” theory.

“We haven’t ever ruled out someone intervening at the end,” Peter Foley, the director of the ATSB’s failed $200 million underwater search for the aircraft, told a Senate Estimates hearing this afternoon.

For the first time, Mr Foley publicly said what he is understood to have told some privately: that the ATSB believes a pilot was in control of the aircraft for at least the first hour and a half after it veered off course 40 minutes into the flight, its radar transponder turned off and radio contact broken.

“It’s absolutely evident … an aircraft doesn’t turn itself,” Mr Foley said.
“Certainly there were flight controls early in the flight.”

But Mr Foley said the scenario in which a pilot was still flying the aircraft at the end of the flight and ditched it under control remained “unlikely”.

He said all the information available still supported the ATSB’s conclusion that the pilots were incapacitated at the end and the Boeing 777 crashed down in a spiral dive after running out of fuel on autopilot.

“We have quite a lot of evidence to support no control at the end,” Mr Foley told the Senate’s Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee.

This evidence included a determination that a flap from MH370 found washed up off Africa had most likely not been deployed for a ditching on water as would normally be done, satellite tracking data suggesting the aircraft was in a high and accelerating rate of descent at the end, and the fact that the wreckage recovered included some from the interior of the aircraft, suggesting there was “significant energy at impact.”

“That’s the totality of the evidence,” Mr Foley said.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with primary radar and automatic satellite tracking showing it flew back over Malaysia to Penang, up the Straits of Malacca, and then turned again on a long track south to end up in the southern Indian Ocean.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick told the hearing he was still troubled by the fact the ATSB seemed so certain that a pilot was doing strange things flying MH370 early in the flight, but also certain that no pilot was doing strange things flying it at the end.

Senator Patrick said it remained the case that the ATSB had no ability to give any definitive explanation of the absolute end of the flight, because there was no data available at all for the last minutes the bureau believes it took MH370 to descend.


Peter Foley, Program Director for Australian Transport Safety Bureau's search for MH-370. Picture: Kym Smith

Mr Foley admitted there was “nothing conclusive” in the evidence on this point, but said he could not imagine why a pilot would deliberately fly an aircraft at the high dive speed indicated by the satellite data, and not deploy the flaps.

Mr Foley agreed with the committee chairman, Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan, that the ATSB’s failure to find the aircraft “torments your soul”.

Mr Foley said the anguish of the families of those lost on MH370 “really motivated us to bust our gut for four years to find that aircraft.”

---

And a slightly different version:

---

---

Rogue pilot ‘not ruled out’

12:00amEAN HIGGINS
The ATSB has explicitly acknowledged for the first time that a rogue pilot might have flown MH370 to the end and ditched it. 

---

MH370 rogue pilot ‘not ruled out’

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has explicitly acknowledged for the first time that a rogue pilot might have flown Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 to the end and ditched it outside the search area determined by the bureau’s “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory.

Peter Foley, the director of the ATSB’s failed $200 million underwater search for the aircraft, told a Senate estimates hearing yesterday: “We haven’t ever ruled out someone intervening at the end.”

For the first time, Mr Foley said publicly what he is understood to have told some privately: that the ATSB believes a pilot was in control of the aircraft for at least the first hour and a half after it veered off course 40 minutes into the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, its radar transponder turned off and radio contact broken.

“It’s absolutely evident … an aircraft doesn’t turn itself,” Mr Foley said. “Certainly there were flight controls early in the flight.”

Mr Foley said the scenario in which a pilot was still flying the aircraft at the end of the flight and ditched it under control ­remained “unlikely”.

He said all the information available still supported the ATSB’s conclusion that the ­pilots were incapacitated at the end and the Boeing 777 crashed in a spiral dive after running out of fuel on autopilot. “We have quite a lot of evidence to support no control at the end,” Mr Foley told the Senate’s rural and ­regional affairs and transport legislation committee.

This evidence included: a ­determination that a flap from MH370 found washed up off ­Africa had most likely not been deployed for a ditching on water as would normally be done by a pilot; satellite tracking data suggesting the aircraft was in a high and accelerating rate of descent at the end; and the fact that the wreckage recovered included some from the interior of the aircraft, suggesting there was “significant energy at impact”.

“That’s the totality of the ­evidence,” Mr Foley said.

He said he had read the new book by veteran Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance, extracts of which were published in The Australian last week, claiming the ATSB missed clear clues from the wreckage that the aircraft was ditched.

Mr Vance compared the ATSB’s theory of a steep high-speed crash on to water with that of Swissair Flight 111 in 1998 in which the aircraft was pulverised on impact into two million ­pieces, none even close to being big or intact enough to be recognisable as a flap.

Mr Foley told senators “we have never speculated on the speed of the impact”, saying the aircraft would have gone into an uncontrolled series of dives and partial recoveries. This meant it could have been at a variety of speeds and altitudes on impact.

He said the other wing panel recovered in 2015 on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, the right flaperon, was examined by an ATSB officer after it was taken to France, but access was restricted by judicial officials who were treating it as evidence in a possible criminal case. As a result, the ATSB was not able to “do anything meaningful in terms of analysis”.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. Primary radar and automatic satellite tracking show that after leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, it flew back over Malaysia to Penang, up the Straits of Malacca and then turned again on a long track south to end up in the southern Indian Ocean.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick told the hearing he was troubled by the fact the ATSB was so certain a pilot was doing strange things flying MH370 early in the flight, but certain no pilot was doing strange things at the end. Senator Patrick said it remained the case that the ATSB could not give a definitive explanation of the end of the flight, because there was no data for the last 20 minutes the bureau believes it took MH370 to descend. Mr Foley admitted there was “nothing conclusive” in the evidence on this point, but said he could not imagine why a pilot would deliberately fly an aircraft at the high dive speed indicated by the satellite data, and not deploy the flaps.

Mr Foley agreed with the committee chairman, Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan, that the ATSB’s failure to find the aircraft “torments your soul”.

From the Estimates 22 May 2018 hearing, via Youtube:

Given the very real identified conflict of interests with Senator O'Obfuscation it is simply beyond me how the 'Fat Controller' Chair is allowed anywhere near questioning of the ATSB -   

For those interested here are the MH370 related tabled documents from yesterday's Estimates hearing:

Mr Greg Hood, Australian Transport Safety Bureau
Statement regarding MH370
22 May 2018
PDF 1334KB
Mr Greg Hood, Australian Transport Safety Bureau
The Operational Search for MH370
22 May 2018
PDF 40709KB
Mr Peter Foley, Australian Transport Safety Bureau
MH370 Burst Frequency Offset Analysis and Implications of Descent Rate at End of Flight
22 May 2018
PDF 11736KB

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

MH370: OI search ends & 'he said, she said' wars heat up -  

While the OI search wraps up the MH370 theorists once again (yawn -   ) fire up debate on end of flight and the pilot did, err..didn't do it - FDS!   

First via news.com.au:

New MH370 murder-suicide theory ‘is absurd’

AVIATION experts have slammed the latest theory on missing flight MH370, saying the truth could lie in this photograph.

Kate Schneider @SchneiderK news.com.au
MAY 24, 2018 6:17AM

Experts talk MH370 on 60 Minutes. Picture: Channel 9 Source:Channel 9

WHEN aviation experts took to the air last weekend purporting to know the truth about what happened to MH370, the director of the seabed hunt for the plane Peter Foley and author Christine Negroni were left shaking their heads.

Senior Boeing 777 pilot Simon Hardy had joined five other guests on 60 Minutes where he voiced his belief that Captain Zaharie Shah downed the aircraft in an act of murder-suicide after using a home simulator to plot the flight path.

He claimed Mr Zaharie flew the plane over his hometown of Penang for an “emotional goodbye” before ditching it in the Southern Indian Ocean.

The program was aired just days before the release of the new book MH370: Mystery Solved, written by aviator Larry Vance, who also appeared on the Channel 9 show.

It comes as Malaysian authorities revealed the physical search would end next week.

Vance, a former senior investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, also supports the controlled landing theory, arguing that the pilot deliberately took the aircraft to the most remote place possible so it would disappear.

“The evidence confirms it was a criminal act, committed by one individual who, as a pilot in the aeroplane, had a simple means to carry it out,” he wrote in his book.

Vance has also cited a piece of wreckage from the plane as proving his claim.

However, a notable omission from the panel was fellow aviation expert Negroni, who wrote the book The Crash Detectives detailing famous air disasters. And she has a very different view as to what may have happened to the plane.



Experts disagree on what happened to MH370. Picture: ATSB Source:Supplied

Negroni was particularly shocked not to have been included in the discussion considering her book is a bestseller and she has travelled the world — including Australia — to talk about its contents.

In a post on her website, Negroni slammed the conclusions made on the show as “preposterous” and “absurd”.

She wrote: “Ladies and gents, thanks to 60 Minutes, pilots Vance and Hardy are in the cockpit. They’ve fuelled up with alternative facts and are taking us on a flight to the absurd.

“Will we ever return from this remote region of reality? Stay tuned.”

She accused the show of airing “far-fetched”, “hokum” details. In particular, Vance’s claims around a wing flap that washed ashore in 2016 caught her attention.

Vance argues that photographic evidences shows the wing’s flaps were extended (down) when it impacted the water, indicating the pilot was in control of the plane until the end.

“The damage patterns on two recovered wreckage pieces (the right flaperon, and a section of the right outboard flap) prove that the landing flaps were extended (down) when the aeroplane settled into the water,” Vance wrote in his book.

“The flaps could not have been extended unless a pilot intentionally selected them to the extended position.”




This photo shows the difference between when the flaps are retracted versus the flaps being extended. Picture: ATSBSource:Supplied



This damage on a piece of wreckage from MH370 indicates the flaps were retracted at the point of fracture and separation from the wing. Picture: ATSBSource:Supplied

However, Negroni points to an ATSB report into the wreckage which indicates otherwise, writing: “One might have expected him (Vance) to have revisited that statement when a forensic examination showed the flaperon was very likely stowed, not deployed when the plane crashed.”

Indeed, the ATSB report from October 2017 states: “In 2015 and 2016, debris from MH370 was found on the shores of Indian Ocean islands and the east African coastline. The debris yielded significant new insights into how and where the aircraft ended its flight.

“It was established from the debris that the aircraft was not configured for a ditching at the end-of-flight ... analysis indicated that the flaps were most likely in a retracted position at the time they separated from the aircraft making a controlled ditching scenario very unlikely.”



The evidence from flight MH370.Source:Supplied

Negroni’s view has just been back up by MH370 search director Mr Foley, who co-ordinated the search on Malaysia’s behalf, and was quizzed by a Senate committee on the theories in Vance’s book.

Mr Foley, who said he has read the book, pointed to evidence that the plane was not under anyone’s control when it hit the water.

He said analysis of the satellite transmissions of the flight’s final moments showed the jet was in a fast and accelerating descent at the end. Debris from within the plane’s interior found washed up on the west coast of the Indian Ocean suggested significant energy on impact, he said.

“If it was being controlled at the end, it wasn’t very successfully being controlled,” Mr Foley said. “The flaps weren’t deployed.”

Mr Foley said an analysis at the bureau’s headquarters in Canberra of the second flap found on the island of Pemba, off the coast of Tanzania, in June 2016 determined it was “probably not deployed”. But French authorities prevented an Australian analyst from “doing anything meaningful in terms of analysis” of the first flap found.

French authorities are holding the flaperon as evidence for a potential criminal prosecution.

Mr Foley said his bureau therefore could not see whether the flaperon had lost its trailing edge — which would have happened had it been deployed — when the plane hit the water.

He did, however, say “it’s absolutely evident” that someone had initially flown the plane off course, ruling out some mechanical or electrical malfunction.



Experts talk MH370 on 60 Minutes. Picture: Channel 9

NEGRONI’S THEORY

Negroni insists her book is the only one with the facts.

“Far from speculating with no evidence at all that Captain Zaharie Shah lingered over Penang to get one last look at his home town before flying off into oblivion, my book is based on facts,” she said.

“I am baffled at how the producers of the Australian program along with the CBS This Morning and the Washington Post could have conducted any research at all into the MH370 investigation without coming across The Crash Detectives.

“It’s a Penguin bestseller for goodness sake ... I’ve travelled the world speaking about it including in Sydney, Brisbane, London, New York and Hong Kong.”


Negroni claims the there is no evidence to back up the alternate theories.

“I don’t know what it is about Australia, but despite the lack of any evidence that either pilot was unstable or suicidal, Australian media loves that storyline,” Negroni said. “By contrast, in The Crash Detectives, I suggest that a rapid decompression of the aircraft rendered the pilots partially hypoxia and therefore incapable of making sensible decisions.

“One or both of the men on the flight deck then inadvertently flew the aeroplane off course until they succumbed. The plane flew on until it ran out of fuel in the South Indian Ocean.”

Negroni said there are several previous similar events along with maintenance records which show that the crew oxygen was serviced just before the ill-fated trip.



Christine Negroni doesn’t agree with the murder-suicide MH370 theory. Picture: Christine Negroni

Next the inevitable Byron Bailey retort to the ATSB, via the Oz:

Expert evidence doesn’t fly
BYRON BAILEY
It is time to stop the ATSB referring to its expert evidence to support the death-dive theory.

---

MH370: why expert evidence doesn’t fly

Peter Foley as director of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau search for MH370 got away lightly during Senate estimates. Because he is not an aviator he could throw in red herrings such as talking about an overweight captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, aged 53, being on oxygen at 40,000 feet and not coping.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 left its planned route at 35,000 feet — a completely different kettle of fish as 35,000 feet on 100 per cent oxygen is the same, blood-oxygen level wise, as breathing normally at 10,000 feet.

Foley also didn’t mention that the passenger oxygen supply is a chemically generated individual mask system that lasts only 10 minutes. It is time to stop the ATSB referring to its expert evidence to support the death-dive theory. Unless scientists have flying experience they are not qualified to propose flight-path analysis.

The ATSB has no evidence to support its death-dive theory other than the two satellite tracking data sets over eight seconds showing a large doppler increase, which it claims indicates a rapid descent or “death dive”. Any descent will produce an increase in doppler shift, and a pilot on dual-engine shutdown would point the nose down fast, otherwise the drag configuration from the engines could stall the aircraft. In any event, with the ATSB admission that the pilot was in control for the first two hours of the flight, a mass murder has occurred.

Byron Bailey is a former RAAF fighter pilot and flew Boeing 777s as an airline captain.

Finally, also via the Oz   :

MH370 search called off
EAN HIGGINS
The Malaysian government has called an end to the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and its 239 occupants.

---

Search called off for downed MH370 plane

Hopes the Malaysian government might fund another hunt for ­Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 appear dashed after the country’s transport minister last night said the current search will end on Tuesday with no extension

The move comes as the British airline pilot who postulated co-­ordinates where he claims the captain of MH370 ditched the plane said an Australian official’s ­assertion that the location was searched, is false.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, with satellite tracking showing it ended in the southern Indian Ocean.

The British-owned, but Houston-based subsea survey company Ocean Infinity started searching for the Boeing 777 in January.

“We want to know the details of this (search), the necessity of this, and if we find it is not necessary, we will not renew,” Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday after chairing his first cabinet meeting since taking office on May 10.

“We are reviewing the contract and we need to terminate it if not useful,” he said.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke just days ago said his first ­priority was to find MH370. But hours after Dr Mahathir made his remarks he said: “This morning I raised this in cabinet and agreed to extend to May 29.”

Asked if that meant no more extensions, he said: “Yes.”

In an open letter to Dr Mahathir yesterday, the group representing the families of those lost, Voice 370, asked the new government to examine whether there had been any cover-up of the MH370 investigation.

Ocean Infinity’s contract with the government had always been on a “no cure, no fee” basis, and it was to get up to $US70 million only if it found the aircraft. Ocean Infinity did not respond to emails.

There had been hopes the ­Malaysian government might ­extend the contract with Ocean Infinity to look in an area farther southwest than the first Australian-led search, identified by three senior airline pilots and an engineer as where they ­believe the aircraft’s captain brought the aircraft down. In 2015 captain Simon Hardy drew world headlines with a claim he had done simulations and ­extended calculations that placed MH370’s resting place about 39 degrees south and 87 degrees east.

Captain Hardy had talks at the time with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which led the first search for the plane.

The ATSB’s director of the failed search, Peter Foley, on Tuesday told a Senate estimates hearing: “Simon’s initial area where he was postulating the aircraft might have been controlled (to the end) … was actually searched. We went a long way to the east … 42 miles.”

But Captain Hardy said Mr Foley had not sent the searchers far enough. “Mr Foley tried to ­accommodate my workings by going 42 nautical miles and not 100 nautical miles,” he said.

“When I visited the ATSB in May 2015 I was aware that the offices were five miles from Canberra airport. Had I tried to accommodate Mr Foley by going only half of that distance, I would not have found the ATSB. In the same way, Mr Foley has not found MH370.”

ATSB media spokesman Paul Sadler did not respond to emails.

P2 comment - Putting aside all this tedious 'he said, she said' palaver, I still can't fathom how a Senate committee at Budget Estimates did not ask the simple questions like:

Q/ Based on all the available evidence provided to the ATSB/CSIRO/DSTG to define the 2x high priority search (125k sq km & now 25k sq km) areas, how come not one bit of physical piece of debris/evidence has been found in those areas? 

Q/ Does this indicate that the 'Bayesian methods' used to help define these high priority areas was indeed a flawed and limited approach?     

Q/ Why was Fugro the best value tender choice given that OI have covered so much territory in less than 3 months under a potential $70 million 'no find, no fee' contract? 

MTF...P2 

[Kharon]

R.I.P. 370 – Next.

AMSA run searches – ATSB investigates the wreckage – except there’s no wreckage yet and the ATSB search goes on, and on and on. But insofar as the Estimates committee is concerned; it’s all over, closed and forgotten, courtesy of? Watch Part V above, as neat a cut and shut job as you’d find anywhere.

"When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. " (Matthew).

Well, I reckon Master Foley has earned his Choc Frog; just for patience and forbearance alone, if nothing else. In fact, after quiet reflection, I ‘ll throw a Tim-Tam into the package. He certainly earned them at last Estimates.

We are all used to reading ‘technical’ stuff; most have at one time or another been stumped – particularly when it comes to ‘computer’ logic and satellite magic. What do you do when you can’t nut it out – why, you talk to someone who can; don’t ya. But that conversation usually runs along the lines of – “I’ve got this bit (x) and this part (y) – but I can’t grasp (z)”. This is where your tame expert can assist; a good teacher can make it all crystal clear in fairly short order – IF you have grasped the basics. Poor old Foley - light years ahead of the Senate rabble who clearly had not done the homework or completed the first exercise set. Frustrating; mind you he covered that fairly well, particularly when asked to ‘conjecture’. That belongs in the pub, among peers and experts, if it belongs anywhere, if it ever happened. Hood stepped in and put ‘conjecture’ to the sword while Foley took a deep breath and counted to ten.

The last couple of minutes in the Part V recording are iMO the most significant; Foley did indeed warrant the praise (and the Choc Frog) but the notion of Hood and O’Sofullofit having quiet, confidential, deep and meaningful fireside chat, with tea a biscuits worries me half to death. I’d want a public transcript of that event – video too, if I could get it. Two foxes, one chook shed and no one home – go figure.

Bravo Master Foley – well done indeed. AMSA rules…

Toot toot…

[Peetwo]

MH370 OI search update etc.

First from 'that man' in the Oz:

Continue MH370 search: families

EAN HIGGINS
Families of Australian and Chinese passengers lost on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have called for a new search.

---

Families call for MH370 search to continue

Families of Australian and Chinese passengers lost on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 have called for a new search, with some recommending scouring an area identified by an international group of senior airline pilots.

The call comes after the new Malaysian government said on Wednesday that the underwater survey by the private US company Ocean Infinity will end on Tuesday, having searched about 100,000sq km, and that the “no find, no fee” contract would not be extended.

The lobby group MH370 China Families, representing relatives of the 153 Chinese passengers who were among the 239 people on board, said: “We would welcome an initiative to search the area of 4300sq km around S39.2, E88.4, to clarify what is and what is not true.”

The latitude and longitude coordinates are those identified by British pilot Simon Hardy, Australian pilot Byron Bailey, New Zealand-born pilot Mike Keane, and British engineer and mathematician Robin Stevens as MH370’s resting place, based on calculations around the scenario that the aircraft captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, hijacked his own plane and flew it to a controlled ditching.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, reversing course 40 minutes into the flight when its radar transponder was turned off and radio contact ceased. Automatic satellite tracking shows it ended up in the southern Indian Ocean.

The first hunt over three years of 120,000sq km, led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, did not search all of the area first proposed by Captain Hardy because the bureau accepted the theory that the pilots were incapacitated at the end of the flight and the Boeing 777 crashed down rapidly after running out of fuel on autopilot.

The airline captains believe Zaharie was able to fly the plane about 100 nautical miles farther southwest than the ATSB looked.

The Chinese group has not accepted the official theory of where MH370 ended up, with some insisting it may have been hijacked to a remote airstrip perhaps somewhere in central Asia. A statement to The Australian said its call to search the proposed 4300sq km was “not to be construed as our believing MH370 would be found there”.

Danica Weeks, who lost her husband, Paul, on the flight leaving her to raise two boys alone, said Australia should encourage the new Malaysian government to release all available information about the flight.

“I think it’s time to step up and for Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop to say to them, ‘Give us what you’ve got’,” she said.

“You can’t put 239 innocent lives on a shelf.”

Malaysia’s new Transport Minister, Anthony Loke, said the new government was committed to transparency and would ­release details in due course.

But then the good news...

Door ‘still open’ on MH370
AMANDA HODGE
Malaysia’s PM-in-waiting says new information from a domestic investigation could solve the world’s biggest aviation mystery.

Or from the Daily Mail:

'Was it a failure of the system?' Malaysian prime minister-elect says he's not ruling out further searches for MH370 because there are still too many unanswered questions
Malaysia's new prime minister-in-waiting is not ruling out searches for MH370
MH370 disappeared March 2014 with 239 onboard en route from Kuala Lumpur
Anwar Ibrahim said there are too many questions that haven't been answered

By Nicole Pierre and Rod Ardehali For Daily Mail Australia

PUBLISHED: 12:52 AEST, 26 May 2018 | UPDATED: 19:15 AEST, 26 May 2018

Malaysia's new prime minister-elect has announced he is not ruling out further searches for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Anwar Ibrahim, 70, who won the country's election just weeks after being pardoned by the king and released from jail, said there are too many questions that have not been answered on MH370.

'Was it a failure of the system? Was it a failure of those monitoring the system or was it an intention to ignore or cover up?' he told The Australian.

What happened to MH370 is one of the world's biggest aviation mysteries. The plane disappeared in March 2014 with 239 on-board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.



Anwar Ibrahim (pictured), 70, has announced he is not ruling out further searches for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370



MH370 is one of the world's biggest aviation mysteries - after the plane disappeared in March 2014 with 239 on-board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing




Mr Anwar is skeptical about 'discrepancies in the cargo, passenger lists and the government's earlier assertions that the plane flew over the South China Sea



Pilot Mr Zaharie Shah (pictured) was flying the aircraft on March 2014 with 239 on-board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing

Mr Ibrahim's comments come after Malaysia's transport minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook implied the current search will be the last for the lost Malaysian Airlines plane.

The new government has extended the current search to May 29, Mr Loke told the Australian.

Mr Anwar is skeptical about 'discrepancies in the cargo, passenger lists and the government's earlier assertions that the plane flew over the South China Sea instead of the Indian Ocean.

'What was described by authorities and what was in the cargo was totally different,' The prime minister-in-waiting said.

Mr Ibrahim also doesn't promote the controversial theory that the plane was hijacked by pilot Zaharie Shah.



Mr Anwar said there are too many questions that have not been answered on the MH370



'What was described by authorities and what was in the cargo was totally different,' The prime minister-in-waiting said

The new government has extended the current search to May 29, Transport minister Mr Loke said
The new government has extended the current search to May 29, Transport minister Mr Loke said

Leading expert Christine Negroni previously rubbished claims that the pilot of the Malaysia Airlines MH370 had been on a suicide mission and deliberately landed the plane in the sea.

Mrs Negroni pointed to crucial evidence that the wreckage of the Boeing 777's wing flaps - which assist with landing - were retracted at the time of the crash in March 2014.

Her comments came in response to claims made by former Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance during at interview on Australia's 60 Minutes.

Mr Vance claimed that the pilot Shah had cruelly attempted to keep the plane in one piece - meaning everybody on board would perish, but he would avoid creating debris that would aid search attempts.

He claimed Shah flew off course on a suicide mission and planned to kill himself and the 238 others on the journey from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur.

Mr Vance said: 'He was killing himself; unfortunately, he was killing everybody else on board, and he did it deliberately'.

Setting out his argument in his new book MH370: Mystery Solved, Mr Vance suggested Shah wanted to leave as little trace as possible, in a final act of malice.

Yet Ms Negroni has rubbished his conclusions as 'preposterous' and 'absurd' and used the photos to prove her point.



Mrs Negroni (pictured) rubbished recent claims that pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah tried to land the plane in the Indian ocean softly



The plane was not under full control when it crash landed - rubbishing a bombshell theory set out by former Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance

In a post on her website following the show, she slammed the 60 minutes for airing theories which she called 'far-fetched'.

'By contrast, in The Crash Detectives, I suggest that a rapid decompression of the aircraft rendered the pilots partially hypoxia and therefore incapable of making sensible decisions.

'One or both of the men on the flight deck then inadvertently flew the aeroplane off course until they succumbed. The plane flew on until it ran out of fuel in the South Indian Ocean.'



Mr Vance claimed Shah had attempted to keep the plane in one piece - meaning everybody on board would perish, but he would avoid creating debris that would aid search attempts


This photograph shows the flaps being retracted (left) and when they are extended (right)



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...z5GeELBAcM

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

Bar the shouting, OI MH370 search is all over - 

Via the ABC/Reuter news:

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: The latest search for missing plane is over. So what happens now?

By Peter Marsh, wires Updated earlier today at 6:18am


Photo
The families of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are still waiting for answers.

Reuters: Kim Kyung-Hoon

The latest search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 ends today.

Last week the Malaysian Government announced there would be no extensions to a search by US-based Ocean Infinity that hoped to find the plane by the end of June.

There was a pay day up to $93 million on offer if Ocean Infinity was able to find the plane within 90-days.

So, what now?
Is all hope of finding MH370 lost?
The underwater search is ending … for now

The current search by Ocean Infinity is ending for a couple of reasons:

• The decision by the Malaysian Government to end the search (more on this later)
  
• Ocean Infinity finished scouring its targeted search area in April
  

The Malaysian Government's new Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook said Ocean Infinity had requested an extension to the 90-day search until today.

But he confirmed there would be no more extensions after that.

But this is a long way from being over
[/url]


Photo Blaine Gibson has spent much of his spare time searching for debris which has helped investigators.
Facebook: Blaine Gibson

Blaine Gibson is a self-styled wreck hunter who has found about 15 pieces of wreckage confirmed or deemed likely to have come from MH370.

He said now was the time to hold off on offshore searches and re-assess what data we do have.

"Where we go next is exactly what the Prime Minister of Malaysia said. We're going to look at everything. We're going to look and see if there are any documents that can explain it.

They'll look to see if someone knows something and they talk. And they go over all of the data," Mr Gibson said.

If new analysis turns up a new avenue of investigation, Mr Gibson believes a new search could begin as early as October this year.

The political situation in Malaysia is tricky

And it has real ramifications for where the search for MH370 heads next.

The country is adjusting to life after recent elections saw opposition parties, led by 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, take power for the first time in six decades.

Dr Mahathir's administration is pushing to rein in government spending, and he's said many of the figures regarding Malaysia's financial position may be false.

He had previously said the agreement with Ocean Infinity was up for review as part of that push despite the fact it was a "no cure, no fee" search.

But in the not-too-distant future, Dr Mahathir plans to step down and hand power over to Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader who has been released from prison and pardoned.
While the underwater search is stopped for the moment, Mr Anwar told The Weekend Australian there was "further digging" to be done.

"I am not ruling out further searches in the future depending on what these domestic investigations bring up," he said.

The investigation will concentrate on things other than finding the plane
According to Mr Gibson, at least.

"Since we have not yet found it in the underwater search, it's now time to go back and focus on what we can," he said.

"And that's the surface debris, actual pieces of the plane. Any documents that the Prime Minister (of Malaysia) was talking about that they may be able to find. Anyone who's ready to talk who didn't before … do a thorough investigation of all of that."

Mr Gibson believes the next stage should focus heavily on the confirmed pieces of debris from MH370.

"I'm sure that there's a lot more debris out there that is either buried in sand, floating around or maybe some kids picked it up. Probably just sitting around some village in Madagascar," he said.

Mr Gibson has found personal items on the beaches of Madagascar, Mozambique and Mauritius.



Photo A camera case possibly from MH370, found on Riake Beach, Madagascar
Aircrash Support Group Australia : Blaine Gibson

While none have been confirmed as being from MH370, he said the fact that some match pictures from CCTV video of passengers getting on the plane means there is room for further investigation.

He turned over the items, which included bags, shoes and pieces of clothing, to Malaysian authorities.

"They've never published a report and we need to see that report and I hope that the new government will ensure that happens and take a really close look at those personal effects and see if any are from the plane," Mr Gibson said.

"If any one of those is from the plane that would move the crash site much closer to where they washed ashore."

Malaysia's Transport Minister Mr Loke said a full report into the investigation of MH370's disappearance would be released once the offshore search ends, but has not given a date for that to happen.

GIF: MH370's known flight path, the search area, and where debris has washed up

Groups representing relatives of those on board say that's a good thing

Voice 370 called on the new government to review all matters related to MH370.

"We urge the new government to include as part of its agenda in the next 100 days … a further investigation and inquiry into any act or omission across the entire spectrum of operations that may have impaired tracking, search, rescue and recovery," a statement released by the group said.

Ganesan Nethi, a lawyer who had represented the families of victims from MH370, said the approach the new Malaysian Government was taking was a "heartening and refreshing change".

MH370 search will end next week, with no more extensions

There are still a couple of longshot chances

A new scientific project launched last week aims to map the ocean floor by 2030.
Satinder Bindra, director of the $3 billion Seabed 2030 project, said analysis of data from underwater drones, merchant ships amd fishing boats would shed light on everything from tsunami wave patterns to a possible location of MH370.

And Mr Gibson said there didn't need to be an official government search for the hunt to continue.

"There's nothing to prevent anyone with a ship and some money from going out there and looking for it. There is still hope," he said.

"It's not acceptable to just leave this as a mystery. We need to find out."

ABC/Reuters

And via the CBC daily newsletter:

Malaysia Airlines MH370 search halted, government to make 'full and final' report public
Newsletter: A closer look at the day's most notable stories


Jonathon Gatehouse · CBC News · Posted: May 28, 2018 2:06 PM ET | Last Updated: May 29


A girl gets her face painted in Kuala Lumpur during the annual remembrance event for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March 3. The government is officially halting the search for the missing plane and those who were aboard. (Lai Seng Sin/Reuters)
Welcome to The National Today newsletter, which takes a closer look at what's happening around some of the day's most notable stories. [url=http://subscriptions.cbc.ca/forms/thenationaltoday]Sign up here and it will be delivered directly to your inbox Monday to Friday.

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TODAY:[/size]

• Four-year, $200-million search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will end tomorrow, government promises to make "full and final" report public
  
• New Zealand to cull 150,000 cows to try and stop the spread of an invasive bacteria
  
• Missed The National last night? Watch it here
  

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[size=undefined]
Search for flight MH370 ends

After four years and hundreds of millions of dollars, the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 comes to an official end tomorrow, with more theories than answers about what befell its 239 passengers and crew.

The Boeing 777-200 disappeared from radar screens during trip from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing on March 8, 2014. It is believed to have crashed somewhere in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean after running out of fuel.



A man takes pictures of a flight information board still displaying the overdue arrival of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 (top, in red) at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing on March 8, 2014. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)An initial three-year search by Malaysian, Chinese and Australian authorities failed to find any trace of the plane, despite scouring 710,000 square kilometres of ocean floor and surface.

A new effort covering an additional 90,000 square kilometres, led by American underwater exploration company Ocean Infinity Ltd., has also come up bust.

Last week, Anthony Loke, Malaysia's transport minister, said he was unwilling to grant the firm another extension, even though the search is being performed on a "no-find, no-fee" basis.

Speaking with the media in Kuala Lumpur today, Loke pledged to make a "full and final" report on the international probe into the crash available to the public.

"It will be released to the public without any prejudice, in a transparent manner. This includes even if there are any controversial elements in it," Loke said.

The only hard clues to the fate of MH370 have come from three dozen bits of wreckage — including a flaperon and a damaged Chinese suitcase — that washed up on the beaches of Réunion Island and Mozambique, thousands of kilometres from the plane's likely crash site.



Officers recover pieces of debris later confirmed to be from flight MH370, which had washed ashore on Saint-Andre de la Reunion island on July 29, 2015. (Raymond Wae Tion/EPA)Earlier this month, Larry Vance, a Canadian aviation expert and former crash investigator, made international headlines with his new book MH370 Mystery Solved, which claims that the plane was "intentionally ditched" by its pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, in an alleged act of murder-suicide.

But the Australian investigators who have led the four-year, $200 million hunt for the plane have dismissed Vance's conclusion. They noted that the flap found off the coast of Tanzania in 2015 was not in a deployed position, suggesting the plane hit the ocean at speed.

The Australian Transportation Board's investigation concluded that Shah and his co-pilot were probably unconscious at the time of the crash, perhaps victims of a sudden cabin depressurization.



Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 pilots Zaharie Ahmad Shah, right, and Fariq Abdul Hamid. (facebook)There have, however, been suggestions that Shah was experiencing marital difficulties and had researched a "suicide route" out over the Indian Ocean on a home flight simulator.

This week, Sakinab Shah, the pilot's sister, dismissed the murder-suicide speculation as "preposterous," telling an Australian newspaper that he was a man who "loved life, loved fun."

The sister admitted that things were not always perfect between Shah and his wife, but maintained that the situation was far from irreparable. "He was naughty, I admit that," she said. "But at the end of the day he always went home. He took care of his wife. They were high-school sweethearts."



Ocean Infinity's search vessel, Seabed Constructor, deployed underwater robots with sensitive sonar technology as part of its mission to locate MH370. It has been searching for the missing 777 airliner under a 'no-find, no-fee' arrangement with the Malaysian government. (Ocean Infinity)Blaine Gibson, an American blogger and wreck hunter who found a number of pieces of the plane's wreckage, remains a fierce critic of the formal search and recovery efforts. The Malaysian government would have been better off offering a reward for the drifting pieces of the plane than scouring the ocean floor for what might have sunk, he says.

"This should have been done a long time ago," Gibson told the Western Australian newspaper. "There is so much more out there, and pieces I have handed in to local authorities have not been collected by the Malaysians. A reward would galvanize many villagers to collect pieces that are just lying on beaches. Some of these could be critical to the investigation."

The extensive and expensive ocean-floor mapping during the hunt for MH370 did discover two other wrecks, however — ships that went missing in the 19th century. Both merchant vessels had been transporting coal when they sank 2,300 kilometres off the coast of Australia.


A map of the major search areas for flight MH370. (CBC)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/natio...-1.4675883
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And finally from the New York Times:

A Search for MH370, Missing Since 2014, Ends ‘With a Heavy Heart’


The Seabed Constructor, a ship operated by Ocean Infinity, set out in January for the search of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.CreditOcean Infinity, via EPA

By Megan Specia

• May 29, 2018
  
  The latest search for MH370 — the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared four years ago en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people onboard — has ended in failure, the company behind the search said on Tuesday.
  
  The company, Ocean Infinity of Houston, which scoured the seabed for any sign of wreckage with support from the Malaysian government, announced that the search was winding down with no evidence of the plane’s whereabouts.
  
  
  “Part of our motivation for renewing the search was to try to provide some answers to those affected,” Oliver Plunkett, Ocean Infinity’s chief executive, said in a statement. “It is therefore with a heavy heart that we end our current search without having achieved that aim.”
  
  He did not rule out a future resumed hunt.
  
  The plane, a Boeing 777 operated by Malaysia Airlines, deviated from its planned route north on March 8, 2014, for reasons that are still unknown. After traveling south over the Indian Ocean, the plane is believed to have flown for about five hours before probably running out of fuel and disappearing.
  
  Debris that may have come from the plane has washed up in Madagascar, Réunion Island and Tanzania.
  
  The governments of Australia, Malaysia and China suspended the official search after scrutinizing about 46,000 square miles of the Indian Ocean floor at a cost of more than $150 million. Officials then concluded that the probable crash site was farther north.
  
  The Malaysian government began the latest search in partnership with Ocean Infinity after pressure from families of the missing.
  
  Ocean Infinity agreed to participate as part of what the Malaysian government called a “no cure, no fee” agreement, under which the company could have received up to $70 million if it found the wreckage or data recorders, and nothing if it did not. The Seabed Constructor, a ship operated by the company, set out in January to being searching.
  
  In a little over three months of searching, the investigation covered almost the same-sized area as the previous search had completed in two and a half years, Ocean Infinity said in its statement.
  But the investigators came no closer to finding the plane.
  
  Mr. Plunkett thanked Seabed Constructor crew members “who have worked tirelessly,” and called the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s dedication to find the plane “unwavering.”
  
  “We sincerely hope that we will be able to again offer our services in the search for MH370 in future,” he said.
  

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/world...&smtyp=cur

[Peetwo]

Update: Oz wrap up of OI search and calls for inquiry?

Via the Oz:

Pilot’s U-turn to oblivion
EAN HIGGINS, AMANDA HODGE
After another failed search, the mystery of MH370 persists.

---

MH370: pilot’s U-turn to oblivion

Zaharie Ahmad Shah loved flying. He came from a large family that was not particularly privileged; he considered himself very lucky when as a young man he was one of the few to get a ­traineeship as a pilot with Malaysia Airlines.

Thirty years later, Zaharie was flying Boeing 777-200ER airliners for Malaysia Airlines. They are big, wide-bodied, twin-engined beasts with extended range, boasting a wingspan of 61m, a length of 64m, and carrying up to 300 passengers.

But even that wasn’t enough flying for Zaharie. He flew drones for fun, and he set himself up at home with a sophisticated flight simulator, using his desktop computer with multiple screens.

Zaharie flew various simulated routes on the home computer, including one which was rather odd: it started out in Kuala Lumpur, headed northeast, but turned around over the South China Sea and then back over Malaysia.

The route turned again on a long track south to finish in the southern Indian Ocean. The zigzag route did not make any sense: there was no logic to it and it ended thousands of kilometres from anywhere anyone could land an aircraft, in a remote stretch of ocean.

But to professional airline ­pilots, Zaharie’s imaginary flight on his home computer flight simulator made absolute sense, if his motive was what they thought it was. It was a route he might have wanted to practise to make a ­Boeing 777 vanish, along with its passengers and crew, never to be found.

When New York magazine’s Jeff Wise broke the story, Australian and Malaysian authorities confirmed the leaked information but said the simulated route showed only the “possibility of planning”.

Some uncertainty later crept in when Wise corrected the story on his personal blog post, saying it now appeared more ­likely the information was from “two or possibly three separate flights” and not one single flight plot to the southern Indian Ocean.

On the evening of March 7, 2014, Zaharie arrived at the city’s airport in good time before he was to captain Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to Beijing.

Zaharie commanded considerable respect among his colleagues at Malaysia Airlines. At 53, he had been a pilot with the airline for 33 years and had clocked up 18,423 hours of flight time, including 8659 hours on the Boeing 777.

So when he ordered the ground staff to load extra fuel for the flight (it’s a difficult balance because more weight loaded means the aircraft burns more fuel), no one thought twice about it. The planned flight time to Beijing was five hours, 34 minutes, and Zaharie ­ordered enough fuel for a flight of seven hours and 31 minutes.

The first officer on flight MH370 was, compared to Zaharie, a youngster and a rookie. Fariq Abdul Hamid was 27 and had everything to live for. His friends say he was set to propose to his girlfriend Nadira Ramli, who was also a pilot.

Around midnight or a bit before, Zaharie, Fariq and the 10 cabin crew came on board, and then the 227 passengers took their seats. There were 14 nationalities among the passengers including 153 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians and six Australians.

Zaharie and Fariq taxied the plane to the runway threshold, made a couple of standard last-minute checks, and pushed the throttles forward.

At 41 minutes past midnight local time on March 8, flight MH370 lifted off, its wheels never to touch the ground again.

As is well known, MH370 never made it to Beijing. Instead, it flew to the middle of nowhere in the southern Indian Ocean.

About 40 minutes into the flight, just after Zaharie radioed in to Malaysian air traffic control for a standard sign-off before switching to Vietnamese ATC, where he famously said “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero”, the aircraft reversed course back over Malaysia, flew over Penang and up the Malacca Strait, then turned on a long track south.

Those words were the last heard from anyone on MH370. Radio contact ceased and the plane’s radar transponder was turned off.

Yesterday, the second subsea search for MH370 ended when the British-owned, Houston-based Ocean Infinity marine survey company packed up its eight torpedo-like unmanned mini-submarines on its leased ship Seabed Constructor.

It was a noble endeavour of private enterprise and high technology: in about four months, Ocean Infinity had searched almost as much of the southern Indian Ocean as the first, Australian ­bureaucrat-led hunt had in 2½ years.

The owners of Ocean Infinity have done their dough: under the “no cure, no fee” deal with the ­Malaysian government, they would have got up to $US70 million if they had found the plane.

In a gracious media statement yesterday, Ocean Infinity chief executive Oliver Plunkett said: “While clearly the outcome so far is extremely disappointing, as a company we are truly proud of what we have achieved in terms of both the quality of data we’ve produced and the speed with which we covered such a vast area, the likes of which has not been seen before.

“There has not been a subsea search of this scale and we hope that in the future we will be able to again offer our services in the search for MH370.”

The failure of the second search has left everyone — the aviation community, the families of the victims, and the general population — still fascinated by the mystery, wondering where the saga goes from here.

The new Malaysian government’s position is a bit ambiguous; when he was appointed, new Transport Minister Anthony Loke said he would make finding MH370 one of his top priorities, but in subsequent days he has talked about the need for “closure”.

A further complication is that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has promised to hand over power to the man he wrongly had jailed on sodomy charges, Anwar Ibrahim, and for whom he has now won a pardon.

Anwar’s position on a new search is also not clear, but he has committed to getting to the bottom of some of the more glaring contradictions that arose from the early Malaysian investigation into the disaster.

Over the more than four years since it disappeared, theories of what happened to MH370 have ranged from an on-board fire to one that North Korea hacked into its guidance system and stole it. But any scenarios based on an in-flight accident fall down fairly quickly because no distress call was sent from the aircraft, and it kept flying off course, with several changes of direction, for many hours.

Which brings it all back to the conclusion the professional aviation community around the world came up with on day one: the captain did it.

After doing his best for four years to avoid the issue, in public at least, the head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s underwater search for MH370, Peter Foley, last week came his closest to saying Zaharie must have hijacked the aircraft. It was flown deliberately for about 1½ hours after it deviated off course, Foley told a Senate estimates hearing, and “it’s absolutely evident … an aircraft doesn’t turn itself”.

Foley still stuck to the ATSB’s “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory — that whatever happened earlier in the flight, it ended with incapacitated pilots, the aircraft flying on ­autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed down rapidly.

But he hedged it by saying this was the most likely interpretation, and said a rogue pilot might have flown it to the end and ditched it outside the search area.

“We haven’t ever ruled out someone intervening at the end,” Foley said.

Which focuses attention on what happened after Zaharie and Fariq pulled up the landing gear, and started heading for Beijing.

There’s been some pretty out-there reporting in the Malaysian media, including a social media post by a Mohaza Mohaza, said to be “a close friend of Zaharie”.

“Zaharie … if this is what your fate is … now I understand what you were trying to say to me … last year at Jalan Perak cemetery, Penang. It was actually a hint that you would be leaving all of us,” he reportedly wrote in the post.

“Zaharie told me (jokingly) that I would not ever see his grave. This was what he meant. Now I understand. His grave is in the Indian Ocean.”

There was also a British tabloid newspaper report, discounted by Malaysian police, of a mysterious, untraceable two-minute phone call Zaharie made from the cockpit just before the flight.

There have been at least a dozen cases of suspected pilot murder-suicide hijackings of airliners, of which at least eight are confirmed, including the 2015 German­wings flight where the co-pilot waited until the captain left the cockpit for the toilet, then locked the door and flew the Airbus 320 with 150 people on board into the French Alps.

The young Germanwings co-pilot was found to have had psychological issues but they were not picked up — and in some other cases of pilot hijackings none were detected, even retrospectively.

Some things are known: Zaharie was a supporter of then opposition leader Anwar.

Anwar was convicted on what were widely regarded to be trumped up charges at a court hearing only hours before the crash. He also had marital issues, although their severity has been the subject of debate.

Relatives and friends say despite these question marks about the space Zaharie might have been in at the time, they can’t believe he would kill himself and 238 passengers in his charge.

Sivarasa Rasiah, a People’s Justice Party (PKR) MP and long-time lawyer for Anwar, said he had befriended Zaharie after he joined the PKR ahead of the 2013 elections, in which Anwar’s party won the popular vote but lost the ­election.

The two men bonded after belting out a particularly tortured karaoke duet of Hotel California at a party fundraising effort in 2012 and Sivarasa says they just “sort of took to each other”.

The last time he remembers catching up with the amiable pilot was when Zaharie dropped in with a bottle of Chivas Regal for the Indian Malaysian MP during the Hindu festival of Deepavali.

“Pilot suicide is rubbish as far as I’m concerned. Absolutely no way,” Sivarasa tells The Australian. “I knew he had marital issues. Everyone in his circle knew.”

Sivarasa has also dismissed the idea that his friend might have ditched the plane in fury at Anwar’s second sodomy conviction, which was handed down just four hours before MH370 took off.

Few had expected Anwar to be convicted, given how blatantly political the trial had been, and there would have been no time to plan for such an event from the time Anwar was convicted at 7.30pm to the time the Beijing-bound flight took off.

Sivarasa says he was “quite sure” Zaharie was not present in court on the day Anwar was convicted.

Zaharie’s elder sister Sakinab Shah has described her brother — the eighth of nine children and the family favourite — as an enormously affectionate “man who loved life, loved fun”.

She acknowledged her brother and his wife, Faizah, had “normal” marital problems, but said he wore his troubles lightly.

Fatima Pardi, a worker with the PKR party, which is now part of the ruling coalition, told The Australian in September 2016 that she met Zaharie when he joined the party and began attending political events.

Pardi said he had become her mentor and a father figure for her children, one of whom suffers from severe cerebral palsy.

The relationship ended a few months before the plane went missing, but she claimed to have had a WhatsApp social media exchange with Zaharie two days before the flight.

She refused to say what they spoke about for fear it would be misinterpreted.

Sakinab Shah confirmed Pardi had contacted her after MH370 went missing and that the two had met, but she was one of several of her brother’s women friends she had met over the years.

“Honestly, I have met many, many other friends of his. A lot of times I gave him a telling-off about this. It was never anything serious,” she says.

“He was naughty, I admit that, but at the end of the day he always went home.”

But New Zealand-born aviator Mike Keane, a former Royal Air Force fighter pilot and intelligence officer who later became chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline, easyJet, says one has to take a hard look at what all this might have meant for Zaharie’s state of mind.

“From an observer’s view point, it would be reasonable to assume that the relationship between Pardi and Zaharie was closer than has been admitted by Pardi,” Keane says.

“Their relationship may have had a bearing on the disappearance of MH370.”

&...

 Sister urges inquiry into search
EAN HIGGINS
An MH370 victim’s sister wants a full inquiry into authorities’ handling of the failed search for the aircraft.

---

MH370: victim’s sister wants full inquiry into failed search

A Queensland woman who lost her sister on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has called for a full inquiry up to a royal commission into Australian and Malaysian authorities’ handling of the ­failed search for the aircraft.

Teresa Liddle was speaking as the second subsea search for the Boeing 777, by British-owned and Houston-based marine survey company Ocean Infinity, came to an end without success.

Ms Liddle, whose sister Mary Burrows was among the 239 people on MH370, also called on the Australian Transport Safety ­Bureau to release key documents. “They should not hide behind Freedom of Information (exemptions) and not provide the documents on the basis that they did not want to upset Malay­sia,” she said. “It is critical to the aviation industry.”

Last year, the ATSB’s then general manager for strategic capability, Colin McNam­ara, rejected an FOI request from The Australian to release analyses of satellite tracking data on MH370 by international experts.

The bureau said the opinions supported its “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory of the aircraft flying with incapacitated pilots at the end and crashing after running out of fuel on autopilot, but would not make them public.

In his letter of refusal, Mr McNamara said if the documents were released, that could “cause damage to the inter­national relations of the ­commonwealth”.

In a review of Mr McNamara’s decision requested by The Australian, ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood also rejected the FOI application. In his letter, Mr Hood said information on the search work done to help Malaysia had been declared restricted, and was subject to the Transport Safety ­Investigation Act, under which if any current or former ATSB staffer releases restricted information to a journalist or a judge in open court, he or she could be jailed.

Totally agree with Ms Liddle's call for some form of either an independent parliamentary or judicial inquiry. However given the perceived COI by the RRAT Legislative Committee Chair O'Obfuscation - see HERE - I would rather that the RRAT committee not conduct this inquiry until such time that BO has recused himself from the committee...  


MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

Update: Oz wrap up of OI search and calls for inquiry?

Via the Oz:

Pilot’s U-turn to oblivion
EAN HIGGINS, AMANDA HODGE
After another failed search, the mystery of MH370 persists.

---

MH370: pilot’s U-turn to oblivion

Zaharie Ahmad Shah loved flying. He came from a large family that was not particularly privileged; he considered himself very lucky when as a young man he was one of the few to get a ­traineeship as a pilot with Malaysia Airlines.

Thirty years later, Zaharie was flying Boeing 777-200ER airliners for Malaysia Airlines. They are big, wide-bodied, twin-engined beasts with extended range, boasting a wingspan of 61m, a length of 64m, and carrying up to 300 passengers.

But even that wasn’t enough flying for Zaharie. He flew drones for fun, and he set himself up at home with a sophisticated flight simulator, using his desktop computer with multiple screens.

Zaharie flew various simulated routes on the home computer, including one which was rather odd: it started out in Kuala Lumpur, headed northeast, but turned around over the South China Sea and then back over Malaysia.

The route turned again on a long track south to finish in the southern Indian Ocean. The zigzag route did not make any sense: there was no logic to it and it ended thousands of kilometres from anywhere anyone could land an aircraft, in a remote stretch of ocean.

But to professional airline ­pilots, Zaharie’s imaginary flight on his home computer flight simulator made absolute sense, if his motive was what they thought it was. It was a route he might have wanted to practise to make a ­Boeing 777 vanish, along with its passengers and crew, never to be found.

When New York magazine’s Jeff Wise broke the story, Australian and Malaysian authorities confirmed the leaked information but said the simulated route showed only the “possibility of planning”.

Some uncertainty later crept in when Wise corrected the story on his personal blog post, saying it now appeared more ­likely the information was from “two or possibly three separate flights” and not one single flight plot to the southern Indian Ocean.

On the evening of March 7, 2014, Zaharie arrived at the city’s airport in good time before he was to captain Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to Beijing.

Zaharie commanded considerable respect among his colleagues at Malaysia Airlines. At 53, he had been a pilot with the airline for 33 years and had clocked up 18,423 hours of flight time, including 8659 hours on the Boeing 777.

So when he ordered the ground staff to load extra fuel for the flight (it’s a difficult balance because more weight loaded means the aircraft burns more fuel), no one thought twice about it. The planned flight time to Beijing was five hours, 34 minutes, and Zaharie ­ordered enough fuel for a flight of seven hours and 31 minutes.

The first officer on flight MH370 was, compared to Zaharie, a youngster and a rookie. Fariq Abdul Hamid was 27 and had everything to live for. His friends say he was set to propose to his girlfriend Nadira Ramli, who was also a pilot.

Around midnight or a bit before, Zaharie, Fariq and the 10 cabin crew came on board, and then the 227 passengers took their seats. There were 14 nationalities among the passengers including 153 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians and six Australians.

Zaharie and Fariq taxied the plane to the runway threshold, made a couple of standard last-minute checks, and pushed the throttles forward.

At 41 minutes past midnight local time on March 8, flight MH370 lifted off, its wheels never to touch the ground again.

As is well known, MH370 never made it to Beijing. Instead, it flew to the middle of nowhere in the southern Indian Ocean.

About 40 minutes into the flight, just after Zaharie radioed in to Malaysian air traffic control for a standard sign-off before switching to Vietnamese ATC, where he famously said “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero”, the aircraft reversed course back over Malaysia, flew over Penang and up the Malacca Strait, then turned on a long track south.

Those words were the last heard from anyone on MH370. Radio contact ceased and the plane’s radar transponder was turned off.

Yesterday, the second subsea search for MH370 ended when the British-owned, Houston-based Ocean Infinity marine survey company packed up its eight torpedo-like unmanned mini-submarines on its leased ship Seabed Constructor.

It was a noble endeavour of private enterprise and high technology: in about four months, Ocean Infinity had searched almost as much of the southern Indian Ocean as the first, Australian ­bureaucrat-led hunt had in 2½ years.

The owners of Ocean Infinity have done their dough: under the “no cure, no fee” deal with the ­Malaysian government, they would have got up to $US70 million if they had found the plane.

In a gracious media statement yesterday, Ocean Infinity chief executive Oliver Plunkett said: “While clearly the outcome so far is extremely disappointing, as a company we are truly proud of what we have achieved in terms of both the quality of data we’ve produced and the speed with which we covered such a vast area, the likes of which has not been seen before.

“There has not been a subsea search of this scale and we hope that in the future we will be able to again offer our services in the search for MH370.”

The failure of the second search has left everyone — the aviation community, the families of the victims, and the general population — still fascinated by the mystery, wondering where the saga goes from here.

The new Malaysian government’s position is a bit ambiguous; when he was appointed, new Transport Minister Anthony Loke said he would make finding MH370 one of his top priorities, but in subsequent days he has talked about the need for “closure”.

A further complication is that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has promised to hand over power to the man he wrongly had jailed on sodomy charges, Anwar Ibrahim, and for whom he has now won a pardon.

Anwar’s position on a new search is also not clear, but he has committed to getting to the bottom of some of the more glaring contradictions that arose from the early Malaysian investigation into the disaster.

Over the more than four years since it disappeared, theories of what happened to MH370 have ranged from an on-board fire to one that North Korea hacked into its guidance system and stole it. But any scenarios based on an in-flight accident fall down fairly quickly because no distress call was sent from the aircraft, and it kept flying off course, with several changes of direction, for many hours.

Which brings it all back to the conclusion the professional aviation community around the world came up with on day one: the captain did it.

After doing his best for four years to avoid the issue, in public at least, the head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s underwater search for MH370, Peter Foley, last week came his closest to saying Zaharie must have hijacked the aircraft. It was flown deliberately for about 1½ hours after it deviated off course, Foley told a Senate estimates hearing, and “it’s absolutely evident … an aircraft doesn’t turn itself”.

Foley still stuck to the ATSB’s “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory — that whatever happened earlier in the flight, it ended with incapacitated pilots, the aircraft flying on ­autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed down rapidly.

But he hedged it by saying this was the most likely interpretation, and said a rogue pilot might have flown it to the end and ditched it outside the search area.

“We haven’t ever ruled out someone intervening at the end,” Foley said.

Which focuses attention on what happened after Zaharie and Fariq pulled up the landing gear, and started heading for Beijing.

There’s been some pretty out-there reporting in the Malaysian media, including a social media post by a Mohaza Mohaza, said to be “a close friend of Zaharie”.

“Zaharie … if this is what your fate is … now I understand what you were trying to say to me … last year at Jalan Perak cemetery, Penang. It was actually a hint that you would be leaving all of us,” he reportedly wrote in the post.

“Zaharie told me (jokingly) that I would not ever see his grave. This was what he meant. Now I understand. His grave is in the Indian Ocean.”

There was also a British tabloid newspaper report, discounted by Malaysian police, of a mysterious, untraceable two-minute phone call Zaharie made from the cockpit just before the flight.

There have been at least a dozen cases of suspected pilot murder-suicide hijackings of airliners, of which at least eight are confirmed, including the 2015 German­wings flight where the co-pilot waited until the captain left the cockpit for the toilet, then locked the door and flew the Airbus 320 with 150 people on board into the French Alps.

The young Germanwings co-pilot was found to have had psychological issues but they were not picked up — and in some other cases of pilot hijackings none were detected, even retrospectively.

Some things are known: Zaharie was a supporter of then opposition leader Anwar.

Anwar was convicted on what were widely regarded to be trumped up charges at a court hearing only hours before the crash. He also had marital issues, although their severity has been the subject of debate.

Relatives and friends say despite these question marks about the space Zaharie might have been in at the time, they can’t believe he would kill himself and 238 passengers in his charge.

Sivarasa Rasiah, a People’s Justice Party (PKR) MP and long-time lawyer for Anwar, said he had befriended Zaharie after he joined the PKR ahead of the 2013 elections, in which Anwar’s party won the popular vote but lost the ­election.

The two men bonded after belting out a particularly tortured karaoke duet of Hotel California at a party fundraising effort in 2012 and Sivarasa says they just “sort of took to each other”.

The last time he remembers catching up with the amiable pilot was when Zaharie dropped in with a bottle of Chivas Regal for the Indian Malaysian MP during the Hindu festival of Deepavali.

“Pilot suicide is rubbish as far as I’m concerned. Absolutely no way,” Sivarasa tells The Australian. “I knew he had marital issues. Everyone in his circle knew.”

Sivarasa has also dismissed the idea that his friend might have ditched the plane in fury at Anwar’s second sodomy conviction, which was handed down just four hours before MH370 took off.

Few had expected Anwar to be convicted, given how blatantly political the trial had been, and there would have been no time to plan for such an event from the time Anwar was convicted at 7.30pm to the time the Beijing-bound flight took off.

Sivarasa says he was “quite sure” Zaharie was not present in court on the day Anwar was convicted.

Zaharie’s elder sister Sakinab Shah has described her brother — the eighth of nine children and the family favourite — as an enormously affectionate “man who loved life, loved fun”.

She acknowledged her brother and his wife, Faizah, had “normal” marital problems, but said he wore his troubles lightly.

Fatima Pardi, a worker with the PKR party, which is now part of the ruling coalition, told The Australian in September 2016 that she met Zaharie when he joined the party and began attending political events.

Pardi said he had become her mentor and a father figure for her children, one of whom suffers from severe cerebral palsy.

The relationship ended a few months before the plane went missing, but she claimed to have had a WhatsApp social media exchange with Zaharie two days before the flight.

She refused to say what they spoke about for fear it would be misinterpreted.

Sakinab Shah confirmed Pardi had contacted her after MH370 went missing and that the two had met, but she was one of several of her brother’s women friends she had met over the years.

“Honestly, I have met many, many other friends of his. A lot of times I gave him a telling-off about this. It was never anything serious,” she says.

“He was naughty, I admit that, but at the end of the day he always went home.”

But New Zealand-born aviator Mike Keane, a former Royal Air Force fighter pilot and intelligence officer who later became chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline, easyJet, says one has to take a hard look at what all this might have meant for Zaharie’s state of mind.

“From an observer’s view point, it would be reasonable to assume that the relationship between Pardi and Zaharie was closer than has been admitted by Pardi,” Keane says.

“Their relationship may have had a bearing on the disappearance of MH370.”

&...

 Sister urges inquiry into search
EAN HIGGINS
An MH370 victim’s sister wants a full inquiry into authorities’ handling of the failed search for the aircraft.

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MH370: victim’s sister wants full inquiry into failed search

A Queensland woman who lost her sister on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has called for a full inquiry up to a royal commission into Australian and Malaysian authorities’ handling of the ­failed search for the aircraft.

Teresa Liddle was speaking as the second subsea search for the Boeing 777, by British-owned and Houston-based marine survey company Ocean Infinity, came to an end without success.

Ms Liddle, whose sister Mary Burrows was among the 239 people on MH370, also called on the Australian Transport Safety ­Bureau to release key documents. “They should not hide behind Freedom of Information (exemptions) and not provide the documents on the basis that they did not want to upset Malay­sia,” she said. “It is critical to the aviation industry.”

Last year, the ATSB’s then general manager for strategic capability, Colin McNam­ara, rejected an FOI request from The Australian to release analyses of satellite tracking data on MH370 by international experts.

The bureau said the opinions supported its “ghost flight” and “death dive” theory of the aircraft flying with incapacitated pilots at the end and crashing after running out of fuel on autopilot, but would not make them public.

In his letter of refusal, Mr McNamara said if the documents were released, that could “cause damage to the inter­national relations of the ­commonwealth”.

In a review of Mr McNamara’s decision requested by The Australian, ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood also rejected the FOI application. In his letter, Mr Hood said information on the search work done to help Malaysia had been declared restricted, and was subject to the Transport Safety ­Investigation Act, under which if any current or former ATSB staffer releases restricted information to a journalist or a judge in open court, he or she could be jailed.

Totally agree with Ms Liddle's call for some form of either an independent parliamentary or judicial inquiry. However given the perceived COI by the RRAT Legislative Committee Chair O'Obfuscation - see HERE - I would rather that the RRAT committee not conduct this inquiry until such time that BO has recused himself from the committee...  

Plus from news.com.au:

Deep-sea explorer and acclaimed director James Cameron says it’s no surprise missing flight MH370 hasn’t been found

THE Oscar-winning director of Titanic has revealed his own theory about missing flight MH370 and why we can’t find it.

Matt Young@MattYoung news.com.au MAY 30, 2018 4:20PM



The Operational Search for MH370, published in October 2017, shows the ‘X marks the spot’ moment, where the flight meets the famous 7th arc (the final attempted satellite handshake with the airliner) Picture: Google Earth, annotated by ATSBSource:Supplied

DEEP-sea explorer James Cameron has said it’s no surprise that the missing MH370 plane has not yet been found and that it would be “human arrogance” to think otherwise.

Almost four years since the filmmaker said he believed the plane would never be found due to a lack of “vehicle funding”, the Titanic director told news.com.au there was still no end in sight for one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

In Sydney earlier this week as part of Vivid Ideas and to launch his major new exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum, James Cameron — Challenging The Deep, he told news.com.au that finding the missing plane at the bottom of the ocean is like finding a needle in a haystack.

“An anomaly the size of an air frame won’t show up on the data that we have now,” he told news.com.au.

“We know more about the surface of Mars or the Moon than we do our deepest oceans. The equipment that I’ve designed is specifically designed to explore deep and local to an already identified site of scientific interest.

“Once they find a site, I’m a specialist in wreck sites, you give me a wreck site and I know how to explore it, I know how to map it, I know how to use small robotics to go in and analyse it and do the wreck forensics on it.

“I’m not saying that’s something that would excite me, going to an aircraft site — personally I’m more interested in ships.”

In 2012, Cameron made a groundbreaking underwater dive to the deepest point on the ocean floor; the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean.

His research of sunken vessels, including the Titanic and German battleship the Bismarck, has revealed new clues about the fate of the ships and how they sunk.

He said that despite searching thousands of square kilometres of deep ocean, the missing Malaysia Airlines flight could be anywhere.

“The ocean is huge mate, people really have no idea. We have this sense that everything is explored and we’ve got it all wrapped up and we’ve got our satellites, but the second you go below the water it’s a vast unknown.

“We’re talking hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean, most of it unmapped. We don’t know what that bottom looks like and it will take us decades to survey it all.

“Now if one were to mount an enormous search across the entire western Pacific and Indian Ocean we’d learn an awful lot, it’d be great. I’d love for somebody to throw a few billion [dollars] at that. We’d learn an awful lot about the deep ocean.

“It’s human arrogance to think we know so much about the Earth.”


Deep-sea explorer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Cameron talks next to a scale model of a deep-sea submarine he used to dive to the bottom of the ocean.

Picture: Saeed KhanSource:AFP


An artist’s imagining of MH370 hitting the ocean, which appeared on 60 Minutes.Source:Channel 9

Cameron’s comments come as the US technology company which has been scouring the ocean floor for more than three months failed to find the wreck site and today, officially ended its search.

Texas-based Ocean Infinity chief executive Oliver Plunkett said 112,000sq km of remote ocean floor had been searched — more than four times larger than the proposed crash zone around the Indian Ocean.

“I would firstly like to extend the thoughts of everyone at Ocean Infinity to the families of those who have lost loved ones on MH370. Part of our motivation for renewing the search was to try to provide some answers to those affected,” Mr Plunkett said in a statement.

“It is therefore with a heavy heart that we end our current search without having achieved that aim,” he said.

Australian Transport Minister Michael McCormack said the search for the missing plane was the largest in aviation history and had tested the boundaries of what humans and technology could achieve at such deep depths.

The four-year search for the plane culminated in a $200 million price tag. The Boeing 777 vanished on March 8, 2014 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Experts initially predicated a possible crash site in the South China Sea before more analysis drew up a different flight path. Experts used analysis of wreckage found washed ashore to determine possible crash sites.

Mr McCormack acknowledged fresh searches may one day be launched if new technologies emerge but said he doubts Australia will again take part “at this stage”, according to AAP.

“But it looks as though this will remain a mystery for the time being,” he said.

“We’ve got to remember the actual plane is about 60m long — that’s about four times less than the Titanic — which they took more than 70 years to find knowing exactly the co-ordinates of where it went down,” he told AAP.

“This is a very deep ocean, this is a large aircraft admittedly, but not that large that it was obviously easily detectable.”

And today from BB in the Oz:

China the key to finding MH370

SAM BUCKINGHAM-JONES
Byron Bailey has challenged the Chinese government to take up the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

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Superpower China ‘the missing element’ in search for MH370

Aviation expert and pilot Byron Bailey has challenged the Chinese government to take up the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, two days after the official search ended.

Mr Bailey told The Australian that China appeared relatively uninterested in finding MH370, despite losing 153 of its citizens on the plane.

“I appeal to the Chinese government to take over the search in the small 4300sq km area centred about 130km southwest of where the aircraft ran out of fuel or had its engines deliberately shut own,” he said. “A superpower with a large navy is well qualified to conduct a successful search for the huge 64m wreckage, even if it is broken up.”

Mr Bailey’s call for Chinese involvement came as Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, yesterday flagged that the search for MH370 may be resumed if new evidence comes to light.

“We have not found any evidence yet, so we have to come to a stage where we cannot keep searching for something we cannot find,” he said. “If we find any new information, we may resume the search. We regret it very much, and we understand the feelings of the relatives, but we cannot keep on searching for this MH370 forever.”

On Tuesday, the second subsea search for MH370 ended when marine survey company Ocean Infinity packed up its eight unmanned mini submarines.

Ocean Infinity, a British-owned, Houston-based company, had carried out a search of 112,000sq km under a deal with the Malaysian government that meant they would have been paid up to $70 million had they found the plane.

There were 239 people from 14 countries — including Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, India, France and the US — on board MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, as it travelled from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Mr Bailey said it was important to get some closure for the grief-stricken families of those who were on board.

“It is important as well for the aviation industry and for the safety of the flying public to know what happened.

“Boeing obviously early on ­realised that this was not a technical fault with their B777 — probably the world’s safest airliner,” he writes.

“I’ve pointed out that the only mistake made by the Malaysian authorities and those in charge of Malaysia Airlines — a world-class airline — was to trust the Australian Transport Safety Board as being a competent and professional body.”

Mr Bailey said the ATSB had based their search on a rapid and uncontrolled descent and not a forced landing by a rogue pilot bent on destruction.

Yesterday, Teresa Liddle, the sister of Australian passenger Mary Burrows, called for a full inquiry into the handling of the search for the aircraft.

“It is critical to the aviation industry,” she said.

Ms Liddle said the ATSB should release key analyses of satellite tracking data on MH370 by international experts that have so far been denied, despite Freedom of Information requests.

MTF...P2