[Peetwo]

MH370 SIO search - Breaking News August 06.

Post #119 onwards from AP thread - Australia, ATSB & MH370 - carries the breaking news from overnight that the flaperon found on Reunion island is almost certainly off MH370.

However this sudden announcement from the French authorities poses many more questions than answers in the continued search for MH370...

Which brings me to the excellent ventus45 post which followed #119:

..Taking all that into consideration, it is frankly amazing, that a very senior legal entity, shoud reach such profound conclusions as "a very strong presumption", so "quickly".


It is also interesting to note, that most of the media I have seen / heard this morning are running with the theme "this proves MH-370 is in the SIO and therefore all the "conspiracy theories" are wrong.



Perhaps that is the "real reason" for the "hasty" anouncement.



In other words, for my money, at best, the jury is still out, and at worst ........... ?

Yes indeed passing strange when the provenance history on the flaperon cannot possibly be anywhere near complete...

Continuing on from his many...many insightful & probing posts on the subject Ben Sandilands has been very busy from early AM today...

First:

France puts pressure on Malaysia to tell all about MH370
Ben Sandilands | Aug 06, 2015 3:45AM |

In the hours before a press conference in France concerning possible wreckage from missing flight MH370 the public prosecutors office in Paris has pressured Malaysia’s government to stop being evasive about what it knows about the crash.

The Wall Street Journal quotes a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office as saying “We’ve been asking for information from the Malaysians for a long time.”
The report says “Now that the French have invited the Malaysians to participate in the examination of the wing, the French judge expects information from Malaysia about its criminal investigation into the flight’s disappearance.”

It refers to the evasiveness of the Malaysian authorities and to the frustration that has caused other governments with an interest in solving the riddle of the missing flight, but doesn’t refer to Australia by name, where the policy setting is to be obsequious to the government in Kuala Lumpur and dare not question anything even though its Prime Minister Najib Razak misled it over what it knew about the crash from day one.

Malaysia has been instructing the Australian led search of the south Indian Ocean sea bed for the sunk wreckage of the jet, which disappeared with 239 people on board on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014.

The discovery of a wing ‘flaperon’ on the shores of La Reunion island in the Indian Ocean near Mauritius last week saw it taken to Toulouse for testing, where in French law, a criminal investigation into the loss of French lives in the incident takes precedence over parallel inquiries into the crash.

 
Second (also updated):

Malaysia PM says “it’s from MH370″

Ben Sandilands | Aug 06, 2015 3:57AM

Updated  In the minutes before the crucial French press conference the Malaysia PM Najib Razak has said the wing part found on La Reunion is from MH370.

His preempting of the French announcement follows dissatisfaction from the public prosecutors office in Paris of the lack of transparency from Malaysia over what it knows about the disappearance of the flight.

The media conference in Paris should begin shortly.

The Malaysia PM told an almost empty room at about 1.57 am Kuala Lumpur time that “today 515 days since it disappeared it is with a heavy heart I must tell you an international team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on La Reunion is indeed from MH370.

“The burden and uncertainty that has been faced by the families in this time has been unspeakable…”

Najib Razak said the government of Malaysia is “committed to doing anything …. in order to find out the truth about what happened to MH370.”

This is in striking contrast to his misleading of the search partners for MH370 for a full 11 days when Kuala Lumpur insisted that the search be extended further into the South China Sea and as far as Kazakhstan when according to its then acting Minister for Transport Hishammuddin Hussein, cabinet knew the jet had flown westwards across the Malay Peninsula on the morning it disappeared from air traffic control radar while over the Gulf of Thailand.

And No3:

France says strong presumption part is from MH370 more tests to come

Ben Sandilands | Aug 06, 2015 4:42AM |




The wing part from MH370 being recovered on La Reunion last week

The public prosecutor’s office in Paris says there are multiple strong presumptions that the wing part recovered from La Reunion island last week comes from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, but more tests will be done later today, Thursday, in Toulouse.

Significantly, deputy public prosecutor Serge Mackowiak also said forensic tests would be conducted on a suitcase part found on the shores of the Indian Ocean island, near Mauritius.

M Mackowiak said technical analysts from the France’s air safety investigator and information provided by Malaysia Airlines identified multiple strong presumptions that the two metre long object was a flaperon, a part of the trailing edge of the wing of the Boeing 777-200ER that was operating MH370 between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing with 239 people on board on 8 March last year.

“These strong presumptions need to be confirmed by further tests” he said.

Earlier yesterday, Wednesday, in France the public prosecutor’s office told the Wall Street Journal it wanted more reciprocity from Malaysia as to what it knew from its criminal or other investigations into the disappearance of MH370.

In French law the public prosecutors must investigate the loss of the lives of its nationals in disasters such as MH370 and they act independently from its air crash investigator, the BEA, while working closely with it.

When the co-pilot of a Germanwings A320 murdered all 150 people onboard on 24 March this year by locking his captain out of the cockpit and flying it into a mountain in the southern French Alps the BEA released the cockpit voice recorder to the prosecutor’s office in Marseille which immediately made the evidence it contained public.

No doubt there will be further updates from Ben but the three posts from this AM IMO tell a story within a story.

So have the Malaysians yet again jumped the gun with the PM Najib's presser this AM? Especially when you consider the following media release from Minister Truss is decidedly more reserved in the confirmation that the flaperon is definitely from MH370:

High probability aircraft wreckage is from MH 370

Media Release
WT237/2015
06 August 2015

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss has noted statements from the Prime Minister of Malaysia and French authorities that in all probability wreckage found on La Réunion is from Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370.

“The French-led investigation team is continuing to finalise its considerations of the wreckage and we will await further detail from them,” Mr Truss said.

“Our expert from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) remains in France and will continue to aid the international investigation team.

“The finding of wreckage on La Réunion is consistent with our current search area. For this reason thorough and methodical search efforts will continue in the defined search area.
“The Australian Government will continue to work to keep the next of kin of passengers and crew informed of developments as they happen.”

All passing strange? However IMO the biggest, most refreshing observation/revelation, is the French appear not to be interested in brokering/accepting anymore bullshit from the Najib government, nor will they be giving up custody of the flaperon to the Malaysians anytime soon...

MTF..P2