[Peetwo]

And that chunk of debris seen in the pictures was likely burned along with all the junk that washed up from the ferry. Typical way the search is going so far, but you cannot blame the ATSB for that stuff up. Although warning people bits of MH370 might be washing up on their shores might have had people out looking, but no, the ATSB warned it would wash up on West Sumatra, where nothing is likely to wash up. Deliberate misinformation, or a stuff up?

"..And on the (MH370) media circus.." cont/-

Been a bit quiet on here in the last couple of weeks but it would appear that the media circus maybe about to ramp up again..

Today there is several re-hashed versions of this article from Astro Awani:

MH370: Search resumes, strategies to improve - Tiong Lai

Rahimah Abdullah, Astro Awani |
September 30, 2015 00:08 MYT




Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai says improvements in aircraft search strategy needs to be done from time to time. -Photo: Astro AWANI/Rahimah Abdullah

KUALA LUMPUR: The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will continue through the trilateral cooperation of Malaysia, China and Australia.

A tripartite meeting at the ministerial level will be held next week in China.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the talks will focus on a more effective search strategies.

"We are continuing the search for MH370 even if the Prime Minister of Australia has changed. However, we would like to thank Australia for their commitment in the search for MH370.

"We will hold a tripartite meeting officially in China next week to discuss details about the search strategies," he told reporters after officiating the closing ceremony of World Communication Forum Kuala Lumpur in Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) here today.

He said that the improvements in aircraft search strategy needs to be done from time to time.

"We will improve the strategy to find the exact location of MH370. We know the area (search location) is right, but we want to find (the plane) more quickly so that we are able to find MH370 earlier.

"We've found the flaperon. So it is true that the aircraft ended in the Indian Ocean and from the discovery of the flaperon, the plane has moved from that location to Reunion island,” he said.

French investigators have confirmed that the fragments known as flaperon belongs to the missing MH370 which went missing on March 8, 2014.

The plane was carrying 239 passengers, and was en route from Malaysia to China.

Meanwhile, Malaysia also urged the establishment of the International Tribunal on flight MH17 tragedy which was shot down in eastern Ukraine, on July 17 last year.

Tiong Lai said the move was crucial to ensure justice for the victims of the plane crash.

"We would like to discuss how to establish a tribunal although our resolution was rejected by Russia, but we are still having discussions with Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on how do we keep an effective international court to get justice for MH17 victims.

"We seek a solution to ensure justice for the innocent," he said.

He added that the matter should be solved immediately through an international platform.

The statement about the change in PM is quite bizarre..   

Ben Sandilands thinks so too -

Malaysia ‘hopes for’ MH370 search talks in China next week
Ben Sandilands | Sep 30, 2015 3:31PM |

Hoping to arrange a date with China, Malaysia transport minister Liow Tiong Lai

Following on China’s snubbing of a tripartite meeting concerning the search for missing flight MH370, Malaysia’s transport minister Liow Tiong Lai says he hopes Australia, Malaysia and China will meet in China next week to discuss a more effective search strategy.

All that has been said about this in Australia at this hour is that today’s weekly MH370 search update will not happen until tomorrow.

Perhaps Australia is working the ‘phones to ensure that Malaysia’s hopes are realised.  It is reasonable to hold that Australia’s relations with the PRC are somewhat better than Malaysia’s.

There are some nuanced references to the progress of the search in this brief Malaysian news report, plus a weird linkage being made between the removal of Tony Abbott from the position of PM and the continuation of the search under Malcolm Turnbull

There was also a report from the FMT (Free Malaysia Today) publication yesterday, which was also bizarre in the disconnection with most of the MSM coverage (above).. :

M’sia, China, Australia to continue search for MH370


September 29, 2015

Options will be explored, taking into account available resources, equipment and vessels, says DCA director-general.




BEIJING: Malaysia, China and Australia are still committed to locating the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 aircraft which vanished in the southern Indian Ocean last year, says Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman.

He said the three countries had a meeting in China today to discuss the ongoing search operations for the Boeing 777 aircraft, following a meeting in Canberra earlier this month.

The meeting started at 8.30am and finished at 6pm, and was attended by officials from China’s Ministry of Transport and Foreign Affairs, officials from Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) and Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), as well as representatives from Malaysia’s Transport Ministry, DCA and MH370’s next-of-kin committee.

“I am happy to report that the three countries are still very much committed to the search. As you know, the flaperon found on July 29 (in the French territory of Reunion Island) has been confirmed as coming from MH370.

“This confirms the drift modelling by the experts that we are looking in the right place,” he told Bernama here today.

In addition, Azharuddin said tests were being conducted to determine if it could yield any other information over what happened to the plane.

“Even the barnacles (on the flaperon) are being examined by marine biologists for clues,” he added.

Azharuddin said based on advice from the experts, options would continue to be explored for the search, taking into account the available resources including funds, equipment and vessels.

“As always, we are hopeful that the mystery of MH370 will be solved and the families can find closure,” he added.

On March 8 last year, the aircraft carrying 239 passengers and crew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished from the radar.
– BERNAMA

Ok trying to get this straight??- the officials from the three countries involved in the MH370 SIO search have just met and the Malaysians, with Australian support, are proposing  a Tripartite meeting at a Ministerial level in China next week - ok got it I think??  

Finally courtesy of Duncan Steel there was this blogpiece which was a copy of a Victor Ianellio paper with questions for the Malaysian MH370 investigators (JIT):

Questions about the Radar Data for MH370

by Victor Iannello, ScD
September 24, 2015

A PDF version of this report may be downloaded by clicking here or here (540 kB).
Notice: The views expressed here belong solely to Victor Iannello and do not necessarily represent the views of the Independent Group (IG), or any other group or individual.
Introduction
In a recent paper [1], we analyzed the position and time data derived from the publicly-available radar data for MH370, and made the following observations:

• After the turn back towards the Malay Peninsula, the flight path recorded by civilian primary surveillance radar (PSR), civilian secondary surveillance radar (SSR), and military radar are consistent with a flight at a Mach number (M) equal to 0.84 at a cruising level of FL340.
  
• If the aircraft did fly at a steady M = 0.84, then the timestamps for some of the PSR contained in the Factual Information (FI) [2] are offset by about 35 seconds.
  
• After the left turn at around 17:23:38 UTC, the aircraft might have descended from FL350 to FL340 and accelerated from a ground speed of 473 kn to a ground speed of greater than 500 kn.
  
• In the FI [2], the PSR data between 17:47:02 and 17:52:35 UTC are attributed to the radar site at Kota Bharu, but more likely were collected by another radar site. The PSR data between 17:30:37 and 17:44:52 are correctly attributed to Kota Bharu.
  
• In the FI [2], it is stated that Indonesian military radar recorded MH370 as it traveled toward IGARI but not as it traveled back over Malaysia. One explanation is that Indonesian radar site was powered down after midnight, local time.
  
• The sharp turn to the left at around 17:23:38 UTC is unexplained, and could be due to either an inaccurate graphical portrayal of the radar track, or crossing radar tracks from two aircraft.
  
• The curve in the radar path close to Kota Bharu can be explained by “slant range” due to high altitudes and close distances.
  
• Fuel consumption models which assume that MH370 flew near Long Range Cruise (LRC) speeds and at cruising altitudes between 17:07 and 18:22 are likely accurate.
  

The estimated path and speeds for MH370 from takeoff to the last radar point [1] is shown in Figure 1.
Bob Hall [3] used the software package STK to calculate the radar range for various military radar installations in Thailand and Malaysia that may have seen MH370. The range calculations were solely based on the line-of-sight between the target aircraft and the radar head, including any obstruction caused by terrain features such as hills and mountains. The calculations were performed for a geometric altitude of 37,000 ft, which corresponds to a pressure altitude of about 35,000 ft (i.e. FL350) over Malaysia at the time of the disappearance. The results are shown in Figure 2. (The path shown for MH370 in Figure 2 is not exactly correct because at the time the plot was generated in October 2014, the details of MH370’s path as derived from the radar data were not known.)
Based on the work performed in [1] and [3], we have developed a list of questions related to the radar data that would help the public to better understand this incident. We believe that the answers to many or all of these questions are known to the Malaysian investigators, and we see no valid reason for not making this knowledge available to the public.

Figure 1. Estimated path and speeds for MH370 from takeoff to the last radar point [1]. 

Figure 2. Range of military radar sites for an aircraft at 37,000 ft [3]. 

(A higher-resolution, bitmap version of Figure 2,
without the annotation at left.)

Questions

1. Was the turn to the left after IGARI captured by Malaysian military radar? It was in range of the radar head at Bukit Puteri, Jirtih, but near the range limits of Western Hill, Penang Island.
2. Was the turn to the left after IGARI captured by Thai military radar? It was near the range limits of the radar heads at Ko Samui Island and Khok Muang.
3. The turn to the left after IGARI was depicted in two ways. At the meeting with the next-of-kin (NOK) on Mar 21, 2014, at the Lido Hotel in Beijing, it was depicted as a looping, 270-degree turn to the right, as shown in Figure 3. By contrast, in Figure 2 of the ATSB report [4] from June 26, 2014, the turn is depicted as a sharp turn to the left. What is the reason for this discrepancy of the depictions of the turn after IGARI? Which of these depictions is correct?

Figure 3. Flight path shown to the NOK on March 21, 2014, at the Lido Hotel in Beijing.

4. The depiction of the turn after IGARI as a sharp turn to the left seems to be beyond the performance limitations of a B777. Was the turn accurately depicted in Figure 2 of the ATSB report [4] from June 26, 2014?
5. Is it possible that the sharp turn to the left after IGARI is actually the crossing of the radar returns from two aircraft?
6. What specifically led investigators to conclude that the unidentified aircraft that crossed the Malay Peninsula and proceeded up the Malacca Strait was indeed MH370?
7. On March 21, 2014, military radar data from an unidentified aircraft (assumed to be MH370)) above the Malacca Strait was presented to the NOK at the Lido Hotel in Beijing, and shown in Figure 4 . Were these radar returns captured by the radar installation at Western Hill, Penang Island?

Figure 4. Radar data shown to the NOK on March 21, 2014, at the Lido Hotel in Beijing.

8. At the time of disappearance of the unidentified aircraft from military radar at 18:22 UTC, the aircraft was within range of the Thai military radar head at Phuket. Did this radar station also capture this unidentified aircraft? Is so, what was the path after 18:22?
9. In Figure 1.1F of the FI [2], the radar returns between 17:30:37 and 17:52:35 are attributed to the primary surveillance radar (PSR) returns as captured at Kota Bharu. The unidentified aircraft was supposedly captured by Kota Bharu radar until it reached just south of Penang, which exceeds the 60 nm range of the radar head at Kota Bharu. How is it possible that the radar returns are correctly attributed to Kota Bharu for the entire interval between 17:30:37 and 17:52:35? Is it possible that the radar returns after 17:44:52 were captured by another installation such as the terminal approach radar at Butterworth?
10. What was the cause of the disappearance of radar returns from the unidentified aircraft after 17:44:52, 17:48:39, 17:52:35, and 18:07:16? Some believe this indicates the unidentified aircraft was descending at these times, but this interpretation is not consistent with calculations [1] that indicate that the unidentified aircraft flew at nearly constant 498 KTAS, corresponding to M=0.84 at FL340.
11. Is it possible that the disappearance of the unidentified aircraft from radar was due to electronic countermeasures such as jamming and deception?
12. In Figure 1.1F of the FI [2], there is a point labeled as P1706 that is located near Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), but has a timestamp which appears to be 17:28:41, which should place the target much closer to the left turn after IGARI. What is the reason for this anomalous capture?
13. As described in [1], there seems to be a time shift of about 35 sec from some of the radar returns attributed to the PSR head at Kota Bharu. Are all of the timestamps from Figure 1.1F of the FI [2] referenced to a single clock, or at least from synchronized clocks?
14. In Figure 4, there is an anomalous return (as labelled in black by VI) at 02:07:06 MYT (18:07:06 UTC) that is north of the other returns and is not explained. Was this target possibly another aircraft?

15. The radar images presented to the public to date show no other traffic. What other traffic was in the vicinity of MH370 and the unidentified aircraft?

References
[1] Victor Iannello, “Some Observations on the Radar Data for MH370”, August 18, 2015. Also available here.
[2] Malaysian ICAO Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team for MH370, “Factual Information, Safety Investigation for MH370”, March 8, 2015; updated April 15, 2015.
[3] Bob Hall, private email to the Independent Group, October 16, 2014; used with permission.
[4] Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), “MH370 – Definition of Underwater Search Areas”, June 26, 2014.

It will be interesting to see if Victor gets answers to his 15 QON..


MTF..P2