[Peetwo]

MSM changing the record - WTF?

For the benefit of Paul Howard & others who have made known their scepticism on the real motives of recent MSM (in particular NewsCorp) coverage of the ATSB MH370 SIO search. Well it would seem, for some passing strange reason, that they may be back-flipping on the 3rd person(s) scenario (in blue bold)... :

Rogue pilot theory may be revived if the search for MH370 ends and the plane is not found

February 18, 201611:50am

The search area for MH370 covers almost 60,000sq km.

AS THE underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 nears its end, officials may have to confront the idea that its disappearance was deliberate.

There is only 10 weeks until the search for the plane is expected to end after a year-long mission. If officials fail to find the wreckage, it throws up the possibility that a rogue pilot was controlling the aircraft at the end.

According to The Times, Australian officials are preparing to change their theory of what actually happened before it disappeared.

The 60,000sq km search area, which is almost the size of England, was calculated on the assumption that the plane was a “ghost flight” and that its pilots were either incapacitated or dead at the time it crashed. In this scenario the aircraft flew on autopilot until its fuel ran out and it crashed into the Indian Ocean.

But if the plane is not found in this area, it may suggest someone was controlling the flight at the end and managed to glide the aircraft for up to 160km, beyond the bounds of the search area. The “rogue pilot” theory suddenly comes back into play.

“We’re not at the point yet, but sooner or later we will be — and we will have to explain to governments what the alternative is,” Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan told The Times.


“In a few months time, if we haven’t found it (the plane), then we’ll have to be contemplating that one of the much less likely scenarios ends up being more prominent.

Which is that there were control inputs into that aircraft at the end of its flight.”

The rogue pilot theory includes the possibility that a third individual took control of the flight but it would not change the route that officials believe the plane took, which is backed up by satellite and radar data.

Last year a Boeing 777 flaperon found on Reunion Island was confirmed as being from the missing plane.

Unfortunately, if the plane is not found in the next few months, the world may never know what happened to flight MH370. Australia, Malaysia and China agreed last year to end the search if they reached the end of the zone without finding the plane

 

Update: More from News Corp, this time from 'that man' again:

Bureau’s backflip on MH 370 rogue pilot idea

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• February 19, 2016 12:00AM
  

The December map showing the indicative priority search area in purple.

Australian air crash investigators will offer a new plan to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, based on the “rogue pilot” theory of the captain hijacking his own aircraft and flying it to the end, rather than their current “ghost flight” scenario of the pilots being unconscious or dead.

The move follows The Australian’s investigation of the search strategy, including a critique by veteran Australian military and commercial pilot Byron Bailey that claims the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s analysis is flawed, resulting in its searching in the wrong area.

It comes a few months ahead of the scheduled completion of the search based on the theory of the pilots being “unresponsive” because of loss of oxygen through decompression or other factors, and coincides with the appointment of the new federal Transport Minister, Darren Chester.

Former deputy prime minister Warren Truss and ATSB chief commissioner Martin Dolan repeatedly have rubbished Captain Bailey’s arguments, with Mr Dolan only weeks ago telling ABC radio the possibility that a pilot was flying the aircraft to the end was “very unlikely” and there was no need to act on it.

However, in an interview with Britain’s The Times overnight, Mr Dolan said if MH370 is not found by the time the search of the 120,000 sq km target area is complete, the ATSB would have to “explain to governments what the alternative is”.

“And the alternative is, frankly, that despite all the evidence, the possibility that someone was at the controls of that aircraft and gliding it … if we eliminate all of the current search area,” Mr Dolan told The Times.

“If we haven’t found it, then we’ll have to be contemplating … that there were control inputs into that aircraft at the end of its flight.”

The Boeing 777 disappeared on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, after radio communication was cut, the aircraft’s radar transponder was turned off, and it flew a course back over the border between Malaysian and Thai airspace, all factors Captain Bailey, British airline pilot Simon Hardy, and US pilot and air crash investigator John Cox say clearly point to pilot hijack.

Captain Bailey has suggested the ATSB has resisted the pilot hijack theory because it does not want to embarrass the Malaysian government.

If it were true pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately took himself and 238 others to their deaths, it could have been an act of political protest related to the prosecution of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, of whom Zaharie was a supporter and relative.
The ATSB says it derived its strategy from satellite data showing the aircraft was on autopilot with no pilot “inputs” on the final leg to the southern Indian Ocean.

But in a new narrative, the ATSB will offer an alternative strategy based on an unspecified pilot gliding the aircraft to the sea, which could also cover the possibility that hijackers who knew how to fly took over the aircraft.

A widened search area would incorporate the possibility that a pilot flew the aircraft in a glide after the engines flamed out.

 
Dolan -“And the alternative is, frankly, that despite all the evidence, the possibility that someone was at the controls of that aircraft and gliding it … if we eliminate all of the current search area,”


“If we haven’t found it, then we’ll have to be contemplating … that there were control inputs into that aircraft at the end of its flight.”

ATSB - But in a new narrative, the ATSB will offer an alternative strategy based on an unspecified pilot gliding the aircraft to the sea, which could also cover the possibility that hijackers who knew how to fly took over the aircraft.

My question is, why wasn't this 'alternative (obviously more expensive) strategy' offered up as an 'alternative' option to the DIPs & associated governments before the RFT process was even begun.

I would also suggest that the RFTP was negligent in not having input from all of the DIPs, including allowing delegated representation or advisers, if they so desired, to the TET (see pg 35 - HERE).



IMO if this international input had of been allowed there would have been a high possibility of there being more options presented & the possibility of other benefactors contributing financially to the tender. This would also have done away with the shadow of concern (potential conflict of interest) brought to the fore for some of the signatories in the TET R11 (above). The added benefit would have been that DIPs would have had an engaged, committed interest in the whole SIO deep sea search process, lessening the need for defending actions & decisions like we see now & in previous ATSB 'correcting the record(s)' -Just saying  .


MTF...P2