[Peetwo]

Des Ross latest on MH370 via SMH

Search for MH370 thousands of kilometres off target: Australian aviation expert
Date June 17, 2016


Lindsay Murdoch
South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media

A pilot searches for debris from MH370 in the Indian Ocean in the weeks after it disappeared.

• Suspected MH370 cabin debris found on island in Mauritius
  
• Possible MH370 debris found in South Africa
  

Bangkok:  An Australian aviation expert says he is convinced MH370 crashed into the sea west of the Malaysian mainland without proper control by the pilots who were incapacitated by a catastrophic event on board the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777.

Desmond Ross, a commercial pilot with 25 years experience as an aviation and defence industry manager, told Fairfax Media that his "gut feeling and experience" tells him the southern Indian Ocean search has been conducted in the wrong area, thousands of kilometres from the crash site.

A curved piece of debris which may be part of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, was found in Wartburg, South Africa, in March. Photo: AP

"I have said since day one that the aircraft was not under full control and was flying on a course set on the flight management system but with incapacitated pilots unable to make changes," he said.

"The aircraft descended to a low altitude because the pilots had set an emergency descent when a catastrophic event occurred on the aircraft, but they had been unable to complete their manoeuvre due to incapacitation."

The aircraft carrying 239 people inexplicably altered course from its scheduled flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing while flying over the South China Sea in the early hours of March 8, 2014, turning back to fly across Malaysia.

Debris washed on to the Jamaique beach in Saint-Denis on Reunion. Photo: Reuters

Investigators say turning the plane around would have required typing a complicated code input into a flight management system, indicating either foul play or an event that caused the pilots to lose consciousness after they had done it.

Captain Ross, who conducted a review of Kuala Lumpur's international airport in 2005, said the search area was based on the "relatively flimsy science" of calculations by the British company Inmarsat, which the company itself said were not guaranteed to be accurate.

The search area was based on calculations using automatic "pings" to Inmarsat's satellite via a ground station and the aircraft after it vanished.


MH370 search map

Captain Ross said people seem to have forgotten the reports of eyewitnesses on an oil rig and yacht seeing a flaming object in the sky on the night of the disappearance, in an area west of Malaysia.

"The scientific theory could not allow these reports and they were discarded," he said.
New Zealander Mike McKay told authorities he saw what he believed to be a burning plane at high altitude when he was working on an oil rig off the Vietnamese coast on the night of the disappearance.


MH370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

"I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines plane come down," he said.
A woman sailing a yacht between India and Australia in early March 2014 also told authorities she saw a plane surrounded by bright orange lights and with a tail of black smoke pass above her. 

Captain Ross pointed to reports that six Swiss people who were on board a cruise liner travelling between Perth and Singapore on March 12 2014 saw debris in the sea including life jackets, food trays, papers and pieces of polystyrene.


MH370 first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid.

He dismissed the argument by pundits that some aircraft parts that have been discovered on the beaches of Mozambique, Reunion Island and other east African locations prove the accuracy of the Indian Ocean search area.

"Well now – isn't it also true that these same parts may have come from somewhere much closer? How about a crash site to the west of Malaysia?"

The first debris confirmed to be from MH370 was a control panel called a flaperon that washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion in July 2015.

Other debris that almost certainly came from plane washed up in Mozambique in December 2015 and February this year.

In March, a section of an engine bearing a Rolls Royce logo washed up in Mossell Bay South Africa and the same month a fragment of an interior door panel was found on Rodrigues Island, Mauritius.

Captain Ross dismissed as "rubbish" the theory that a suicidal Malaysian pilot did a circuit around his home island before flying on for more than seven hours to ditch the plane in the Indian Ocean.

"The home island was beside a highly sensitive international '5 eyes' surveillance facility and the major Penang air force base, the home of the Royal Malaysian Air Force, and it is highly unlikely that the Malaysian military would have allowed such loitering of an unidentified aircraft in their airspace," he said.

"If it did, it shows their lack of interest in security or their incompetence in following unidentified traffic."

Investigators said in a report released in March last year there were "no behavioural signs of social isolation, change in interests or habits, self-neglect, drug or alcohol abuse of the captain, first officer and the cabin crew."

The report said investigators found nothing in the backgrounds of the plane's captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah or more junior pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid to suggest they would deliberately crash the plane.

Captain Ross said he is concerned about speculation that the plane "glided" from its cruise altitude further on a southerly course than thought when the engines quit before going into the water.

"We have already been told that military radar showed it descending to about 10,000 feet when it turned back toward Malaysia and the Gulf of Thailand," he said.

"If that was the case it would be burning much more fuel than normal at a low altitude because jet engines are efficient at high altitude but not low altitude," he said.

"Therefore simple logic is that if the aircraft was at or close to 10,000 feet it would have run out of fuel much earlier and glided a much shorter distance."

Captain Ross said there is no evidence the plane climbed back to its normal cruise altitude around 35,000 feet.

"I think people are over-thinking this thing and confusing themselves with complicated mathematics which are not guaranteed by anyone," he said.

The possibility a pilot or crew member hijacked the plane has been one of the most plausible theories about what happened to the plane.

Captain Ross said he firmly believes that whatever search funds remain should be used to search the area between Malaysia and the location of the aircraft parts that have been discovered.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/search-for-mh370-thousands-of-kilometres-off-target-australian-aviation-expert-20160616-gpkn7g.html#ixzz4C6Q3WvyX

Inclined to agree with Des's last but the trouble is the funds have basically been fried...

Also I am afraid that I'm in the "V" & "K" camp - see HERE - i.e. "it's a wrap" -  

Update courtesy Voice370 - via Malay Mail Online:

Search for MH370 must go on — Voice370

Monday June 20, 2016
09:57 AM GMT+8 
JUNE 20 —The families of passengers on board MH370 note with growing distress that the search for the plane in the extended search area off the West Coast of Australia has yielded nothing till date and there is very little of the search area left to be covered.

What is even more alarming to the families is the often repeated phrase that if no new credible evidence is found, the search will be terminated once the 120,000 square kilometres designated search area is fully searched. Independent experts and analysts (those not part of the official investigation) have repeatedly brought forward their analysis based on the limited information that has been made available in the public domain.

These independent experts have repeatedly raised questions about the preciseness of the official analysis, the end-of-flight scenarios, the search area, and the inconsistencies with other known information, including numerous recent debris sightings and eye witness accounts.

These, to the best of our knowledge have not been responded to satisfactorily or contested with more substantive data or analysis.

This continues to cast doubts on the chosen hypotheses that informs the search decisions, which to date despite the millions spent has yielded zero results. On the other hand pieces of flotsam have been recovered by private citizens, from hugely dispersed locations.

It has been many months since the first piece, the Flaperon, was picked up on Le Reunion Island and since, other pieces have been picked up in Mauritius, Madagascar and along the South Eastern Coast of Africa.

We wish to express our concern that till date, we have not heard of any organised plan to systematically comb these far dispersed localities.

This task is too important to be left to some chance discovery by private citizens such as locals/tourists, who may or may not be aware of potential aircraft debris Precious clues or evidence in the form of debris are at risk of being tampered with by human hands or lost forever.

This lack of initiative begs the question — how sincere are the relevant parties about solving this mystery?

While Malaysia and Australia have invested substantial sums in the effort thus far, we believe a shortage of funds should not be a reason to end the search. Voice370 urges Malaysia in collaboration with Australia and China to:

a. Review all analysis based on Inmarsat data, all simulations and other sources of data in light of the debris finds during 2015-16 off the coast of South / East Africa and recalibrate the search area;

b. Make public the complete Inmarsat raw data, radar data, all analysis including detailed assumptions, and all other facts that have informed the search thus far that is in the possession of any party that is part of the investigation and search, for a wider and public scrutiny, corroboration, and ultimately collaboration to bring the search to a successful conclusion;

c. Prevail upon the French authorities to make public the detailed forensic and biological examination of the flaperon and share its report with findings without any further delay or dilatory moves. We would like Malaysia to also specifically dispel any doubts as to the basis of identification of the flaperon with MH370 in light of doubts that have been raised by leaked excerpts of the French investigation on the flaperon that cast doubts on the its origins, the path it may have taken, the duration it may have been on (or in the seas);

d. Frame and disclose clear plans to search for debris along the coastlines of Indian Ocean Islands and South East Africa based on drift pattern studies without further delay.

e. While we acknowledge it may be impossible to deploy ground search parties across Mauritius, Madagascar and along the South Eastern Coast of Africa. Malaysia, which insisted on leading the search, could do more to prevent the permanent loss of debris and evidence thereof.

For example concerted and widespread information can be disseminated to the local population, especially fishermen, people living in these coastal areas and beach goers to be on a lookout for potential debris. Information on how to identify potential parts can be made available in the local press, printed leaflets, through social media and possibly through a webpage.

Web-based reporting and uploading of photos can be instituted. Local authorities can be enlisted to collect and hold these pieces. Local community support and social organisations can be encouraged to organise search activities. All these do not require significant funding.

It merely needs organisational skills. f. An international appeal for funds could be been made starting with the countries who have citizens on board. For example the world’s second biggest economy, China, which also has the most victims on board has the potential to contribute far more to the search efforts. The Dong Hai Jiu 101 can continue to be deployed in the search, with the ATSB continuing to provide ground support. Appeals could also be made to all member states of ICAO for funding.

g. It is inconceivable that wealthy nations and corporations that immensely benefit from civil aviation and the connectivity that it underscores would be unwilling to fund the continued search for MH370. Our limited understanding is that the cost of a single Boeing 777 (or equivalent commercial jet) far exceeds the amount committed to the search for MH370 thus far. We question the sincerity of Malaysia, the principal country charged with the investigation into MH370 insofar as its efforts to mobilise nations to come forward and fund continuation of the search.

h. That being said we suggest that Boeing be urged to contribute to the search. For instance in the case of AF447, in which very similar underwater searches were carried out, Airbus Industries contributed funds towards the search effort.

Why is Boeing not contributing financially? Is the providing of some independent technical information alone sufficient? Or is it more beneficial for Boeing if this plane were to remain undiscovered?

While the heroic efforts of the search crew braving the seas and their support establishment on shore, managed by the ATSB, have our appreciation and gratitude, the families, whose lives have remained in limbo for over 800 days, giving up on the search is not an option.

The search for the plane and the truth of what happened is vital to look ahead and move on. A decision to end the search is a cruel response to a desperate human crisis. For the general public, the winding down of the search conveys a crude message that financial considerations trump the flyer’s safety and security. The Search Must Go On.

* Voice370 is the official association for families of passengers and crew onboard Flight MH370.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.

- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-y...IGr1j.dpuf

MTF...P2