[Peetwo]

Muppet Chester's bollocks statement on MH370

in a Sky News interview yesterday our NFI minister for Non-aviation Chester and the biggest Australian aviation disaster to ever be inflicted on a long suffering industry, said...

Sky News

Subject: Toowoomba project, Airport security measures, MH370.

17 August

interview

Ashleigh Gillon: Minister, on another matter yesterday we saw a new set of evidence released which purported to pinpoint the likely region, location, of the missing MH370 plane. Last night on this program we interviewed the aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas; he was very excited by this new set of data. Have a listen...

CSIRO has examined these images, exactly where they were taken, and again using reverse drift modelling has said yes, that these are consistent with exactly where we say this aeroplane is, this is where the debris would have drifted to so the culmination of the two things together gives us absolute certainty that this is where the plane is.

...Minister, are you also convinced that we now could find the plane pretty easily if searchers did target this new location identified by this evidence released yesterday?

Darren Chester: Well no I'm not and nothing about the search for MH370 has been easy as I'm sure you're well aware. We have searched 120,000 square kilometres of ocean floor and keep in mind we are talking about a search area which is more than 2,000 kilometres off the coast of Perth in some of the most inhospitable waters in the world. The sea conditions they have been experiencing have seen waves in excess of 15 to 20 metres. The search is being carried out in depths of water in excess of four kilometres, sometimes up to six kilometres. So, it has been an incredibly difficult search, really at the edge of human endeavour and scientific technology and expertise.

So it has been an amazing search effort and a frustrating search effort in the sense that we haven't been able to locate MH370 but it is important to note and the ATSB chief Greg Hood noted yesterday that yes, the satellite imagery was of interest but nothing on the imagery was confirmed as being debris from MH370. Certainly, we believe that the imagery indicated that they were manmade objects in the water but that is consistent with other imagery that has been recovered in other oceans of the world when you find manmade objects in the water. So it is not a precise location as some people might like to think. The actual underwater search was suspended earlier this year on the basis that until we had credible new evidence leading to a specific location we would suspend that search effort. I'm hopeful that there will be a breakthrough that will provide some comfort to the relatives of the passengers on board the aircraft who have waited for more than three years now for some level of comfort but we don't intend to resume the underwater search at this stage.

Ashleigh Gillon: But Minister crash investigators, the top experts in the world, are saying that this is that new set of credible evidence that you have been looking for. Malaysia has said that it is now considering the evidence as well. If it does decide to go ahead with another search, would Australia contribute to that financially? Is there any more money on the table from Australia for another search after spending, well I think it is around $60 million so far, will we be willing to contribute again if Malaysia decides to go down that path?

Darren Chester: Well quite rightly as you indicated, Malaysia is the leader investigator, lead agency in terms of the search for MH370 as Malaysian Airlines was obviously originated from Malaysia. But we've worked very closely with Malaysia and the Chinese on the tripartite search effort. Now the total search effort has cost in the order of $200 million and you are right, of the underwater search component about $60 million was paid for by the Australian Government. There have been no requests to us from the Malaysian Government to resume the search effort and we would consider any requests at the appropriate time. A lot of our work in the last 12 or 18 months has been focused on the technical expertise we can offer through the ATSB, through the CSIRO, through Geoscience Australia, and we continue to do that.

We have played a very important role in analysing the debris that washed up in different parts of the world so we have been able to identify about seven different pieces of debris as either certainly coming from MH370 or almost certainly coming from MH370. So we have played a very important role as a nation here in Australia and I am very grateful for the technical expertise we have added to the search effort. As it stands today, the underwater search does remain suspended but will certainly be part of any conversation with the Malaysian Government, at some stage if that is required...

MTF...P2