[Peetwo]

Has the penny finally dropped on Aussie top-cover bureau?

Unlike former Senator Heffernan over two and a half years ago it would appear that finally the penny has dropped and at long last questions may be asked on how the ATSB were:

a) put in charge of the original MH370 SIO search (over the highly credentialed and marine experienced AMSA); and 
b) how the ATSB could so completely botch both the tender process and by implication the search itself.  

(P2 comment: I question the tender process based on a layman's overview/comparison between the current OI progress and territory covered in such a short amount of time, to that of the Fugro 2+ year search effort and wonder what OI could have achieved in the same timeframe??)  

Bureau faces MH370 grilling

EAN HIGGINS
Pressure is growing for a full investigation, maybe a royal commission, into the ATSB’s handling of the two-year hunt.

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Australian Transport Safety Bureau faces grilling over failed $200m search for MH370

Australian Transport Safety Bureau bosses face an intense Senate interrogation next week over claims they allegedly ignored clear evidence their theory of how Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went down was wrong, leading their $200 million underwater search for the aircraft to fail.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick told The Australian he would be asking questions of the ATSB about MH370 at a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday.

The move comes as pressure grows for a full investigation — some airline pilots want a royal commission — into the ATSB’s handling of the two-year hunt.

“In any circumstance where $200m of taxpayer money has been spent and credible sources raise questions as to the approach or efficacy, some form of inquiry is worthy,” Senator Patrick said.

The heightened scrutiny on the ATSB follows a new forensic analysis of MH370 wreckage by leading Canadian air-crash ­investigator Larry Vance published in The Australian this week.

A new book by Mr Vance, MH370: Mystery Solved, says the structure of the damage to the right flap and flaperon of MH370 found on islands off Africa clearly shows a pilot performed a controlled ditching of the aircraft, and rules out the ATSB’s theory of a high-impact pilotless steep dive.

Which scenario is correct is crucial to where MH370 lies, with Vance and several veteran airline pilots saying it was flown outside the 120,000sq km original search zone designed by the ATSB, which assumed the pilots were incapacitated at the end of the flight.

Airline pilots have called for a new search a bit south of the southern border of the ATSB target zone, claiming captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah could have flown the Boeing 777 further than would have occurred on ­autopilot.

Mr Vance writes that the ATSB’s failure to properly re-evaluate its search strategy after the flaperon was found in July 2015, realise the new evidence meant its “ghost flight-death dive” theory no longer worked, and redesign or call off the hunt, is unconscionable. “If that evidence was actually discovered and brought forward, and then suppressed, that would be intentional deception,” he writes. “If nobody discovered the evidence, that was incompetence. I believe it was incompetence.”

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, with primary radar and automatic satellite tracking showing it ended up in the southern Indian Ocean.

The former chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline, easyJet, Mike Keane, this week said that if the ATSB had knowingly ignored evidence which showed its search strategy was wrong, it would be complicit in covering up the mass murder of 238 people.

Queensland legal expert Greg Williams has said if supporting material becomes available he will help develop a case for prosecution under section 142.2 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act, under which federal public servants who engage in “dishonesty … according to the standards of ordinary people” can be jailed for five years.

The leader of the ATSB’s failed search for MH370, Peter Foley, and ATSB media spokesman Paul Sadler, did not respond to emails from The Australian.

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Comment from Sandy...

 Albo shoved the ATSB out of his Department in mid 2009 to be yet another independent Commonwealth corporation. This model of governance doesn’t work because it’s incentives have changed, The political imperatives and Ministerial oversight is much reduced and it’s standard of investigation since ‘independence’ has been woeful So much so that the Senate forced ATSB to make another report on the PelAir, Rex subsidiary, Norfolk Island ditching. Even that they didn’t get right in the view of many. Independent Commonwealth corporates? Waste, mismanagement and stratospheric costs as they now pay ‘corporate’ rates. Make work salary factories the lot of them. MH 370 families should know the truth. Alex in the Rises.

And a slightly expanded take on that, courtesy the Daily Mail:

Bombshell MH370 hearing: Transport Bureau to face inquiry over claims their incompetence led to wasting time and $200 million searching the wrong area for missing plane

• Former easyJet pilot Mike Keane slammed Australian Transport Safety Bureau
  
  
• He said ignoring evidence 'ghost flight' theory is wrong is covering up murder
  
  
• Captain Keane believes MH370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah ­hijacked the plane
  
  
• ATSB bosses will soon be grilled by senators to see if they ignored evidence
  

By Charlie Moore and Sam Duncan For Daily Mail Australia
PUBLISHED: 01:58 AEST, 17 May 2018 | UPDATED: 11:04 AEST, 17 May 2018

Australian experts who led the search for MH370 will be grilled by senators next week over allegations they ignored key evidence about how the jet went down.
Canadian air-crash ­investigator Larry Vance wrote in his new book on the mystery that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau failed to expand its 12,000sq km search area when it was proved to be inadequate.

He claimed the structure of damage to debris from the plane's right flap found off Africa in July 2015 proved the pilot deliberately crashed the plane - and was therefore conscious at the controls until the end.

This meant the search area should have been expanded because the pilot could have flown further than if he was incapacitated and the plane was on autopilot. 


Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in 2014 with 239 people on board


+9
Mike Keane, a former easyJet chief pilot and Royal Air Force intelligence officer, said the ATSB (pictured examining MH370 debris) should change its 'ghost flight' theory of what happened to the missing jet


+9
Senators including Rex Patrick (pictured) have welcomed the chance to grill the ATSB over the failed search which has cost taxpayers $200million

But the ATSB stuck to its theory of a high-impact pilot-less dive and failed to find the wreckage.

Mr Vance wrote that he believes the mistake was due to incompetence not 'intentional deception.'

Senators have welcomed the chance to grill the ATSB over the failed search which has cost taxpayers $200million. 

'In any circumstance where $200m of taxpayer money has been spent and credible sources raise questions as to the approach or efficacy, some form of inquiry is worthy,' Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick told The Australian....


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5736443/Transport-Bureau-face-senate-botched-MH370-search.html#ixzz5FkIgGMxe 
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The final question that needs to be asked, again in the words of the Heff , was this a 'cover-up or a balls-up'??

  

MTF...P2