[Peetwo]

 Higgins & Bailey exposé on ATSB attempted MH370 cover-up - 

Via the Oz today: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines...b1295297e6

ATSB ‘paid lawyers’ to quiet media
EAN HIGGINS

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has refused to release correspondence about its failed ­attempt through big-end-of-town lawyers to restrict The Australian’s coverage of claims it used the wrong theory to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

The ATSB will not say how much taxpayer money it paid law firm Minter Ellison to prepare and send a letter asking this newspaper to “refrain” from its style of coverage of veteran Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance’s new book revealing a detailed analysis of wing parts from the Boeing 777 found washed up on ­islands off Africa.

Mr Vance, supported by two other experts in the field, claims his examination conclusively shows the aircraft was flown by a pilot to the end and deliberately ditched in a controlled fashion, because the flaps were extended.

This runs contrary to the ­theory the bureau used in the strategy for its failed $200 million search for the aircraft, which holds that MH370 was a “ghost flight” at the end with “unresponsive” pilots, and crashed down in an uncontrolled fashion after fuel exhaustion.

If the ATSB’s theory is wrong and Mr Vance and experienced airline captains including Briton Simon Hardy, New Zealander Mike Keane and Australian Byron Bailey are right, it means the ATSB looked in the wrong place in its two-year hunt for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, with its last radio and secondary radar contact recorded 40 minutes into the flight, after which it took a zig-zag route back over Malaysia before a long track south, automatic satellite tracking data showed.

Days after The Australian ran a series of reports in May on Mr Vance’s findings and their implications, the newspaper received an extensive letter from Minter Ellison partner Andrew Gill, warning of various implied possible adverse actions if the newspaper continued with this coverage.

Mr Gill particularly objected to The Australian naming the leader of the ATSB’s failed search for MH370, Peter Foley, and its spokesman, Paul Sadler, as not responding to emails from The Australian seeking comment.

“Our client requests that you refrain from publishing any further articles regarding this incident or our client without first considering the concerns raised in this letter, particularly with ­respect to naming individual ­employees,” Mr Gill wrote.

The Australian made a Freedom of Information request seeking correspondence between ATSB officers and Minter Ellison, including material showing how much the bureau paid the law firm. In a decision received by The Australian last week, the ATSB’s acting chief operating officer for corporate services, Chris Fitzpatrick, rejected the FOI request, releasing only an email from The Australian to ATSB spokesman Daniel O’Malley seeking confirmation of background. Mr Fitzpatrick refused to release 15 other documents, including invoices.

He rejected most of the FOI request so as to look after the interest of “third parties”.

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood and legal and governance officer Patrick Hornby would not say who instructed Minter Ellison or how much the ATSB paid the law firm.

And from Byron Bailey: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion...c11a912cc8

Inquest answer to MH370 secrecy
BYRON BAILEY
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s attempts to suppress media coverage of their search for MH370 is a disgrace.

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MH370: Inquest the answer to ATSB’s shameful act of secrecy

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s attempts at using high-priced lawyers to suppress coverage of its failures in its search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 are a disgrace, and a threat to the democratic principles of free speech and press freedom.

Transport Minister Michael McCormack should hold the ATSB to account. With the ATSB hiding details about its failed search, only a coronial inquiry can get justice for the six Australians who disappeared with the aircraft and 233 other souls on March 8, 2014, on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The MH370 hunt may be on hold but eventually details about the failed search will come out and the ATSB, protected by legislation from producing documents requested by The Australian under several Freedom of Information applications, will have to reveal all.

The ATSB’s FOI officers last week decided the disclosure of documents could have an adverse effect on a “third party’s” business and declined to release the sought-after material. I wonder how much taxpayers’ money is being wasted on the legal attempts to suppress evidential material. Former transport minister Warren Truss needs to be asked whether he directed the ATSB, so as not to annoy the Malaysians, to plan the MH370 search on the basis of a ghost flight of dead pilots — even though the ATSB appeared to have little evidence to support such a scenario. This despite the Malaysian prime minister initially stating it was a case of deliberate human intervention, and aviation professionals pointing out that MH370 was obviously flown under control for the final seven hours. To base the search on a controlled flight would suggest the captain of MH370 was the culprit.

We also need an answer as to why the ATSB steadfastly refused to entertain the calculated search area proposed by British Boeing 777 captain Simon Hardy a few months after the event. This target zone centred on a position about 40km outside the ATSB search area and could have been completely covered in a matter of days. Much of the evidence supports Hardy’s theory and little supports the ATSB.

Only a coronial inquest, which the Queensland government could order given that four of the lost on MH370 were from that state, will suffice to explain the deaths of the Australians on that flight.

Never in the history of aviation have authorities, to this extent, attempted to avoid revealing evidence in answer to airline crashes. The safety of the airline industry is still on trial until this likely cold-case homicide is resolved. The small-area search for the wreckage of MH370 should be restarted based on the analysis of evidence from aviation experts, and not from bureaucrats.

Hmm...not a good look Hoody - not a good look indeed!!...  


MTF...P2