[Ziggy]

Another welcome to airlandseaman & Bugsy, for those interested there is another Senate Estimates hearing tomorrow (Oz time) - Additional Senate Estimates Program - Next Monday - in which there is a strong possibility (high probability) that the ATSB will again be questioned on & asked for an update on the MH370 SIO search.

The ATSB are listed for 1730-1800 EDST (0630UTC), although times are indicative only & quite often there are delays. However for those wanting to monitor proceedings refer to the 'Watch Parliament' webpage, under the listing for Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee.

Otherwise I will endeavour to copy video across to You Tube within the following 24hrs. Hansard is also usually available a couple days past the public hearing...cheers P2  

Thanks for the welcome Peetwo, I guess I got my post through ok.  Thanks for the links, will be checking those out soon enough.  I've been reading up on the Pel Air disaster, what a crock of proverbial "chit" that one was.  Wow I am utterly shocked what has transpired there or what has not, definitely not what I would've expected from a national transportation agency.  I guess I'm used to the NTSB and how thorough they have been  during investigations of past air incidents.  A little unsettling to see that this case was like buried under the proverbial carpet....going to do some more reading.  Again thanks for the welcome, looking forward to more information on ATSB and MH370.  It appears to me as though this case has been left up to regular folks to figure out and that really has me wondering why??  But i'm not an expert at anything except being a frequent flyer    So I will read up and learn.  Kudos to all those involved in trying to solve the biggest aviation mystery in our time.

Bugsy

No problem Bugsy...

Also FYI on PelAir debacle - Overdue and Obfuscated #59 :

Courtesy of Crikey, from Plane Talking, by Ben Sandilands – HERE - is a reminder (not that we need it) that the second version of the ATSB report into the Pel-Air ditching is, as expected, overdue.   So much we knew.





But the old question still stands, will the report be not only overdue, but obfuscated?

Before you race off to place your bets, we have some ‘interesting’ little wisp’s of rumour floating around, which may temper your ardour for the favourite.  The first tantalising wisp is that the ‘Invisible Manning’ and only the IM is allowed to tinker with the final draft.  That could just be simply to add credibility and/or deniability to the report.  Some prefer to take a slightly darker view, drawing inferences which make sense.

Another wisp of purely unsubstantiated gossip is that original IIC the and Manning have spent days and days together, discussing the whole sorry episode.  Again, it makes sense that the original IIIC and IM would spend a little time together; but, a short session would indicate lip service to a report, the more time spent, the more detail and understanding is gained.  This is a positive sign.  The IIC was treated most shabbily, sent off to the pencil sharpening cupboard and only allowed to play with small, insignificant make work pieces.  If the Manning report is to have any credibility then a full apology and re-instatement of the original, first class IIIC would lend much respect to a report which will need to withstand some intense, domestic and international scrutiny.  

Aye well, we shall see and we shall compare.  Manning is deemed to be a good egg and should the rumours be true, then the movie and the book will be worth a look see.  We shall wait until Negroni publishes and Warner Brothers call ‘Action’.

No, you bearded buffoon, it’s only over in your mind.  MH 370 was not a good place to hide, you’ve got that wrong too.  No matter, July is not too far away now then you can slither off to the pencil sharpening cupboard to learn how to do something of value.  The Merde’k approved method for where to shove a pencil and how to rotate it.  Maybe he’ll give you the pink ones to start with.  

What angel shall
Bless this unworthy husband? he cannot thrive,
Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear
And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath
Of greatest justice.  (AWTEW)

MTF...P2

Peetwo, thx much for the links. Read up on this and watched the video.  Who did the recovery operation of the parts of aircraft and the black boxes?  I don't know my geography that well, but that norfolk island is quite far away from Australlia, had no idea.  So when was this done?  The report will be out soon, no?  Its a wonder to me how governments can obfuscate as I've seen this word many times in this forum.  That poor dear Karen was put through the proverbial ringer and she was the victim.  Holy Chit mon, if this can happen with a known what happened incident, I can see why the mh370 investigation has been a total chit show from the get go.  I see that regular people are doing the investigating which is very disturbing to me.  Appears Malaysia not want the plane found ever, governments get away with a lot of things these days, seems nobody wants to hold anyone accountable for questionable actions or non-actions.  Sad state of affairs.
Bugsy

 Making some sense of THAT footage???

As I watched the footage, music in the background...then the plane and my stomach churned. An applaud for recovering the Black Box, then a tour of the island.

Glad you all enjoyed yourselves on board. Land Ahoy! 
Whoever edited, posted and obviously had the blessing from the commissioned vessel. 
You should be ashamed of yourself. 
This is serious, not a little boat trip to an old wreckage.
It is a current federal investigation. 
So why is it that NGA is moving into year seven with still no closure, except a "lovely, happy clappy video.

I speak for myself only as I can assure you the DIPs were not told about the salvage nor the media, until much later, of course. 
Then this pops up, attempting to the softening seriousness of this incident.

If the same disgusting display of an almost tourism video regarding the salvage of MH 370, I am sure the person would be fired due to aggravating the already emotional turmoil of their NOK. There would be an uproar. 
Yet I am to sit and watch the plane being pulled out of the ocean that I was in and just "cop it". 
It is not morally, ethically or in any way right.

Trying to make a wrong look right is simply sickening.

 Ziggy

[Kharon]

Zig - chill a little, think on.  The boys on that ‘journey’ had probably been expecting to do the gig, many years ago.  Twas but a twiddle made to reflect how simple and non- dangerous the task was.  Those who crew these vessels often face hazard in awful conditions and, a twelve day, all expenses doddle to Norfolk to shift a couple of tones from 50 meters would be manna from Karma.  Perhaps not, but to me, the real point was – “how easy was that?”; why wait six years?.  Remember Dolan said it was “too dangerous” from an OHS perspective; clearly (QED) it was not.  As said, a snap and a 12 day break for a hard working crew and …………./………………./.  You know the rest, Beaker’s inexpert, disingenuous furry tea bags, revealed in all their whiskered glory.  

Honest Sweetie, if that crew were taking the Mickey, neither you or your comrades were the butt.

Stay cool – we are all still here.




PS. Who’s playing you in the movie?

[LabratSR]

If anyone is going to be in Canberra on the 16th, a nice video of this would be great ;-)

http://rses.anu.edu.au/news-events/seabe...n-airlines

Labrat

I sent an email to Michael Short at ANU as follows.

ventus,

Thanks much for that. A video would be great but even the materials would be welcome. Myself and others believe the search may be having terrain problems in the South due to volcanos and what not. Would be nice to see what that area looks like.

Thanks again,

LabratSR

[Gobbledock]

Hey Ziggy, I hope you are well my little rose petal. As the Ferryman said, the video contains numerous cryptic yet decipherable messages when viewed in its entirety. The main message being this; not recovering such an easily recoverable wreck shows up Beaker for the true dipshit that he is. It also shows that the Australian government couldn't give a shit about ICAO and it's own puppet master the UN. Which is strange considering how Krudd gets a hard-on for anything 'UN' and Bischop gets damp over anything 'UN'. Go figure?

Finally, as for Dolan and his deplorable yet laughable pony pooh about 'OHS issues', you will have more than sprained wrists and coral scrapes to worry about you effing imbecile if some future tragedy occurs because you were too much of a dipshit to properly investigate Pelair and as a subsequent result an even worse accident occurs. Assclown.

Now, where's my bottle of baby oil. Nurse Casey needs a shoulder rub!!

Xx Gobbles

[ventus45]

Ziggy, we all know that the video would hit some raw nerves that are distressing for you.
That is unfortunate, but unavoidable, and we all feel for you.

However, as the old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining.
As Gobbles has indicated, I think you should look at it another way.

The 6 man crew of MV Pride clearly showed how simple and easy it was to raise the aft section of the aircraft from a mere 44 metres depth and recover the boxes.

By implication, they have also demonstrated that the recovery of the rest of the aircraft would be a doddle. The whole aircraft should have been raised, since there is still the issue of the "life raft", among many others.

The real point here, is that Dolan's reasons for not doing the recovery years ago have been "blown out of the water" so to speak.

Personally, I think that Hef, Zeno and DaveF should summons all 6 crew members to Canberra, to explain to the Senators, in a public Committee Hearing (in the Hansard) exactly how it was done, in detail, (with all the diver video), and how easy and safe it was to do.

Then they should do a thorough dismemberment of Dolan's previous testimony to the Committe on this matter, publicly, "on the record", in Hansard, and take whatever action is possible.

[Peetwo]

Ziggy, we all know that the video would hit some raw nerves that are distressing for you.
That is unfortunate, but unavoidable, and we all feel for you.

However, as the old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining.
As Gobbles has indicated, I think you should look at it another way.

The 6 man crew of MV Pride clearly showed how simple and easy it was to raise the aft section of the aircraft from a mere 44 metres depth and recover the boxes.

By implication, they have also demonstrated that the recovery of the rest of the aircraft would be a doddle. The whole aircraft should have been raised, since there is still the issue of the "life raft", among many others.

The real point here, is that Dolan's reasons for not doing the recovery years ago have been "blown out of the water" so to speak.

Personally, I think that Hef, Zeno and DaveF should summons all 6 crew members to Canberra, to explain to the Senators, in a public Committee Hearing (in the Hansard) exactly how it was done, in detail, (with all the diver video), and how easy and safe it was to do.

Then they should do a thorough dismemberment of Dolan's previous testimony to the Committe on this matter, publicly, "on the record", in Hansard, and take whatever action is possible.

Second that motion "V", perhaps we could start a poll/petition to that effect, anyway Ziggy chin up you have faced down much worse than that, besides if the rumours are true and Commissioner Manning is overseeing the re-investigation, then we may actually get a more balanced & factual report...

Judging from the extremely abbreviated & obviously uncomfortable appearance by Dolan at Estimates last night (04:30min), I get the strong impression that matters on the MH370 front have gone behind closed doors & probably at a much higher level.

Either way it was somewhat amusing to see the agitated Chief Commissioner launch up off his chair when he was promptly dismissed by the Heff : 

MTF...P2

[Brock McEwen]

MH370's various raging debates ("piloted vs not", "fast/straight vs slow/curved", "South vs [spoof+North]", "Fugro vs other") all distract - perhaps intentionally - from what are, to me, much more important lines of inquiry:

1) Why does the actual physical evidence (Indonesian radar, surface debris, deep-sea debris, acoustic sensors) counter-indicate the Inmarsat data?

2) Why does all CLAIMED supporting physical evidence (primary radar, "flew faster", "co-pilot's mobile phone", acoustic ping fiasco, LANL acoustic analysis, flaperon) fail basic sniff tests?

3) Why did the US delay 4 days before publishing its Inmarsat-indicated path - and why did it take 2 more months before the log data supporting it was released (as a redacted pdf)?

4) Why are search officials refusing to address glaring contradictions between key decisions taken, and what their own published data supports?

5) If officials in France and the US are sitting on data (flaperon buoyancy tests and pilot's flight sim paths, respectively) which could narrow the search zone - as has been reported by high-ranking journalists - then why has this data not been shared with search directors?

If - I stress, IF - we are witnessing a cover-up of MH370's true fate, then manufactured debates aimed at cementing the public perception that "it definitely flew to the middle of nowhere, but we can't agree on exactly where, so that's why we can't find it" would make perfect sense.

[Peetwo]

MH370's various raging debates ("piloted vs not", "fast/straight vs slow/curved", "South vs [spoof+North]", "Fugro vs other") all distract - perhaps intentionally - from what are, to me, much more important lines of inquiry:

1) Why does the actual physical evidence (Indonesian radar, surface debris, deep-sea debris, acoustic sensors) counter-indicate the Inmarsat data?

2) Why does all CLAIMED supporting physical evidence (primary radar, "flew faster", "co-pilot's mobile phone", acoustic ping fiasco, LANL acoustic analysis, flaperon) fail basic sniff tests?

3) Why did the US delay 4 days before publishing its Inmarsat-indicated path - and why did it take 2 more months before the log data supporting it was released (as a redacted pdf)?

4) Why are search officials refusing to address glaring contradictions between key decisions taken, and what their own published data supports?

5) If officials in France and the US are sitting on data (flaperon buoyancy tests and pilot's flight sim paths, respectively) which could narrow the search zone - as has been reported by high-ranking journalists - then why has this data not been shared with search directors?

If - I stress, IF - we are witnessing a cover-up of MH370's true fate, then manufactured debates aimed at cementing the public perception that "it definitely flew to the middle of nowhere, but we can't agree on exactly where, so that's why we can't find it" would make perfect sense.

Top post Brock & excellent questions on MH370 search veracity, when you put it that way it is obvious that from the get-go there was nothing kosher about this whole tragic mystery..   Cover-up?? I'm more inclined to believe cock-up over cover-up...

By the by for those interested from Senate Estimates:

Heff's Choc frog award.

 For those not familiar, a while back now Heff (legend) read out to the committee a spiteful, conceited, unsigned little note whining about being kept waiting for a turn to speak.  It clearly offended Heff, for many old school reasons and the writer of that missive was put on notice.

P2 - Also see HERE

This time around, a long ATSB wait outside preceded a very short short time inside. On entry the majority of the committee barely acknowledged the existence of team ATSB, a couple of soft questions were lobbed in for forms sake, and ATSB was dismissed, four short minutes later.

Four minutes, 30 seconds was all the time pay-back took; if you don’t count the preceding hours, hanging about outside.  NX had a couple of soft questions, the rest of the committee pretty well ignored Beaker and Co.  Why?  You may well ask, everyone watching found out, right at the end.  As Dolan beat a very hasty retreat, heading for the exit at warp speed, Heff pipes up, with impeccable timing,  “Sorry for the delay Mr Dolan; please don’t send me a nasty note”.   (Paraphrased e&oe)

It was elegant in it’s simplicity, artful in execution and was the last thing Beaker heard as he left the building; hopefully, for the last time.  

Classic Bill.  Bravo and thank you for a big smile.... ...

Here is the comment, also note (turn up the volume) the exchange between Sterle & Xenophon on MH370 search tender cock-up; & I believe a mention of a future Inquiry...  

MTF...P2
  

[Peetwo]

For those international AP followers who don't know, yesterday Warren Truss MP (former DPM) announced his retirement from politics:

crankybastards Wrote:

Following his "swan song" just now in The House of Representatives may I simply say he was a humble Minister with much to be humble about.

(apologies to Mr Churchill).

Needless to say this could have possible implications for the MH370 SIO search, for example we may actually get a Minister that will not abrogate his/her responsibilities for his/her portfolio to career bureaucrats like Beaker :

Part I - Degrees of separation through delegation

The following video segment (besides being highly entertaining in parts), from the 08 February RRAT Senate Estimates, IMO highlights perfectly the problem with Governments (for purely political reasons), delegating governance & oversight, mostly through tick-n-flick processes to the bureaucrats... :

The lead up to that segment can be viewed in Hansard - Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee - 08/02/2016 - Estimates - INFRASTRUCTURE AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PORTFOLIO - Infrastructure Australia.

The segment starts from here:

Senator CONROY: I wanted to talk around some issues around the MV Portland licence. Has the department prepared guidance for the minister's delegate that is designed to assist in how he or she should have regard to the object of the act in deciding application for a temporary licence under section 34(2)(f)?


Mr Sutton : We do not have any explicit documentation in that regard, but it is certainly a key factor that we take into account when assessing temporary licence applications.

Senator CONROY: Who is the minister's delegate in this case?

Mr Sutton : Formally, the delegate can be an SES officer in STP division, the executive director and the deputy secretary. It is generally the general manager of the Maritime and Shipping Branch, which makes decisions as the delegate.

Senator CONROY: You used the word 'generally'. Is that the person who made the decision around the MV Portland licence issue? If I was to say to please bring that gentleman to the desk, would you say yes, but it was not him?

Ms Zielke : The delegates for the coastal trading scheme are actually in front of you at the moment.

Senator CONROY: Mr Sutton managed to explain all of that without actually saying it is him. Were you the person?

Mr Sutton : They do change, but I can confirm that it was me that signed off on the temporary licence on 27 October.

Senator CONROY: Did you prepare any advice for yourself?
Mr Sutton : No.

Senator CONROY: What weighting would objects 3(a) to (d) be given, for example, in circumstances where the minister's delegate knows that the decision to grant a temporary licence will result in a general licenced vessel being withdrawn permanently from the Australian coast? I have those subclauses here.

Mr Sutton : Section 34 sets out the requirements of the act for when decisions are made on temporary licence applications. Key factors that are at play relate to—

Senator CONROY: Section 34 does not override the objects of the act, right? Nothing overrides the objects of the act.

Mr Sutton : No. In fact, section 34(2)(f) explicitly says that the object of the act is one of the factors that is taken into account in making a decision on a temporary licence. Key factors which are taken into account in all temporary licence applications are whether there has been a notice in response to the application and whether there have been written comments received from third parties in relation to an application. In relation to the application that you are talking about, there was neither a notice in response received or comments received from interested third parties...     

The conundrum of delegation through an Act of Parliament & the accompanying regulations, MOS etc. is one that is a common criticism of the Civil Aviation Act. The many cases of embuggerance through a CASA delegate or officer (FOI/AWI) are well documented and has been a major factor for the critical distrust of CASA by numerous industry stakeholders.

There is also another element/concern with governments delegating their responsibility for governance to bureaucrats and that is in the area of accountability. Again we have another recent example where this is visible.

The following is copied from page 48 of the recently released ATSB Supp Estimates AQON - 08ATSB.pdf:



Maybe it is my personal prejudice but if I was the Minister responsible I am damn sure I would not want Dolan as my delegate, signing off on my behalf with a multi-million dollar contract -
 

MTF...P2   

[BugsyM]

"""Brock wrote: If - I stress, IF - we are witnessing a cover-up of MH370's true fate, then manufactured debates aimed at cementing the public perception that "it definitely flew to the middle of nowhere, but we can't agree on exactly where, so that's why we can't find it" would make perfect sense.""

Excellent post Brock, you just asked all the questions that I've had sitting in the back of my mind. So many questions that have never been answered, yet everyday there seems to be some new theory on this mysterious case. I agree there are a lot of why's?? that have never been truly answered, only brings up more questions.

I've seen so many opinions of many various math and physics experts, there are a lot of knowledgeable people out there, yet all the locations have been proven not to be it. Makes me wonder if all assumptions are just that, if the data is truly right, it should've been found by now. I'm no expert and will never claim to be, but just my opinion that something isn't quite right here. It was either a total screw-up or some cover up, too many weird things have taken place to just be a regular screw up, but I could be wrong. So many lies and false stories have floated around (that's the problem with the internet, you can't believe everything you read) that my radar flag is constantly in the "upwards" position. Maybe its the journalist in me that questions everything....all I know for sure is that something isn't right with this whole thing. I've watched some videos lately of Hishymuddein and Najib....nope their shifty eyes tells me something isn't right. I'm just glad that there are real experts out there trying to find the truth because it appears as though them Malaysians either don't care or are hoping it will just go away.
My 2 cents....
Bugsy

[Peetwo]

Courtesy Bloomberg Business - Today, 16 Feb 2016.

Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away From Keeping Secrets Forever
February 16, 2016

Angus Whitley

Photographer: Joshua Paul/AP Photo
An unidentified man walks past MH370 related street art under a flyover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.


The man leading the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is showing the strain after almost two years of fruitless toil.

Martin Dolan, head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said he struggles to sleep at times, gnawed by thoughts that wreckage from the Boeing Co. 777 may have slipped through the sonar net scanning 120,000 square kilometers (46,330 square miles) of the southern Indian Ocean.

MH370 is weeks away from becoming aviation’s biggest unsolved mystery since Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937. Of the 3 million components in the jet, only one has turned up -- a barnacle-encrusted wing flap -- on Reunion Island, thousands of miles from the search. There have been no traces of the 239 people on board, their luggage or even the life jackets that were supposed to float.

“There’s always this question: Have we missed something?” Dolan, 58, said at his office in Canberra. “That’s the sort of thing that will occasionally keep me awake at night.”

Some of the world’s most experienced search-and-rescue experts increasingly accept that the A$180 million ($130 million) search may fail. Without fresh clues, the hunt should end about June, when four ships are due to finish combing the seas off western Australia, Dolan said. Within a rectangle the size of North Korea, vessels have scoured most of the patch believed to be the likely impact point -- and come up empty. 


In a world where a $100 smartphone can be tracked for free, the $250 million jet just vanished




Workers look for debris of the MH370 on the coast of Saint Andre, Reunion Island in August 2015.

Photographer: Arnaud Andrieu/EPA


Failure Possible

Nor are investigators any closer to ascertaining what happened inside the plane after it took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, for Beijing.

“We were ready for most things, but MH370 has been unpredictable all the way through,” Dolan said. “It’s a possibility we will not succeed.”

In the aftermath, the International Civil Aviation Organization is pushing for commercial aircraft to report their positions every 15 minutes. And the underwater locator beacons inside their black boxes will have to last for 90 days instead of the current 30, under European Union proposals. But neither rule takes full effect before 2018.

Asia’s aviation industry, meantime, is expanding at a breakneck pace with 100 million new passengers taking to the skies every year, according to Boeing. In the next two decades, the world’s fleet of 22,000 aircraft is set to double. 



Source: Bloomberg

Belgium-Sized

Larry Stone, chief scientist at Reston, Virginia-based consultant Metron Inc., has tracked missing aircraft and ships for half a century. Stone mapped out the resting place of Air France Flight 447, which was found two years after plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people aboard in 2009.

The location, size and characteristics of the underwater search for MH370 make it the toughest he’s ever seen. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t find it,” Stone said.

The waters in the search area are up to 6 kilometers (4 miles) deep and peppered with trenches and submerged peaks. Last month, a towed sonar vehicle collided with a volcano rising 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) from the seabed. The device was severed and sank to the bottom.

Vessels still have to scan about 35,000 square kilometers -- an area bigger than Belgium.

The newest reinforcement is a Chinese ship with high-definition sonar. The Dong Hai Jiu 101 will focus on areas of the ocean floor that are difficult to scan with conventional sonar when it arrives this month, Dolan said.




Phoenix Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Bluefin-21 is craned over the side of Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370 in April 2014.

Photographer: Leut Kelli Lunt/Australia Department of Defence via Getty Images


Hot Spots

Ships are rechecking about 100 locations, some of them inside an oval-shaped patch toward the southern end of the search area, Dolan said. This hot spot is most likely to contain the wreckage, according to Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Group, a government agency normally devoted to national security.

But even the most comprehensive search won’t satisfy the victims’ families if it fails.
“We are going to try as hard as we can to lobby for the search to continue beyond June,” said Grace Subathirai Nathan, 28, whose mother was a passenger. “I need an answer.”

The disaster unfolded when air-traffic controllers lost contact with MH370 less than an hour after takeoff as it approached Vietnam. Military radar showed the plane took a left turn, looped back across Malaysia and headed northwest up the Strait of Malacca. 




Flight Lieutenant Jayson Nichols looks at a map as he flies over the southern Indian Ocean in search of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

Photographer: Pool/Getty Images


Satellite Pings

Radar contact then was lost, but an orbiting satellite picked up pings from the plane. Analysis of those hourly check-ins indicates MH370 cruised south over the Indian Ocean for about six hours.

“They’ve done a remarkable job to get anything useful out of it at all,” said Vaughan Clarkson, a specialist in radar and tracking at the University of Queensland, Australia who helped calculate the flight path. “You’re trying to track a fast-moving aircraft with updates only about once an hour.”

The extent of human intervention in the silent disaster isn’t known. The last recorded words from MH370’s pilots, at 1:19 a.m. on March 8, were: “Good night Malaysian Three Seven Zero.” In a world where a $100 smartphone can be tracked for free, the $250 million jet vanished.

Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak has said the plane was deliberately steered off course, and the homes of the pilot and co-pilot were searched. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation also analyzed the pilot’s personal flight simulator to no avail.

“All the evidence says classic autopilot flight,” Dolan said, emphasizing that other authorities are trying to reconstruct events inside the cabin. 

Mathematical Probability

The disaster was the beginning of the end for Malaysia Airlines as a listed entity. Four months after MH370 disappeared, Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine. A Malaysian government investment company bought out the airline the same year as passenger traffic slumped and losses widened.

A failed search “would leave a bad impression on the industry as a whole, but particularly on Malaysia Airlines,” Christoph Mueller, the chief executive officer, told Bloomberg Television on Monday.

Back in Canberra, the ATSB is investigating about 130 incidents in total -- ranging from a freight train derailment in Queensland to a seaplane crash off northeast Australia.

Yet Dolan says he’s consumed by MH370. He speaks mostly in a soft, low tone, pausing often as he chooses his words. At a table in his office, he refers to a map of the search zone in front of him as he outlines the analysis of the plane’s final moments:

The right engine runs out of fuel first, and within 15 minutes so does the left. There’s just enough fuel remaining for the satellite data unit to reboot and beam a final message. Then the plane probably banks left and spirals into the ocean.

Based on that sequence, searchers are prioritizing an area within 20 nautical miles of the aircraft’s last transmission.

Last Chance

Investigating the other possibility -- that someone was steering the plane and glided it without power until it hit the water -- would mean tripling the search area. That’s a very unlikely scenario, and it risks overwhelming investigators, Dolan said.

“Governments are just not willing to put the resources into that sort of potential extension,” he said.

Ships scanning the seafloor already collected about 20 petabytes of imaging data. That’s enough to house the entire digital collection of the U.S. Library of Congress -- several times over.

Even after acknowledging the difficulties of searching a massive, remote and deep area of the ocean, Dolan said he was confident the plane will be found.

“Every morning I wake up and check what’s going on, and I hope that today’s going to be the day,” he said.


Underwater search area map.

Source: Australian Transport

[Ziggy]

Mr Dolan " struggles to sleep at night"..."keeps him awake at times..."


HEY YOU, CHIEF!


Welcome to mine & many others Real Worlds, that have been screwed over by the apathy and lack of expertise from the ATSB & Co.


Karma is chomping on yours and others' arses. Voices are being heard of your past ghosts. Such as...


The disgraceful investigation of the ditching of a MedeVac Jet into the Ocean.
VH-NGA?? Remember. Sure you do


Australia's first International Crash. First ditching at night, in a storm, exhausted of Fuel. Full survival.
First in the World.
Did you all learn from it?  
Nope. 
Rather, this embarrassment has rested inside the UnderHull of Political Synchronised Binning!


If this investigation debacle is your Platform for International Air Accident investigation, then I think I you may need prepare for some serious arse chomping as it seems Karma it chasing your uncovered cheek/s!


So the question is, relating to both investigations.


Who is the Master of Puppets, you Muppets?


Sweet Dreams Mr Dolan,


 Ziggy



Just though I sorta had to say something truthful 'bout the history of the Man who struggles to Sleep. Considering the circumstances an ALL. 

[BugsyM]

Mr Dolan " struggles to sleep at night"..."keeps him awake at times..."


HEY YOU, CHIEF!


Welcome to mine & many others Real Worlds, that have been screwed over by the apathy and lack of expertise from the ATSB & Co.


Karma is chomping on yours and others' arses. Voices are being heard of your past ghosts. Such as...


The disgraceful investigation of the ditching of a MedeVac Jet into the Ocean.
VH-NGA?? Remember. Sure you do


Australia's first International Crash. First ditching at night, in a storm, exhausted of Fuel. Full survival.
First in the World.
Did you all learn from it?  
Nope. 
Rather, this embarrassment has rested inside the UnderHull of Political Synchronised Binning!


If this investigation debacle is your Platform for International Air Accident investigation, then I think I you may need prepare for some serious arse chomping as it seems Karma it chasing your uncovered cheek/s!


So the question is, relating to both investigations.


Who is the Master of Puppets, you Muppets?


Sweet Dreams Mr Dolan,


 Ziggy



Just though I sorta had to say something truthful 'bout the history of the Man who struggles to Sleep. Considering the circumstances an ALL. 

What a load of total bull crap, Mr. Dolan doesn't lose any sleep at night, if he does its not because of mh370 being missing, its because of the people who will NOT give up on finding it....he doesn't care about aviation safety, and I'm sorry that PEL-AIR debacle was proof of that very fact.  He needs to get his head out of the sand and see the real world....if his family member was a victim of a aviation disaster, do you think he would be so flippant about it all...I think not!  Ziggy you are so right about him, considering what transpired in the past!!!  Do not let him rest, he doesn't deserve peace in any way whatsoever.  Its a crock of shit he is still in that position, his ass should've been fired long time ago.  PLANE and simple!!!!!!!!

[Peetwo]

Mr Dolan " struggles to sleep at night"..."keeps him awake at times..."

HEY YOU, CHIEF!

Welcome to mine & many others Real Worlds, that have been screwed over by the apathy and lack of expertise from the ATSB & Co.

Karma is chomping on yours and others' arses. Voices are being heard of your past ghosts. Such as...

The disgraceful investigation of the ditching of a MedeVac Jet into the Ocean.
VH-NGA?? Remember. Sure you do

Australia's first International Crash. First ditching at night, in a storm, exhausted of Fuel. Full survival.
First in the World.
Did you all learn from it?  
Nope. 
Rather, this embarrassment has rested inside the UnderHull of Political Synchronised Binning!

If this investigation debacle is your Platform for International Air Accident investigation, then I think I you may need prepare for some serious arse chomping as it seems Karma it chasing your uncovered cheek/s!

So the question is, relating to both investigations.

Who is the Master of Puppets, you Muppets?

Sweet Dreams Mr Dolan,

 Ziggy


Just though I sorta had to say something truthful 'bout the history of the Man who struggles to Sleep. Considering the circumstances an ALL. 

What a load of total bull crap, Mr. Dolan doesn't lose any sleep at night, if he does its not because of mh370 being missing, its because of the people who will NOT give up on finding it....he doesn't care about aviation safety, and I'm sorry that PEL-AIR debacle was proof of that very fact.  He needs to get his head out of the sand and see the real world....if his family member was a victim of a aviation disaster, do you think he would be so flippant about it all...I think not!  Ziggy you are so right about him, considering what transpired in the past!!!  Do not let him rest, he doesn't deserve peace in any way whatsoever.  Its a crock of shit he is still in that position, his ass should've been fired long time ago.  PLANE and simple!!!!!!!!

Couldn't have put it better myself Bugsy - code for the Tim Tam cupboard is in your inbox.

Today in the Oz we have 'that man' back again to also call bollocks on the MH370 Super Sleuth Muppet narrative...

Flight MH370 is a mystery beyond the deep

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• February 17, 2016 12:00AM
  

Reporter
As the seas in the southern Indian Ocean get rougher, the mariners of the three Dutch Fugro survey group vessels will for the last time haul up the underwater search equipment.

A map showing the indicative MH370 priority search area in purple: Within the indicative priority area is a heat map showing the area of greatest likelihood in red.
MH370 pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

As the seas in the southern Indian Ocean get rougher, the mariners of the three Dutch Fugro survey group vessels will for the last time haul up the underwater search equipment.

A map showing the indicative MH370 priority search area in purple: Within the indicative priority area is a heat map showing the area of greatest likelihood in red.
A few months from now, as the weather in the southern Indian Ocean gets colder and the seas rougher, it will come time for the hunters to head home for good.

For the last time the mariners of the three Dutch Fugro survey group vessels and the technicians and scientists on board will haul up the two sonar imaging “towfish” and a torpedo-like autonomous machine that can be programmed to search the sea floor on its own.

And — unless, of course, it’s found in the next few months — that will mark the end of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, a little more than two years after it went missing, sparking an aviation mystery all the more addictive for its tantalising clues and lack of firm conclusions.

The Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments are abso­lute: once the 120,000sq km target search zone has been covered — 85,000sq km have been searched so far — that’s it. The secrets of MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew will never be known.

• More: The case for pilot hijack
  
• More: MH370 theory does not stand up
  
• More: Wild MH370 theory defies logic
  
  

Few would question the determination and skill of the searchers in trying to find MH370 in often difficult conditions. There have been setbacks, including medical emergencies, and technical problems, such as when a towfish ­recently crashed into an underwater mud volcano; it was recovered last week using a marine robot that freed it and plucked it from a depth of 2550m.

What critics of the search strategy say would be the real tragedy, though, is if all this effort and taxpayer money — $60 million from Australia, $80m from Malaysia and $20m from China — were for naught because they were looking in the wrong area.

Even worse would be if the decision on where to search were based not on the evidence and the likeliest scenario of what happened on board the Boeing 777 but rather on what would cause the least embarrassment to Malaysia.

In recent weeks, Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan and the minister responsible, outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, have worked hard to craft a narrative to discourage the public from reaching such a conclusion.

Their interventions through letters to the editor, “correcting the record” statements on the ATSB website and a radio interview have been mainly aimed at Byron Bailey, a former RAAF fighter pilot and airline captain.

GRAPHIC: MH370

In the pages of The Australian, Bailey has raised serious questions about why the ATSB has worked on the assumption the pilots were “unresponsive” at the end of the flight, rather than Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah being at its controls right to the end.

Many pilots and other aviation experts believe the evidence points to Zaharie having hijacked his own aircraft on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Bailey has written that an Australian official told him the FBI had come to this conclusion.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joshua Campbell told The Australian: “We are assisting our Malaysian partners with their investigation, but unfortunately I cannot comment further as this remains an ongoing investigation.”

Apart from Bailey, British airline captain Simon Hardy and US former airline captain and air crash investigator John Cox have said the rogue pilot theory was the most credible.

Cox has observed that, after breaking radio contact and turning off the radar transponder, MH370 turned around and flew carefully along the waypoints marking the border of the airspace sectors between Malaysia and Thailand, a possible attempt to avoid detection by letting each country think the aircraft was the responsibility of the other.

“The most likely theory, in my opinion, is that MH370 was an intentional act by the captain,” Cox has told The Australian.

Truss and Dolan have a different set of views. On the one hand, they have said they believe the loss of MH370 involved “human intervention”.

“In regards to the reason that MH370 turned off course, the ATSB has always held the view ­expressed by the Deputy Prime Minister that it is difficult to conceive any scenario that does not include some element of human intervention,” Dolan told The Australian last week.

On the other hand, they have said that the last stage of the flight involved no human intervention, and based the search plan on a scenario consistent with the ­pilots having fallen unconscious through lack of oxygen, known as hypoxia.

Last month, on ABC radio, Dolan was asked by reporter Sarah Dingle: “So is it worthwhile, then, changing the search parameters to consider whether the pilot deliberately took MH370 down?”

He replied: “We have certainly considered that as a possibility; all the evidence we have at the ­moment says that that is very ­unlikely.”

There are, of course, scenarios whereby Zaharie could have been flying the aircraft in the first phase of the flight and not at the end.

For example, pilots have the ability to depressurise the aircraft, and Zaharie could have done so once he had set the autopilot on the last leg south, sending himself and those under his charge into unconsciousness and death after the limited supply of emergency oxygen ran out, while maintaining a high altitude.

Observers think the remarks by Truss and Dolan regarding “human intervention” show they believe the likeliest theory is Zaharie hijacked the aircraft — but won’t spell it out because it would upset the Malaysians.

While Dolan denies it, critics such as Bailey suspect that, for the same reason, the ATSB has chosen a theory on which to base the search that does not require them to publicly support the rogue pilot scenario.

There’s a pattern to governments denying their nationals, as commercial airline pilots, deliberately killed their ­passengers.

In 1997, SilkAir Flight 185 crashed into a mangrove swamp in Indonesia with 104 deaths. Crash investigators determined that the aircraft’s loss was due to a deliberate act by the captain, Tsu Way Ming, who had been ­demoted and disciplined by the airline and had large gambling debts.

The Indonesian government has not accepted the findings.

Two years later, EgyptAir Flight 990 went down over the ­Atlantic en route from the US to Cairo, killing 217.

The US National Transportation Safety Board concluded that, after the captain left the cockpit, first officer Gameel al-Batouti ­deliberately crashed the aircraft into the ocean while repeatedly chanting “I rely on God” in Arabic.

The Egyptian Air Agency disputed the rogue pilot theory and put the crash down to mechanical failure of the elevator control system, a scenario the NTSB said could not explain the crash.

If Zaharie did deliberately take the passengers and crew of MH370 to their deaths, it would be particularly awkward for the Malaysian government because it could have been an act of political protest.

Zaharie was a supporter and distant relative of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, and is thought to have attended a court hearing the day before the flight when Anwar’s acquittal on sodomy charges was overturned in what is widely seen as a politically motivated trial.

Under international law, Kuala Lumpur is responsible for the ­investigation because the aircraft was Malaysian-registered.

The Malaysian agency responsible has released two interim ­reports thus far that state known facts, but it has yet to offer any ­conclusions on what caused the loss of MH370.
Dolan has repeatedly said it was up to the Malaysians to establish what happened on MH370, and claims the ATSB has come to no such conclusion.

But a review of the reports published by the ATSB that outline how it came to its search strategy show it did make a call, choosing among alternative scenarios the one that would mean it would not have to say Zaharie hijacked the plane.

The debate is fundamental to whether the search was destined to be a waste of time and effort from the start. The different scen­arios produce different indicators of where to look.
Bailey follows through the logic of what Zaharie seemed to be trying to achieve throughout the flight: for MH370 to disappear forever in deep and remote waters, giving no clues of where it would be found.

A controlled ditching under power, Bailey and Hardy’s theory goes, would see the aircraft land on water mostly in one piece, ­although the flaperons, if lowered, might break off, consistent with one being found washed up on the French Island of La Reunion.

However, the aircraft might have sustained enough damage to sink it quickly, as happened when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961, out of fuel after being ­hijacked, ditched off the Comoro Islands in 1996.

There are also examples of ­aircraft ditching on water in one piece, famously including the US Airways Flight 1549, which captain Chelsey Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger landed intact on the Hudson River in New York after bird strikes took out the engines.

By contrast, an uncontrolled crash would leave large amounts of wreckage, baggage and cabin items floating for months, the ­argument goes.

If Zaharie was at the controls at the end, MH370 would have flown much farther than the ATSB theory of an uncontrolled crash would indicate, whether he did so under power before the engines flamed out or afterwards in a ­controlled glide.

In its search strategy reports, the ATSB said if, as it chooses to assume, the engines flamed out with the pilots unresponsive then the aircraft would have spiralled down quickly, hitting the ocean most likely within 10 nautical miles — 20 nautical miles, at most — of the flame-out point.

But a controlled glide with the pilot at the helm could have taken it 100 nautical miles, the report says.

The search is exploring a band 21 nautical miles to the west and 40 nautical miles to the east of the arc that the aircraft is thought to have travelled based on automatic satel­lite communication data — the seven electronic “handshakes” that tracked its path to the southern Indian Ocean.

Asked if this meant the area the aircraft would have landed in during a controlled glide was not being searched, an ATSB spokesman said: “Correct.”

The reports show the ATSB considered three “general classes of accidents” for the all-important “end of flight” sequence.

First was an “in-flight upset” in which the flight runs normally with regular radio communications until “an unexpected upset event such as a stall due to icing, thunderstorm, system failure etc”.

That scenario was easy to rule out. The flight had been far from normal. The radar transponder was turned off not long into the flight, radio contact was broken and the aircraft flew back over ­Malaysia before a turn south.

The second scenario was “a glide event” involving “normal en route manoeuvring of the aircraft”, fuel exhaustion and engine failure and a “pilot controlled glide”.

The third scenario was that of “an unresponsive crew/hypoxia event” generally categorised by aircraft decompression leading to loss of oxygen and the aircrew passing out, no pilot intervention, and loss of control when the aircraft ran out of fuel, leading to a rapid crash.

Had it gone with the “pilot-controlled glide” event, the ATSB would have had to say that it thought MH370 was hijacked by Zaharie. Instead, it went with the “unresponsive crew/hypoxia event” — despite clear evidence that the first part of the flight since it turned off course ­involved very deliberate flying.

Truss and Dolan, having said they believed there was “human intervention” early in the flight, have constructed a narrative to try to justify why the ATSB made the call it did: that there was no human intervention at the end.

The ATSB has noted that the long final leg charted by the satellite handshakes from off the coast of Malaysia to the southern Indian Ocean showed no pilot “inputs” — that is, no indication a pilot was manually flying the aircraft but, rather, it was on autopilot.

“The available information about the southerly flight of the aircraft indicates it is less likely that there were human control ­inputs during the latter stages of the aircraft’s flight,” Dolan told The Australian by email.

“That is the basis for current search priorities.”

However, as several pilots have pointed out, flying on autopilot is how most of a normal flight is ­always flown; the pilots normally hand fly an aircraft only on takeoff and initial ascent, and on final approach and landing.

The fact the aircraft was on autopilot for the last leg is no ­indicator on its own that the pilot or pilots were “unresponsive”; ­Zaharie could have been perfectly alive and conscious during this leg, letting the autopilot do the work while waiting until he chose his preferred time for a final ditch under power or controlled glide.

As Cox told The Australian: “Once the Flight Management Computer (autopilot) was programmed and executed, no further pilot action would have been required … there is no evidence, ­either way, to conclude or exclude pilot action.”

An extraordinary element in the report is that the ATSB sought to justify excluding the controlled glide theory because, if it were true, it would dictate a bigger search area and, by implication, multiply the cost of the search.

“Allowing for the fact that a maximum glide distance of 100+ NM would result in an ­impractically large search area, the search team considered that it was reasonable to assume that there were no control inputs following the flame out of the second ­engine,” the report says.

If MH370 is not found in coming months, relatives of the victims will call for it to be continued.

So will aviation experts who say it is too risky to leave the riddle unanswered. “Aviation does not do well with mysteries. MH370 ­remains a mystery,” Cox says.

 
{P2 comment: Still can't see why it is not possible for a hijacker (trained pilot/tech crew) to carry out all of what Bailey/Hardy/Cox etc. theorise??- Perhaps they're privy to more information than we are  }

A couple of quotes that go to the heart of contention in regards to the Dolan led ATSB MH370 SIO deep sea search.  

'The Australian':

An extraordinary element in the report is that the ATSB sought to justify excluding the controlled glide theory because, if it were true, it would dictate a bigger search area and, by implication, multiply the cost of the search.

“Allowing for the fact that a maximum glide distance of 100+ NM would result in an ­impractically large search area, the search team considered that it was reasonable to assume that there were no control inputs following the flame out of the second ­engine,” the report says.

Bloomberg:

Investigating the other possibility -- that someone was steering the plane and glided it without power until it hit the water -- would mean tripling the search area. That’s a very unlikely scenario, and it risks overwhelming investigators, Dolan said.


“Governments are just not willing to put the resources into that sort of potential extension,” he said.

Finally a couple of recent comments off the Oz article:

Juliet

7 hours ago

Looks like diplomacy is trumping truth again: an agency of one nation helping another nation save face, perhaps.  It wouldn't be the first time in history.  Maybe some wealthy benefactor, unburdened by the constraints of international relations will attempt to solve the mystery with a private initiative.  Given the details in this story, I expect said nations to issue all manner of decrees designed to surgically thwart such freelancing.  Sadly, it may take a miracle beyond technology and perseverance to solve the mystery of MH370.

James

1 hour ago

As an independent statutory authority, ATSB should be indifferent to political considerations. If Martin Dolan demurred to political pressure he may soon be spending more time with his family. How convenient that Warren Truss has already retired.

MTF..P2

[BugsyM]

Mr Dolan " struggles to sleep at night"..."keeps him awake at times..."

HEY YOU, CHIEF!

Welcome to mine & many others Real Worlds, that have been screwed over by the apathy and lack of expertise from the ATSB & Co.

Karma is chomping on yours and others' arses. Voices are being heard of your past ghosts. Such as...

The disgraceful investigation of the ditching of a MedeVac Jet into the Ocean.
VH-NGA?? Remember. Sure you do

As an independent statutory authority, ATSB should be indifferent to political considerations. If Martin Dolan demurred to political pressure he may soon be spending more time with his family. How convenient that Warren Truss has already retired.

MTF..P2

It appears as though Truss was getting out before the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan.....

[Peetwo]

Bugsy - "..It appears as though Truss was getting out before the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan....."

Again spot on Bugsy a very convenient retirement, especially when you consider the following just released from Ben Sandilands:

China to make only three ultra sharp MH370 searches before ATSB quits scene

Ben Sandilands | Feb 17, 2016 2:03PM |


An indicative ATSB map as to how much larger gliding could make the search zone

The ATSB is ready to accept the possibility that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was in a controlled glide in the final moments of its doomed flight almost two years into the southern Indian Ocean.

If that was the case, and all the other fundamental assumptions are correct, the current priority search area might have to be three times as large as it is.

This concession by the Australian managed search for the jet is made by the chief commissioner of the ATSB, Martin Dolan, in a paywalled interview in The Times.

The already extended priority sea floor search zone for the jet was based on the aircraft flying on a predetermined heading without further pilot input after first being deliberately diverted onto a west and then northwesterly course toward central Asia in the early morning of 8 March 2014 when it was en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board.

If however there was control until very late in the flight, and it was glided even after the power to both engines stopped because of fuel exhaustion, it could have flown maybe 100 kilometres or more than modelled, vastly increasing the number of possible paths to an even larger area of the ocean than the 120,000 square kilometres that are being searched.

The Times report refers to the eventuality that Australia would publish a report explaining why the search had failed that would included recognition of the controlled end of flight scenario should nothing be found in the defined zone.

The search partners, Australia, Malaysia and China, have agreed that the current ATSB managed Malaysia instructed sea floor search will end on the exhaustion of this area pending no material discoveries of sunk wreckage or credible new leads.

That end of the ATSB search is generally estimated to come by the end of May, subject to the sea state generated by the weather, which will deteriorate as the southern winter draws nearer.

The ATSB search has in fact contemplated controlled flight scenarios in the past. It took about a year of lobbying by UK pilot Simon Hardy for his calculated end of flight scenarios, which involved ditching the jet while it had enough fuel left to deliver full control to a pilot, to be acknowledged.

Captain Hardy’s optimal resting place for the wreckage was sonar scanned by the search late last year without result, although the calculations involved were accorded serious respect and consideration, and the margin for error is such that it might yet have come down within tens of kilometres of where he expected it could have ended.

Unpowered gliding is another matter. The risk of loss of control toward the end of such a descent to the sea surface is considered very high, and the satellite ping data, as described by the ATSB  last year, suggested that after both engines failed, one some minutes after the other, the Boeing 777-200ER began to fall out of control toward an impact, and that the jet might even have been inverted before impact thus breaking the signal line of sight between a computer system antenna on the fuselage and an Inmarsat communications satellite parked in a geosynchronous location over the west Indian Ocean.

If as The Times report says, the area in which MH370 might have come down is about three times larger than the priority search zone, then there would only be a one in three chance that the jet lies within it,  rather than somewhere surrounding it.

Which raises an interesting speculation as to what China might do, once the Australian search ends. It might continue the search rather than go home. Most of the victims of the loss of MH370 were China nationals, and the derision with which Beijing held the conduct of the Malaysian authorities early in the saga is on the public record.

By coincidence or otherwise, The Times story came out at the same time as an unusually early release of the JACC/ATSB Wednesday search update.

This is what the very brief update says about the Chinese ship and its sharp synthetic aperture ultra deep water scanning sonar towfish.

Dong Hai Jiu 101 has departed Fremantle to transit to the calibration range where the towfish will be trialed. It will then return to Fremantle to land personnel embarked only for the trials, before departing around 18 February for the first of three swings in the search area.

Bugsy don't forget that Dolan's extended tenure as ATSB Chief Commissioner also conveniently expires in June i.e. zero care factor, zero responsibility & a Golden handshake to boot - UFB!  

MTF..P2

[ventus45]

Dong Hai Jiu 101 has departed Fremantle to transit to the calibration range where the towfish will be trialed. It will then return to Fremantle to land personnel embarked only for the trials, before departing around 18 February for the first of three swings in the search area.

Interesting.
Only three swings already decided ?  Defined "target" list, check, if empty, finito !

I like this bit:
 ............ return to Fremantle to land personnel embarked only for the trials .......

Could it mean, that all non-chinese crew will be "landed ashore" before the ship deploys ?
"Security" might be an issue perhaps ?

Perhaps it's time to re-read Ben's original article, with my comment from this morning.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/...ment-38174

{P2 edit: Here you go "V"... }

So, THREE – and ONLY three swings = trips = deployments.

I think we can assume from this, that the answer to part (1) above, is that the ship has been tasked with a defined list of “difficult sites” to check out, which will take three trips total, and when completed, project finishes, ie, will be wound up, at least as far as Australia’s ATSB, and MALAYSIA is concerned.

Presumably, at that point, the “agreements” in the ATSB document () lapse. Then, presumably, all three countries are “released” from any need or reason to “co-operate”, hence, China, if it so chose, could continue, with it’s own independent search, if it wanted to, and would be under no obligation whatsoever to tell anybody anything, even if they later found it.

Given China’s attitude to the search for the last eighteen months, it is pretty clear that they have been absent because they believe they were being ignored and lied to. With that as the background, it would be highly unlikely that the Chinese would “give” Malaysia or Australia the proverbial “time of day” if they did later find it outside the 120,000 square kilometre zone themselves.

Indeed, they may choose to keep any find a state secret, so that they could later marshal their own recovery assets in secret, and do a recovery under cover of a “fishing fleet” or similar, and “exclude” all other parties, regardless of what the UN, ICAO, or anyone else said about it. That would be very interesting, politically.

So, now the question becomes, what will the Dong Hai Jiu 101 do after July 2016 ? Will it return to China ? OR Will we get an answer to part (2) of my original post above ?

&..

2
Ventus45

Posted January 30, 2016 at 1:04 pm | Permalink

The Chinese abruptly abandoned all search activities for MH-370 when the JACC/ATSB took over from AMSA.

Since then, the Chinese attitude to the JACC/ATSB search could best be described as one of “studied indifference”.

So, one must ask, what motive could the Chinese now have for their apparent renewed interest in MH-370 ?

Will the Chinese join the ATSB search, perhaps using their “better SAS kit” for looking into those “difficult sites” that the ATSB has “mentioned in passing” at different times, or will the Chinese conduct their own “entirely independent” search ?

If the later, it will be interesting to see “where” they search.

That could be “telling”, specifically as to who knows “what’s what”, in the intel world.

[Kharon]

IMO it was a great mistake handing over the search to ATSB, with AMSA in charge the bulldust meter was in the low to mid range. Credibility was essential, honesty imperative and expertise mandatory. I wonder where the Chinese vessel will venture once the ‘official’ search is complete? It is after all an independent vessel, owned by a sovereign nation working in international water. Watch and wait seems to be the brief for now.

[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

 
Also Paul, note that this is at least the third time Dolan has been quoted as conceding, although reluctantly, that they may (the ATSB) have got it wrong..
MTF...P2   

[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