[Kenyon]

RE: David 1/31/2016 ‘Unclear to me where in the flaperon report he got info on evidence of fatigue from and it will be interesting to see what the French find.’

Agree it will be interesting to see what the French publish. The Flaperon Failure Analysis (Rev 2.0) does not contain all the analysis otherwise it becomes way too big. The above fatigue comment by David is a very valid and astute statement.

The investigators will have an easy time determining fatigue vs shear regimes on the failure points. However, observation from La Reunion photographs is a greater challenge. Rather than going into a long dissertation on fatigue vs. shear, perhaps the following, conceptual level, explanation sheds some light.

Reference Exhibit 5 on pg 6 of 33 http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/2209

Observe the remains of the Inboard inner bracket ear. In a simple massive shear event there would be only one type of breakage on the inner ear that occurred in a fraction of a second. However on the La Renunion Flaperon Inboard inner bracket ear there are two distinct types of metal failure evident on the inner bracket ear. Type I near the connector and Type II above the connector. Likely there are three types of metal failure on the inner bracket ear but the initial photo analysis performed for Rev 2.0 was based on the two types observed. Deeper photo analysis was performed, but this concept should help with David’s excellent statement.

[Peetwo]

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  .

'That man' in the Weekend Oz:

Newly appointed Transport Minister Darren Chester has sought a “detailed briefing” on the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 following the admission by Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Marti­n Dolan that the “rogue pilot” theory he had rejected could be correct after all.


Aviation experts are divided on whether a new search based on a pilot gliding the aircraft to the water would be worthwhile.

It would have to encompass about twice the area now being covered based on the ATSB’s original “ghost plane” theory of the flight crew being rendered “unresponsive”, possibly through decompression and loss of oxygen leading to unconsciousness.
A spokeswoman told The Weekend Australian the new minister “has sought detailed briefing from officials leading the search for MH370”.

But the spokeswoman cautioned: “The governments of ­Malaysia, China and Australia have agreed that in the absence of credible new information that there will be no further expansion of the search area.”

Whether to instruct Mr Dolan to draw up a new search plan, with a costing, could be one of the earliest decisions facing Mr Chester.

A US aviation expert, former airline pilot John Cox who now runs an aviation safety consult­ancy and has participated in ­numerous major air crash investig­ations, has urged Mr Chester to do so. “He has a unique opportunity to have experts within Australia review all the evidence and to solicit input and help from Malaysia and China,” Mr Cox said. “The only goal can be to solve the questions, the mystery.”

Australian air crash investigation expert Geoff Dell said “it would be very nice to know what happened to that airplane, and take away myth and replace it with fact”. But Mr Dell, now an associ­ate professor in accident invest­igation at Central Queensland University, cautioned that the government would have to assess­ “when does the cost becom­e prohibitive?”.

The Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, after radio communication was cut, its radar transponder was turned off, and it flew back over the border between Malaysian and Thailand before turning south.

Veteran Australian military and airline pilot Byron Bailey, British airline pilot Simon Hardy and Mr Cox have said these facts clearly point to Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacking his own aircraft.

Only weeks ago, Mr Dolan told the ABC the theory pres­ented by the three pilots was “very unlikely” and there was no need to act on it.

But he told Britain’s The Times this week that with the search in the southern Indian Ocean expected to be completed by June, if MH370 is not found he expected he would have to offer an altern­ative to the three governments funding the $180 million search.

“The alternative is, frankly, that despite all the evidence, the possibility that someone was at the controls of that aircraft and gliding it,” he said.

A search covering a “controlled glide” would be much bigger. Under the “ghost flight” theory the Boeing 777 would have quickly crashed after running out of fuel, but a pilot could glide the plane up to 100 nautical miles in any direction.

The ATSB will not specifically say Captain Zaharie hijacked the aircraft, which would embarrass Malaysia, but will instead adopt a new narrative that it will examine a controlled glide scenario by an unspecified pilot, who could also have been a passenger who knew how to fly.

MTF...P2

[Gobbledock]

I don't normally read Mainstream propaganda media however I've been watching developments around the China sea for some time. Interesting article below;

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-23...ea/7193154

So here is the thing - if China can develop such technology around Cuarteron reef, and of course America can so eloquently and accurately monitor every nut and bolt being assembled there, you will never be able to convince me that at least one of these two countries doesn't know where MH370 came down. Utter bollocks. These countries governments know the colour of Julian Assange's morning piss and the volume, duration and texture of Kim Jong Un's evening shits taken in an underground bunker. They know where it is. The bigger question is 'why cover it up'?

[BugsyM]

 The tiny Indian Ocean island of Kuda Huvadhoo is the sleepy fishing community that the world forgot. Some of its villagers believe an aircraft they saw on the morning of March 8 last year could hold the key to modern aviation’s most confounding mystery — the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.  

Some of the locals on the 60ha of sand and coral in the Maldives chain do not understand why, after more than a year, invest­igators involved in the search for the Boeing 777 have not come to hear first-hand about the large, low-flying passenger jet they insist they saw that fateful morning.

Intriguingly, however, acoustics scientists are not ruling out the possibility that a distinctive high-energy noise they measured about the time of the presumed crash might have come from the aircraft hitting the ocean or imploding at depth in an area near the ­Maldives.

A speck on the atoll of Dhaalu in the Maldives chain, the island receives few visits from outsiders. Wealthy tourists, some of whom arrive by private jet at the airport near the country’s capital, Male, and then take a sea plane about 180km south to the pampered ­luxury of a resort costing more than $2000 a night, sometimes charter a small boat to briefly look at the modest lives here.


The technology and logistics matter little, however, to the villagers of Kuda Huvadhoo, the capital of an atoll lacking radar in a country with outdated and sev­erely limited defence and air traffic equipment. Several people we spoke to believe they saw MH370 about 6.30am (9.30am in Malaysia) that day.


“These people were not seeking attention and they did not go to the police about it, the police went to them after hearing about this,’’ the source says. “They are not dishonest and they have no motive to lie. They all told the police it was big, low and noisy. If it was not the missing plane, then which plane was it? We do not see planes close and low to Kuda ­Huvadhoo. Nobody knows what has really happened.”

There were other reasons the people of Kuda Huvadhoo were not taken seriously. The Maldives National Defence Force, responsible for guarding the security and sovereignty of the low-lying country, issued a statement in March last year ruling out any such aircraft movement over its air space. The locals were surprised and felt humiliated. Several of those we spoke to in Kuda Huvadhoo were scornful, accusing their defence chiefs of seeking to save face and not wanting to admit to their ­people or the world that the limitations of Maldives radar and other equipment could not detect such flights.

Around this time, Malaysian authorities agreed that the aircraft’s “pings” — like breadcrumbs being left in a trail — meant MH370 should have crashed somewhere along one of two potential arcs. The arcs are in opposite hemispheres, but the most probable extended in the Indian Ocean west of Perth where vessels and aircraft are engaged in a search across a massive haystack for an infinitesimally small needle.

Another wildcard is the little-known work of Alec Duncan and fellow scientists from Curtin University’s Centre for Marine Science and Technology, whose monitoring of sensitive underwater acoustics equipment, known as hydrophones, identified “a clear acoustic signal at a time that was reasonably consistent with other information relating to the disappearance of MH370”.

The scientists knew the crash of a large aircraft in the ocean would be a “high energy event and expected to generate intense underwater sounds” — either from the impact with the ocean or a subsequent implosion of sinking wreckage. In their initial location estimates, Dr Duncan placed the noise’s source in the ocean relatively close to the Maldives and Kuda Huvadhoo. However, he cautions it could have been a geological event. The official ATSB search team for MH370 carefully considered the acoustics data.

After months of further analysis, Dr Duncan told The Weekend Australian this week: “Unfortunately the reality is that there are so many ifs, buts and maybes involved in all this that it would be more correct to say that our team has identified an approximate possible location for the origin of a noise that is probably of geological origin, but cannot be completely ruled out as being connected with the loss of MH370.” Dr Duncan explained that two key factors “make us reluctant to completely rule out the possibility that these signals are related to MH370”.

One is “the calculated time of the acoustic event, shortly after the final “partial handshake” between the satellite and the aircraft”, the other is that if the sound was generated by the implosion of some part of the aircraft as it sank ... (and) at a depth of about 1000m then the resulting sound would propagate effectively in the deep sound channel and could conceivably be detected at ranges of thousands of kilometres”.

However, like the island of Kuda Huvadhoo, “the calculated position is completely inconsistent with the satellite handshake data that is the basis of the current search area”.

If the satellite handshake data ever “proved to be seriously flawed”, says Dr Duncan, further acoustics analysis should be done. And if this eventuates, the people of a tiny island in the Maldives might be asked again about the large passenger jet they insist they saw on the morning of March 8 last year.

This has bothered me for a long time, all these witnesses in the maldives saw a huge plane, and reported it.  The authorities tried to bury it.  Florence de Changy a french reporter went there and interviewed people but she tried to claim it was a maldives plane a smaller one, but there was a fellow named Blaine Gibson who also went there and got a different version than she did. 

All these witnesses saw the same thing, the maldives authorities tried to pass off a smaller plane a D8 dash or something as the plane, but all these witnesses claimed it was a huge plane something they had never seen flying so low before.  I'm sure they know what their maldives planes look like and they all said that wasn't it.

Now who was lying, the authorities or over 21 witnesses, did they all imagine they saw a huge plane that morning?  I think not, they all saw something, whether it was mh370 0r not is the question.  They all saw something that's for sure, that the authorities tried to say was a smaller plane.  Now I question that one, why would they do that?  Is there something they don't want people to know?  There is definitely something going on there.  In july of last year, witnesses also saw US military planes flying around their airspace.  I know if a plane was flying towards DG, they would've seen it long before it crossed over the maldives islands, but we most likely will never know the real truth unless the actual plane is ever found.  I have my doubts because it appears as though there are somebody's who do not want that to ever happen.  Just my opinion, and could be way off too.

[airlandseaman]

Bugsy:

Regarding: "Several people we spoke to believe they saw MH370 about 6.30am (9.30am in Malaysia) that day." Note that 9.30am Malaysian time is over an hour past the time of MH370 fuel exhaustion (08:19). This is one of many reasons those sightings have been dismissed as sightings unrelated to MH370.

[BugsyM]

Bugsy:

Regarding: "Several people we spoke to believe they saw MH370 about 6.30am (9.30am in Malaysia) that day."  Note that 9.30am Malaysian time is over an hour past the time of MH370 fuel exhaustion (08:19). This is one of many reasons those sightings have been dismissed as sightings unrelated to MH370.

Could be, but after the flaperon showed up in Reunion, it brought all this back to the table and it appears is making the rounds again.  Its been proven that it was a huge plane that looked like a malaysia plane did indeed fly low over there that morning, there were no flights scheduled in that area at that time of the morning.  So it begs the question, whose plane was it and why did the authorities try to bury the story.  If a regularly scheduled jet had to make an emergency landing somewhere there, we would've heard about it.  But considering the area it was seen in, who knows.  I'm not saying I believe it, just that it brought up more questions than answers.  It appears that anything that doesn't correspond to the "larger than life" inmarsat data is just dismissed, more likely on purpose than anything else.  We will see what happens in the search area.  Not a thing has been found yet but maybe now that china and US involved, they will find something.

[BugsyM]

So here is the thing - if China can develop such technology around Cuarteron reef, and of course America can so eloquently and accurately monitor every nut and bolt being assembled there, you will never be able to convince me that at least one of these two countries doesn't know where MH370 came down. Utter bollocks. These countries governments know the colour of Julian Assange's morning piss and the volume, duration and texture of Kim Jong Un's evening shits taken in an underground bunker. They know where it is. The bigger question is 'why cover it up'?

My thoughts exactly on this situation....you see the US always has military assets in the Sout china sea keeping an eye on them sneaky chinese.  They were in between 2 sets of Thai military exercises, one had just finished and another was beginning on the 10th of March, so if the US has assets in the south china they did NOT have their radars turned off.  If a rogue plane all of a sudden decides to turn around and fly off course with no word to anyone....the US would've seen it and watched it, also china would be watching the US and so forth. and they would have seen it also as their radars would be pointed in that direction.....therefore, what really happened and the question is why?  Was it a total screw up over a major cover up.  

It appears to me as though Malaysia kept the search in the south china sea for a week, when they knew from day one that the plane turned back......another question why?  Diverting attention again?  Then when they finally admitted it, search was moved to Melacca strait and Andaman area.  But wait a minute, then you have the US whitehouse announce that the inmarsat data places the plane going down in the indian ocean, but Hishymuddein denies that claim (exact same day).  Too many questions and no answers appears to me as things are not always as they appear.  

I've always thought that searching a very wide and unknown area with no proof other than some satellite data that was never used to track a plane before now becomes the sole existence of a search in the middle of nowhere doomed to fail on purpose perhaps??  Who knows, we know that Malaysia has lied....a LOT....and the ATSB have said they cannot comment on other theories they are only in charge of the search.  Well seems to me as though they are putting their own theories out  there to justify their search because they are getting backlash from the likes of regular folk who aren't so easily fooled.

My opinion is that this whole bogus search is to waste time until the March 8th deadline is up and then MAS or MAB now can wash their hands of it for good.  How sad is that?  pathetic and cold is what I see.  Malaysia is rocked with scandals coming out the ying yang now, and they don't care about no plane with all these people who have families who miss them dearly.  Very sad reality, the world has gone to hell in a handbasket as my grandmom used to say.  Najib and Hishymuddein are just a couple of wankers  

[Peetwo]

The IG & the KL/ATSB swamp of obfuscation?- 8 QON that deserve answers


From news.com.au by Marnie O'Neill, on behalf of IG members: 

MH370: Eight questions on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 that need answers

February 26, 20165:39pm

One of the most iconic MH370 images is this March 31, 2014 photograph of the shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion searching for the missing plane in the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia
Marnie O’Neill

EXCLUSIVE
THE overwhelming perception of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and its 239 passengers on March 8, 2014 is that there has been a monumental cover up.

From the initial refusal of the Malaysians to release the full cargo manifest to confusion over whether the plane was tracked by military radar or not (it was), the combined effect of withholding information while spreading disinformation has been less muddy waters than impenetrable swamp.

Less than two weeks before the second anniversary of the Boeing 777’s disappearance, we have an astonishing situation where an accurate reconstruction of events is impossible because vital questions have still not been answered.

Those questions relate to, among other things, radar anomalies and secrecy surrounding the French analysis of the barnacle-encrusted flaperon found on La Reunion last July — the only MH370 debris that has ever been found.

The public may be surprised to learn that the full French report has yet to be released.
Members of the highly respected MH370 Independent Group (IG) have carried out their own analyses based on photographs of the wing part but the French, bound by judicial protocol, have shared their findings with Malaysia only.

Barring a leak or a court order, the only way we will know what information the flaperon has yielded is if Malaysia includes the findings in its next MH370 progress report, due out on March 8.

Given Malaysia’s history of obfuscation, that’s not good news for next of kin, investigators (from both the IG and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau) or anyone else seeking the truth about the missing plane.

Damage to the flaperon will allow us to estimate the speed and angle at which the plane entered the water and whether or not it was controlled by a pilot as it descended. The barnacle species and its level of growth may provide a more precise “splashpoint”.


A map showing the estimated flight path of MH370 based on radar data. Note the IGARI point. Graphic Victor IannelloSource:Supplied

Yesterday morning, Voice 370, a group representing relatives of those on board the plane issued a statement accusing the Malaysian government of denying them “existing rights in law, including also access to justice mechanisms”, for the benefit of a private business, namely Malaysian Airlines System Berhad (MAS)”.

“The egregious behaviour of the Malaysian government has gone mostly unnoticed by the world press, but it deserves to be highlighted, investigated and broadcast far and wide,” Sarah Bajc, the partner of American MH370 passenger Philip Wood, said in an email accompanying the statement.

“After almost two years we still know nothing concrete about what happened to MH370, though we are SURE there is information that has been withheld. Besides the terrible crimes of negligence and obstruction, for allowing the plane to disappear then impeding the investigation of the disappearance of 239 people, the Malaysian government has also prevented the pursuit of reparations by affected families.”

News.com.au picked the substantial brains of three IG members, Dr Victor Iannello (US), Mike Exner (US) and Don Thompson (Ireland) to find out where the gaping holes in this ongoing investigation lie.

Dr Iannello put together a list of the questions he hopes will be addressed in the March 8 report. Don’t be put off by their technical nature; the longer they remain unanswered, the less likely it is the plane will ever be found.


The military radar data shown to MH370 next of kin (pictured above) is vastly different from the data provided by Malaysia and used in a recent report by Australia’s Defence Science and Technology GroupSource:Supplied


Dr Iannello says the radar data is full of inconsistenciesSource:Supplied

RADAR ANOMALIES

1) Malaysian military radar tracked what is believed to have been MH370 as it turned back towards Penang and then veered northwest in the Malacca Strait. Did military radar capture MH370 at the exact time that it disappeared on air traffic control screens as provided by secondary surveillance radar?

2) The flight path presented by the ATSB in a June 2014 report shows a sharp turn to the left after passing IGARI (a point in the South China Sea where MH370 disappeared from ATC radars - scroll up to see graphic) but experts say this sharp turn exceeds the performance limitations of a B777.

Was the turn actually captured on radar, or was it inferred from other data?

3)If the post-IGARI turn back was not captured, where is the evidence that later radar captures were indeed of MH370?

4) A recent report by Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Group (DST Group) used radar data supplied by Malaysia to estimate the speed of MH370 at the turn back after IGARI. Researchers detected something strange: a big reduction in speed followed by a recovery to normal cruise speeds. The results were the same even when a filter was applied to the radar data.

Is there an explanation for this significant change in speed at the turn?
5) In the same report, the DST Group claimed that the radar data provided by Malaysia shows that the second-to-last radar capture of MH370 was at 18:01:49 (GMT) and the last at 18:22:12 (GMT). However, that differs from radar data presented to next-of-kin at a conference held at the Lido Hotel in Beijing on March 21, 2014, which shows several radar captures within the same time frame. What is the nature of this discrepancy?


The barnacle-encrusted flaperon that washed up on La Reunion last July remains the only MH370 debris that has ever been recovered.Source:Supplied

THE FRENCH ANALYSIS OF THE FLAPERON
Many questions remain unanswered regarding the flaperon that was recovered at La Reunion in July 2015 because the French have not released the results of their investigation.

6) The barnacle growth on the flaperon was reportedly consistent with that of an object which had been completely submerged. If this is true, are the results consistent with buoyancy studies of the flaperon?

7) Has the barnacle species attached to the flaperon been definitively determined? What is the habitat for this species? Is it consistent with a part that has drifted from the southern Indian Ocean to La Reunion?

8) It has been reported that the damage to the flaperon is consistent with controlled ditching. What does the failure analysis reveal regarding how the flaperon became separated from the wing and how it sustained the damage to its trailing edge?

Mr Exner said the importance of a detailed flaperon analysis could not be underestimated.
“It’s imperative to know if the flaperon separated from MH370 in the air, before the main impact, due to flutter,” he told News.com.au.

“Establishing that it did, in fact, separate due to flutter would be very strong evidence that MH370 is very close to the 7th arc, and (that) the search has missed it.”
Mr Thompson said there were three gaps in the early history of the flight “for which knowledge should exist” .

They include comprehensive radar tracking from 17:21 (GMT) to 18:02 (GMT), satcom activity between 17:07 (GMT) and 18:25 (GMT); and radar tracking after 18:02 (GMT), he said.

“Information does exist to fill these gaps and it will contribute to a more accurate flight reconstruction and give solace to the many hundreds of people who are still
wracked by this event,” he said.

Mr Thompson also called on the ATSB to release more detailed information about the underwater search in relation to ground already covered and that still to be explored.

“ATSB’s reporting for progress of the deep ocean search should be clearer given the Australian government has committed to contracts worth AUS$150m to prosecute the sea
bed search,” he said. “It’s a very challenging search, but to know which areas have been deemed, with certainty, to be clear of debris is important information.”

Also courtesy the Weekend Oz, new Minister Chester reiterates end date:

Minister Darren Chester flags end date for MH370 search

• Sarah Martin
  
• The Australian
  
• February 27, 2016 12:00AM
  

Political reporter
Canberra


The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 plane is likely to end in June, dashing hopes the so-called rogue pilot theory will be investigated and leaving the mystery of the flight and its 239 passengers unsolved.

Federal Transport Minister Darren Chester said that almost two years since the Boeing 777’s disappearance, the search for its remains was unlikely to continue once the target area was completed mid-year.

“It’s tragic for the families involved that it’s taking so long and it’s a difficult process and I’ve got nothing but empathy and sympathy for the families who are waiting for an outcome,” he said yesterday.

“In the absence of any further credible evidence, that will be the end of the search process.”

Mr Chester said it was unlikely the 120,000sq km search area in the southern Indian Ocean, which is being scoured by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, would be expanded.

The ATSB is searching the area on the premise the aircraft crashed after hours on auto­pilot, and “no control inputs” were recorded at the end of the flight.
SARAH MARTIN

Q/ How do they know "no control inputs" were recorded?



MTF..P2

[Peetwo]

Seeing as where this all going - re: Marnie's news.com article - thought now be a good time to revive an old UP post of mine..

Aviation Mandarin, JORN & the sleepy echidna.

---

I don't believe that it is possible these days to arrive at the rank of Air Vice Marshal without having to play politics at the Russell Offices and thus get the lobotomy or the bite on the neck, whatever...


...From what I’ve heard considerable numbers gain promotion by saying "yes" to all sorts of things. Conversely, no one gets promoted for saying "no".

All General Officer and Senior Officer Ranks are political appointments. ie. Anyone above Field Grade Rank.

Sunny & Frank two enlightening posts...

Not that I want to weigh into the pros & cons on (AVM ret) Skidmore but the following from this month's Fort Fumble missive....does not imbue one with a whole lot of confidence...:

From Director of Aviation Safety designee Mark Skidmore


While I have not yet stepped into the role of Director of Aviation Safety, I just wanted to take this opportunity to start the important job of communicating with everyone. Communication and consultation are high priorities for me and I have already begun to meet people and organisations from the aviation community. You may notice that I am deliberately describing the aviation sector as a community rather than an industry. This may be a subtle difference but it recognises there is more to aviation than just the commercial operations which are embraced by the term ‘industry’. As an active general aviation pilot I appreciate the commitment to aviation of the many people who are not in any way earning revenue from flying. In fact, as any private aircraft owner knows, being a part of aviation can cost quite a bit of money. We stay involved because we love aviation and love flying. It is that commitment to aviation that drove me to seek the position of Director of Aviation Safety and it will guide my thinking during my five year term. When I take the reins on 1 January 2015 I will keep listening to everyone who is part of the aviation community, as well as people in the broader Australian community who have an interest in aviation safety. I look forward to meeting and hearing from as many people as possible in the months and years ahead.

Have a safe and merry Christmas

Mark Skidmore

Couple that with the Hoodoo Voodoo spellbinding (bollocks..) oratory to the AAA conference you begin to get the picture that the Mrdak (BRB hypothesis) grand plan is alive and well.

However there are indications in the Doc's speech of a concerted effort to circle the wagons around M&M's weakest link i.e. Airport Lease agreements:

Safeguarding of airports-Protection of airspace



Let me say a word or two about airspace protection. CASA is alive to the concerns that have been expressed with increasing frequency about the-

• encroachment of tall residential and commercial buildings in the vicinity of airports;
  
• extent to which such encroachments compromise the safety of air operations at those airports; and
  
• suggestion that CASA should play a more determinative role in the approval processes for potentially encroaching construction projects.
  

While community vigilance plays an important part in any democratic society, CASA believes the existing regime, whereby the protection of airspace is governed within a framework agreed by Commonwealth, State and Territory governments, is adequate and appropriate.

The Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development is responsible for managing the protection of airspace around Leased Federal Airports (LFAs), and it does so informed by advice provided by CASA and Airservices Australia. CASA strives to provide responsive and timely advice to the Department on all applications involving infringement of prescribed airspace around federal airports, and we remain confident that the Department properly takes that advice in to account in forming its views.

At non-Federal airports, CASA will continue to provide advice to proponents and land use planning authorities in relation to proposals involving the infringement of airspace. Pursuant to guidelines of the National Airport Safeguarding Advisory Framework, we believe planning authorities should act in the light of CASA’s advice. In the end, however, we recognise that our authority is limited to the provision of such advice. Matters related to land use planning are best dealt with by elected policy makers and other planning authorities, and it would be inappropriate for the aviation safety regulator to have decision-making powers in connection with matters calling for a sometimes delicate balance to be struck between the safety and efficiency of airport operations and other broader policy-based considerations.

Yep the Doc conveniently sidesteps that one - FF all care but no responsibility when it comes to Airports... However it still leaves M&M firmly in the gun sights...

On the apparent fact that AVM's are politically appointed (in our case M&M appointed):

As for ATSB, I wonder if Mrdak is brazen enough to choose another RAAF clone who knows their way around Canberra? My guess is yes.

If that be the case Sunny then the next ATsB CC will come from this list (minus the deceased) - List of Royal Australian Air Force air marshals

One of the names on that list who would be a potential candidate would be this guy - Warren Ludwig*1960— Commander Integrated Area Defence System, Malaysia (2010–14).

If so there would yet again be another fascinating connection to MH370, for it seems that the RAAF has been dancing the tango with Malaysia under the Five Power Defence Arrangements for 43 years and the IADS has always been under the command of a RAAF AVM.

Reference from page 84 - The Five Power Defence Arrangements:The Quiet Achiever:

The Commander of IADS has always been an Australian Air Vice Marshal

assisted by a deputy who rotates between Malaysia and Singapore.

Reference from the Strategist article - FPDA—not fade away:

Unlike the echidna, the FPDA has at least adjusted its gait to move with the times, re-badging IADS from integrated air defence to area defence as far back as 2001. Exercise and interoperability themes have since been broadened from conventional defence to HADR and maritime security. FPDA was not publicly invoked during the search for MH 370, but the disaster has focused an operational spotlight on the need for integrated air surveillance and SAR coordination across Southeast Asia and beyond. The apparent failure to track the airliner as it passed north of Butterworth was not IADS’ finest hour.


But the continuing multinational search operation has unquestionably benefited from the institutionalised trust built up between Malaysia and its fellow FPDA members.

This apparent anomaly - although totally missed by most Oz MSM - was not missed by the international MSM nor the TBA.

Example from IBT - MH370: Australia Seems Conspiring to Hide Something, Random Letter Sparks Questions on Au’s Security Radar :

...With this, he explained that JORN can search most of the way to India.
"Given this, the only way for the radar not to have detected something like MH370 is for it to be switched off at the time, which raises its own questions."

The most interesting detail the Mr La Franchi pointed out is that Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom jointly operate the Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA) integrated air defence centre based in Malaysia.

He said that Australia had even funded the modernisation of the centre back in 1990. The modernisation entailed for the centre to be able to "recognised air picture" of all of Southeast Asian airspace using feeds from both civil and military radars.

"That centre has a live feed into the Australian Air Defence Ground Environment (ADGE) which underwent extensive modernisation across the 2000s. The FPDA integrated air defence data is fused with data from JORN in the ADGE, with this data available in real time at centres in Adelaide, Canberra and Newcastle," he explained.

With this information at hand, Mr La Franchi could not understand why MH370 was never detected by Australian system.

So could it be AVM Ludwig will soon be retired AVM Ludwig?? Hmm...make a perfect fit for replacing Bea-Cur and would certainly slot in quite nicely with the M&M master plan team (MMMPT) - especially when it comes to the inevitable (unless miraculously found) duck-up of the cover-up of MH370...

MTF...

[Gobbledock]

It is very true about the AVM hypothesis. People such as Skid'Mark, Staib, Houston, even Cosgrove, don't rise through the ranks of the military based on a system of natural justice, fairness, and military skill. Their promotions are based on arse licking skills, politics, back stabbing and much much disloyalty towards those below and beside them. As a result of their skill in playing the game, being corporate suckholes and kissing politicians spotted arses they make perfect candidates for senior roles in the public service because they are used to being poker faced while bullshitting to all and sundry while ensuring they continue to tow the political line and appease their puppet masters. Their reward of course is a fat salary, superannuation, perks, troughs and other assorted morsels. The benefit to their puppet masters such as the PM, Miniscule and Murky is that they have a constant supply of willing footstools prepared to do ANYTHING for their Masters.

The game is rigged friends, that is the system and how it works. There are several other prerequisites for roles such as mentioned above, I won't bother getting in to it an off track, however there is rhyme and reason behind why the top dogs always come from a specific background.....it's all part of the game.

"Safe arse kissing for all"

[Peetwo]

Paul Howard on the reasons why we should not give up on finding MH370...

Malaysian 370 what next ?


29/2/2016

2 Comments
 
This piece is inspired by last night’s news of $28m spent on paving King George Square and how that expenditure has made it too hot to enjoy.
 
$28m to pave a square !

That puts the cost of searching for a $270m aircraft into perspective. A couple of hundred million is a drop in the bucket when all is considered and  very good value compared to a few city squares. Read on to see why.
 
Once the current search is finished and if nothing is found, Australians could quite properly think that we’ve done our bit and why waste more money ?

The estimate for completion is about July and there are people who like to use highfalutin expressions like exponential curves to describe the decreasing chances of finding it.

Don’t be snowed by desperation to prove the search wrong and salvage what little reputation remains.

In this situation there is no “X marks the spot”, each arc has a minimum +- 10km error factor therefore creating a band 20km wide.

The basic navigation principles for box searches are the same as for triangular fixes. The limits of the search are defined and every point within those limits has an equal probability to every other point. That means that having searched 119,999 square km’s, exactly the same probability exists in that last square km.

Exponential can’t be applied here and the job’s not finished yet. 

So what do we do if it’s not found by the 120 thousandth square km?

Some things are worth more than money and national prestige is an indefinable quality that every nation cherishes.

Australia has become a pariah state over its offshore detention policy and really needs something to polish a very tarnished image, we can’t just leave it to our cricket team to create national pride, that’s a heavy burden for 11 blokes.
 
An alternative is to keep looking for it. PM Turnbull in his inaugural speech;

"We can't be defensive, we can't future-proof ourselves. We have to recognise that the disruption that we see driven by technology, the volatility in change is our friend if we are agile and smart enough to take advantage of it.
"There has never been a more exciting time to be alive than today and there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian."
 
The expression; snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, is appropriate. Australians aren’t quitters so let’s add the success of this task to previous successes and not just rely on sportsmen and women for a sense of national achievement.

Apollo 13 was a seemingly impossible task but NASA brought three astronauts home by creatively working as a team to single-mindedly achieve its objective. Yes it’s a Malaysian aircraft but next time it could be a Qantas and as our continent is surrounded by lots of briny, the skills and experience developed by this enterprise could save future lives.

 Other benefits of continuing to search are increased scientific knowledge, maintaining a presence for defence purposes and potential resource discovery.
For the last, there doesn’t need to be a hypocritical pretence, a search must be paid for and if costs can be offset in that way, better than giving up. There is much public interest and documentaries could be produced by the national broadcaster to further offset costs and promote Australia.

So how do we achieve it ?

“We can’t be defensive”.  Mistakes have been made, difficult tasks are always error prone and only admitting and correcting those errors will provide future success. Before committing to future action, a complete revision of all data is necessary and a carefully considered plan devised, perhaps encompassing deployment in more than a single area.

Future contracts could include a requirement for Australian nationals to be part of the team, adding to the future skills of a nation ready to show the world what it can do.    

 
MTF...P2

[ventus45]

Paul Howard

Future contracts could include a requirement for Australian nationals to be part of the team, adding to the future skills of a nation ready to show the world what it can do.

It is interesting that Fugro are taking new Kiwi graduates out on every swing, over a dozen so far.  Why theirs, and not our ?

And a very good, well written argument Paul.

Perhaps it should be massaged into a full proposal to Turnbull.

[Peetwo]

Lone wolf MH370 Muppet at it again??

By Ben Sandilands, courtesy Plane Talking:

Full MH370 search will likely end early July

Ben Sandilands | Mar 01, 2016 8:09AM |


A possible debris trail which will be rescanned

The chief commissioner of the ATSB, Martin Dolan, has just extended the likely end of the full search of the south Indian Ocean priority zone for MH370 to early July.

This compares to late May to early June in previous guidance from the search managers.
Appearing on ABC News 24, Mr Dolan said he was confident that the search would however end sooner with the finding of the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER which disappeared on 8 March 2014 with at least 239 people on board on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The flight was at 35,000 feet over the Gulf of Thailand when its identifying air traffic control transponder ceased operating.

Less than 35,000 square kilometres of the 120,000 square kilometres believed to be the most likely area in which the jet came down remain to be searched in detail by sonar scanning devices.

However the final stages of the search effort include repeat scanning of sea floor terrain that may have been too deep or too complex to be satisfactorily examined by the initial equipment used in the priority area SW of Perth.

These final examinations of areas of doubt is being assisted by the use of a very high definition synthetic aperture towed sonar scanner on board a large Chinese rescue vessel that joined the ATSB managed search late last month.

Mr Dolan said that should no sunk wreckage be found the search will cease because it would have to be concluded that there was no possibility (or probability) of finding MH370.

He reaffirmed the assumption being made by the search advisers and managers that there was no-one at the controls of MH370 at the end of the flight.

However he said “there is a possibility that there was someone at the controls” until the very final stages of the flight.  He didn’t rule out the possibility that control was exercised to some extent right to the very end.

This is a nuanced shift away from the previous position of the ATSB that MH370 flew without pilot input for most if not all of its flight after it turned south from a westerly or northwesterly course off the coast of southern Thailand when last seen as a non transponder identified radar return on Malaysian military radar.

Why might this be important? The analysis the ATSB is relying upon from ‘pings’ generated by a server on board MH370 and picked up by an Inmarsat communications satellite supports a total loss of control during the very final moments of the flight, when they implied that the jet spiralled downwards to impact with the ocean after all fuel on board had been exhausted.

However that analysis doesn’t preclude pilot control of MH370 prior to the fuel running out, even though the declared assumption until this morning’s TV interview was that for most of the flight southwards this was a ‘ghost’ flight with no-one exercising any flight control inputs.

That earlier assumption did not come with a firm, provable, starting point for the southward journey, nor did it declare a point along the southward flight where any pilot input ended.

This isn’t grounds for criticising that lack of precision. Without being sighted or tracked after it was last seen off Thailand, and with apparently unbroken radio silence from its cockpit, there was nothing that would have allowed the search assumptions for MH370 to be that precise.

This lack of knowledge as to what exactly MH370 did between being last seen by military radar and beginning its southerly trajectory means the definition of the priority search area in the south Indian Ocean is beset by major critical uncertainties.

 
Again I find it 'passing strange' that there is no 'official' recognition on either the ATSB or JACC official media webpages, again remembering that the JACC primary role is for the - to & from - dissemination of MH370 SIO search on behalf of the Australian government & it's agencies to all MH370 DIPs:

The JACC is the coordination point for whole-of-Australian Government information, messaging and stakeholder engagement, including keeping the families of those onboard and the general public informed of the progress of the search.

The JACC continues working closely with the Government of Malaysia, which under international law has overall responsibility for the search.

  
I even checked the Minister's webpage to see if he maybe sanctioned these latest developments being announced (apparently unofficially) by the ATSB CC. - see HERE - but nothing, zilch, zip, zero.

Which doesn't surprise me because back on the 18-19 Feb the Minister had sought a detailed briefing on MH370: 

 Weekend Oz:

Newly appointed Transport Minister Darren Chester has sought a “detailed briefing” on the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 following the admission by Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Marti­n Dolan that the “rogue pilot” theory he had rejected could be correct after all...
 
...A spokeswoman told The Weekend Australian the new minister “has sought detailed briefing from officials leading the search for MH370”.

But the spokeswoman cautioned: “The governments of ­Malaysia, China and Australia have agreed that in the absence of credible new information that there will be no further expansion of the search area.”

Whether to instruct Mr Dolan to draw up a new search plan, with a costing, could be one of the earliest decisions facing Mr Chester...

And then in the 27-28th Weekend Oz, it would seem that Mr Chester had received this briefing:

..The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 plane is likely to end in June, dashing hopes the so-called rogue pilot theory will be investigated and leaving the mystery of the flight and its 239 passengers unsolved.


Federal Transport Minister Darren Chester said that almost two years since the Boeing 777’s disappearance, the search for its remains was unlikely to continue once the target area was completed mid-year.



“It’s tragic for the families involved that it’s taking so long and it’s a difficult process and I’ve got nothing but empathy and sympathy for the families who are waiting for an outcome,” he said yesterday.



“In the absence of any further credible evidence, that will be the end of the search process.”



Mr Chester said it was unlikely the 120,000sq km search area in the southern Indian Ocean, which is being scoured by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, would be expanded.



The ATSB is searching the area on the premise the aircraft crashed after hours on auto­pilot, and “no control inputs” were recorded at the end of the flight...

    
And now the ATSB CC seems to be (again) contradicting his Minister less than 3 days later??
Either that or there is a significant announcement pending with "further credible evidence" meaning the search will go on...
MTF..P2

[Peetwo]

Spot the Beaker bollocks -   

The following is a short, belated, summary of the Mozambique possible aircraft debris find, by Nicko & Binger courtesy the OZ:

New wreckage may be from missing MH370

Brendan Nicholson, Mitchell Bingemann
The Australian
March 4, 2016 12:00AM

Another piece of wreckage has emerged which may be from missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet MH370.

The metre-long metal sheet was found on a beach on the ­African nation of Mozambique.
It will be flown to Australia within days for examination by local and Malaysian aviation officials and other international ­specialists to assess whether it is part of MH370.

The Boeing 777 disappeared on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard.

Qatar Airways chief Akbar Al Baker yesterday urged aviation regulators to do more to find the plane so that the cause of its disappearance could be investigated.

“I have insisted that IATA (International Air Transport ­Association) should play a more active role in forcing regulators to find this aircraft,” said Mr Al Baker, who sits on the IATA Board of Governors.

“Finding this aeroplane is ­extremely important for the aviation industry. We cannot allow planes to just disappear in the 21st century and just look the other way and forget about it.

“We need to find the cause and what happened to this aeroplane.”

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said the discovery of the piece of debris ­fitted with its estimates of where wreckage from the airliner was likely to have drifted to if it crashed off Western Australia in the southern Indian Ocean. - suspected BB

The only other piece of wreckage found so far was on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, which lies on the same drift path.

Mr Al Baker said the discovery of more debris that may have come from the missing aircraft was not enough to satisfy him with an answer to the mystery.

“We hope that this part will confirm that this aircraft has gone down,” he said. “However that does not give me as a CEO of an airline satisfaction that we have the answer.

“We know the aeroplane went down ... but we don’t know what happened to it,’’ he said.

“We need to know what happened to it and how the aeroplane must be tracked.”

Mr Al Baker said Qatar Airways’ fleet of 178 aircraft were all tracked 24 hours a day, giving constant updates on their locations.

“Every aircraft that takes off from any airport is tracked at our operations control centre and the aircraft and ground systems integrate with each other every 15 seconds,’’ he said.

“If an aircraft deviated from its charted flight path we would get an alert within five seconds.

“All this is implemented by us to make sure we should never get into a situation where we have an aircraft that has disappeared and we don’t know where it is.”

Well Al Bakar & IATA could help by creating & contributing to a search fund to continue the MH370 search effort, preferably run by anyone else but Beaker's mob..

thornbird - Here we go, a bit of whatever? has washed up in the Mozambique channel, and the pundits are off the leash, lead by GT of the 777 simulator fame and a new entrant in the "Expert" criteria RB, probably the biggest crook to grace the annuls of GA embuggerance, then again he's a lawyer so what else would you expect, money and lawyers have a natural affinity, the media are throwing money at anything, Ron would be grovelling for a piece of it like a starving rat.


What I cannot get my head around is why Beaker is still in the job??...has the man no shame???or is he being protected by a Higher being, a Murky Mandarin perhaps??



The question of course, now he's been outed as an incompetent, where do they put him? ASA has run out of jobs since Wodger joined the party. Now there's one for the next BRB Quiz night, where will beaker bob up next? and how long before he screws up again?

   
MTF...P2

[ventus45]

Anyone else ?

No, not just "anyone".

Granted the ATSB should never have been given the job, but remember that there were 6 Australian Citizens killed on MH370, and the Australian Government is duty bound to investigate their deaths, and bring those criminally involved to justice.

since it was clearly not an "accident", it was clearly a "crime", and as such, should become a Federal Police Murder Investigation, along with the State Coroners of NSW and Queensland. THEREFORE, the search for THE CRIME SCENE should be a Federal Police responsibility, with the actual searching done / controlled by the Navy, as subordinate agents for the Federal Police.

[Kharon]

In an unremarkable ‘puff piece’ – HERE – I found one statement of interest.

 Experts think the plane crashed thousands of miles to the east of Mozambique into the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014, but the location of the newfound debris is "consistent with drift modeling" of the ocean, said Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester, according to USA Today.

It is very good to see the Minister speaking out, taking an active interest, instead of the usual blether from the bearded buffoon.  Perhaps Chester is going to be good value; let’s hope so.

[Peetwo]

In an unremarkable ‘puff piece’ – HERE – I found one statement of interest.

 Experts think the plane crashed thousands of miles to the east of Mozambique into the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014, but the location of the newfound debris is "consistent with drift modeling" of the ocean, said Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester, according to USA Today.

It is very good to see the Minister speaking out, taking an active interest, instead of the usual blether from the bearded buffoon.  Perhaps Chester is going to be good value; let’s hope so.

2nd that assessment "K" -   Maybe the Minister & government have finally got the message on Dolan i.e. he is even less believable & has less credibility than even a politician

Moving on & Binger joins the Weekend Oz expose with an update/summary, with a NOK comment, of the current developments in regards to the MH370 search and in the lead up to the 2nd anniversary that the MAF B777 disappeared:

Hunt for answers to MH370 mystery

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  
• March 5, 2016 12:00AM
  

In little more than three months’ time the four ships searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will switch off their sonar equipment, turn back towards Perth and forever stop hunting for ­answers to what has become the greatest aviation mystery.

But for the families who lost their loved ones on that ill-fated flight, the pain never eases.
“It has been an excruciating experience that we have to face day by day, for more than 700 days and counting,” says Wee Hoon Lim, whose brother-in-law was on the flight.

“It has been draining us physically, emotionally and mentally. But they say life must go on. And that is true. But we want answers to our questions. We will keep on praying. We can never forget. We will never give up.”

Tuesday marks two years since MH370 veered off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and vanished from radar screens.

But in Malaysia there will be no tolling of bells, laying of wreaths or official memorial services to mark the ebb of time. The Malaysian government, which has been criticised for its lax approach to the investigation, will instead hold a simple service in parliament.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished after radio communication was cut, its radar transponder turned off, and it flew a course back over the border­ between Malaysian and Thai airspace.

Based on the jet’s likely path, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has led a search involving planes and ships from seven countries scouring more than 85,000sq km over vast tracts of the southern Indian Ocean.

The failure of the search has led many pilots and experts to believe the most logical explan­ation for the disappearance was that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, deliberately steered it thousands of kilo­metres off course before it crashed west of Australia.

Regardless of what theories are pursued, there is one certainty: come July, when the designated 120,000sq km target search zone has been covered, the hunt will end. If not discovered by then, the secrets of MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew will never be known.

The families of the 239 passengers were given fresh hope that the plane might be found when a piece of wreckage washed up this week on a sandbank in the ­Mozambique Channel, in Africa’s southeast. The piece has been flown to Australia for examination by local and Malaysian aviation ­officials.

 
 Also of interest was a contribution comment from Brock McEwan (on the Plane Talking blog -  HERE), that in all the recent MSM etc. white noise many MH370 followers may have missed:

16
Brock McEwen
Posted March 4, 2016 at 12:13 pm | Permalink

In other MH370 news:

Fugro Discovery has had some serious issues in the past half year:

Departed / Fate
2015.10.28 / Sick crew #1 (no searching)
2015.11.09 / Sick crew #2 (no searching)
2015.11.29 / A record 33 days of searching
2016.01.13 / Lost towfish (no searching)
2016.01.31 / Damaged cable (no searching)

According to the wonderful maps provided to me pro bono by Vessel Tracker (to support my MH370 research, on behalf of the families), Disco’s latest sortie (departed 2016.02.20) introduced fresh concerns. here are its first four tracks:

Track 1: precisely repeated Dec.24 track
Track 2: precisely repeated Dec.31 track
Track 3: precisely repeated Dec.30 track
Track 4: precisely repeating Dec.26 track (in progress)

It is possible – in fact, it is looking increasingly likely – that the only ostensibly “productive” sortie of the five may not, in fact, have been productive at all.

If so: I look forward to hearing the fifth of five separate excuses for why Fugro Discovery went over four MONTHS (Oct.22, 2015 until Feb. 27, 2016) without actually increasing the area searched.

I too would be interested in the answer to that QON Brock?
By the way Brock I noticed that the ATSB is yet to place your previous FOI request on the FOI Disclosure Log - I guess they're too busy for that; or as they told another enquirer with a reasonably straightforward FOI request - "we don't have the resources for that.."  
MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

From 'that man' Higgins courtesy the Oz:

New MH370 report today as debris sent for inspection

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• March 8, 2016 12:00AM
  

Reporter


Reunion Island resident Johny Begue shows a piece of debris he believes may be a part of the missing plane.

The Malaysian government today will mark the second anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with a much anticipated further interim report on the mystery.

The move comes as the man who found the one confirmed piece of the Boeing 777, on a beach on the French Indian Ocean ­island of Reunion, says he has found another piece of debris that could be from the aircraft.

The plane disappeared with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Radar and satellite data showed the aircraft reversing course about an hour into the flight and tracking back over ­Malaysia, with its transponder turned off and no further radio contact, before turning south on a long final leg to the southern ­Indian Ocean.

The Malaysian government produced a long interim report that stuck to a description of ­assembled facts — such as radar contacts, satellite tracking data and details of the pilots — without making any assessment of the cause of the disappearance.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is running the search for MH370, has based its strategy on the flight being a “ghost flight”, with pilots unresponsive by the time it fell into the ocean after running out of fuel.

Critics have attacked the ATSB’s assumptions, with Australian veteran pilot Bryon Bailey claiming assumptions may be designed to avoid saying the aircraft’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, might have hijacked his own plane, a scenario that could embarrass Malaysia.

At the weekend, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said a further interim statement on the loss of the aircraft would be delivered today, while the Speaker of the Malaysian parliament would make a speech to commemorate the second anniversary of the tragedy.

Mr Liow said a team of Malaysian and Australian aviation officials were in Mozambique to arrange the transfer of a piece of debris thought to be part of MH370’s tail. He said it would be sent to Australia for inspection but remain in Malaysia’s custody.

The developments came as Johny Begue, the Reunion man who in July found the movable control surface of a wing known as a “flaperon” — later confirmed as being part of MH370 — said he had found another, smaller piece of debris.

The newly discovered item is about 40cm square, grey on one side with a blue border consistent with the Malaysia Airlines livery, with a honeycomb construction.

Mr Begue said the new piece was found in almost the same place as the flaperon, and he had handed it to the local gen­dar­merie.

“I was running. After, when I stopped to rest, that’s when I found the piece,” Mr Begue told the Associated Press. “The same beach and nearly the same place.”

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

From 'that man' Higgins courtesy the Oz:

New MH370 report today as debris sent for inspection

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• March 8, 2016 12:00AM
  

Reporter


Reunion Island resident Johny Begue shows a piece of debris he believes may be a part of the missing plane.

The Malaysian government today will mark the second anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with a much anticipated further interim report on the mystery.

The move comes as the man who found the one confirmed piece of the Boeing 777, on a beach on the French Indian Ocean ­island of Reunion, says he has found another piece of debris that could be from the aircraft.

The plane disappeared with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Radar and satellite data showed the aircraft reversing course about an hour into the flight and tracking back over ­Malaysia, with its transponder turned off and no further radio contact, before turning south on a long final leg to the southern ­Indian Ocean.

The Malaysian government produced a long interim report that stuck to a description of ­assembled facts — such as radar contacts, satellite tracking data and details of the pilots — without making any assessment of the cause of the disappearance.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is running the search for MH370, has based its strategy on the flight being a “ghost flight”, with pilots unresponsive by the time it fell into the ocean after running out of fuel.

Critics have attacked the ATSB’s assumptions, with Australian veteran pilot Bryon Bailey claiming assumptions may be designed to avoid saying the aircraft’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, might have hijacked his own plane, a scenario that could embarrass Malaysia.

At the weekend, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said a further interim statement on the loss of the aircraft would be delivered today, while the Speaker of the Malaysian parliament would make a speech to commemorate the second anniversary of the tragedy.

Mr Liow said a team of Malaysian and Australian aviation officials were in Mozambique to arrange the transfer of a piece of debris thought to be part of MH370’s tail. He said it would be sent to Australia for inspection but remain in Malaysia’s custody.

The developments came as Johny Begue, the Reunion man who in July found the movable control surface of a wing known as a “flaperon” — later confirmed as being part of MH370 — said he had found another, smaller piece of debris.

The newly discovered item is about 40cm square, grey on one side with a blue border consistent with the Malaysia Airlines livery, with a honeycomb construction.

Mr Begue said the new piece was found in almost the same place as the flaperon, and he had handed it to the local gen­dar­merie.

“I was running. After, when I stopped to rest, that’s when I found the piece,” Mr Begue told the Associated Press. “The same beach and nearly the same place.”

Also courtesy of Darren Chester's You Tube account:

Second anniversary of the disappearance of MH370

Media Release
DC009/2016
08 March 2016




It is today two years since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

“I do not think it possible to fully understand how difficult the past two years have been for the friends and families of those on board the aircraft. The sense of loss is something they live with on a daily basis,” Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester said.

“A tragedy such as MH370 touches people from all over the world and today we are united in remembering all 239 people who were on the flight.

“We owe it to their memory, and to the loved ones who mourn them, to honour the undertaking to complete the search of the area experts have determined as most likely to contain the missing aircraft.

“Finding the aircraft would give answers to the world, in particular the families of missing loved ones, about what happened.

“We have completed around 90,000 square kilometres of the 120,000 square kilometre search zone. Our vessels are at sea for a month at a time in the search zone using sonar and underwater technologies to search the ocean floor reaching depths of 6000 metres.

“As we search the remaining 30,000 square kilometre zone in the days and months ahead, Australia, Malaysia and the People's Republic of China remain hopeful the aircraft will be found.

I assure the family and friends of those on board that their loved ones have not been forgotten and continue to be in our thoughts.”

More information about the search can be found on the Joint Agency Coordination Centre website at www.jacc.gov.au.

And also from ABC AM today:

MH370: two years on and still no answers

Bill Birtles reported this story on Tuesday, March 8, 2016 08:22:00
 MP3 download

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: It's one of the great aviation mysteries of all time.

Malaysia Airlines 370 vanished while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and while a piece of debris found last year seems to confirm that it went down in the Indian Ocean, the reasons are still unclear.

China correspondent Bill Birtles reports.

BILL BIRTLES: Outside an office building in Beijing a group of eight mainly elderly people are holding dozens upon dozens of hand written letters.

They've been going to Malaysia Airlines office almost every day for two years, submitting letters and demanding answers.

MRS HU (translation): I had three family members on board. Whenever I think of my children, I can barely see because of all the tears.

BILL BIRTLES: This woman, Mrs Hu, is among dozens of Chinese relatives taking legal action.

MRS HU (translated): It has been two years and I hope the Malaysian government and Malaysia Airlines tell the truth about the investigation to our families. We want to know and we have a right to know. We need to find our families.

BILL BIRTLES: One-hundred and fifty-three of the 239 people onboard MH370 were Chinese citizens.

Ahead of a two-year deadline to take legal action over international air accidents, relatives here have sued for compensation in a Chinese court.

Some others have opted to seek compensation in Malaysian and American courts.

Dai Shuqin lost her sister and five members of her extended family on the flight.

DAI SHUQIN (translated): I chose an in international lawyer so that he could be more objective. He is neither Chinese or Malaysian, so he is more neutral.

I just want to find out exactly what happened to the aircraft, and where are the five lives of my sister's family.

If there are alive or dead, if they are going well or suffering, I have to find it out. I can't let it be mystery.

BILL BIRTLES: Many of the group protesting at the Malaysia airlines office have been left lonely in old age after losing family members on the flight.

They are all sceptical of the explanation offered up by Australian, Malaysian and other international experts: that the plane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Mr Zhang lost his daughter on the flight.

MR ZHANG (translated): We will sue Malaysia airline in Malaysia and sue Boeing in the US. We're suing Boeing to find out the truth, not for any other purpose. Money is not important to us, all we want are our families back.

BILL BIRTLES: Two years on the Australian-led search effort continues to trawl the depths of the southern Indian Ocean.

Malaysian authorities say they'll update their interim report on what happened to the plane.

But relatives such as Dai Shuqin says her biggest fear is that others will give up seeking answers.

DAI SHUQIN (translated): I know it's useless coming to the office each day. I know they don't deal with us seriously when we come here.

When we hand them our letters, they just don't bother to pay any attention. But I still need to come. As an ordinary person, I am so small, but that's all I can do.

BILL BIRTLES: This is Bill Birtles in Beijing reporting for AM.

MTF...P2

[Peetwo]

From Maurice Blackburn's international aviation law expert Joseph Wheeler, on why MH370 NOK should be given more time to properly lodge compensation claims (via the Oz)..  

MH370 families should get more time to claim

• Joseph Wheeler
  
• The Australian
  
• March 11, 2016 12:00AM
  

How much is a life worth? This is a difficult question, especially in the aftermath of the loss of a loved one but the law demands that it be answered.

In a cruel twist for the families of the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, in particular, that question must be answered now or they lose forever the chance to claim even that most unsatisfying though necessary of consolations: compensation.

The families of MH370 passengers that I am representing in the international legal claims have told me they feel like their lives stopped on March 8, 2014. However, the days have inexorably passed along with the economic void for necessities that only monetary compensation can fill.

Compensation in air disasters worldwide is controlled by a hodgepodge of international treaties that originated in 1929. At the heart of this system is a quid pro quo that many may say is nonsensical: the injured passenger or family of a deceased passenger doesn’t need to prove the airline negligently caused their loss, merely that an accident happened. In return the airline can limit its financial payouts in certain ways and you must bring your claim quickly — within two years rather than three years or longer for other kinds of legal claims. The reason for this diplomatic deal was to protect the fledgling aviation industry from financial demise, back when civil air transport was a much riskier enterprise.

This regime impresses as one that supports quick compensation payouts while avoiding independent and in-depth judicial focus on the accidental failings of the aviation industry.

The aggrieved family representative must make their claim within the strict two-year timeframe or lose those rights forever. That’s not enough time in all instances, as exemplified by MH370, and an unfair burden for relatives to shoulder.

The injustice is that families have to make legal decisions with limited information and with their backs against the wall.

It is hardly fair that the state of the law supports a situation where people suffering in the aftermath of such a disaster can be pushed into the claims process prematurely, before they even know what may have befallen their loved one (or seen proof of death). Similar injustices arise when one considers that the purpose of compensation is restorative rather than punitive. What about those who didn’t contribute financially to a household; for example, children or the elderly? The fact is the actuarial/legal calculations are very different and, some may say, obscene. We live in a world where the law that spells this out for air crash victims implicitly fosters such a difference.

So what are the solutions?

First, we should be revisiting the quid pro quo so an extension of time is available to those who need it, so they are not forced into making their private legal concerns the public problems of courts worldwide.

Second, there must be a shift in the thinking of the international community away from compensation for proven financial losses to an agreed legal recognition of the uniform value of life, no matter what nationality or age. Would it be a hard task diplomatically and legally? Yes. Impossible? No. Important? Absolutely.

Joseph Wheeler is an aviation law expert and Special Counsel to Maurice Blackburn Lawyers.

MTF..P2