MALAYSIAN Airlines flight en route to China is missing.

ULike2CarryModBalls · Aug 16, 2014

Mystery withdrawals from MH370 passengers’ bank accounts angers families

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 14 August, 2014, 11:30pm
UPDATED : Friday, 15 August, 2014, 9:21am

Amy Chew in Kuala Lumpur

Relatives of the MH370 passengers holding placards and banners, with chinese characters to express their good wishes to their loved ones on the plane and requesting the truth from Malaysia government, at the Malaysia Embassy in Beijing. Photo: Simon Song

More than HK$270,000 has been mysteriously withdrawn from the bank accounts of four passengers on missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370. A relative of one of the missing branded it "an evil crime".

"Do they realise some of those missing passengers are the sole breadwinners of their families and that they need that money?" said Lokman Mustafa, whose sister was on MH370. "I am angry to hear this news."

According to Malaysian police, the money was taken in early July, four months after MH370 went missing with 239 people on board while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"A total of 111,000 ringgit (HK$270,840) was withdrawn from the accounts of four MH370 passengers. This occurred in one bank," said Kuala Lumpur Commercial Crime Investigation Department chief assistant commissioner Izany Abdul Ghany.

He declined to name the bank, which reported the incident to the police on August 2.

"The money was taken via ATM and internet bank transfer to a third party. We are investigating this case," Izany said.

He said the police were working closely with the bank and surveying its CCTV footage.

"Whoever did this is taking advantage of the situation and adding to the suffering of the victims' families," Izany added.

On March 24, the Malaysian government announced that flight MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Lokman's 30-year-old sister, industrial engineer Hajah Suhaili Mustafa, was on the flight as part of an assignment to Beijing to help build a semiconductor plant there.

"People are still suffering. Some are still hoping for the plane to be found. They have not gotten over the tragedy," Lokman said. "People should leave them alone to pick up the pieces and carry on with their lives."

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai is scheduled to visit Australia on Tuesday to hold talks with Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, as well as with agencies and search teams, on the search for and recovery of MH370.

Australia last week signed a contract worth US$55 million with Dutch company Fugro to scour the ocean floor for the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

ULike2CarryModBalls · Aug 21, 2014

Chinese hackers targeted MH370 investigation a day after jet went missing: report

Malware disguised as a news report that the missing Boeing 777 had been found was emailed to Malaysian officials on March 9, according to report

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 20 August, 2014, 12:14pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 20 August, 2014, 5:35pm

Patrick Boehler [email protected]

An Malaysia Airlines plane taxis on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Photo: Reuters

Chinese hackers have targeted Malaysian government departments involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370, a Malaysian newspaper said on Wednesday.

Malware disguised as a news report that the missing jet had been found was emailed to Malaysian officials on March 9, a day after the airliner disappeared in mid-air, The Star said, citing CyberSecurity Malaysia chief executive Amirudin Abdul Wahab.

CyberSecurity Malaysia is a government agency under the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry.

In a statement to the South China Morning Post, a spokesman said the agency's digital forensics team provided technical assistance to targeted departments. However, the agency declined to say which departments had been targeted and how.

The Star report said affected agencies included Malaysia’s Civil Aviation Department, the National Security Council and Malaysia Airlines, which is majority owned by the Malaysian government.

Malaysian police were investigating the attack, the newspaper said. The information office of Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs, which overseas the Royal Malaysia Police could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Once the hackers gained access to the networks, the government departments registered a flood of outgoing e-mails, the report said. The outgoing e-mails included classified documents, the report said.

By the time the transmissions were blocked and the affected computers shut down, an unspecified amount of information had already been sent from Malaysian government computers to China, it said.

Such a hacking attack is not technically difficult, but requires preparation, said Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, founder and CEO of Kuala Lumpur-based Hack In The Box, which organises IT security conferences.

The timing of the attack, one day after the plane went missing, meant that the attackers had the PDF malware ready to use to infect the Malaysian government computers, he said.

Kannabhiran said investigators could only trace the stolen documents to where they had been sent to, but that might not provide definitive clues to who hacked into the computers.

Stolen documents are often sent to "some other compromised machine belonging to an innocent victim not connected with the attacker”, he said.

Flight MH370 went missing more than an hour after it took off from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of March 8 bound for Beijing, sparking an international search for the plane.

China participated in the multinational search effort in the Indian Ocean, which has so far been futile. Acoustic signals suspected to have come from the missing plane’s black boxes indicated that the airliner left its route to China, turned southwest and crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Australia is leading the search effort assisted by the PLA navy ship Zhu Kezhen and private contractors, scouring the vast ocean floor off Australia’s western shore with sonar equipment.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Wednesday that a new underwater hunt for the missing Boeing 777 had a “reasonable chance” of finding the plane, adding that searchers would not give up easily.

Experts have used technical data to finalise the most likely resting place of the plane deep on the ocean seabed and are preparing for a more intense underwater search to find it.

“They are now going to search the entire probable impact zone which is, from memory, something like 60,000 sq km of the ocean floor, off the coast of Western Australia,” Abbott told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Abbott has repeatedly said Australia will do its utmost to find the plane and help determine what went wrong with the Boeing 777 to provide closure to the families of those onboard and the flying public generally.

“We’re determined to do the right thing by the Australian families who lost their loved ones in this plane, we’re determined to do the right thing by all of the bereaved families,” he said.

“And we’ve got a long way to go before we’re going to give this one up.”

Among the 227 passengers on board, 152 were Chinese and six were Australians.

India in March rejected a Chinese request to enter territorial waters in the Andaman Sea in an effort to search for the missing jet, before search efforts switched to the area off the coast of Western Australia, over concerns that the request might be an excuse for military snooping.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

ULike2CarryModBalls · Aug 22, 2014

Two charged in Malaysia with stealing from MH370 victims

AFP
August 20, 2014, 8:59 pm

Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - A Malaysian bank officer and her husband were charged Wednesday with forgery, theft and other offences after allegedly stealing more than $30,000 from the accounts of four people who were aboard missing flight MH370.

Nur Shila Kanan, who has worked for the Malaysian operations of British banking giant HSBC for 10 years, and her mechanic husband Basheer Ahmad Maula Sahul Hameed pleaded not guilty in a Kuala Lumpur court to a total of 16 charges, their lawyer Hakeem Aiman Affandi said.

The couple, who have three children and are both aged 33, are alleged to have withdrawn a total of 110,643 ringgit ($34,850) from the accounts of two Malaysians and two Chinese nationals who were on the Malaysia Airlines flight.

The withdrawals were allegedly made via ATMs and electronic transfers between May 14 and July 8, Hakeem added.

Each could face several years in prison if convicted.

The charges include illegally transferring money electronically, which alone carries up to 10 years in prison.

Police are still looking for another suspect, a Pakistani, who is believed to have had some of the money deposited into his bank account through an online transfer.

The case has provoked outrage in Malaysia, which has seen an outpouring of sympathy for MH370 victims and their families.

The flight with 239 people aboard disappeared on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

It is believed to have veered mysteriously off course and gone down far to the south in the Indian Ocean, but no trace has been found despite a massive international search for the Boeing 777.

ULike2CarryModBalls · Aug 25, 2014

Grieving families wage citizen campaign to solve MH370 mystery

Using social media, they exchange findings and discuss latest theories about the missing plane

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 24 August, 2014, 12:08pm
UPDATED : Monday, 25 August, 2014, 2:38am

Agence France-Presse in Kuala Lumpur

Sarah Bajc wants to know what happened to her partner. Photo: AFP

Chinese physics student Jimmy Wang had no interest in aviation until March 8, when Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing with his 58-year-old father, Wang Lijun, aboard.

But Wang, 31, now spends evenings in central China combing through aviation blogs for Boeing 777 technical specs, exchanging what he finds with fellow MH370 next-of-kin.

He is one of hundreds of relatives who - desperate to learn the fate of their loved ones - are channeling their grief in a cross-border, social-media-enabled, but so far frustrating citizen campaign to solve what is now aviation's greatest mystery.

"Malaysia Airlines and others are not doing their jobs so we have to organise," Wang, who abandoned graduate studies in Sweden to be with his mother, said via Skype from his home in Anyang . "I cannot live the rest of my life in questions."

Through Chinese micro-blogging site weibo - 153 Chinese were aboard MH370 - a closed Facebook group and Skype "meetings" of up to dozens of people, participants exchange findings, discuss the latest theories and proposals for their taking group action.

The group, calling itself Voice370 with some 300 members, receives and debates advice from aviation, legal and other experts, while similar groups formed after previous disasters such as the 2009 Air France crash offer support.

While some face-to-face meetings have been held, most exchanges are conducted via webcam or extensive email strings, with members voting on strategies for pushing Malaysia Airlines and governments involved in a still-fruitless search for more information.

In doing so, they juggle time zones and language barriers - "meetings" are held mainly in English, with bilingual Chinese translating for their countrymen.

"It's really quite a community," said Sarah Bajc, an American whose partner, Philip Wood, was on the flight.

"I feel compelled to do everything in my power to find Philip. We owe it to them."

Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

No trace has been found despite an extensive, Australian-led search in the southern Indian Ocean. Some next of kin have sharply accused the airline and Malaysian authorities of a bungled response - its military tracked MH370 on radar after it mysteriously diverted, but did nothing - and withholding data from the public.

Yet despite their efforts, families have seen only modest success. In an open letter to authorities in Malaysia, Australia and China in May, a sceptical Voice370 demanded to see satellite and other data that Malaysia says indicates MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean.

The information was eventually released but shed little light on what happened.

In June, several families, including Bajc, launched a drive to raise US$5 million for any whistle-blower with information on the jet's fate. Only US$100,500 has been raised.

K.S. Narendran, spouse of passenger.

"You get tired, and part of you wants to put it behind and say, 'That's where it all ends', and part of you says, 'You can't rest until you figure things out,'" said K.S. Narendran, 50, a soft-spoken Indian business consultant, whose wife, Chandrika Sharma, was on MH370. Families denied AFP's request to sit in on meetings.

The airline and Malaysian government deny charges of a cover-up and insist they will leave no stone unturned.

The government is yet to announce any findings of its investigations into MH370.

Its attention is now diverted by the July 17 downing of another Malaysia Airlines passenger jet, MH17, over war-torn eastern Ukraine, a tragedy that also ripped open emotional wounds for many MH370 next-of-kin.

Bajc said MH17 underlines the importance of Voice370, particularly the need to highlight "critical flaws" in global aviation and police "incompetent" airlines and authorities that endanger passengers.

But she and others admit resignation is setting in.

Bajc no longer joins the video meetings, as she and others look increasingly for other ways to pressure authorities.

No significant lawsuits have been filed yet.

"It's my father. I'm his only son. No matter what happened, we need to bring them back," Wang said.

ULike2CarryModBalls · Aug 29, 2014

Fresh analysis ‘refines’ search area for missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370

Malaysia, Australia to share HK$376 million cost of underwater hunt

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 28 August, 2014, 1:50pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 28 August, 2014, 11:23pm

Associated Press in Canberra, Australia

The search area for the missing MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean has been refined based on the latest analysis. Photo: EPA

The search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean has been refined based on the latest analysis, officials said yesterday. They said the investigation into how the plane came to crash cannot proceed until the wreckage and black boxes are recovered.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said analysis of a failed attempted satellite phone call from the airline to the flight, which disappeared March 8, "suggests to us that the aircraft might have turned south a little earlier than we had previously expected".

However, Truss said the overall search area of Australia's west coast remained unchanged. He did not elaborate on how that analysis was achieved.

Truss and Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the search for the missing Boeing 777 as it progresses to the expensive next phase. The agreement shares the ongoing cost between the two countries.

China's deputy transport minister He Jianzhong, who also attended the Canberra meeting, said the ministers had all agreed that the search would not be interrupted or given up. Most of the plane's passengers, 153, were Chinese.

The airliner disappeared with 239 people aboard after flying far off course while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Liow said investigators had advised that success of the undersea search for wreckage and the aircraft's black boxes with cockpit voice recordings and flight data was crucial to solving the mystery of the disaster.

"The investigation cannot continue without the search result," he said. "We need to find the plane, we need to find the black box in the plane so that we can have a conclusion in the investigation."

Malaysia, as the country where the Boeing 777 was flagged, has overall responsibility for the investigation. But Australia has search and rescue responsibility for the area of the Indian Ocean where the plane is thought to have crashed 1,800km off Australia's west coast.

Dutch contractor Fugro Survey will conduct the underwater search, starting next month. Three vessels towing underwater vehicles equipped with side-scan sonar, multi-beam echo sounders and video equipment would search for the plane, Truss said.

The search could take up to a year to scour 60,000 square kilometres of seabed and cost A$52 million (HK$376 million).

Before the underwater search starts, two survey ships are mapping the entire search area.

SoleSurvivor · Sep 6, 2014

Australia PM in Malaysia ahead of intensified MH370 search

AFP
September 6, 2014, 6:04 pm

Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Australian premier Tony Abbott will visit Malaysia on Saturday ahead of an intensified search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing six months ago and is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Abbott will meet his counterpart Najib Razak to discuss the dual tragedies of MH370 and MH17, the Malaysia Airlines plane which exploded over strife-torn eastern Ukraine in July, Malaysia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The West has blamed Russian-backed separatists for shooting down MH17, while Moscow blames Kiev.

Abbott's one-day visit is his first since becoming prime minister in September last year.

"High on the agenda is discussions on the status of the two countries' cooperation in relation to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and Flight MH17 incidents," the ministry said.

The two premiers will meet with Malaysian personnel involved in the missions to find MH370 and to salvage wreckage and remains from the MH17 crash site.

They will also discuss other "regional and international issues of common concern".

"This visit will undoubtedly further cement the close and outstanding relations between the two countries," the ministry said.

Later in the day, Abbott will meet business leaders as well as educationists to present his government's "New Colombo Plan", a scholarship programme to encourage more Australians to study across the Indo-Pacific region, officials said.

Australia is leading what has so far been a fruitless search in a vast stretch of the southern Indian Ocean, where MH370 is believed to have gone down after inexplicably veering off course from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route on March 8.

The Boeing 777-200 was carrying 239 people.

Australian authorities said Friday that "hard spots" had been found on the Indian Ocean seabed but that they would most likely be geological features.

Experts are preparing for a more intense underwater search to begin this month in a dauntingly vast stretch of ocean measuring 60,000 square kilometres (23,000 square miles), in addition to ongoing mapping through a sonar survey.

Malaysia's government and the national flag carrier were widely criticised over what many saw as a disorganised and secretive response to MH370's disappearance.

Flight MH17 went down in Ukraine on July 17, killing all 289 people aboard, including 38 Australian citizens or residents.

Dutch air crash investigators have announced that they will release a preliminary report on Tuesday into what brought down the flight, travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The Netherlands is leading the probe into the crash, which killed 193 Dutch citizens.

SoleSurvivor · Sep 10, 2014

New MH370 search to start in two weeks, Australian PM says in Malaysia

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 06 September, 2014, 3:59pm
UPDATED : Monday, 08 September, 2014, 2:27pm

Agence France-Presse in Kuala Lumpur

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott meet in Putrajaya yesterday. Photo: Reuters

A stepped-up underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will start in about two weeks' time, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said yesterday as he visited Malaysia to discuss the issue.

Abbott said the hunt for the jet, which inexplicably veered off its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route six months ago with 239 people on board, two-thirds of them from China, would continue for as long as necessary.

Australia has led the search for the Boeing 777 airliner, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean off its west coast. A massive air, sea and underwater search has not yet found any wreckage.

After talks with his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, Abbott said the new phase of the search would begin "in about a fortnight's time".

The underwater search "will utilise the best available technology. It will last as long as it needs to scour the seabed," he said.

Experts have used technical data to narrow down MH370's most likely resting place deep under the Indian Ocean.

The new underwater search will focus on a dauntingly vast stretch of ocean measuring 60,000 square kilometres.

Najib's government and Malaysia Airlines were widely criticised for their response to MH370's disappearance.

Paying his first official visit to Malaysia, Abbott also discussed with Najib the fate of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, which exploded over eastern Ukraine in July.

The two leaders called for "justice" for the 298 people - among them 38 Australian citizens or residents and 43 Malaysians - who were killed in the disaster. The West has accused Russian-backed separatists of shooting down the plane, while Moscow blames Kiev.

Najib said intelligence reports on what happened to the plane were "pretty conclusive", but he did not elaborate.

Dutch air-crash investigators have announced that they will release a preliminary report on Tuesday into what brought down the airliner, another Boeing 777, which had been travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The Netherlands is leading the probe into the crash, in which 193 Dutch citizens were killed.

"What we need to do next is to assemble physical evidence that can be brought to court when the time comes so that it will be proven beyond any doubt that the plane was shot down," Najib said.

He added that investigators needed "at least a few weeks" - before winter set in - to search the MH17 crash site for human remains and to "assemble physical evidence".

Coffins with MH17 victims arrived in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week. Photo: EPA

The search has been suspended since early last month because of heavy fighting between Kiev's forces and rebels in the area, and although most human remains have been recovered, some are believed to still be at the site.

"Once that process is completed, we will look at the criminal side, who is responsible for this atrocious crime," Najib said.

The two prime ministers also met Malaysian personnel involved in the missions to find MH370 and to salvage wreckage and remains from the MH17 crash site.

eatshitndie · Sep 17, 2014

breaking news - 58 objects in what seemed like wreckage from mh370 on ocean floor detected...... :eek:

http://www.inquisitr.com/1479467/ma...-objects-on-ocean-floor-located-by-searchers/

SoleSurvivor · Oct 6, 2014

With first ship in place, hunt for missing Flight MH370 about to resume

First of three ships seeking missing airliner expected in Indian Ocean today

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 05 October, 2014, 5:51am
UPDATED : Monday, 06 October, 2014, 10:25am

Associated Press in Sydney

australia-malaysia-china-aviation-search-mh370_ww_45839713.jpg

Searchers will lower new equipment deep beneath a desolate stretch of the Indian Ocean to search for the missing Boeing 777. Photo: AFP

The hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 resumed on Monday in a desolate stretch of the Indian Ocean, more than six months after the jet vanished.

The GO Phoenix, the first of three ships that will spend up to a year hunting for the wreckage far off Australia’s west coast, is expected to spend 12 days hunting for the jet before heading to shore to refuel.

Crews will use sonar, video cameras and jet fuel sensors to scour the seabed for the Boeing 777, which vanished for reasons unknown on March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

The search has been on hold for four months so crews could map the seabed in the search zone, about 1,800 kilometres west of Australia. The 60,000-square kilometre search site lies along what is known as the “seventh arc” – a stretch of ocean where investigators believe the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed. Officials analysed transmissions between the plane and a satellite to estimate where it entered the water.

Two other ships being provided by Dutch contractor Fugro are expected to join the Malaysian-contracted GO Phoenix later this month.

The ships will be dragging sonar devices called towfish through the water about 100 metres above the seabed to hunt for the wreckage. The towfish are also equipped with sensors that can detect the presence of jet fuel, and are expected to be able to cope with the dizzying depths of the search zone, which is 6.5 kilometres deep in places.

If anything of interest is spotted on the sonar, crews will attach a video camera to the towfish to film the seabed.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan, whose agency is leading the search, has expressed cautious optimism that the plane will eventually be found.

“We’re confident in the analysis and we’re confident that the aircraft is close to the seventh arc,” he said.

eErotica69 · Oct 6, 2014

So what is Tonychat and his family in Malaysia doing about this?

Ball-less again, no balls to protest against UMNO to expedite the search?

PressToTeleport · Oct 14, 2014

SoleSurvivor · Oct 22, 2014

Malaysia's defence minister hopeful MH370 will be found

AFP
October 22, 2014, 6:40 pm

Perth (Australia) (AFP) - Malaysia's Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Wednesday his country was determined to find missing Flight MH370, as he was briefed by Australian officials leading the complex search deep in the Indian Ocean.

Hishammuddin, who is in the Western Australian port of Fremantle to inspect one of the search ships, the GO Phoenix, said the passengers and crew on board the Malaysia Airlines jet "remain in our thoughts and also in our prayers".

"We must continue to hope because sometimes hope is all we have," Hishammuddin told reporters.

"We will find MH370."

The passenger aircraft was carrying 239 people, about two-thirds of them from China, when it disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8. No sign of the Boeing 777 has ever been found despite a massive air and sea search.

The jet is believed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean after inexplicably veering off course.

Hishammuddin was acting transport minister when the plane went missing and led Malaysia's search for the jet before Liow Tiong Lai replaced him in the transport portfolio in June.

During his visit he toured the GOPhoenix, a Malaysian-contracted vessel which is conducting the underwater search using sophisticated sonar systems.

The renewed underwater probe began in early October and more than 1,200 square kilometres (463 square miles) have so far been scoured without success, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said.

GO Phoenix is expected to leave for the Indian Ocean search site on Thursday after its resupply in Fremantle.

The Australian-contracted Fugro Discovery departed the port last week and is set to arrive in the search zone Wednesday, said the ATSB, which is leading the search.

The Chinese survey ship Zhu Kezhen, which has since left the search zone, and the Australian-contracted Fugro Equator have been mapping the seabed since May before the underwater hunt.

The Fugro Equator is expected to finish its seabed mapping duties on Friday before it is outfitted with a sonar system so it can join the underwater search.

Hishammuddin met officials from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, the Australian agency coordinating information about the search. He said Malaysia was dedicated in its support for the MH370 search.

"All that could have been done to find the plane at this point has been done," he said.

"This is it, the next phase. The search goes on."

SoleSurvivor · Oct 25, 2014

Australia asks Indonesia to be on the lookout for debris from Flight MH370

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 23 October, 2014, 9:54pm
UPDATED : Friday, 24 October, 2014, 3:14am

Kyodo in Sydney

Malaysian defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein stands near an underwater probe aboard the Malaysian contracted vehicle, GO Phoenix, docked at Fremantle Port near Perth, Australia. Photo: EPA

Australian authorities have asked their Indonesia counterparts be on the lookout for debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, according to local reports yesterday.

"It is possible that some materials may have drifted to the coastline of Indonesia," an operational report released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and the Joint Agency Coordination Centre in charge of coordinating the search efforts for the missing aircraft said.

The report also notes that drift modelling undertaken by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority suggests any floating debris "is far more likely to have travelled west, away from the coastline of Australia".

Flight MH370, with 239 people aboard, was bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur when it vanished over the South China Sea on March 8. No debris from the flight has so far been recovered.

An extensive search has been undertaken by Australian-led authorities, with more than 1,200 sq km of sea floor combed in a new round of operations that began recently.

This followed several months of surveying of the underwater terrain by two contract vessels.

SoleSurvivor · Oct 29, 2014

Malaysia Airlines MH370: Australia and Malaysia accused of a cover-up

October 26, 2014 4:53 PM MST

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 map

The countries close to the Malaysia Airlines MH370, the passenger jetliner that disappeared with 239 persons aboard last March 8, are being accused of a cover-up. The accusation comes from Des Ross, an aviation advisor in South Sudan, who claims that there must have been recordings that would tell more of the mysterious story of the flight that went missing, but Australia and Malaysia officials are not providing the public with all the information they must have had. According to the International Business Times on Sunday, there should have been various audio recordings contained in records and hard disks that would detail what transpired during the first four hours that the Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane went missing.

However, alleged recordings from that crucial period of time have not been released to the public. Des Ross who has 35 years of aviation industry experience is now asking what was on those recordings – and blatantly and accusatorily asking Malaysia and Austria why they have been so protective of the recordings which most likely exist. He asked, “What needed to be kept secret from the world even when 239 people were lost?” He stated that the Malaysian Air Force has the ability to intercept an unidentified aircraft, and he accuses the military of continuing to without such information.

Ross insists that there has been absolutely no information made available to the public regarding the first four hours the plane went missing and further insists that such information is in existence - but still kept a secret. He asserts that a recording between Ho Chi Minh City and air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur, via a voice-data link, has information about that crucial time during the mysterious plane disappearance that has never been made public. He says that such data is kept for 30 days.

Additionally, Ross asserts that if there is no recording of communications between the civil air traffic controller at the Kuala Lumpur control center and a military air defense officer, the non-existence of such a recording would result in an act of criminal negligence. He insists, however, “Nobody can tell us that the recordings do not exist.” He continued by saying that the two nations – Australia and Malaysia – could be accused of covering up vital information which would help the families and independent investigators work out what happened to the aircraft.

In other news on the missing passenger jetliner, multiple media sources including the Telegraph, have recently reported that the plane’s debris - which is assumed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean – is most likely drifting to the west toward the coastline of Indonesia instead of drifting to the east to the coastline of Australia as previously thought. Of that reported news, Transport Ministry Secretary-General Datuk Ruhaizah Mohamed Rashid spoke at a press briefing and stated that there has been no report of debris coming to the shores of Indonesia yet. If debris does should be swept up on Indonesia’s shores, it will be taken to Australia for inspection.

THE_CHANSTER · Oct 29, 2014

SoleSurvivor said:
However, alleged recordings from that crucial period of time have not been released to the public. Des Ross who has 35 years of aviation industry experience is now asking what was on those recordings – and blatantly and accusatorily asking Malaysia and Austria why they have been so protective of the recordings which most likely exist.

If you're going to copy and paste, at least do it properly...

SoleSurvivor · Oct 29, 2014

THE_CHANSTER said:
If you're going to copy and paste, at least do it properly...

Oh no i post it as it is even if i were to spot any spelling mistakes. The link is below.

http://www.examiner.com/article/malaysia-airlines-mh370-australia-and-malaysia-accused-of-a-cover-up

Tiongs that replaced sinkies at Presstitutes often made spelling and grammatical errors. See thread below. To edit for them would mean covering up their mistakes. :eek:

http://www.singsupplies.com/showthread.php?190800-The-standard-of-154th-s-Engrish

SoleSurvivor · Nov 1, 2014

Malaysia Airlines sued by two boys who lost father on MH370

PUBLISHED : Friday, 31 October, 2014, 3:25pm
UPDATED : Friday, 31 October, 2014, 5:37pm

Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur

MH370 is believed to have gone down in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean, where a search is ongoing. Photo: AFP

Two Malaysian children sued Malaysia Airlines and the government on Friday over the loss of their father on flight 370, the first lawsuit filed in the country by relatives of those aboard the jet that mysteriously disappeared eight months ago.

Jee Kinson, 13, and Jee Kinland, 11, accused the civil aviation department of negligence for failing to try and contact the plane within reasonable time after it dropped from the radar while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 with 239 people on board.

The suit filed at the Kuala Lumpur High Court alleges the airline was negligent and failed to take all due measures to ensure a safe flight. It also named the director-generals of civil aviation and immigration, the country’s air force chief and the government as respondents and alleged they committed gross neglect and breach of duty.

“We have waited for eight months. After speaking to various experts, we believe we have sufficient evidence for a strong case. A big plane missing in this age of technology is really unacceptable,” their lawyer Arunan Selvaraj said.

The boys are seeking damages for mental distress, emotional pain and the loss of support following the disappearance of their father, Jee Jing Hang. He operated an internet business earning monthly income of nearly 17,000 ringgit (HK$40,000).

Selvaraj said it was “up to the court” to determine the amount of any damages to award.

“The question is, could we have salvaged the situation if action was taken earlier?” Selvaraj said. “We want accountability.”

Nearly two-thirds of the passengers on MH370 were from China. Lawyers from legal firms with experience in plane disasters have approached many of them, but it’s unclear whether any others have sued or are preparing to do so. The fact the plane has not been found will make assigning blame for the incident difficult.

Aviation lawyer Jeremy Joseph said the boys certainly have a case for the authorities to answer in court but it won’t be easy.

“It’s going to be quite challenging as the plane has not been recovered. Without knowing the cause of the incident, it’s all very speculative,” he said.

Joseph said Malaysian civil courts aren’t likely to give big payouts. In the case of the airline, he said the court could likely follow the compensation amount of US$175,000 set under the Montreal Convention. For the other respondents, he said it is an unprecedented case and would depend on the evidence given in court and culpability of the parties.

The plane is believed to have gone down in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean, where a search is ongoing. Not a single piece of debris from the plane has been found so far. Australian officials, who are coordinating the search, have said the hunt for the plane could take another year.

SoleSurvivor · Nov 13, 2014

MH370 families furious over report missing jet to be declared 'lost'

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 11 November, 2014, 3:25pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 12 November, 2014, 3:40am

Agence France-Presse in Kuala Lumpur

An industry source familiar with the MH370 saga said once the plane is declared lost, all search efforts will be stopped. Photo: EPA

Relatives of MH370 passengers have criticised beleaguered Malaysia Airlines after an official reportedly said authorities would set a date to announce the plane “lost”, with an industry source saying such a declaration would see the search called off.

Both Malaysia Airlines and officials in Australia – which is leading the search for the missing jet far off its western coast – have denied the reported comments by the carrier’s commercial director Hugh Dunleavy.

But Voice370, an association of MH370 victims’ relatives, said in a statement late on Monday that it was “bewildered” by the report last week.

“Such unilateral declaration brings intense agony and confusions to family members and makes us lose faith in the search effort,” it said.

A The New Zealand Herald article, citing Dunleavy, said authorities were working to set a date – likely by the end of the year – to formally announce the loss of the Boeing 777, which vanished off radars on March 8 with 239 people aboard.

“We don’t have a final date but once we’ve had an official loss recorded we can work with the next of kin on the full compensation payments for those families,” he was quoted as saying.

An industry source familiar with the MH370 saga said once the plane is declared lost, all search efforts will be stopped.

“The talk has been that the search has been futile so far and it’s unlikely to bring anything,” he said.

In a statement on Monday, Malaysia Airlines distanced itself from Dunleavy’s comments, saying it was his personal opinion and “ongoing search and recovery operations will remain and will not be discontinued”.

It said any information regarding MH370 will only be communicated by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) in Australia.

Officials at the JACC said on Tuesday that Dunleavy’s comments were “greatly disturbing for the families and loved ones of the passengers and crew on board MH370”, reiterating Australia’s commitment to the search.

MH370 inexplicably disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in what remains one of history’s great aviation mysteries.

Australia has been spearheading the hunt for the plane, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean off western Australia.

Some next-of-kin bitterly accuse the Malaysian government and airline of a bungled response and cover-up, charges that they have strenuously denied.

A Malaysian family last month sued the government and the airline for negligence in what is believed to be the first lawsuit filed over the disaster.

SoleSurvivor · Dec 29, 2014

Relatives of Flight 370 passengers still pressing for answers

Relatives say officials are shutting them out over search for plane that vanished on March 8

PUBLISHED : Monday, 29 December, 2014, 3:33am
UPDATED : Monday, 29 December, 2014, 8:55am

Wu Nan [email protected]

Relatives of passengers from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 speak to a policeman as he makes a phone call outside the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. Photo: AFP

More than 290 days have passed since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar, one hour into a journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.

In the days leading up to Christmas, more than 30 relatives of passengers on the flight gathered in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, demanding the government pressure the Malaysian authorities for more information on the search.

"The Malaysian officials at the support centre for MH370 relatives have been absent for two weeks … They said they would go back home to renew their passports. The relatives are desperate now that they are cut off from any information," Jiang Hui, one of the relatives, said. "It is the responsibility of the Department of Consular Affairs to protect the rights of Chinese citizens when they travel abroad. Yet the officials there refuse to talk to us and we can't even enter their office."

Police showed up after relatives stood outside the ministry for a few hours and then asked them to leave. One relative was detained for about an hour. "It is difficult for us to understand why our own government is so tough on us. We did nothing but look for our loved ones," Jiang said.

Jiang is a regular visitor to the two offices set up by the Chinese and Malaysian governments near Beijing Capital International Airport to release information about the ongoing search for the plane. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 2pm to 5pm, the offices open their doors and dozens of relatives rush in, among them 60-year-old Gao Xianying, from Guoyang in Anhui province.

"I am in pain every day. I want my daughter and granddaughter to come home," Gao said. Her daughter and son-in-law boarded the plane with their two-month-old daughter for their first trip abroad as a family.

Nan Kaifang, wife of MH370 passenger. Photo: Simon Song

Of the 239 passengers and crew on the missing plane, 154 were Chinese.

Gao and her husband moved to Tongzhou, an eastern suburb of Beijing, in early May when Malaysia Airlines stopped paying for hotel accommodation. She said she changed subway lines three times, took two buses and then walked to get to the offices.

Her biggest wish for the new year was for her family to be gathered at home. "Other than that, I don't know what to do. All I've done is talk to their photographs every day," she said.

Liu Kun, 47, and his sister-in-law, 41-year-old Nan Kaifang, are from Jining in Shandong province. Liu's brother, 40-year-old Liu Qiang, was on board MH370. "We will not give up until we find my brother," Liu said.

Nan said she and her two children had no financial support because her husband, who worked in Malaysia, was the family's breadwinner. They now depend on their relatives' support.

Liu said the family was more than 70,000 yuan (HK$88,000) in debt. Every trip to Beijing cost them at least 6,000 yuan. But he said he had no choice because his ageing parents asked him to continue the visits. "We need my brother to be back or our family is ruined forever," he said.

Jiang's 70-year-old mother was on the plane, and he said he was prepared for the worst but needed direct proof from the Malaysian authorities. "I'm mostly worried what will happen after May next year, when they have said the search will stop at some point. What if the plane is not found by then?"

SoleSurvivor · Dec 30, 2014

What's happening with the search for Flight 370?

By KRISTEN GELINEAU
Dec. 30, 2014 7:27 AM EST

A member of the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) points to a map of a search area during a briefing prior to a search and rescue operation of the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, at Pangkal Pinang command post in Sumatra Island, Monday, Dec. 29, 2014 in Indonesia. Search planes and ships from several countries on Monday were scouring Indonesian waters over which the AirAsia jet disappeared, more than a day into the region's latest aviation mystery. Flight 8501 vanished Sunday in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

SYDNEY (AP) — As hundreds of search crews frantically scour the waters off Indonesia where AirAsia Flight 8501 went down, a couple of ships a few thousand kilometers (miles) to the south are quietly combing another patch of ocean for perhaps the most infamous missing plane of all time — Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Nearly 10 months after the Malaysian aircraft vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, not a single trace of it has been found, despite a massive, Australian-led search effort in the remote waters of the southern Indian Ocean.

The location of Flight 8501 was a more fleeting mystery, though no less tragic: Wreckage and bodies were recovered from the Java Sea on Tuesday, more than two days after air-traffic controllers lost contact with the plane, which carried 162 passengers and crew.

The latest disaster focused attention once again on the frustratingly fruitless hunt for Flight 370. Here is a look at the latest in that search:

___

WHERE ARE THEY SEARCHING — AND HOW?

Three ships — two provided by a Dutch contractor and one provided by Malaysia — have been tasked with scouring a desolate, 60,000-square-kilometer (23,000-square-mile) area of the Indian Ocean about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) west of Australia. Two of the ships have been dragging sonar devices called towfish through the water about 100 meters (330 feet) above the seabed to hunt for the wreckage. The third ship recently finished mapping the seafloor and returned to port in Western Australia last week to be fitted with search equipment.

___

HOW FAR HAVE THEY GOTTEN?

The ships have searched more than 12,000 square kilometers (4,600 square miles) of the seafloor — or one-fifth of the highest-priority search zone. So far, nothing connected to Flight 370 has been found.

___

WHAT ABOUT FLOATING DEBRIS?

Officials believe any wreckage that may have been floating has long since sunk. Still, they did ask Indonesian authorities in August to keep an eye out for any debris that may have drifted to the island nation's shores.

___

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO FINISH THE SEARCH?

It depends. If there are no major delays due to bad weather or issues with the equipment (and there have already been some intermittent equipment problems), the search is expected to be completed by May. Otherwise, it could drag well beyond that.

___

SO WHAT DO OFFICIALS THINK HAPPENED?

There are a million theories. But the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the search effort and has analyzed transmissions between the aircraft and a satellite, is working on the assumption that the plane was flying on autopilot when it ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. Malaysian officials heading up the investigation have previously said they believe the plane was deliberately diverted by someone on board, and its communications systems intentionally disabled.

MALAYSIAN Airlines flight en route to China is missing.

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