Can batteries that small steer a plane off course and then blow it up?
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MALAYSIAN Airlines flight en route to China is missing.
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Can batteries that small steer a plane off course and then blow it up?
Voice Recording From Missing Flight MH370 Was Edited
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2014 18:15 -0400
It has been nearly two months since Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared without a trace on March 8. Since then, despite the endless coverage of CNN, there has been absolutely no progress in uncovering any clues about the fate of the missing Boeing 777. Perhaps the following may provide some clarity on why.
On Thursday, for the first time, 7 minutes of audio recordings of the final conversations between pilots of the missing Malaysian jet and teams of air traffic controllers on the ground were released.
The recording is provided below.
There is one problem: the recordings were "edited" leading many to wonder if the entire conversation wasn't fabricated on a sound stage, and if so: why? And just what is the Malaysian government (either alone or in conjunction with other countries) hiding.
NBC has more:
Analysts who listened to the recordings for NBC News did not know why they were edited, but discovered at least four clear breaks in the audio that indicated edits.
"It's very strange," said audio-video forensic expert and registered investigator Ed Primeau of Primeau Forensics, who has analyzed hundreds of audio recordings. He said the beginning and end of the recording are high-quality with a low noise floor, meaning ambient background noise is almost silent, unlike the middle.
"At approximately 1:14 (a minute, 14 seconds into the audio, which can be heard here), the tone of the recording change to where to me, it sounds like someone is holding a digital recorder up to a speaker, so it's a microphone-to-speaker transfer of that information. That's a pretty big deal because it raises the first red flag about there possibly being some editing," he said.
The next part that raises questions is two minutes, six seconds in, through two minutes, nine seconds in, he said.
"I can hear noise in the room, along with the increase in the noise floor. I can hear a file door being closed, I can hear some papers being shuffled. so I'm further convinced that, beginning at 1:14 continuing through 2:06 to 2:15, it's a digital recorder being held up to a speaker."
Long gaps in the communication throughout the recording also imply some editing, he said.
"But yet, at 6:17, there's a huge edit because the conversation is cut off. It's interrupted. And the tone changes again," he said. "The noise floor, when you're authenticating a recording from a forensic perspective, is a very important part of the process. All of a sudden, we go back to the same quality and extremely low noise floor that we had at the beginning of the recording."
Kent Gibson, a forensic audio examiner with Forensic Audio in Los Angeles, added that there appear to be additional edits at 2:11 and 5:08, and agreed it sounded as though the middle section was recorded with a microphone near a speaker.
"You can hear, at 4:07, pages turning or a person breathing, which is unusual," he said.
While it's not uncommon for the background of a recording to change when a cockpit communication turns over from ground control to air controllers — which happened about four minutes into this recording — that doesn't explain the noises that are heard.
"It's not unusual that there would be clicks when they push the button on the microphone, but it's very unusual to have a disturbance. Normally you wouldn't have any background," Gibson said.
A cut-off word also isn't out of the realm of possibility, he said.
"It wouldn't be unthinkable to have a truncated word because if somebody let go of the trigger on the microphone, it might cut off their word," he said. "But it would be very unusual to find a background differential at the same time, suggesting that Malaysian authorities or whoever presented this made edits for whatever reason."
So why did the authorities fabricate the recording? Simple: the pilot said something the government did not want leaked:
Gibson said it’s possible the tapes could have been edited by Malaysian authorities "if the pilot dropped a hint that they didn't want to get out, if he said something that doesn't fit with the Malaysian government's party line."
But, he said, "It's more likely to be an inadvertent thing. But it's not the way to handle evidence."
The recording also could have come from different sources, he added.
"You can assume that the recording while they're still on the ground came from the tower and then you could assume that the communication with air controllers was while they're in the air," he said. "They may have just mishandled the cobbling of it together."
This doesn't necessarily prove anything about the investigation, he added. "Unfortunately, there are no smoking guns, except there are edits. And there are clear edits," he said.
So no smoking guns, except... there are smoking guns. "There's things that have to do with timelines and radar that they have available, but they don't make them available," said Tom Owen, a consultant for Owen Forensic Services audio analysis and chairman emeritus of the American Board of Recorded Evidence. "They wouldn't give you anything that would be enlightening for the public to any secretive information. I don't see that as a problematic issue."
Considering several hundred people are missing, presumed dead, purposefully covering up critical clues as to what happened is certainly a problematic issue, even if thanks to the government's botched up handling of the situation, it does impart a significant dose of morbid humor to the following advertisement from Malaysian Airlines.
Finally, for all those who have been inquiring and trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, here is the official cargo manifest of flight MH370 - no doubt "edited" as well.
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-c...-preliminary-report-audio-recordings-1.584574
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-03/voice-recording-missing-flight-mh370-was-edited
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/mh370s-audio-releases-likely-edited-experts-say
http://www.businessinsider.sg/malaysia-jet-recordings-may-have-been-edited-2014-5/#.U2cAt7H6ZUQ
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2014 18:15 -0400
It has been nearly two months since Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared without a trace on March 8. Since then, despite the endless coverage of CNN, there has been absolutely no progress in uncovering any clues about the fate of the missing Boeing 777. Perhaps the following may provide some clarity on why.
On Thursday, for the first time, 7 minutes of audio recordings of the final conversations between pilots of the missing Malaysian jet and teams of air traffic controllers on the ground were released.
The recording is provided below.
There is one problem: the recordings were "edited" leading many to wonder if the entire conversation wasn't fabricated on a sound stage, and if so: why? And just what is the Malaysian government (either alone or in conjunction with other countries) hiding.
NBC has more:
Analysts who listened to the recordings for NBC News did not know why they were edited, but discovered at least four clear breaks in the audio that indicated edits.
"It's very strange," said audio-video forensic expert and registered investigator Ed Primeau of Primeau Forensics, who has analyzed hundreds of audio recordings. He said the beginning and end of the recording are high-quality with a low noise floor, meaning ambient background noise is almost silent, unlike the middle.
"At approximately 1:14 (a minute, 14 seconds into the audio, which can be heard here), the tone of the recording change to where to me, it sounds like someone is holding a digital recorder up to a speaker, so it's a microphone-to-speaker transfer of that information. That's a pretty big deal because it raises the first red flag about there possibly being some editing," he said.
The next part that raises questions is two minutes, six seconds in, through two minutes, nine seconds in, he said.
"I can hear noise in the room, along with the increase in the noise floor. I can hear a file door being closed, I can hear some papers being shuffled. so I'm further convinced that, beginning at 1:14 continuing through 2:06 to 2:15, it's a digital recorder being held up to a speaker."
Long gaps in the communication throughout the recording also imply some editing, he said.
"But yet, at 6:17, there's a huge edit because the conversation is cut off. It's interrupted. And the tone changes again," he said. "The noise floor, when you're authenticating a recording from a forensic perspective, is a very important part of the process. All of a sudden, we go back to the same quality and extremely low noise floor that we had at the beginning of the recording."
Kent Gibson, a forensic audio examiner with Forensic Audio in Los Angeles, added that there appear to be additional edits at 2:11 and 5:08, and agreed it sounded as though the middle section was recorded with a microphone near a speaker.
"You can hear, at 4:07, pages turning or a person breathing, which is unusual," he said.
While it's not uncommon for the background of a recording to change when a cockpit communication turns over from ground control to air controllers — which happened about four minutes into this recording — that doesn't explain the noises that are heard.
"It's not unusual that there would be clicks when they push the button on the microphone, but it's very unusual to have a disturbance. Normally you wouldn't have any background," Gibson said.
A cut-off word also isn't out of the realm of possibility, he said.
"It wouldn't be unthinkable to have a truncated word because if somebody let go of the trigger on the microphone, it might cut off their word," he said. "But it would be very unusual to find a background differential at the same time, suggesting that Malaysian authorities or whoever presented this made edits for whatever reason."
So why did the authorities fabricate the recording? Simple: the pilot said something the government did not want leaked:
Gibson said it’s possible the tapes could have been edited by Malaysian authorities "if the pilot dropped a hint that they didn't want to get out, if he said something that doesn't fit with the Malaysian government's party line."
But, he said, "It's more likely to be an inadvertent thing. But it's not the way to handle evidence."
The recording also could have come from different sources, he added.
"You can assume that the recording while they're still on the ground came from the tower and then you could assume that the communication with air controllers was while they're in the air," he said. "They may have just mishandled the cobbling of it together."
This doesn't necessarily prove anything about the investigation, he added. "Unfortunately, there are no smoking guns, except there are edits. And there are clear edits," he said.
So no smoking guns, except... there are smoking guns. "There's things that have to do with timelines and radar that they have available, but they don't make them available," said Tom Owen, a consultant for Owen Forensic Services audio analysis and chairman emeritus of the American Board of Recorded Evidence. "They wouldn't give you anything that would be enlightening for the public to any secretive information. I don't see that as a problematic issue."
Considering several hundred people are missing, presumed dead, purposefully covering up critical clues as to what happened is certainly a problematic issue, even if thanks to the government's botched up handling of the situation, it does impart a significant dose of morbid humor to the following advertisement from Malaysian Airlines.
Finally, for all those who have been inquiring and trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, here is the official cargo manifest of flight MH370 - no doubt "edited" as well.
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-c...-preliminary-report-audio-recordings-1.584574
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-03/voice-recording-missing-flight-mh370-was-edited
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/mh370s-audio-releases-likely-edited-experts-say
http://www.businessinsider.sg/malaysia-jet-recordings-may-have-been-edited-2014-5/#.U2cAt7H6ZUQ
http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/missing-mh370-sophisticated-equipment-be-deployed
KUALA LUMPUR - More sophisticated fruits will be deployed to complement the present military assets used in the next phase of the multinational search mission for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which has gone missing for 56 days, acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said today.
Hishammuddin, who is also Defence Minister, also said the multinational team also plans to work together with entities and research institutions to boost the search mission for the missing Beijing-bound aircraft.
"We will look into deploying more assets and equipment that are available.
--------
could be durian or soursop, maybe it's jackfruit.
KUALA LUMPUR - More sophisticated fruits will be deployed to complement the present military assets used in the next phase of the multinational search mission for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which has gone missing for 56 days, acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said today.
Hishammuddin, who is also Defence Minister, also said the multinational team also plans to work together with entities and research institutions to boost the search mission for the missing Beijing-bound aircraft.
"We will look into deploying more assets and equipment that are available.
--------
could be durian or soursop, maybe it's jackfruit.
Every day.....the mystery gets much interesting....the batteries accounted for a small portion of the whole container of 2.2 tons!!....why would the Chinese people want to consume that much MANGOSTEEN??....are they, that crazy about that fruit??
or 'MANGOSTEEN' is another code word for something else...& the airwaybill for the 2 something ton container...is $32,000 plus M dollars....wah! very cheap neh!....stay tune for more mystery...MALAYSIA BOLEH!!
International experts to take fresh look at data in hunt for flight MH370
Top officials agree on expanded search in remote area of Indian Ocean
PUBLISHED : Monday, 05 May, 2014, 11:14pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 06 May, 2014, 8:20am
Associated Press in Sydney
Hashammuddin, Truss, Houston and Yang yesterday. Photo: AP
An international panel of experts will re-examine all data gathered in the nearly two-month hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet to ensure search crews who have been scouring a remote area of ocean for the plane have been looking in the right place.
Senior officials from Malaysia, Australia and China met in Canberra to thrash out the details of the next steps in the search for flight MH370, which will centre around an expanded patch of sea floor in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia.
The area became the focus of the hunt after a team of analysts calculated the plane's likeliest flight path based on satellite and radar data.
Starting tomorrow, that data will be reanalysed and combined with all information gathered so far in the search, which has not turned up a single piece of debris despite crews scouring more than 4.6 million square kilometres of ocean.
"We've got to this stage of the process where it's very sensible to go back and have a look at all of the data that has been gathered, all of the analysis that has been done and make sure there's no flaws in it, the assumptions are right, the analysis is right and the deductions and conclusions are right," Angus Houston, head of the search operation, said in the Australian capital.
Investigators have been stymied by a lack of hard data since the plane vanished on March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. A search for surface debris was called off last week after officials determined any wreckage that may have been floating had probably sunk.
"Unfortunately, all of that effort has found nothing," Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said.
Houston has warned the underwater search is likely to drag on for up to a year.
Houston and Truss met with Malaysian acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and Chinese Transport Minister Yang Chuantang yesterday to map out the next steps of the underwater search, which will focus on a 60,000 square kilometre patch of sea floor.
Officials are contacting governments and private contractors to find out whether they have specialised equipment that can dive deeper than the Bluefin 21, an unmanned sub that has spent weeks scouring the sea floor in an area where sounds consistent with a plane's black box were detected in early April.
The Bluefin has been limited by the fact it can dive only to depths of 4.5 kilometres - and parts of the search zone are likely deeper than that. Adding to the difficulties is the fact no one really knows exactly how deep the water in the search area is.
"I don't know that anyone knows for sure, because it's never been mapped," Truss said, adding that detailed mapping of the sea floor will be a key focus of the next phase of the search.
Those are special "tarts" that are washed down with premium wines, his orders were to order some for "special guests", but he could not resist, took a "few".........not your everyday market pineapple tarts...maybe a CODE WORD....
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Am told that Najib has confided with Tun Chet Thir that his biggest mistake was to sanction Anwar's conviction.
who is tun chet thir? ...
mayb after tis, he considers his biggester mistake is 2 confide in tun chet thir ...
Flight MH370 relatives refuse to give up search for loved ones
Aid group will meet regularly and demand information from Malaysia
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 10 May, 2014, 4:13am
UPDATED : Saturday, 10 May, 2014, 4:13am
Wu Nan [email protected]
Steve Wang (left) and Jiang Hui won't stop searching. Photo: Wu Nan
Relatives of the Chinese passengers on board flight MH370 said they were prepared for a long- term battle to find their loved ones, as the final relative who had been staying at the Lido Hotel in Beijing checked out yesterday.
Steps they plan on taking include holding weekly meetings and setting up a website.
"I stayed as long as I can to confront the Malaysian side. They should respond properly to the relatives of MH370 passengers," said Jiang Hui .
Jiang, 41, is an IT engineer from Beijing.
His 70-year-old mother was among 239 passengers and crew on the Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight that vanished without trace on March 8.
"I'm so disappointed that the Malaysian government and airline did not present their preliminary report to the families. They also never explained why they forced us to leave early," he said.
Earlier, Malaysia Airlines announced that it would close all of its family assistance centres worldwide by Wednesday. However, relatives were asked to leave the Lido by 6pm on May 2 without further explanation.
Jiang decided to stay in the hotel, after all the remaining relatives left by the May 2 deadline. Since then, he and his brother have paid 759 yuan (HK$955) a night for the hotel room.
More than two-thirds of the 154 missing Chinese passengers are from outside Beijing, and their relatives returned to their hometowns from the Lido.
Members of the MH370 relatives council, which now calls itself the relatives' aid group, suspected that the end of their hotel stay was due to a protest by some 100 relatives outside the Malaysian embassy in Beijing on April 25, demanding information.
"Asking us to leave the Lido will break up the large group of relatives," said Steve Wang, a spokesman for the group.
"It's not that we want free accommodation and food from the airline. We're afraid that once we leave, there will be less and less information, and that we'll be completely ignored."
To Jiang, the hotel was like a battlefield where the more than 100 families could stand together and fight for the truth. They want their loved ones back, or at least to find out where they are.
"We'll never give up looking for them," he said.
The biggest problem for the relatives was that Malaysia Airlines stopped providing them with updated information and even made mistakes while collecting missing passengers' information, Jiang said.
The relatives' aid group has just released a statement with families in the United States, Malaysia, India and New Zealand to ask the Malaysian government to provide them with raw data.
"Above all, we still demand the release of the raw data," Wang said. "Experts from around the world may help us find our loved ones based on the data."
The relatives' aid group will shortly set up a website to gather all the information that might help to locate the missing plane. They also plan to find a venue in Beijing for their weekly or monthly meetings to brief relatives and continue communications with Malaysia.
Jiang said that he was tired of hotel food after staying in the Lido for two months and was looking forward to spending more time with his three-year-old daughter.
"At first I had to lie to her when she asked where her granny was," he said. "Now she asks less. I fear that she won't remember my mother at all."
Submersible's search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 returns to site of first ‘ping’
Bluefin-21 submersible to search area where first signal presumed to be from flight recorder of missing Flight MH370 was detected
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 10 May, 2014, 4:02pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 10 May, 2014, 4:03pm
Reuters in Perth
The Bluefin-21 submersible on the deck of the Australian navy ship Ocean Shield as it replenishes supplies and conducts routine maintenance and software modifications. Photo: AFP
An Australian naval vessel carrying an underwater drone involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 left port on Saturday on its second mission to scan part of the Indian Ocean where the longest sonar ‘ping’ was heard over a month ago.
The Ocean Shield is heading to the area where a signal was first located and heard for some two hours on April 5, about 1,600 kilometres northwest of Perth to launch the Bluefin-21 submersible.
More than two dozen countries have been involved in the hunt for the Boeing 777 that disappeared from radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 people, mostly Chinese, on board in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
Weeks of daily searches have failed to turn up any trace of the plane, even after narrowing the area to an arc in the southern Indian Ocean. Batteries on the black box voice and data recorders have gone flat.
The search had been centred on a 314-square-kilometre area around the second ‘ping’ located and monitored for about 13 minutes on April 5, and which search authorities identified as their strongest lead.
United States Navy Salvage Supervisor, Captain Mark Matthews, in front of the Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield. Photo: AFP
With the search of that area complete, the focus is shifting to the area where the first, and longer, signal was detected the same day, US Navy Captain Mark Matthews told journalists at a naval base near Perth.
“What you do is you go look at your best indications and you pursue them until they’re exhausted,” he said. “These things don’t happen fast. These searches don’t happen on the hours or days cycle. These happen on the weeks and months cycle.”
Australia, China and Malaysia earlier this week pledged not to give up searching for the plane, even though air and surface searches for debris have been abandoned.
The Ocean Shield returned to Stirling Naval Base south of Perth earlier this week after more than a month at sea to resupply, change crew and perform software modifications and maintenance on the Bluefin.
The submersible has dived to a maximum depth of 5,005 metres in its daily 20-hour missions to scan the ocean floor using sonar, despite being only designed to dive to 4,500 metres, Matthews said.
With just three weeks left on loan from the US Navy, the pressure is on about how to proceed and who will pay for the next phase of the search. The Ocean Shield, which will take three days to arrive at the search location, is due back in port by the end of the month.
Last week, Malaysia released its most comprehensive account yet of what happened to Flight MH370, detailing the route the plane probably took as it veered off course and the confusion that followed.
The officials have said the focus will be on 60,000 square kilometres of seabed in the Indian Ocean that could take a year to search.
Malaysia Airlines set to seek out-of-court deals on claims, say lawyers
Although no wreckage has been found to even confirm a crash, experts say burden of proof is on carrier, which will want to lay matter to rest
PUBLISHED : Monday, 12 May, 2014, 3:05am
UPDATED : Monday, 12 May, 2014, 11:07am
Agence France-Presse in Kuala Lumpur
A message board for passengers on-board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Photo: Reuters
The lack of evidence indicating what caused flight MH370's disappearance raises a legal conundrum that aviation law experts say is likely to force Malaysia Airlines into out-of-court settlements with angry next-of-kin.
More than two months since MH370 disappeared, no wreckage has been found to even confirm a crash, let alone apportion blame.
However, relatives of the 239 people on board, mostly Chinese, can still pursue Malaysia Airlines because under international aviation law it is an airline's responsibility to prove it was not to blame for an accident.
"On the surface, [Malaysia Airlines] is responsible," said Jeremy Joseph, a Malaysian lawyer specialising in transport cases.
The "burden of proof" rested on the carrier to clear its name, he added.
Under International Civil Aviation Organisation rules, next-of-kin in a plane crash are entitled to an automatic minimum of about US$175,000 per passenger, regardless of fault, payable by an airline's insurance company.
But Malaysia Airlines is also vulnerable to civil lawsuits for potentially greater damages by hundreds of relatives already infuriated over the lack of information on the case.
The Beijing-bound plane disappeared on March 8 and is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean. Theories on what happened include a terror act, rogue pilot action, or mechanical problems.
No significant legal moves have yet been made as families monitor an immensely difficult search in vast ocean depths that has so far found nothing.
Malaysia Airlines has begun making some payouts to families under an "advance compensation process" but has declined to reveal details.
"When there is no cause identified, it is hard to see how the airline has or has not shown the absence of fault," said Alan Tan, a professor of aviation law at the National University of Singapore.
The size of any damages would depend on where lawsuits were filed.
Next-of-kin can file in the country where an airline is based, where tickets were purchased, where the passengers were headed or where they lived.
Since most passengers were from China or Malaysia, most cases could be filed in the two countries, where courts are more conservative in awarding damages than in countries such as the United States.
Damages are typically based on the lost lifetime earnings of a victim and thus could total in the hundreds of millions for all passengers combined.
"In the US, settlements usually are in the US$1 million-US$3 million range. For Malaysians or Chinese, salaries are lower, and hence, recoveries will be lower," said Paul Stephen Dempsey, director of the Institute of Air and Space Law at Canada's McGill University.
A US law firm is already planning a "multimillion-dollar" lawsuit against Malaysia Airlines and aircraft maker Boeing, on behalf of an Indonesian passenger's family.
But legal experts said few cases were likely to end up in court. They expect undisclosed, out-of-court settlements between families and Malaysia Airlines and its lead insurer, German giant Allianz.
This would allow the loss-making carrier, which was struggling under intense competition even before MH370 disappeared, to quietly lay the matter to rest and focus on rebuilding its image.
"Because of its unprecedented nature, the courts are going to look at [MH370] very carefully. That is something the airline will try to avoid unless settlement expectations from the victims families are perceived by Malaysia Airlines as unreasonable," Joseph said.
Tan said: "This avoids court uncertainties and protracted litigation, and most claims will end up being negotiated and settled this way, particularly those outside the US."
In the case of Air France flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic with 228 people aboard in June 2009, the airline's insurers made private compensation payments to relatives.
Well, it's none of Stinkees problem. Even all onboard is Stinkees, no loss. Stinkees should mind own business and FUCK PAPPIES. hihihihihihi
Who the fuck care MAT YOYO and their Bomoh MH370? Shut this thread! MATS can go and die for all they want.
Got it?
Got it?
Malaysian authorities delayed search for missing MH370, admits PM Najib
Prime Minister Najib Razak says there were 'important lessons' for his government and the global aviation industry to learn from mistakes made during the search for the flight
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 14 May, 2014, 11:27am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 14 May, 2014, 7:06pm
Reuters in Montreal
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak admitted that the start of the hunt for missing flight MH370 was delayed due to ‘confusion’. Photo: Reuters
Malaysia’s Prime Minister on Wednesday admitted that the start of the hunt for missing flight MH370 was delayed due to ‘confusion’, as the United Nations aviation agency said the industry would voluntarily start to improve the tracking of aircraft.
Prime Minister Najib Razak said in an article published in the Wall Street Journal that there were "important lessons" for his government and the global aviation industry to learn from mistakes made during the search for the flight, after the Boeing 777 disappeared from air traffic control screens on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing just over two months ago.
“We didn’t get everything right,” he wrote in the signed article. “In the first few days after the plane disappeared, we were so focused on trying to find the aircraft that we did not prioritise our communications.
”It took air-traffic controllers four hours to launch the search-and-rescue operation. But the plane vanished at a moment - between two countries’ air-traffic controls - that caused maximum confusion.
A map shows the possible path of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Photo: Reuters
“Despite this, the search began about a third quicker than during the Air France Flight 447 tragedy in 2009. Nevertheless, the response time should and will be investigated.
“None of this could have altered MH370’s fate.”
Najib also called for the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to adopt real-time tracking of civilian aircraft and other measures.
The agency said that the industry would voluntarily begin to improve aircraft tracking while the body develops mandatory standards following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
“In an age of smartphones and mobile internet, real-time tracking of commercial airplanes is long overdue,” he said.
He also recommended changing airplane communications systems so they could not be disabled in mid-flight and prolonging the battery life of “black boxes”, which record cockpit conversations and aircraft data, to make them easier to locate after accidents.
“These changes may not have prevented the MH370 or Air France 447 tragedies,” he said, referring to an Air France flight that crashed en route to Paris from Brazil in 2009. “But they would make it harder for an aircraft to simply disappear, and easier to find any aircraft that did.”
The ICAO gave no firm timeline for when those binding standards on flight tracking would go into effect, reflecting the challenge of reaching an agreement with industry and governments around the world on a longstanding problem.
“A standard takes longer, it takes time. The process of cooperation is long but it’s important,” said Nancy Graham, director of ICAO’s Air Navigation Bureau, at a press conference.
No trace of Flight MH370 has been found since it went missing on March 8, despite the most intensive search in commercial aviation history.
The countries that belong to ICAO’s governing council met with industry groups on Monday and Tuesday in Montreal. They agreed global tracking of aircraft was needed following the disappearance of flight MH370, but did not commit to a binding, global solution or say when they would do so.
Instead, a task force set up by global airline industry group the International Air Transport Association (IATA) agreed to come up with proposals for better tracking by the end of September, and IATA said its members would begin implementing them voluntarily, before any rules were in place.
Kevin Hiatt, IATA’s senior vice president for safety and flight operations, said the task force would offer ICAO guidance as it develops binding standards.
“They’re going to take it and obviously they will review it very closely and take it to their Commission, but we have a much better chance of the ... standards coming back the other way to basically embrace what we’re already doing,” he said.
Inadequate tracking has been among the factors blamed for the failure to locate MH370, which is presumed to have crashed with 239 people on board in a remote part of the Indian Ocean about 1,600 km northwest of Perth, Australia.
Some airlines do track their aircraft around the world, but procedures vary widely.
Created in 1944, Montreal-based ICAO coordinates between the 191 states that have signed the Chicago Convention, the main treaty that governs civil aviation. The organisation sets binding standards, and prefers to find a consensus among member countries, which is time-consuming.
“The real issue is who is in charge of mandating better tracking,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at Teal Group, in Fairfax, Virginia.
“If it is the industry, they will have to bear all the uncertainty about technical change, negotiations with pilots and so on. It is not just about nickel and diming in safety, there is real uncertainty.”
It has been nearly five years since French crash investigators recommended better tracking in the aftermath of the crash of Air France 447.
Hiatt, with IATA, said no task force was needed after the Air France crash because authorities knew enough to locate the wreckage within a few days: “MH370 went some place that we didn’t exactly know, where with Air France there was a good idea of where it went,” he said.
ICAO noted the substantial investment required by some airlines to install tracking gear. It asked the meeting to recommend that any standards ICAO backs be as widely adopted as possible, not rule out emerging technologies and be part of a solution that does more than simply track flights.
“Things move slowly as there are so many agencies as well as companies,” Aboulafia said. “Throw in uncertainty on costs and technological change that might make a major investment obsolete and it is a recipe for confusion.”
Loss of flight MH370 has 'devastating' effect on Malaysia Airlines finances
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 15 May, 2014, 11:48pm
UPDATED : Friday, 16 May, 2014, 12:43am
Danny Lee [email protected]
Malaysia's Defence Minister and acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein speaks at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur on May 15, 2014. Photo: Reuters
Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has revealed the loss of flight MH370 has had a "devastating" impact on its already shattered finances.
The tragedy contributed to a widening net loss for the first quarter of 2014 to 443.4 million ringgit (HK$1.06 billion), compared to a 278.8 million ringgit loss in the same period last year.
In a statement to the Malaysian stock exchange, the national airline, beset by high fuel costs and stiff competition from low-cost carriers, said: "The tragic MH370 incident had a dramatic impact on the traditionally weak first-quarter performance."
MAS said the "additional stresses" of the disappearance resulted in a high number of cancellations, with sales in China falling by 60 per cent in March.
The struggling airline has been losing money for three years running. In 2013, it made a full year loss of 1.7 billion ringgit (HK$4.04 billion). The steepening losses are expected to trigger a major overhaul of the state-run company.
Meanwhile, Malaysia has agreed with China and Australia to reanalyse and scrutinise all data that underpinned the search for the missing plane, in light of a lack of wreckage, as the search enters a new phase.
Some 70 days have passed since the jet disappeared on March 8. Officials will now prioritise deep-sea searches, with air and surface missions having been suspended.
Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's defence and acting transport minister, said: "After more than nine weeks, the search has now entered a transition phase prioritising deep-sea search. We have entered a new, difficult phase which brings with it new challenges which we will overcome together."
Malaysia is considering deploying underwater vehicles as authorities prepare for a long-term search. Deputy defence minister Abdul Rahim Bakri said national oil company Petronas would provide two autonomous underwater vehicles.
It is assumed the plane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. The Boeing 777 disappeared off civilian radar screens with 239 people on board - mostly Chinese.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
Flight MH370 relatives meet again in Beijing to get search update from airline
Starved of news since aid centre shut, they reiterate demands and detain airline staff
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 18 May, 2014, 5:20am
UPDATED : Sunday, 18 May, 2014, 9:10am
Wu Nan [email protected]
Frustrated relatives of passengers aboard the Malaysia Airlines plane that vanished in March meet in Beijing. Photo: Wu Nan
More than 100 relatives of the 154 missing Chinese passengers on board Malaysia Airlines flight 370 met in Beijing last week seeking news of the hunt for the airliner. Some of them briefly blocked a conference room exit, preventing airline staff from leaving when the meeting ended.
The relatives have been filtering back to the capital for two weeks since they were persuaded to leave a family-assistance centre set up at the Lido Hotel in Chaoyang district.
Friday's meeting was attended by a working group set up to consult with relatives. But the Malaysia Airlines employees were prevented from leaving until uniformed and plain-clothes police arrived and the relatives scattered.
Some relatives from outside Beijing said they had returned to the capital because communications with Malaysia Airlines had ceased after they were persuaded to leave the assistance centre earlier this month or sent home by local government officials.
The group met in Shunyi , near Beijing Capital International Airport, to reiterate their demand that airline staff provide raw satellite data and more information about the missing Boeing 777 plane, which vanished from civilian radar an hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.Satellite data indicate it probably crashed in the southern Indian Ocean but an international air and sea search has turned up nothing.
Many family members remained in the city after Friday's meeting, while others returned to their homes in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei vowing to reconvene in the capital tomorrow.
"I couldn't eat or sleep [because] I hadn't heard a word from Malaysia Airlines after I went home," said Gao Jianjun from Inner Mongolia . "I was helpless."
Malaysian Minister of Defence and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein (centre) speaks during a press conference on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: AFPG
Gao said his only source of information was an unofficial family-support group set up on Wechat, a social network, where relatives can share news updates related to the flight.
When word spread that a relatives' aid group had decided to draft an open letter to Malaysia Airlines requesting a substantive update on MH370, people said they would return to Beijing to deliver the letter together.
They arrived by train or plane from Shandong , Hebei and Henan .
The airline representatives said they would convey the working group's letter to headquarters and return with an answer in writing tomorrow.
Meanwhile, some of the relatives allege that they have been contacted by a Shanghai law firm purporting to represent the Malaysian carrier to discuss compensation.
"I'm so upset to hear the term 'compensation'. It's like suggesting my son is dead. I will not let him go without seeing any evidence," said Wen Wancheng from Shandong .
Song Jun, an employee of Malaysia Airlines, said it had offered a preliminary US$50,000 payment to help families cope with financial difficulties.
Jiang Hui, a spokesman for the relatives' aid group, said: "We want detailed answers. And we need them on a deadline."
Relatives said they were angered by the lack of hotels and dining facilities in the vicinity of the venue for Friday's meeting, which lasted several hours.
"It seems that they chose the office [location] on purpose to keep us away, because it is so remote," Wen said.
Hishammuddin Hussein : "We like to update the families of MHA370 victims that our lies have been modified again."
Two films inspired by flight MH370’s disappearance hawked at Cannes
Movies inspired by MH370's disappearance pitched at Cannes festival
PUBLISHED : Monday, 19 May, 2014, 9:58pm
UPDATED : Monday, 19 May, 2014, 9:58pm
Agence France-Presse in Cannes
The trailer for one of two films inspired by missing flight MH370 touted at Cannes. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Two films inspired by the missing Malaysian Airlines' flight MH370 are being touted to buyers at the Cannes Film Festival, barely two months after the plane vanished with 239 people on board.
Potential buyers were to get a sneak preview of A Dark Reflection by Fact Not Fiction Films at a "screening" scheduled for yesterday, according to a full-page advertisement in industry trade journal The Hollywood Reporter.
"What Happened on Flight 313?" reads the advertisement, which appeared on Sunday and shows a woman silhouetted at the end of a runway.
The runway lights glow behind her while overhead a passenger jet looms in the darkness lit by two harsh white lights.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on March 8.
Air and sea searches over vast stretches of the Indian Ocean have failed to find any sign of the plane.
Meanwhile, a half-page advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter's Cannes edition on Thursday publicised another, similar film.
The advertisement for The Vanishing Act featured a plane rising out of the clouds under the caption "The untold story of the missing Malaysian plane". A 90-second teaser trailer showing terrified passengers and a gun being brandished was shot over six days in Mumbai, Variety said in a report.
It is being promoted by Indian film director Rupesh Paul, the man behind erotic movie Kamasutra 3D, and was presented to buyers in Cannes on Saturday.
Paul, who denied the film was insensitive so soon after the disappearance, said he began work on the project after being contacted by a Malaysian journalist who said he had a theory about what had happened. He then spent 20 days working on a screenplay using the journalist's idea for the ending, the report added.
Paul said he was confident he could make the movie work even if the wreckage of the plane was found. People had suggested to him that his investment would be wasted if the plane was found and the explanation put forward by his film turned out to be incorrect, he said.
"That's the biggest challenge I'm facing. ... Everyone in the world, they want to know what happened," he was quoted as saying.
In addition to being the world's biggest film festival, Cannes is also a huge film market and each year attracts more than 10,000 buyers and sellers from around the world.
It was not known whether the "screening" of A Dark Reflection would be of a full or partly completed film or another trailer.
MH370 has been missing since it mysteriously diverted from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route. It is believed to have crashed into the sea far off Australia's west coast.
Australia, which is leading the hunt in that area, has said it believes it is looking in the right place based on satellite communications from the plane.
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