http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2592150/Chinese-aircraft-spots-three-suspicious-red-white-orange-objects-new-search-zone-Indian-Ocean-scoured-second-day.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/disappearance-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh-370-the-trillion-question-to-the-u-s-and-its-intelligence-services/5375780
Daily Mail.....
'Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is the hope that the families want me to convey not only to the Malaysian government, MAS, but also to the world at large'
- Malaysian minister Hishammuddin Hussein
Debka weighs in.......
http://www.debka.com/article/23806/MH370-stays-missing-for-want-of-data-sharing-among-intelligence-searchers
1. The searchers are groping in the dark. They have still not turned up a single piece of information or material evidence as leads to the location of the Malaysian flight or the cause of its disappearance. Their only guides are speculation about which way the currents in any presumed crash site may have caused the wreckage to drift.
2. Last week, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, in an attempt to bring this tragic episode to some conclusion, cited data provided by the British Inmarsat’s new technology as evidence that the plane had ended its flight in the Indian Ocean and all 239 aboard were lost.
Five days after this dramatic discovery, the searchers and the Malaysian authorities appear to have forgotten all about it and are chasing a new theory, that the plane traveled faster and its route was shorter than first estimated.
3. The governments involved in the search, the US, China, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, are using their resources not just to locate the missing Boeing, but for purposes of their own: a) Trials of their innovative intelligence and military technology; b) Checking out the satellite and electronic cyber resources of fellow-agencies engaged in the hunt and c) Discovering the outer limits of their colleagues’ intelligence capabilities and range in one of the most forbidding places on earth.
Malaysia caught in additional lies , misstatements , spin and just BS ? One wonder why lie in the event of an accident ?
Malaysia Chronicle......
New Straits Times.......
http://www.globalresearch.ca/disappearance-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh-370-the-trillion-question-to-the-u-s-and-its-intelligence-services/5375780
Disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 370: The Trillion Dollar Question to the U.S. and Its Intelligence Services
Malaysian media should pose critical questions to the US and its Intelligence Services and not to the Malaysian Government
Let me state from the outset that I totally agree with the press statements by Malaysia’s Defence Minister and Acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein that “we have conducted ourselves fairly, responsibly and history will judge us for that.”
And to a mischievous and presumptuous question from a correspondent of the Financial Times, Datuk Seri with confidence and integrity rightly said without any fear of contradiction that, “I don’t think we could have done anything different from what we have already done.” Well done!
The Financial Times, CNN and other foreign media ought to pose similar questions to the US and its intelligence services and stop insinuating that Malaysia has not been transparent and/or engaged in a cover-up. Foreign media should stop engaging in dirty politics!
It is my hope that following the publication of this article, Malaysian mass media will focus on questioning the integrity of the US’s assistance to Malaysia in the first three weeks of the SAR mission, notwithstanding its recent offer of more assistance.
I take comfort that my reservations about the US and its intelligence services as well as other intelligence services closely linked to the US, especially British secret service, have been more than vindicated by Reuters in its news report on 28th March, 2014 entitled Geopolitical games handicap hunt for flight MH370
The search for flight MH370, the Malaysian Airlines jetliner that vanished over the South China Sea on March 8, has involved more than two dozen countries and 60 aircraft and ships but has been bedevilled by regional rivalries.
… With the United States playing a relatively muted role in the sort of exercise that until recently it would have dominated, experts and officials say there was no real central coordination until the search for the plane was confined to the southern Indian Ocean, when Australia largely took charge.
Part of the problem is that Asia has no NATO-style regional defence structure, though several countries have formal alliances with the United States. Commonwealth members Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia also have an arrangement with Britain to discuss defence matters in times of crisis.
As mystery deepened over the fate of the Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers and crew, most of them Chinese, it became clear that highly classified military technology might hold the key.
But the investigation became deadlocked over the reluctance of others to share sensitive data, a reticence that appeared to harden as the search area widened.
“This is turning into a spy novel,” said an envoy from a Southeast Asian country, noting it was turning attention to areas and techniques few countries liked to publicly discuss.
Ultimately, the only country with the technical resources to recover the plane – or at least its black box recorder, which could lie in water several miles deep – may be the United States. Its deep-sea vehicles ultimately hauled up the wreckage of Air France 447 after its 2009 crash into a remote region of the South Atlantic.
While Putrajaya has been forced to reveal some of the limits and ranges of its air defences, the reluctance of Malaysia’s neighbours to release sensitive radar data may have obstructed the investigation for days.
At an ambassadorial meeting in the ad hoc crisis centre at an airport hotel on March 16, Malaysia formally appealed to countries on the jet’s possible path for help, but in part met with polite stonewalling, two people close to the talks said.
Some countries asked Malaysia to put its request in writing, triggering a flurry of diplomatic notes and high-level contacts.
‘It became a game of poker in which Malaysia handed out the cards at the table but couldn’t force others to show their hand,“ a person from another country involved in the talks said.
As in the northern Indian Ocean, where Chinese forces operate alongside other nations to combat Somali piracy, current and former officials say all sides are almost certainly quietly spying on and monitoring each other at the same time. (emphasis added)
WantaChinaTimes, Taiwan reported,
The United States has taken advantage of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight to test the capabilities of China’s satellites and judge the threat of Chinese missiles against its aircraft carriers, reports our sister paper Want Daily.
Erich Shih, chief reporter at Chinese-language military news monthly Defense International, said the US has more and better satellites but has not taken part in the search for flight MH370, which disappeared about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the early hours of March 8 with 239 people on board. Shih claimed that the US held back because it wanted to see what information China’s satellites would provide.
The above is the reality which we have to confront. Therefore, desist any attempt to label the above mainstream media articles as a “conspiracy theory”. Reuters has let the Genie out of the bottle!
Malaysia’s Minister of Transport Datuk Seri Hishammuddin gave hints of Malaysia’s difficulties (as his hands were tied by intelligence protocols and or refusal by the relevant foreign intelligence services and diplomatic reluctance) but our local media failed to appreciate the nuances of his statements by not directing their questions at those parties that have failed Malaysia as their neighbour and in their duties under various defence treaties and arrangements.
Malaysian media, please read at the minimum three times, the sentences in bold AND WAKE UP TO THE REALITY that our country has been badly treated even though our country put all its national security cards on the table so that countries whose nationals are passengers on flight MH 370 could come forward with sincerity to assist in resolving this unfortunate tragedy which is not Malaysia’s making.
Malaysia is but a victim of this tragedy whose plane, MH 370 was used for a hidden agenda for which only time will reveal.
In my previous article posted to the website on the 27th March, 2014, I exposed how Israel is exploiting the tragedy to create public opinion for a war against Iran, a Muslim country that has close ties with Malaysia.
At the outset of the SAR Mission, all concerned stated categorically that every scenario, no matter how unlikely would be examined critically with no stones left unturned – terrorist hijacking, suicide mission, technical failures, inadequate security, criminal actions of the pilot and or co-pilot etc.
Given the above premise, families of the passengers and the crew of MH 370 have every right to ask the following questions of the US and other countries that have sophisticated technologies to track and monitor airplanes and ships in all circumstances.
Such questions should not be shot down by those who have a hidden agenda that such queries amount to “conspiracy theories”. Far from being conspiracy theories, we assert that the questions tabled below and the rationale for asking them are well founded and must be addressed by the relevant parties, failing which an inference ought to be drawn that they are complicit in the disappearance of MH 370.
Let us begin.
1) Was the plane ordered to turn back, if so who gave the order?
2) Was the plane turned back manually or by remote control?
3) If the latter, which country or countries have the technologies to execute such an operation?
4) Was MH 370 weaponised before its flight to Beijing?
5) If so, what are the likely methods for such a mission – Biological weapons, dirty bombs?
6) Was Beijing / China the target and if so why?
7) Qui Bono?
8) The time sequence of countries identifying the alleged MH 370 debris in the Indian ocean was first made by Australia followed by France, Thailand, Japan, and Britain via Immarsat. Why did US not offer any satellite intelligence till today?
9) Prior to the switch of focus to the Indian ocean, was the SAR mission in the South China seas, used as a cover for the deployment of undersea equipment to track and monitor naval capabilities of all the nations’ navies competing for ownership of disputed territorial waters? Reuters as quoted above seems to have suggested such an outcome.
10) Till to date why was there been no focus, especially by foreign mass media, on the intelligence and surveillance capabilities of Diego Garcia, the strategic naval and air base of the US?
11) Why no questions were asked whether the flight path of MH 370 (if as alleged crashed in the Indian Ocean), was within the geographical parameters of the Intelligence capabilities of Diego Garcia? Why no planes were deployed from Diego Garcia to intercept the “Unidentified” plane which obviously would pose a threat to the Diego Gracia military base?
12) The outdated capabilities of the Hexagon satellite system deployed by the US in the 1970s has a ground resolution of 0.6 meters; what’s more, the present and latest technologies which boast of the ability to identify objects much smaller in size. Why have such satellites not provided any images of the alleged debris in the Indian Ocean? Were they deliberately withheld?
13) On April 6th, 2012, the US launched a mission dubbed “NROL-25” (consisting of a spy satellite) from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The NROL-25 satellite was likely rigged with “synthetic aperture radar” a system capable of observing targets around the globe in daylight and darkness, able to penetrate clouds and identify underground structures such as military bunkers. Though the true capabilities of the satellites are not publicly known due to their top-secret classification, some analysts have claimed that the technology allows the authorities to zoom in on items as small as a human fist from hundreds of miles away. How is it that no imagery of MH370 debris was forwarded to Malaysia, as this capability is not classified though other technologies might well remain classified? (Source: Slate.com)
14) Could it be that the above capabilities were not as touted?
15) However, in December, 2013, the USAtlas V rocket was launched carrying the spy satellite NROL-39 for the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence agency which is often overshadowed by the notorious National Security Agency (NSA), only it scoops data via spy satellites in outer space. The “NROL-39 emblem” is represented by the Octopus a versatile, adaptive, and highly intelligent creature. Emblematically, enemies of the United States can be reached no matter where they choose to hide. The emblem boldly states “Nothing is beyond our reach”. This virtually means that the tentacles of America’s World Octopus are spreading across the globe to coil around everything within their grasp, which is, well, everything (Source: Voice of Moscow). Yet, the US with such capabilities remained silent. Why?
It cannot be said that it is not within the realm of probabilities that the US may not want the plane MH 370 to be recovered if rogue intelligence operators were responsible for the disappearance of MH 370.
If the above questions have been posed to the US and other intelligence agencies and answers are not forthcoming, I take the view that the Malaysian government ought to declare publicly that our national sovereignty and security have been jeopardized by the disappearance of MH 370 and that the relevant intelligence agencies have been tacitly complicit in the disappearance of MH370.
By coming out openly to explain the predicament faced by our country, Malaysia may prevent a hostile act against a third country.
I therefore call upon Malaysian mass media to be courageous and initiate such queries as only the US and other intelligence agencies can give definitive answers to the above 15 questions.
It is futile to demand answers from Malaysia as we are not in any position to supply the information as we do not have the capabilities of the global and regional military powers.
Malaysians must unite behind the government so that our leaders need not feel that they are alone shouldering this enormous burden.
Matthias Chang is a prominent Malaysian lawyer and author, who served as political secretary and adviser to former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.
Daily Mail.....
Hopes dashed in search for missing flight MH370 as three objects retrieved from Southern Indian Ocean by Chinese ship revealed to be floating rubbish
- Chinese military plane detected three floating objects in the Indian Ocean
- The sighting came around 1,150 miles off the coast of Perth
- One of China's navy vessel is scouring the area searching specifically for plane surfaces, oil slicks and life jackets
- Search area for flight MH370 has switched 700 miles north of original site
- Malaysian minister tells families of the missing passengers that 'miracles do happen' as he refused to give up all hope of finding survivors
- He said: 'As long as there is even a remote chance of a survivor, we will pray and do whatever it takes'
Three objects retrieved by a Chinese ship in the search for missing flight MH370 are pieces of floating rubbish, it has emerged.
The items were recovered from the Southern Indian Ocean as the operation to locate the Malaysia Airlines jet, which vanished on March 8, entered its fourth week.
Sources said two ships - on Australian and one Chinese - were able to pick up 'a number of objects' during today's search, CBS News reported.
But hopes were dashed when Chinese state media reported the items were nothing more than floating bits of waste.
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Ships searching for debris in the hunt for missing flight MH370 have retrieved some objects from the Southern Indian Ocean. The Australian authorities coordinating the operation said none have been confirmed to have come from the missing Boeing 777
Chinese aircraft spotted three new objects floating off the western coast of Australia, as they scoured the new search area today. The items were said to be red, orange and white - similar to the colours of a Malaysia Airlines jet. This picture shows a suspected item of debris highlighted
Chinese aircraft scouring a new search area in the Indian Ocean spotted three suspicious items, coloured red, white and orange, floating around 1,150 miles off the coast of Perth
Hopes that three objects retrieved from the sea by a Chinese ship could be a major breakthrough in the hunt for the missing plane, were today dashed as Chinese state media announced the items were pieces of rubbish
Defence Minister Hishamuddin Hussin spent time today visiting family members of those missing on board flight MH370
It has been reported that a Chinese ship was one of two to retrieve 'a number of objects' from the search area, though there has been no confirmation of whether they came from the missing plane
Crew members on board the Chinese ship Jinggangshan scours the target search area early today, in search of potential debris, spotted by aircraft
A boat and helicopter from the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration patrol ship (left) and crew on board a Chinese search ship hunt for a sign of the missing plane, which disappeared four weeks ago
Royal Australian Air Force pilot Flight Lieutenant Russell Adams speaks to the media after his AP-3C Orion returned from searching for debris or wreckage of the missing Flight MH370 in Perth. He reported they did not see or locate any wreckage searching in reasonably good weather with a vision of four or five kilometres
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority objects spotted by aircraft cannot be verified or discounted as being from Flight 370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships
The crew onboard a Royal Malaysian Air Force C-130 Hercules unload the aircraft after it landed at RAAF Base Pearce to to help with the search for debris or wreckage. Five search aircraft yesterday spotted possible debris in the new search area
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement: 'So far no objects confirmed to be related to MH370 have been recovered.'
It comes as Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he refuses to give up hope of finding some of the 239 passengers and crew alive.
He said his country is committed to seeing the investigation through to its final conclusion.
'I cannot give them (relatives) false hope,' he said. 'The best we can do is pray and be sensitive to them, that as long as there is even a remote chance of a survivor, we will pray and do whatever it takes.'
'What they (relatives) want from us is a commitment to continue the search, and that I have given, not only on behalf of the Malaysian government but the so many nations involved.
'For me as the minister responsible, this is the hardest part of my life, at the moment.
'Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is the hope that the families want me to convey not only to the Malaysian government, MAS, but also to the world at large.'
Earlier today a Chinese military plane hunting for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 spotted suspicious red, white and orange objects floating in the South Indian Ocean.
Australian officials coordinating the operation moved the search area 680 miles north east yesterday - it was shifted after new radar data analysis suggested the jet flew faster than originally thought and would have used up more fuel, which might have reduced the distance it travelled.
'Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is the hope that the families want me to convey not only to the Malaysian government, MAS, but also to the world at large'
- Malaysian minister Hishammuddin Hussein
The Chinese navy vessel Jinggangshan, which carries two helicopters, reached the new search area early today where it was expected to focus on searching for plane surfaces, oil slicks and life jackets.
A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 flying over the new site detected the floating items - which bear the colours of the missing plane - today around 1,150 miles west of Perth, the official Xinhua news agency said.
That sighting follows reports of 'multiple objects of various colours' by international flight crews yesterday, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).
Some looked like they were from fishing boats and nothing could be confirmed until they were recovered by ships, it added.
'We're hopeful to relocate some of the objects we were seeing yesterday,' Royal New Zealand Air Force Squadron Leader Flight Lieutenant Leon Fox said before flying out to the search zone on an Orion P-3.
'Hopefully some of the ships in the area will be able to start picking it up and give us an indication of what we were seeing.'
An Australian pilot returning from the search is said to have told reporters that objects spotted yesterday by Chinese crews have been marked with buoys to enable ships to locate them easily.
Debka weighs in.......
http://www.debka.com/article/23806/MH370-stays-missing-for-want-of-data-sharing-among-intelligence-searchers
All of a sudden Friday, March 28, the search for the Malaysian airliner still missing after three weeks, switched to a new site, 1,120 kilometers north of a part of the Indian Ocean where the day before 300 objects were hailed as “the most credible items yet.” The explanation for this sudden shift to a new area was that the Boeing 777 was traveling faster than previously estimated, had used up more fuel and had therefore flown a shorter distance into the Indian Ocean. The new information based on the analysis of radar data placed the new “credible search area” between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca.
So what about the “credible items” found earlier? All the various experts including radar specialists would say was that the new area was more convenient for the search. They regretted the waste of time and resources expended in shifts every few days from place to place.
After the plane went missing on March 8, satellites, planes and ships focused first on the Bay of Thailand, and then the Andaman Sea near India, before looping round to Central Asia and settling briefly on Kazakhstan. They then hared off to a broad patch of Indian Ocean between Australia and Antarctica.
Now they have moved north to a new search area of approximately 319,000 sq. km. which Australia’s investigation agency determines is “the most credible lead to where debris may be located.”
What keeps on driving the search in so many directions ?
1. The searchers are groping in the dark. They have still not turned up a single piece of information or material evidence as leads to the location of the Malaysian flight or the cause of its disappearance. Their only guides are speculation about which way the currents in any presumed crash site may have caused the wreckage to drift.
2. Last week, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, in an attempt to bring this tragic episode to some conclusion, cited data provided by the British Inmarsat’s new technology as evidence that the plane had ended its flight in the Indian Ocean and all 239 aboard were lost.
Radar experts explained that Immarsat picked up “pings” from debris sighted up to 2,000 miles in the sea distant from Perth after 17 days in the water.
Five days after this dramatic discovery, the searchers and the Malaysian authorities appear to have forgotten all about it and are chasing a new theory, that the plane traveled faster and its route was shorter than first estimated.
3. The governments involved in the search, the US, China, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, are using their resources not just to locate the missing Boeing, but for purposes of their own: a) Trials of their innovative intelligence and military technology; b) Checking out the satellite and electronic cyber resources of fellow-agencies engaged in the hunt and c) Discovering the outer limits of their colleagues’ intelligence capabilities and range in one of the most forbidding places on earth.
The lessons these powers are drawing from their own and their rivals’ performance are providing them with a study text on their comparative strengths and weaknesses in the event of potential sea, air or cyber conflicts.
It is worth noting in this regard that neither Russia nor France has volunteered to help Malaysia in the search. France’s contribution would be especially valuable in the light of its experience in the search for the Air France flight which crashed in the Atlantic in 2009 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Neither was prepared to expose its satellite and intelligence resources to the competition.
It is worth noting in this regard that neither Russia nor France has volunteered to help Malaysia in the search. France’s contribution would be especially valuable in the light of its experience in the search for the Air France flight which crashed in the Atlantic in 2009 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Neither was prepared to expose its satellite and intelligence resources to the competition.
The fourth week is likely to focus on scouring the sea bed for the black box of MH370. But if nothing substantial crops up yet again, the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner will have to go down as one of the unsolved mysteries of modern aviation.
The only chance of cracking it lies in all the governments taking part in the search setting aside their rivalries, pushing their experts and agents into one room and ordering them to come clean and piece together all the data they have collected. Perhaps then a true picture will finally emerge. But that is not about to happen.
Malaysia caught in additional lies , misstatements , spin and just BS ? One wonder why lie in the event of an accident ?
Malaysia Chronicle......
Saturday, 29 March 2014 17:16
M'SIA CAUGHT IN ANOTHER MH370 LIE? Inmarsat distances from PM Najib's 'ENDED' in Indian ocean theory
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British satellite telecom company Inmarsat said it only played a contributing role in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 investigation, despite the Malaysian government's announcement that a final conclusion was drawn from Inmarsat data.
Jonathan Sinnatt, a spokesperson for Inmarsat, said the Malaysian government may have drawn its own conclusions about MH370 having ended in the southern Indian Ocean based on Inmarsat data and other information.
"We provide our information to the Malaysians, and they combine that with all the other information which they have, which we wouldn't know about, and then they draw their conclusions from that and make their own announcements on that basis," Sinnatt said. -Chinadaily
Saturday, 29 March 2014 20:00
MH370: Who is lying, INTERPOL or the Malaysian government?
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The Malaysian government maintained that it did not consult INTERPOL’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database because it (SLTD) is “too large” and would overwhelm Malaysia’s database management which led to two Iranian nationals boarding the ill-fated Malaysian carrier Boeing 777 with fake and stolen passports, .
In short, INTERPOL has a facility that is inadequate. Hence the world is not secure from potential terrorists and illegals from easily entering nations with fake documents.
Mlaaysia cannot be blamed.
The Malaysian Home Minister has in effect, informed all law makers, all Malaysians and the eventually reaching the world at large – including INTERPOL, through the august House of the Malaysian Parliament, that here was a system that was, in other words, not practical and cumbersome. The Home Minster’s claim certainly smacks of a failed if not an unreliable and impractical system being provided by INTERPOL.
Hence Malaysia has taken an official stand why it has not and probably will not use INTERPOL’s SLTD and thus absolves itself of any blame for allowing would-be terrorists and illegal travels to depart from Malaysia on-board its national carrier to any destination in the world serviced by the airlines.
INTERPOL however has rejected Malaysia’s claim – outright.
In its official website posting, INTERPOL states, “Malaysia’s decision not to consult INTERPOL's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database before allowing travelers to enter the country or board planes cannot be defended by falsely blaming technology or INTERPOL. If there is any responsibility or blame for this failure, it rests solely with Malaysia's Immigration Department.
It further established that its database is consulted “230 million times per year; the UK more than 140 million times; the UAE more than 100 million times and Singapore more than 29 million times.”
“Not one of these countries, or indeed any INTERPOL member country, has ever stated that the response time is too slow,” it asserted, while revealing to the world that Malaysia “did not conduct a single check of passengers’ passports in 2014 prior to the tragic disappearance” of MH370.
Lazy Malaysia caught making excuses
Now, citizens around the world, the suffering families of those victims who may have perished on MH370, governments whose citizens are afflicted, lawyers representing the next-of-kin of the victim-passengers, nation leaders who are fighting hard to safeguard their lands from potential terrorism and Malaysians who are pledged to nation building and nation status need to know who is lying.
If INTERPOL is pulling wool over the global eyes then there must be a vehement outcry and unreserved condemnation.
Will the United States of America’s President, Barrack Obama, lead the way for redress? Let us not forget 9/11 which was turning point for the world.
Let us also recall the promise of the American President when in his Victory Speech of November 4, 2008, he declared, “And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world – our stories are singular but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.” (Newsweek Commemorative Issue, Obama’s American Dream, pp.80, 2008).
Will the French citizens too not want to save their dignity and honor?
Will not Malaysians throw their national weight of 30 million citizens, State and Rulers together to hold INTERPOL guilty as charged?
Likewise, if the Malaysian government has lied and blasphemed INTERPOL by tarnishing the latter’s services for an unreliable and impractical SLTD, then all Malaysians – leaders, citizens and Rulers, owe the world an accountable, immediate correction.
And that correction is to be spearheaded by none other than the premier of Malaysia, Najib Razak. He must without delays (which are unfortunately touted as his world renowned trademark), immediately sack the Home Minister Zahid.
Otherwise, the entire UMNO-BN led bandwagon of leaders must resign or be sacked by a nation of virtuous people for culpability. For the nation’s dignity and honor has been destroyed. The price must be paid to amend and resurrect the pride of nation status, King and citizens. - MAILAG
Saturday, 29 March 2014 17:59
SADLY, MOST OF THE SOURCES WERE ALLEGEDLY M'SIAN COPS: Media unfair to Zaharie, say neighbours
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SUBANG JAYA - The Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) failure to find incriminating evidence from the hard drives and flight simulator of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah proves that the allegations against the MH370 pilot were only ratings driven propaganda by the foreign media.
Zaharie's neighbour, Kamal Nizam Kamal Ibrahim, 29, said the investigation showed that Zaharie loved aviation and was not linked to any terrorist groups.
"They (the allegations) are all lies. I have known Zaharie and his family since young as our families were among the first ones to come and live here.
"He (Zaharie) had invited me over to his house many times to try the simulator. That simulator is just like a video game to him and he loves to share his hobby with everybody," he said.
Kamal said he was close to Zaharie's eldest son, Ahmad Idris, 30, but admitted that they rarely communicated since the jetliner went missing on March 8.
Another neighbour who refused to be identified lamented the way some media was portraying Zaharie.
"The reporting is unfair and the allegations are malicious and baseless.
"I knew him as a nice guy... he was definitely not someone capable of becoming a suicidal terrorist," he said.
Meanwhile, attempts to get reaction from Zaharie's youngest son, Ahmad Seth on the latest FBI findings were in vain as he was not at home.
It is understood that he no longer returns to his house after it was discovered by the media on Tuesday. -NST
Saturday, 29 March 2014 17:13
DESPITE EFFORTS TO TARNISH MH370 PILOT, FBI finds nothing sinister in his flight simulator
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KUALA LUMPUR - Scrutiny on the data of a self-built flight simulator belonging to MH370 pilot-in-command Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) showed no incriminating evidence related to the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER.
"There was nothing sinister found in the flight simulator, according to the FBI, but this needs to be confirmed by IGP (Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar). We have been working with the FBI on this case from day one," said acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein today at the Everly Hotel, Putrajaya after a meeting with the families of more than a dozen passengers of the ill-fated flight.
The flight simulator, seized by police just days after the MH370 went missing on March 8, was initially examined by investigators from Bukit Aman who cleared Zaharie of any suspicion when they found no data related to the case.
However, the investigators later found out that the flight simulator's data log of four different software versions had been erased on Feb 3. It was then handed over to the FBI for further investigations.
It is learnt that the results of the findings were reported to Bukit Aman two days ago. -Sundaily
Saturday, 29 March 2014 06:21
AFTER SEARCHING FOR DAYS IN WRONG PLACE, M'sian minister says "we would not have done it any other way"
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KUALA LUMPUR - Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein maintained his stance that Malaysia had taken an appropriate approach as coordinators of the search for missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200D flight MH370.
"We would not have done it in any other way or differently. Malaysia has been very consistent and transparent in its efforts to find the missing aircraft.
"Today, with emotions running high, the people's thoughts are clouded and that is understandable," he said when asked by a reporter if he would have done things differently following the scathing criticism Malaysia was facing on the decisions it had made in handling the search.
Hishammuddin said Malaysia was working closely with Beijing to ensure the search was fruitful.
"Families of the Chinese passengers must understand that there were also passengers from 14 other countries in the flight including Malaysians.
"It is painful for all of us and the other nations.Our high-level delegation in Beijing are keeping the families updated.
"What the families want is to see affirmative evidence, such as parts of the aircraft," he said.
Hishammuddin also said the Attorney - General Chambers has been tasked to study the legal implications of the MH370's disappearance.
MAS chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said psychological evaluations were regularly carried out not only on junior pilots prior to being hired but on every MAS pilots either once or twice annually by aviation doctors.
He also said that both pilots were rostered to fly together on March 8 and it was not unusual for pilots to fly with a fellow MAS flyer he had never met. -Sundaily
New Straits Times.......
29 March 2014| last updated at 03:59PM
MH370 Lost in Indian Ocean: New objects seen but none recovered
PERTH: No debris spotted in an area off the west coast of Australia has been recovered, a Malaysian minister involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said Saturday, adding he hoped for some news soon.
The first plane back from the search Saturday, a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76, spotted three floating objects, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said, a day after several planes and ships combing the newly targeted area closer to mainland Australia saw several other objects, including two rectangular items that were blue and gray.
Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters near Kuala Lumpur after meeting several families of passengers on the plane that there was no new information on the objects, which could just be regular debris, or could be from the missing plane.
“I’ve got to wait to get the reports on whether they have retrieved those objects. ... Those will give us some indication,” said Hishammuddin, who was accompanied by his wife and children as he visited the relatives at a hotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said that objects cannot be verified or discounted as being from Flight 370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships.
“It is not known how much flotsam, such as from fishing activities, is ordinarily there. At least one distinctive fishing object has been identified,” it said.
The three objects spotted by the Chinese plane Saturday were white, red and orange in color, the Xinhua news report said.
Flight 370 disappeared March 8 while bound from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and investigators have been puzzling over what might have happened aboard the plane, with speculation ranging from equipment failure and a botched hijacking to terrorism or an act by one of the pilots.
The latter was fueled by reports the pilot’s home flight simulator had files deleted from it, but Hishimmuddin said checks, including ones by the FBI, turned up no new information.
“What I know is that there is nothing sinister from the simulators but of course that will have to be confirmed by the chief of police,” he said.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said a cold front would bring rain, low clouds and reduced visibility over the southern part of the search area, with moderate winds and swells of up to 2 meters (6 feet).
Conditions will improve Sunday, although rain, drizzle and low clouds are still likely.
Newly analyzed satellite data shifted the search zone on Friday, raising hopes searchers may be closer to getting physical evidence that that the plane crashed in the Indian Ocean with 239 people aboard.
That would also help narrow the hunt for the wreckage and the plane’s black boxes, which could contain clues to what caused the plane — flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur — to be so far off-course.
The U.S. Navy has already sent equipment that can detect pings from the back boxes, and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Sydney that the equipment would be put on an Australian naval ship soon.
“It will be taken to the most prospective search area and if there is good reason to deploy it, it will be deployed,” he said, without giving a timeframe. Other officials have said it could take days for the ship — the Ocean Shield — to reach the search area.
The newly targeted zone is nearly 1,130 kilometers (700 miles) northeast of sites the searchers have crisscrossed for the past week.
The redeployment came after analysts determined that the Boeing 777 may have been traveling faster than earlier estimates and would therefore have run out of fuel sooner, officials said.
Search planes were sent out Saturday from Perth, Australia, in a staggered manner, so at least one plane will be over the area for most of the daylight hours.
It is also closer than the previous search area, with a flying time of 2 ½ hours each way, allowing for five hours of search time, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
The Australian statement said five P-3 Orions — three from Australia and one each from Japan and New Zealand — plus a Japanese coast guard jet, the Chinese Ilyushin IL-76, and one civilian jet acting as a communications relay, took part Saturday.
Abbott said the job of locating the debris was still difficult. “We should not underestimate the difficulty of this work — it is an extraordinarily remote location.”
The area spans about 123,000 square miles (319,000 square kilometers), roughly the size of Poland. In most places, depths range from about 6,560 feet (2,000 meters) to 13,120 feet (4,000 meters), although the much deeper Diamantina trench edges the search area.
The hunt for the plane focused first on the Gulf of Thailand, along the plane’s planned path. But when radar data showed it had veered sharply west, the search moved to the Andaman Sea, off the western coast of Malaysia, before pivoting to the southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia.
That change was based on analysis of satellite data. But officials said a reexamination and refinement of that analysis indicated the aircraft was traveling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel use and reducing the possible distance it could have flown before going down.
Just as a car loses gas efficiency when driving at high speeds, a plane will get less out of a tank of fuel when it flies faster.
Relatives and friends of the passengers said they were tortured by the uncertainty over the fate of their loved ones, as they wait for hard evidence that the plane had crashed.
“This is the trauma of maybe he’s dead, maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s still alive and we need to find him. Maybe he died within the first hour of the flight, and we don’t know,” Sarah Bajc, the American girlfriend of U.S. passenger Philip Wood, said in an interview in Beijing.
“I mean, there’s absolutely no way for me to reconcile that in my heart,” she said.
If investigators can determine the plane went down in the newly targeted zone, recovery of its flight data and cockpit voice recorders could be complicated.
While investigators appear to be focusing on an area where much of the sea floor is about 6,600 feet (2,000 meters) below the surface, depths may reach a maximum of about 19,700 feet (6,000 meters) at its easternmost edge, she said.--AP
29 March 2014| last updated at 10:57AM
MH370 Lost in Indian Ocean: U.S. NTSB studying streaming of 'black box' data
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WASHINGTON : The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Friday it was studying the possibility of live-streaming flight data recorders from airliners amid calls for such technology following the disappearance of a second airliner in five years.
Joe Kolly, director of research and engineering for the NTSB, declined to comment on the nearly three-week search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished on March 8 less than an hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the airliner has rekindled discussions about in-flight streaming of black box data that could help locate missing aircraft and let authorities launch accident investigations sooner.
Kolly said discussions about live-streaming black box data from airliners began heating up after it took nearly two years to recover the flight data and voice recorders from an Air France jet that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on a flight from Brazil to France in 2009.
He said NTSB officials, along with other national safety investigation bodies, groups like the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), equipment manufacturers and airlines were looking at possible requirements for a system that could stream a limited amount of flight data.
"You're looking for what is the most important information," he said. "If the airline industry goes to that in the future, what would be those requirements?"
Kolly said governments were also increasingly interested in the possibility of streaming flight data to ensure security.
"We have our staff involved in technical meetings and discussions and working groups on just what type of data you would need ... what are the rates at which those data need to be transmitted," Kolly said. "And also ... what is going to trigger the data download."
Kolly said aviation authorities are always looking at new technologies to help improve safety.
Among companies developing such new technology is Canadian FLYHT Aerospace Solutions, which builds a satellite- and Internet-based system used by 40 airlines, business jet operators and others to monitor aircraft systems, map flight paths, and provide voice, data and text services.
FLYHT's Automated Flight Information Reporting System can also stream black box data in emergencies, providing a possible model for the talks under way by aviation officials.
Kolly declined to comment on the FLYHT system. "There are technologies that can fill all sorts of gaps, and they are constantly being assessed," he said.
Richard Hayden, a company director with FLYHT, said there was growing interest in his company's technology, which grew out of a development project initiated by the Canadian government in 1998, largely because it can help airlines run their fleets more efficiently and save money on fuel.
He said the system had not caught on as well as expected given airlines' resistance to anything that increased costs. But he said it cost less than $100,000 to install a new system on an airplane, and a few dollars per flight hour to receive the data.
The system is in use on 350 aircraft today, including many that fly over remote areas such as Alaska, Canada, Africa, Afghanistan and Russia. FLYHT also recently won a deal to provide the system for a Chinese aircraft operator, Hayden said.
"This isn't expensive, and we don't have to build any infrastructure since we use the Iridim satellites," Hayden said, noting that FLYHT was also exploring opportunities to increase its work with military operators.
He said the company's system could not replace existing flight data or cockpit voice recorders since it was not built to survive a crash, but the system's ability to provide data in emergencies offered a big benefit for airlines.--Reuters
29 March 2014| last updated at 12:26PM
MH370 Lost in Indian Ocean: Searchers checking latest objects for link
PERTH, Australia: Objects spotted floating in a new search area for debris from the missing Malaysian jetliner need to be recovered and inspected before they can be linked to the plane, Australian officials said Saturday.
Planes from China and Australia were combing the newly targeted area off the west coast of Australia after several objects were spotted Friday, including two rectangular items that were blue and gray, and ships on the scene will attempt to recover them, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
“The objects cannot be verified or discounted as being from MH370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships,” the authority said in a statement. “It is not known how much flotsam, such as from fishing activities, is ordinarily there. At least one distinctive fishing object has been identified.”
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said a cold front would bring rain, low clouds and reduced visibility over the southern part of the search area, with moderate winds and swells of up to 2 meters (6 feet). Conditions will improve Sunday, although rain, drizzle and low clouds are still likely.
Newly analyzed satellite data shifted the search zone on Friday, raising hopes searchers may be closer to getting physical evidence that Flight 370 crashed in the Indian Ocean on March 8 with 239 people aboard.
The newly targeted zone is nearly 1,130 kilometers (700 miles) northeast of sites the searchers have crisscrossed for the past week.
The redeployment came after analysts determined that the jet may have been traveling faster than earlier estimates and would therefore have run out of fuel sooner, officials said.
During the earlier search, hundreds of objects have been seen in the water by satellites, but so far not a single one has been confirmed as being from the missing Boeing 777.
Search planes are being sent out from Perth, Australia, in a staggered manner, so at least one plane will be over the area for most of the daylight hours.
The Australian statement said five P-3 Orions — three from Australia and one each from Japan and New Zealand — plus a Japanese coast guard jet, a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76, and one civilian jet acting as a communications relay were taking part in the air search Saturday.
The shift to the new zone could be a break for searchers because it is a shorter flight from land and has much calmer weather than the remote stretch previously targeted.
But Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Sydney that the job of locating the debris was still difficult.
“We should not underestimate the difficulty of this work — it is an extraordinarily remote location. There are inhospitable seas, it’s an inaccessible place, we are trying to find small bits of wreckage in a vast ocean,” he said.
The new search area is about 80 percent smaller than the old one, but still spans about 123,000 square miles (319,000 square kilometers), roughly the size of Poland.
In most places, depths range from about 6,560 feet (2,000 meters) to 13,120 feet (4,000 meters), although the much deeper Diamantina trench edges the search area.
Flight 370 disappeared March 8 while bound from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The hunt focused first on the Gulf of Thailand, along the plane’s planned path.
But when radar data showed it had veered sharply west, the search moved to the Andaman Sea, off the western coast of Malaysia, before pivoting to the southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia.
That change was based on analysis of satellite data. But officials said a reexamination and refinement of that analysis indicated the aircraft was traveling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel use and reducing the possible distance it could have flown before going down.
Just as a car loses gas efficiency when driving at high speeds, a plane will get less out of a tank of fuel when it flies faster.
Malaysia’s civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said personnel at Boeing Co. in Seattle had helped with the analysis.
“This is our best estimate of the area in which the aircraft is likely to have crashed into the ocean,” Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said at a news conference in Canberra.
He said a wide range of scenarios went into the calculation.
“We’re looking at the data from the so-called pinging of the satellite, the polling of the satellites, and that gives a distance from a satellite to the aircraft to within a reasonable approximation,” he said.
He said that information was coupled with various projections of aircraft performance and the plane’s distance from the satellites at given times.
In Beijing, some relatives of the 153 Chinese passengers on the plane said the shift in the search area added to their confusion and frustration.
“What on earth is the Malaysian government doing?” said Wang Chunjiang, whose brother was a passenger. “Is there anything more that they are hiding from us?”
Investigators continued puzzling over what might have happened aboard the plane. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak amid an ongoing investigation, said the FBI’s searches of computer hard drives belonging to pilot and co-pilot, including a flight simulator with deleted files, have yielded “no significant information” about what happened to the plane or what role, if any, the crew might have played in its disappearance.
If investigators can determine the plane went down in the newly targeted zone, recovery of its flight data and cockpit voice recorders could be complicated.
“There are a number of ridges, escarpments and fracture zones that run through this area, so it’s a fairly complex area,” said Rochelle Wigley, director of the Indian Ocean Mapping Project at the University of New Hampshire. Wigley said determining the ocean floor topography within the search zone depends on its exact coordinates.
While investigators appear to be focusing on an area where much of the sea floor is about 6,600 feet (2,000 meters) below the surface, depths may reach a maximum of about 19,700 feet (6,000 meters) at its easternmost edge, she said.
The U.S. Navy is sending equipment that can detect pings from the recorders, or “black boxes,” up to about 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) deep, and an unmanned underwater vehicle that operates at depths up to 14,800 feet (4,500 meters).
Joseph Kolly, director of research and engineering at the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said the flight data recorders have to be able withstand depths of up to 6,100 meters (20,000 feet).
The new search zone’s location 700 kilometers (435 miles) closer to the Australian mainland makes it easier to reach. Planes used so much fuel getting to and from the previous zone that they were limited to only about two hours of search time.--AP
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