http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=309802:mystery-deepens-who-turned-on-mh370s-autopilot?&Itemid=2#axzz35nLqFLFk
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Star Online.....
Friday, 27 June 2014 06:41
Map of new search area - h/t WSJ ....
Malaysia Chronicle.....
MYSTERY DEEPENS: Who turned on MH370's autopilot?
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INVESTIGATORS believe someone in the cockpit of MH370 turned on the plane’s autopilot before it disappeared, as Australian search chiefs announced a new phase in the hunt for the missing airliner.
Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said it was “highly, highly likely” the missing Malaysian Airlines flight was on autopilot when it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean on March 8, becoming the “greatest aviation mystery in global history”.
The revelation that autopilot was activated raises further suspicion the plane’s disappearance was a mass atrocity committed by either the captain or copilot of the plane.
And investigators had yet another revelation, telling reporters it is believed the missing jet likely plunged into the ocean further south than the current search area.
Still no answers ... no flight debris or crash site has been located despite an international search effort for MH370.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, left, in a still from a YouTube tribute. Source: YouTube
Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss announces a new stage in the search. Picture: Gary Ramage Source: News Corp Australia
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan explained that MH370’s “highest probability flight path” was a straight course such as one flown by an aircraft on autopilot.
Mr Dolan said there were several possible scenarios but the “basic assumption” was that autopilot had to be switched on.
“It’s generally expected that if the autopilot is operational that’s a result of it being made operational,” he said.
The theory is consistent with reports that an official police investigation into the mystery identified the captain as the prime suspect if it is proven human intervention was involved.
Captain Shah being frisked while walking through security at Kuala Lumpar International Airport. Picture: Supplied Source: YouTube
New focus ... it is expected the underwater search will start in August and take up to 12 months. Source: News Corp Australia
Reports this month said Captain Zaharie Shah had become the focus of the special investigation in Malaysia after all other passengers were cleared of any suspicious motives.
Authorities have not been able to assess the exact point at which autopilot was turned on, but believe the Boeing 777 was operating on autopilot from the 1st arc — shortly after MH370 turned south past the tip of Sumatra — to the 7th arc in the southern Indian Ocean.
This came as Mr Truss announced the hunt for MH370 would return to the original search area, but would this time scour underwater.
An expert satellite working group has reviewed all existing information in order to define a search zone of up to 60,000 square kilometres along the arc in the southern Indian Ocean.
“The new priority area is still focused on the seventh arc where the aircraft last communicated with satellites,” Mr Truss said.
“We are now shifting our attention to an area further south along the arc based on these calculations.”
The new area is around 1,800 kilometres west of Perth and had previously been subject to an aerial search, which found no debris.
Until now, the most intensive search had been with a mini-submarine in an area further north, where pings believed to be from the plane’s black box were detected.
One of the relatives of a Chinese passenger on-board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, burns incense as she prays for her loved one. Picture: AP Source: AP
The area has now been ruled out as the final resting place of MH370. The source of the noises is unknown.
Flight MH370 went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.
The Boeing 777, carrying 239 people, is believed to have veered far off course and crashed into the southern Indian Ocean but an extensive search in a remote stretch of ocean off Western Australia has found no trace.
A bathymetric survey — or mapping of the ocean floor — continues and will be followed by a comprehensive search of the sea floor from August, which could take up to 12 months.
Meanwhile Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has replaced Hishammuddin Hussein as transport minister.
Hishammuddin led the nation’s search effort which was plagued by misinformation, false leads and expensive mistakes.
Mr Razak said in a widely-expected announcement that Liow Tiong Lai, a former health minister and president of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), would helm the transport ministry.
Hishammuddin, who is also defence minister, provisionally held the transport portfolio after the post was left vacant following elections a year ago.
Angry relatives of those aboard have accused Malaysia’s national carrier and the government of doing too little and of hiding information. -News.com.au
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Thursday, 26 June 2014 16:11
MH370 was on AUTOPILOT when it crashed - Aussie officials: WERE PASSENGERS, CREW CONSCIOUS?
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SYDNEY - Investigators looking into the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane are confident the jet was on autopilot when it crashed in a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean, Australian officials said Thursday as they announced the latest shift in the search for the doomed airliner.
After analyzing data between the plane and a satellite, officials believe Flight 370 was on autopilot the entire time it was flying across a vast expanse of the southern Indian Ocean, based on the straight path it took, Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan said.
“Certainly for its path across the Indian Ocean, we are confident that the aircraft was operating on autopilot until it ran out of fuel,” Dolan told reporters in Canberra, the nation’s capital.
Asked whether the autopilot would have to be manually switched on, or whether it could have been activated automatically under a default setting, Dolan replied: “The basic assumption would be that if the autopilot is operational it’s because it’s been switched on.”
But exactly why the autopilot would have been set on a flight path so far off-course from the jet’s destination of Beijing, and exactly when it was switched on remains unknown.
“We couldn’t accurately, nor have we attempted to, fix the moment when it was put on autopilot,” Transport Minister Warren Truss said. “It will be a matter for the Malaysian-based investigation to look at precisely when it may have been put on autopilot.”
The latest nugget of information from the investigation into Flight 370 came as officials announced yet another change in the search area for the wreckage of the plane that vanished on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers and crew on board.
The new search area is located several hundred kilometers (miles) southwest of the most recent suspected crash site, about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) off Australia’s west coast, Dolan said. Powerful sonar equipment will scour the seabed for wreckage in the new search zone, which officials calculated by reanalyzing the existing satellite data.
The shift was expected, with Dolan saying last week the new zone would be south of an area where a remote-controlled underwater drone spent weeks fruitlessly combing 850 square kilometers (330 square miles) of seabed. That search area was determined by a series of underwater sounds initially thought to have come from the plane’s black boxes. But those signals are now widely believed to have come from some other source.
The new 60,000 square kilometer (23,000 square mile) search area falls within a vast expanse of ocean that air crews have already scoured for floating debris, to no avail. Officials have since called off the air search, since any debris would likely have sunk long ago.
The hunt is now focused underwater. Beginning in August, private contractors will use powerful side-scan sonar equipment capable of probing ocean depths of 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) to comb the ocean floor in the new search zone. The job is expected to take 12 months to complete.
Meanwhile, two survey ships are mapping uncharted expanses of seabed in the search zone before the sonar scanning starts. Dolan said it was possible the mapping equipment could detect wreckage that may be lying on the seafloor, but that it was highly unlikely.
The search area has changed multiple times in the months since Flight 370 vanished, as officials struggled to make sense of the limited data the flight left in its wake after it dropped off radar. The new search zone was largely identified by an analysis of hourly transmissions, or “handshakes,” between the plane and a satellite.
Truss said he was optimistic that the latest search zone is, indeed, the most likely crash site. But he warned that finding the plane remains a huge task.
“The search will still be painstaking,” he said. “Of course, we could be fortunate and find it in the first hour or the first day — but it could take another 12 months.” -http://time.com
Tuesday, 24 June 2014 06:04
MH370: Govt yet to identify actual location - Hisham
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KUALA LUMPUR - The Malaysian Government is still discussing with the Australian and Chinese authorities to identify a new location in the Indian Ocean to locate the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 aircraft which vanished on March 8.
Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said the discussion also involved a new phase and the use of suitable assets for the operation to locate the aircraft.
“That is very important in this new phase because without knowing or deciding where this area is going to be, it’s very difficult for us to understand what sort of equipment is needed, which have specific capabilities, for the search mission,” he said.
He said this to reporters after opening the 2014 annual convention of the Armed Forces Religious Corp and launching a book here today.
Flight MH370, with 227 passengers and 12 crews which was on its way to Beijing, China went off the radar on March 8, an hour after departing from the KL International Airport at 12.41am.
On March 24, 17 days after the Boeing 777-200ER went missing, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean. Hishammuddin once again urged all quarters against speculating on a report which alleged that aircraft pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was the prime suspect behind the disappearance of MH370.
“Don’t listen to speculation, basically it’s not fair to the pilot’s family. It’s about family and he has children and this time, if you’re wrong, how you’re going to repair the damage,” he said.
Recently, the Sunday Times, United Kingdom reported that the Royal Malaysian Police now regarded Zaharie as the major suspect in the disappearance of Flight MH370.
– BERNAMA
Monday, 23 June 2014 06:40
BUT WHO IS THE SOURCE & WHY ARE THE LEAKS MADE! Family, friends of MH370 pilot furious at 'prime suspect' report
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The family and friends of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370's pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah have reacted angrily to the latest The Sunday Times report that named him as the prime suspect in the plane’s disappearance.
They have also rubbished the accusations levelled at Captain Zaharie in the report, describing it as irresponsible reporting as it did not name its sources.
“It merely mentioned special branch police. Give us names. Who is the person who said all this? Malaysian police also have to come up with a statement on this matter,” said Dr Mohd Ghouse Mohd Noor, a friend of Captain Zaharie’s family.
“We are not defending Captain Zaharie blindly but every statement should be backed up by substantial evidence and proof or else it would end up being just another speculation,” he said.
Ghouse said the captain’s family was upset after reading the news report earlier today.
The report in The Sunday Times in UK said that mechanical failure or terrorism has not been ruled out, but the police believed that if it was the result of human action, the captain was the most likely perpetrator.
The report, which was also carried in The Australian, said Malaysia's special branch had focused the inquiry on Captain Zaharie after intelligence checks failed to substantiate any suspicions about the other people on board the jet.
Deriding the report as “an example of gutter journalism", Ghouse said: “I read it carefully. The reporting was very vague. It said Captain Zaharie is a prime suspect if it was the result of human action.
“They do not even know what happened to the plane. Find the black box, find the plane first and put everything on the table before coming out to blame Captain Zaharie,” he said.
He also said there was a vacuum in such reporting which opened the door to speculation and allegations.
“An article like this will be carried by other news entities like Daily Mail and Mirror.
“Whatever was in today’s article is only a repeat of the previous allegations which have been denied by police,” said Ghouse.
Captain Zaharie had come under scrutiny in the early days after the plane's disappearance following the discovery of a flight simulator in his home with drills rehearsing a flight far out into the southern Indian Ocean and a landing on an island with a short runway.
These drills had been deleted from the simulator but experts had managed to retrieve them.
The pilot had made no secret of his unusual hobby, creating aviation videos that were posted on the Internet.
The report, however, said the criminal inquiry relied on circumstantial evidence and does not solve the riddle of MH370.
The report said the initial results of the inquiry have not been published but have been shared with foreign governments and investigators. They were disclosed by people in the aviation industry and government officials in Southeast Asia.
The report quoted a spokesman for the Malaysian police as saying: “The police investigation is still ongoing. To date no conclusions can be made as to the contributor to the incident and it would be sub judice to say so. Nevertheless, the police are still looking into all possible angles.”
MH370 carrying 239 passengers and crew disappeared from the radar on March 8 after it had left Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.
A mammoth international search operation has so far failed to find any trace of the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft. –TMI
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