Malaysia Flight 370 Mystery June 20 - 21 , 2014 -----SYDNEY - The drawn-out search for missing Malaysian Flight MH370 will revert to an area hundreds of kilometres south of the previously suspected crash site following new analysis of the plane's flight path, a report said Friday........ A group of independent experts -- who prodded authorities to release satellite data on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 -- says it thinks it knows the approximate location of the missing aircraft........ Inmarsat denies holding key data on MH370 crash site ahead of BBC documentary

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=305971:search-for-mh370-to-shift-hundreds-of-kilometres-south&Itemid=2#axzz35EMGaMff

Friday, 20 June 2014 17:20

Search for MH370 to shift HUNDREDS OF KILOMETRES south

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SYDNEY - The drawn-out search for missing Malaysian Flight MH370 will revert to an area hundreds of kilometres south of the previously suspected crash site following new analysis of the plane's flight path, a report said Friday.

Investigators grappling to solve the mystery of the jet's disappearance are set to scour a zone 1,800 kilometres (1,116 miles) west of Perth - previously subject to an aerial search - when an underwater probe resumes in August, the West Australian said.

Citing unnamed US sources, the newspaper said Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) would soon announce the hunt will move 800 kilometres southwest from where it was previously focused.

It said these sources had revealed that survey ship Fugro Equator was already operating in this area and would soon be joined by Chinese vessel Zhu Kezhen.

A massive aerial and underwater search for MH370, which had 239 people onboard when it diverted from its Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight path on March 8, has failed to find any sign of the plane.

Scientists from British company Inmarsat told the BBC earlier this week that the search had yet to target the most likely crash site, or "hotspot", after becoming diverted by pings thought at the time to have originated from the plane's black boxes.

It was not clear from the West Australian report whether the new search area overlaps with the "hotspot".

JACC said Friday that the revised search zone, based on an intensive study of satellite communications from the jet and other data, would be announced by the end of the month.

Australian officials have said repeatedly that the revised search zone will be in the area of the seventh arc, or the final satellite "handshake" from the plane. It is believed to be when the aircraft ran out of fuel and was in descent.

JACC said the Fugro Equator was now working in this zone.

"Located along the seventh arc, that area is consistent with provisional analysis of satellite and other data that is being used to determine the future search area," it said.

Australian officials announced earlier this week that a survey of the sea bed, as yet mostly unmapped and crucial to the success of the underwater search, had resumed.

Two ships - Fugro Equator and Zhu Kezhen - will survey an area up to 6,000 metres deep and covering up to 60,000 square kilometres before an a contractor begins an intensive undersea probe looking for debris.

Previously an intensive undersea search for the plane, in the area in which the acoustic noises were detected, failed to find any sign of the jet. The source of the noises is unknown. -Asiaone

Leap of fail or another epic fail ? 

Thursday, 19 June 2014 07:00

Outside group tells bungling M'sian govt WHERE to search for Flight 370

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The doubters have spoken.

A group of independent experts -- who prodded authorities to release satellite data on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 -- says it thinks it knows the approximate location of the missing aircraft.

Five separate computer models all place the plane in a tight cluster of spots in the south Indian Ocean — hundreds of miles southwest of the previous search site.

"We recommend that the search for MH370 be focused in this area," the group said in a statement late Tuesday.

"While there remain a number of uncertainties and some disagreements as to the interpretation of aspects of the data, our best estimates of a location of the aircraft (is) near 36.02 South 88.57 East," according to the statement, which was approved by 10 named experts.

The group opted to release its statement late Tuesday in advance of a BBC documentary on the missing plane, and ahead of the Australian government's announcement on the focus of the search, so that there would be no question about the independence of the group's findings, said one member of the group, American Mobile Satellite Corp. co-founder Mike Exner.

"We wanted to get our best estimate out," Exner said.

The group believes that after the Boeing 777 circumnavigated Indonesia, for reasons that are still unknown, the plane traveled south at an average speed of 470 knots, probably at a consistent altitude and constant heading, Exner said. All five computer models developed by the experts place the aircraft in a "pretty tight cluster...plus or minus 50 miles of each other," he said.

The plane and its 239 occupants vanished March 8 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

In a blog post, group member Tim Farrar called the recommended search site "our best estimate -- but not the only possible -- location for a potential search."

Meanwhile, a team of government experts and Inmarsat employees is re-evaluating the data before pinpointing where to resume the search. On Wednesday the agency overseeing the search said the analysis was "nearly complete" and it expects to announce the new search site by the end of June.

Australian government authorities only recently acknowledged that acoustic pings heard two months ago are now believed to be unrelated to the aircraft's data recorders, or "black boxes."

The ad hoc group of independent specialists came together through web sites of two experts, Duncan Steel of Wellington, New Zealand, and Tim Farrar of Menlo Park, California. Several members of the group initially cast doubts on Inmarsat's conclusions that the plane had flown south, saying the publicly available information from Malaysia and Inmarsat was insufficient to draw that conclusion. The plane could have flown north, landing or crashing along an arc extending from Thailand to Eastern Europe.

But shortly after Malaysia released raw satellite data on May 27, several of the loose confederation of scientists agreed it provided sufficient data to show the plane had flown south.

The "breakthrough piece of information," Exner said, was that the satellite terminal on the aircraft had been programmed to use a simplified assumption about the location of the satellite. The terminal assumed that the satellite was geostationary -- fixed over a spot on the equator -- when, in fact, it drifted to the north and south.

Over the past few weeks, the group continued to exchange information through emails and through postings on the web sites. The group worked five or six hours Tuesday exchanging some 120 emails in drafting the statement on the possible location of MH370.

Exner said he believes authorities were narrowing in on the correct search site, but were thrown off course when searchers detected acoustic pings northwest of Australia.

"It's my personal opinion that the official search team weighed too heavily" on the acoustic pings, he said.

Exner said the informal group of experts has volunteered to work with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. But, while the government agencies have been polite, they have been reticent to release additional information that could further help the independent group, he said. -CNN

Published: Saturday June 21, 2014 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Saturday June 21, 2014 MYT 7:03:11 AM

New search zone for missing MH370

Hishammuddin: 'The search remains in the southern corridor.

   

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SEPANG: The new search zone for the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 is expected to be announced within the next two weeks, said Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.

The Defence Minister said this followed new analysis of the plane’s flight path.

“We can expect it to be announced in one or two weeks’ time.

“Once the new search zone is confirmed, we will deploy our assets to assist in the search,” he told newsmen after attending a briefing on the preparation for the official opening of KLIA2 here yesterday.

The assets are the Prosas deep-tow synthetic sonar system and Remora remotely operated vehicle – the cost would be borne by Petronas and DRB-Hicom Defence Technologies Sdn Bhd (Deftech) – and multi-beam echo sounder and sub bottom profiler provided by SapuraKencana.

Hishammuddin, who is the Acting Transport Minister, said that the bathymetric (ocean floor) survey was still being carried out by Dutch survey ship Fugro Equator and would soon be joined by Chinese vessel Zhu Kezhen.

“The search remains in the southern corridor because all leads that we have pointed to that area.

“We have to continue with the lead because the best lead we have is based on the handshake on the Inmarsat (satellite data) and still in the southern corridor,” he said.

On KLIA2, Hishammuddin said he was satisfied that the low-cost carrier terminal had been well-received by the public and airline companies since its opening on May 2.

“However, I have instructed the authorities to monitor the runway, taxiway and apron for sinking soil,” he said.

KLIA2 will be officially opened on Tuesday by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Odds and ends......

NEW $5 MILLION DOLLAR FUNDRAISER TO FIND FLIGHT 370

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 20 JUN 2014   POSTED BY HP EDITOR

 

Months have pass since the mysterious Malaysian plane disappeared. Families and friends who have missing loved ones on Flight 370 are extremely frustrated by the lack of answers they are searching for.

Ethan Hunt, an Australian man and coordinator of a $5 million dollar fundraising goal, will go forth with the project he calls, “The Whistleblower Fund,” through a fundraising site called Indiegogo, which will begin on June 15, 2014. Hunt believes that with this much incentive, someone is bound to come forward with information leading up to the exact location of the plane.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/73798000/jpg/_73798631_021655853-1.jpg
June 12, 2014

The campaign members, which is being guided by 5 of the relatives, believe that the missing plane could be linked to either terrorist networks or the Secret Service. Even though the government has said they’ve done all they could do in order to find the airliner, they certainly have failed at providing beneficial evidence.

Danica Weeks, wife of Paul Weeks, a missing passenger from the jetliner, said, “ We’ve been cut off so many times at the gates that we’re just now having to take things into our own hands, think outside the box and just try and do something to find this plane.” Families refuse to give up hope in search of the 242 ft. plane that disappeared in route from Beijing to Kuala Lumpar. Hunt stated, “This unpredicted mystery is unprecedented in the history of aviation, and we need to work together collectively with one goal of finding the truth, the plane and the passengers.”

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1534548/search-missing-flight-mh370-yet-target-most-likely-crash-site-says-british

Inmarsat denies holding key data on MH370 crash site ahead of BBC documentary

Inmarsat distances itself from a BBC documentary due to air on Tuesday night, suggesting the most likely crash site has yet to be searched.

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Data communication logs from Inmarsat on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The search for the flight is yet to target the most likely crash site, Immarsat said. Photo: AFP

Inmarsat, a key figure in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, has distanced itself from a BBC documentary due to air on Tuesday night, suggesting the most likely crash site has yet to be searched.

“The suggestion was the BBC was promoting the final resting place of the aircraft, but it doesn’t appear to me in the trailer that they do mention that – but maybe they do in the programme,” said Chris McLaughlin, the company’s senior vice president of external affairs.

“If they do mention a point, it’s fairly difficult to do so because it’s not really supported by the data.”

Inmarsat’s scientists told the BBC’s Horizon programme that they had calculated the plane’s most likely flight path and a “hot spot” in the southern Indian Ocean in which it most likely came down.

However, McLoughlin refuted the latest potential development as a significant development since the aircraft vanished more than 100 days ago.

“We have such limited data in relation to the loss of the plane, that we can only indicate the search area. We can’t indicate a signal point to look,” he said, referring to a “hot spot” widely trailered on the BBC programme.

Inmarsat’s scientists told the BBC’s Horizon programme that they had calculated the plane’s most likely flight path and a “hot spot” in the southern Indian Ocean in which it most likely came down.

The flight lost contact on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with total of 239 passengers and crew on board.

Hourly pings sent by the plane were received by Inmarsat’s spacecraft, leading scientists to calculate its likely path.

A young relative sticks paper planes on a board during an event remembering the 100th day of the missing crews and passengers. Photo: EPA

Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield was dispatched to investigate, but before reaching the likely site, began to detect a signal that it believed was coming from the plane’s black box, Inmarsat told the BBC programme.

Two months were spent searching 850 sq km of sea bed north west of Perth, but the source of the “pings” was not found and a submersible robot found no evidence of the airliner.

“It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the north east than our area of highest probability,” Chris Ashton at Inmarsat toldHorizon.

Experts from the satellite firm modelled the most likely flight path using the hourly pings and assuming a speed and heading consistent with the plane being flown by autopilot.

“We can identify a path that matches exactly with all those frequency measurements and with the timing measurements and lands on the final arc at a particular location, which then gives us a sort of a hotspot area on the final arc where we believe the most likely area is,” explained Ashton.

Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), established to manage the search, said the four acoustic “pings” picked up by the black box detector attached to Ocean Shield had to be pursued at the time.

The four signals taken together constituted the most promising lead in the search for MH370 and it was a lead that needed to be pursued until completion so the search team could either discount or confirm the area as the final resting place of MH370,” JACC said in a statement.

Australian officials agree that a linear arc produced using the satellite messages, or “handshakes”, leading to the southern Indian Ocean likely represents the plane’s flight path.

But the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said experts were still working to define the area to be scoured in the next phase of the search, which will plunge ocean depths of up to 6,000 feet.

"The search strategy group is continuing its analysis of satellite and aircraft performance data, along with a range of other information, to determine the area that offers the highest probability of finding the aircraft," a spokesman said.

“This is highly complex work that requires significant collaborative effort with international specialists. The revised search zone is expected to be available in the coming weeks."

After coming under criticism from relatives over the futile search, Malaysia’s civil aviation authority and Inmarsat last month decided to release the raw data.

However, its complexity has led to few independent conclusions being drawn about the likely crash site.

Malaysian Selamat Umar, whose son Mohamad Khairul Amri was on the ill-fated jetliner, questioned the motives behind the data release.

“I am not convinced at all by the data,” he said. Why are they releasing it now? Before when we asked for it, they did not want to release it. What can we do with it now?

“I think they could have made some changes to the data,” Selamat, 60, added.