WebProNews

Tag: Malaysia 370

  • Malaysia Plane: The Saga Continues

    Malaysia Plane: The Saga Continues

    It has been a grueling three weeks for the families, the search teams, and the others involved in this unprecedented aviation disaster with the vanishing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

    Malaysian authorities say the plane went down in the southern Indian Ocean. Search efforts are concentrated in an area far off Australia’s west coast. The first search area started in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, approximately 1,500 miles southwest of Perth, AU.

    However, after a more detailed and calculated search, the first suspected area has changed. The new area is to the north by nearly 700 miles. Search teams have found quite a few new objects, but whether the debris is connected to the to the Boeing 777 is still undetermined.

    The change in the search area is based on radar and satellite data, and further mathematical calculations indicating that investigators believe the plane was traveling faster than initially thought in the early part of its flight. Because of that, it burned through more fuel than first believed, hence the 700 miles north of the ‘previously assumed’ crash site.

    Meaning that authorities have concluded that it could not have traveled as far south as they once thought.

    Early Friday, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that as a result of ocean drift, the new search area “could still be consistent” with various objects spotted earlier by satellites. The objects that were initially spotted came from satellite data by China, France, the U.S., and later Imnarsat.

    However, Australia has a different view of the search area:

    “In regards to the old areas, we have not seen any debris,” said John Young, general manager of emergency response for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

    “And I would not wish to classify any of the satellite imagery as debris, nor would I want to classify any of the few visual sightings that we made as debris. That’s just not justifiable from what we have seen.”

    But in contrast to the first search area, which could only be flown over a couple of hours each trip due to the 4 hour flight to the area, Australian officials say the new search area is closer to land and in a gentler region of ocean, making for longer, safer and more consistent searches.

    But it’s still a huge area at 123,000 square miles and will take some time to search.

    “We’re kind of starting from square one with a whole new search and a whole new set of premises,” CNN aviation analyst Jeff Wise said Friday.

    Family members are in agony as they wait for answers, many displaying emotional outbursts picked up by cameras.

    “My heart can’t handle it. I don’t want to hurt my children,” Cheng Li Ping told CNN as she waited in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for evidence about what happened to her husband.

    Although as of Saturday, debris spotted in the new area should be retrieved in the very near future, but nothing is concrete as to where Malaysian Flight 370 is, or where it ended up.

    Image via YouTube

  • Black Box Data: Lost MH370 Fuels Live-Streaming Talk

    With the fate of Malaysia flight MH370 still uncertain three weeks after the plane’s disappearance, a debate has reignited over the possibility of live streaming a plane’s flight data and voice recorders — known as the “black box” — during all flights.

    Currently, air accident investigators have to wait for the recovery of the black box before they can reliably analyze what has happened to a plane during an accident.

    Proponents of flight data-streaming suggest it is the only way to prevent a plane from becoming lost during flight. This is the second flight to disappear in five years — it took nearly two years to recover the black box of an Air France flight that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean during its 2009 flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

    Time is ticking for the possibility of ever finding out what happened to MH370 — the black box will stop emitting a signal after 30 days.

    Oliver McGee, a former scientific adviser to former President Bill Clinton, is an avid proponent of storing crucial data in the cloud.

    Joe Kolly, the director of research and engineering at the National Transportation Safety Board, said discussions have begun on how to prevent crucial flight information from being lost.

    “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?” he said.

    “We have our staff involved in technical meetings and discussions and working groups on just what type of data you would need.”

    Kolly said governments are becoming more interested in the possibility of streaming flight data for security reasons, but says there are many questions to consider.

    “What are the rates at which those data need to be transmitted?” Kolly said. “And also … what is going to trigger the data download?”

    This could very well become an important topic of conversation in June at an annual summit of the International Air Transport Association — comprised of the heads of the world’s major airlines — at Doha, Qatar.

    Image via YouTube

  • Flight 370: Is New Debris Found Best Lead Yet?

    Wednesday, Malaysia’s defense minister announced that Europe’s main commercial satellite company, Airbus Defense and Space, had forwarded images depicting more than 122 objects floating in Indian Ocean near the suspected area Malaysian Flight 370 went down.

    Although the debris could be trash, and unrelated to the aircraft, Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said, “this is still the most credible lead that we have.”

    According to calculations, the pieces of debris are up to 75 feet in length, and are visible through gaps in clouds over an area of 154 square miles, he said. Some of the objects are bright, he noted without elaboration. However, they could be aircraft related because metal objects might be reflective.

    Hishammuddin said he wasn’t sure if Australian authorities coordinating the search for the plane Wednesday had been able to follow up on the new satellite images yet.

    The search did resume on Wednesday after a weather delay, but even after 12 planes searched the area, nothing was found, Australian officials said.

    ‘Eventually something will come to light,’ Hishammuddin said.

    A search plane did spot three objects, but none were obvious plane parts, the Australian Maritime Safety Agency said.

    “The latest images appear to be the most significant discovery yet in the hunt for the missing plane,” which vanished March 8 with 239 people aboard, said CNN aviation analyst Miles O’Brien.

    “There’s a very good chance this could be the break we’ve been waiting for,” he said.

    David Soucie, also an aviation analyst agreed, adding that he was ‘intrigued’ by the size of the 75-foot object.

    “It has potential to be a wing that’s floating,” he said. “So I’m really encouraged by it, I really am.”

    Officials have warned that objects spotted in the water may turn out to be debris from cargo ships, and not from the plane. Finding pieces of the plane, or anything from the aircraft, could still take a long time.

    “There’s always a possibility we might not actually find something next week or the week after,” Mark Binskin, vice chief of the Australian Defense Force, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Tuesday. “I think eventually, something will come to light, but it’s going to take time.”

    Seven military reconnaissance planes — from Australia, China, New Zealand, the United States, Japan and South Korea — and five civil aircraft are combing the vast search area, which covers 469,407 square nautical miles.

    Five ships — one from Australia and four from China — also are in the search zone, Australian authorities said.

    Image via YouTube

  • Malaysia Airlines Flight: Rupert Murdoch Tweets

    Australian-born media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, took to Twitter over the weekend to offer his theory on the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

    According to Businessweek, Murdoch’s empire is vast.

    “His satellites deliver TV programs in five continents, all but dominating Britain, Italy, and wide swaths of Asia and the Middle East. He publishes 175 newspapers, including the New York Post and The Times of London. In the U.S., he owns the Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Fox Network, and 35 TV stations that reach more than 40% of the country…His cable channels include fast-growing Fox News, and 19 regional sports channels. In all, as many as one in five American homes at any given time will be tuned into a show News Corp. either produced or delivered.”

    Murdoch has nearly a half million followers on Twitter.

    He followed that tweet with another.

    Earlier in the investigation into the fate of the Malaysia Airlines missing plane, Murdoch tweeted this:

    Many have taken to social media with all kinds of theories about the Flight MH370.

    Theories abound.

    Even ABC News theorized the plane may have landed on a remote island.

    What do you think about the mystery surrounding MH370?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Likely Hijacked

    Many questions remain unanswered following the announcement that investigators suspect, and possibly have suspected for sometime, that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may have been hijacked.

    Investigators are now saying they believe that one or more persons with flight experience switched off communication devices and deliberately steered the plane off course. Pilot or mechanical errors have been ruled out, making the reality of a hijacking “conclusive”.

    One of the strongest reasons for this assumption is the twelve minute gap between the airplane’s last transponder signal and a messaging system on the plane quitting. In the event of a crash, such a gap would never occur, suggesting deliberate human interference.

    It also seemed to investigating officials that the airplane was steered in such a way as to avoid detection by radar.

    An American official told the Associated Press that one popular theory is that the plane was taken in an act of piracy.

    There are other theories floating around at present as no one has come forward to take credit for the alleged hijacking and there is no known motive.

    The news will be vindication for the relatives who have been impatiently waiting for an explanation regarding why it is that they could still ring the cellphones of their missing family members.

    The angry gathering of family members in Beijing had recently called a press conference declaring that they did not believe what they were being told by Malaysia Airlines. They vehemently demanded the truth about the missing plane.

    The truth, or at least a new round of theories, seems to be emerging at last.

    Investigators have been reluctant to reveal what they know at present. Many are already asking exactly how long various governments have known that Flight 370 was likely hijacked.

    Is the tight-lipped response an effort to prevent hijackers from knowing that government officials are closing in on their whereabouts or is this an effort to mask incompetence?

    Only time will tell.

    Perhaps this news will allow for some glimmer of hope that though spirited away through nefarious means, the persons on Flight 370 may still be alive.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Malaysia Airlines Plane: The Mystery Continues

    The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 remains unexplained, even though multinational search teams are in the Asian waters, where it is thought to have gone down, and in the air, searching relentlessly.

    One consideration of the disappearance is foul play, as suspicions were raised by officials discovering that two passengers were traveling on fake passports. Interpol said in a statement it was investigating all other passports used to board Flight MH 370 and was working to determine the “true identities” of the passengers who used the stolen passports.

    “I can confirm that we have the visuals of these two people on CCTV,” Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at a news conference late Sunday, adding that the footage was being examined. “We have intelligence agencies, both local and international, on board.”

    A technical malfunction or an explosion caused by terrorism are among possibilities under scrutiny as the search for wreckage continues. Mostly due to the lack of any warning or communication from the flight deck, suggesting a sudden, catastrophic incident.

    However, with technical difficulty it is unlikely that a mayday or radio contact would not have been made. At cruising altitude in good weather, even with a total loss of engines – pilots would have ample time to make an emergency call.

    Because of the lack of wreckage in the areas being searched makes it more likely that the plane blew up high in the air, rather than breaking up upon sudden impact with water.

    A third theory is that the plane was deliberately steered into the sea, under duress by a hijacking, or by the pilot committing suicide.

    Meanwhile, Thailand’s navy is shifting its search focus away from the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, Thai Navy Rear Adm. Karn Dee-ubon told CNN on Sunday. The shift came at the request of the Malaysians, who are looking into possibilities that the plane could have turned around and could have gone down in the Andaman Sea, near Thailand’s border, Karn said.

    But the pilot appears to have given no signal to authorities that he was turning around, the officials said.

    One promising lead has turned out to be a dead end. A “strange object” spotted by a Singaporean search plane late Sunday afternoon is not debris from the missing jetliner, a U.S. official familiar with the issue told CNN on Sunday.

    By the end of the day Sunday, more than 40 planes and more than two dozen ships from several countries are involved in the search. And if that isn’t enough, the Chinese navy dispatched a frigate and an amphibious landing ship, according to a online post by China’s navy. Those ships are expected to arrive on site Monday morning.

    Malaysian authorities have not yet confirmed the report of the oil slicks spotted from the air, which came from Vietnam’s official news agency.

    But there are certainly big questions that far outweigh the few fragments of information that have emerged about the plane’s disappearance.

    And lets not forget the relatives of the 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. The agony of not knowing what really happened, and the wait for their friends and loved ones that most likely will not return.

    Among the passengers, there were 154 people from China or Taiwan; 38 Malaysians, and three U.S. citizens. Five of the passengers were younger than 5 years old.

    Image via YouTube