Missing MH370: Co-pilot made urgent call before going off radar

The co-pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines plane made a desperate call from his mobile phone moments before the jet went off the radar.
The call from co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid’s phone ended abruptly, but not before contact was established with a telecommunications sub-station in Penang state, the New Straits Times reports.
The call was made as the jet was flying low near Penang island on Malaysia’s west coast, the morning it went missing.
“The telco’s (telecommunications company’s) tower established the call that he was trying to make. On why the call was cut off, it was likely because the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one,” the paper said, citing unnamed sources.
It is unknown who he was trying to call as sources would not release more information.
Investigators are still trying to work out what had happened moments before the Boeing 777 went off the radar.
His last communication through WhatsApp was logged at 11.30pm on March 7, just before he boarded the jet for his six-hour flight to Beijing.
The paper said checks on the co-pilot’s phone history showed the last person he spoke to was “one of his regular contacts (a number that frequently appears on his outgoing phone logs)”. This call was made no more than two hours before the flight took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Checks on his phone showed that connection to the phone had been “detached” before the plane took off. “This is usually the result of the phone being switched off. At one point, however, when the airplane was airborne, between waypoint Igari and the spot near Penang (just before it went missing from radar), the line was ‘reattached’.
“A ‘reattachment’ does not necessarily mean that a call was made. It can also be the result of the phone being switched on again,” the sources said. He and Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah have come under intense scrutiny after the plane mysteriously vanished.
Fariq’s cousin Nursyafiqah Kamarudin, 18, told the New Strait Times on Monday that Fariq, who would have turned 28 on April 1, was very close to his mother.
“If Fariq could make one call before the plane disappeared, it would have been to her.”
12/04/14 News.com

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United States denies claims missing Flight MH370 landed at its military base on Diego Garcia

The United States has flatly denied claims that missing Flight MH370 had landed at its military base on the remote island of Diego Garcia.
There have been rumours that the jetliner could have headed for the small coral atoll in the Indian Ocean after it veered off course while travelling between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Beijing, China on March 8.
However, a spokesman for the US embassy in the Malaysian capital said there was no truth in this speculation.
He told Malaysia's Star newspaper by email: "There was no indication that MH370 flew anywhere near the Maldives or Diego Garcia.
"Under the coordinating efforts of Malaysia and Australia, the US Navy's Seventh Fleet is working alongside 26 other nations to locate the aircraft based on areas identified by Malaysian and international experts."
12/04/14 Mirror, UK

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Malaysia Airlines MH370: Australian PM warns of lengthy search ahead

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will probably continue for "a long time", Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has warned, one day after voicing confidence that signals from the black box had been detected.
The Australian-led search for the Boeing 777, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is racing to gather as many signals as possible to determine an exact resting place before a submersible is sent down to find wreckage.
"We do have a high degree of confidence the transmissions we have been picking up are from flight MH370," Mr Abbott said on the last day of his visit to China.
But "no one should under-estimate the difficulties of the task ahead of us," he added in a press conference broadcast live on Sky television.
"Yes we have very considerably narrowed down the search area but trying to locate anything 4.5 kilometres beneath the surface of the ocean about a thousand kilometres from land is a massive, massive task and it is likely to continue for a long time to come," Mr Abbott said.
12/04/14 The Telegraph, UK

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One Month On, Malaysians Hold Silent Vigil For Lost Flight MH370

Kuala Lumpur: City lights may have brightened Dataran Merdeka last night, but the iconic landmark was unmistakably sombre, as small groups of people quietly gathered there to hold a candlelight vigil for the passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.
It has now been exactly one month since flight MH370 has been missing, and despite a multinational search operation which has spanned oceans and countries, no one knows where the aircraft has landed, save for theories and plausible scenarios.
By 11.30pm, a small group of 150-odd Malaysians of different races stood within the concrete jungle of Kuala Lumpur, saying little but hoping for the impossible.
From adults to the elderly and even children, people lit candles and formed a small circle around a sign which read “in remembrance of the one month since MH370 went missing.”
“We are here to offer our support for the families and relatives of those who were on board MH370. There is little we can do, so we pray to our respective God to try and make this painful moment as bearable as possible,” a 28-year-old who only wanted to be known as Hussaini told The Malay Mail Online.
Hussaini, who attended the candlelight vigil along with his wife, Fatin and daughter said that it was important for everyone to never forget the people who were on board the ill-fated flight.
For Nason Ponniah, turning up at the vigil was “the very least” Malaysians could do, adding that he could not imagine the pain the families had to go through.
The vigil, organised by the DAP, saw a host of MPs and leaders from the party including DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, Penang Chief Minister and party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo, Serdang MP Dr Ong Kian Ming and Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng.
It was of several held simultaneously in other states throughout the country.
“We are here to show solidarity to those men and women who are risking their lives in the search-and-rescue operation,” Lip Eng said.
08/04/14 Shazwan Mustafa Kamal/Malay Mail Online

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Family members hold candlelit vigil in Beijing

Beijing: Family members of passengers on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 held a tearful vigil in Beijing in the early hours of Tuesday to mark one month since contact with the plane was lost.
Dozens of family members placed candles in the shape of a heart surrounding  an aeroplane on the carpeted floor of the capital’s Lido hotel.
 They sat in a circle around the candles, with some audibly wailing while  others remained silent or pressed their palms together in  gestures of prayer.
 “We’ve been waiting and holding on here for already 31 days,” said Steve  Wang, one of the relatives.
 “Don’t cry anymore. Don’t hurt anymore. Don’t despair. Don’t feel lost,” he  counselled others who gathered for the vigil.
 There is still no proof of what happened to the plane, but an intensive  international search is now focused on the southern Indian Ocean off Australia,  where possible ping signals have been detected, potentially emanating from the  plane’s “black box” flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
08/04/14 New Straits Times

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Malaysia Airlines MH370: Underwater search for missing plane delayed until another signal received

At the weekend Australian Navy ship Ocean Shield picked up two acoustic signals "consistent" with those emitted by a black box recorder.
Searchers were on the verge of sending an unmanned submarine to look for the wreckage today, but the man in charge of the search says another signal needs to be picked up before the search progresses.
"We need another transmission to better refine the area, then we need to go down, have a look and find confirming evidence that that's where the aircraft is," retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said.
With the search for the ill-fated flight in its 32nd day, the international search team is focusing on a 600-kilometre arc in the southern Indian Ocean, about 1,600km off the West Australian coast.
But the area is still too large to launch a small submersible to scan the ocean floor.
"We will not deploy the submersibles ... unless we get another transmission, in which case we will probably have a better idea of what's down there and we will go down and have a look," Air Chief Marshal Houston said.
On Monday, Air Chief Marshal Houston confirmeda pinger locator deployed by the Ocean Shield vessel had detected two sets of signals - the first lasting two hours and 20 minutes, and the second 13 minutes.
08/04/14 ABC News

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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: 2 pings not relocated

Search crews hunting for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet have failed to relocate faint sounds heard deep below the Indian Ocean that officials said were consistent with a plane's black boxes, the head of the search operation said Tuesday.
Angus Houston, the retired Australian air chief marshal who is heading the search far off Australia's west coast, said sound locating equipment on board the Ocean Shield has picked up no trace of the signals since they were first heard late Saturday and early Sunday.
Time may have already run out to find the devices, whose locator beacons have a battery life of about a month. Tuesday marks one month since the plane vanished. Once the beacons blink off, locating the black boxes in such deep water would be an immensely difficult, if not impossible, task.
In the first major break in the month-long hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, search vessels on Monday detected two distinct underwater sounds experts say are very much like the pings associated with aircraft black boxes. Here, Australian Air Force Captain Benn Carroll keeps his eyes on a smoke buoy marking suspected crash debris on Sunday, April 6, 2014.
"There have been no further contacts with any transmission and we need to continue (searching) for several days right up to the point at which there's absolutely no doubt that the batteries will have expired," Houston said.
If, by that point, the U.S. navy listening equipment being towed behind the Ocean Shield has failed to pick up any signals, a sub on board the ship will be deployed to try and chart out any debris on the sea floor.
08/04/14 Associated Press/CBC News

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Malaysian official won't rule out survivor 'miracle' as missing-jet search may be nearing black box

The Malaysian defense minister said Monday that searchers have not ruled out the possibility of survivors among the 239 people missing after a Malaysia Airlines jet mysteriously vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur 30 days ago.
There is new hope of finding the plane after Angus Houston, a retired Australian Air Force Chief Marshal coordinating the search mission, said a ship had detected separate pulse signals that were "consistent with transmissions from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder," or so-called black boxes.
A multinational operation to find the Boeing 777 after its baffling disappearance continues in the southern Indian Ocean, but after weeks of false leads and millions of dollars in equipment and personnel, the families of those on board the plane may have a reason to believe their loved ones could be alive.
"I have always said to the families: 'miracles do happen,'" Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters at a briefing in Kuala Lampur Monday. "We continue to hope and pray for survivors," he added, according to a report in the UK newspaper, The Telegraph.
The new pulse signals suggest search teams are now “very close” to pinpointing the black box’s location. But Hishammuddin cautioned that there are still “many steps to be taken” to check if the signals are linked to Flight MH370.
07/04/014 Fox News

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MH370 search well into critical stage with black box DYING

An Australian ship which picked up possible "pings" from the black box recorders of a missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane has been unable to detect any further signals and time is running out to narrow the massive search, officials said on Tuesday.
Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency coordinating the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, said the month-long hunt in the Indian Ocean was at a critical stage given the batteries in the black box beacons had already reached the end of their 30-day expected life.
A U.S. Navy "towed pinger locator" onboard Australia's Ocean Shield picked up two signals consistent with black box locator beacons over the weekend - the first for more than two hours and the second for about 13 minutes.
Houston said the signals represented the best lead in the search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane yet, but efforts to pick up the pings again had so far been unsuccessful.
"If we don't get any further transmissions, we have a reasonably large search area of the bottom of the ocean to prosecute and that will take a long, long time. It's very slow, painstaking work," said Houston.
The Malaysia Airlines plane's black boxes record cockpit data and may provide answers about what happened to the plane, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished on March 8 and flew thousands of kilometres off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.
08/04/14 Malaysia Chronicle

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In epic MH370 hunt, experts say cost could exceed US$40 million

Kuala Lumpur: The on-going search for Malaysia Airline flight MH370 is likely to exceed the US$40 million (RM130.9 million) spent to recover the remains of the Air France flight AF447 jet, experts have said.
Scientists from China — whose people make up two-thirds of the 239 people on board the passenger plane missing for 22 days now — speculate that a prolonged search could see the bill hit 10 times higher than that forked out for AF447, the South Morning China Post (SCMP) has reported.
The English-language Hong Kong daily reported France and Brazil had poured out over US$40 million to retrieve the flight recorder from the French plane that crashed en route to Rio de Janeiro from Paris, using sophisticated technology like underwater robots to scour the seabed in search for the wreckage.
Citing a Chinese oceanographer, the broadsheet reported the search for MH370 — now into its fourth week — has been far tougher than that of Air France and could cost more than US$200 million (RM654.5 million) annually to sustain a 26-nation hunt for the Beijing-bound plane whom some suspect may have crashed into the southerly part of the Indian Ocean.
"USD200 million per year is barely enough to maintain the effort," Zhao Chaofang, a scientist at the Ocean University of China in Qingdao, was quoted saying.
International business news agency, Bloomberg, also noted that the inventory of military equipment engaged in the search that began in the South China Sea and has continued deep into the frigid waters fed by the South Pole, has been extensive.
Malaysia has deployed six ships, three helicopters, and two aircraft in the hunt, according to information issued by Australia’s Maritime Authority (AMSA). China has sent 10 ships, three airplanes, and three helicopters. Australia has contributed five ships of its own, including the HMAS Success.
The United Kingdom has dispatched the HMS Echo, a specialised survey vessel, to help search the sea almost 1,600 miles southwest of Perth. India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates have all sent aircraft to help.
Meanwhile the US, which had set aside a US$4 million (RM13.09 million) for the search, have sent two warships, one state of the art surveillance Poseidon aircraft and Bluefin 21, an underwater surveillance drone capable of operating at depths as low as 14,700 feet to Australia for use in the search.
30/03/14 Syed Jaymal Zahiid/Malay Mail Online

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Tony Abbott applauds international co-operation in search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane

The search area for the missing MH370 plane is no closer to being refined and is still operating on "guesstimates", according to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, despite navy and air force crews scouring the Indian Ocean for the past three weeks.
Mr Abbott, who on Monday visited the Pearce RAAF base, north of Perth, said that he was "getting several updates a day" though conceded search personnel were operating on limited information with wreckage parts yet to be confirmed.
While Australia is currently bearing the cost for the search operation, Mr Abbott said that "tallying" will be conducted at some point between the involved countries.
"It's only reasonable that we should bear this cost," Mr Abbott said.
"It's an act of international citizenship on Australia's part. At some point there might need to be a reckoning.
"There might have to be some kind of tallying, but  nevertheless we are happy to be as helpful as we can to all of the countries with a stake in this, and let's not forget it's not just Malaysia, there's China obviously which had the largest number of citizens on the aircraft."
Mr Abbott said the cost of the search operation has also involved countries that have a legal involvement such as the "Americans who built the aircraft, the British who built the engines, the French who supplied the avionics".
The Prime Minister thanked all the nations involved in the search off the coast of Western Australia, specifically the "extraordinary effort" of the  Malaysian aviators.
"It really has been an extraordinary effort from the aviators from Malaysia who have come here. It's been tremendous, the international co-operation here," Mr Abbott said.
"To see the co-operation with us from China, Japan and from Korea is really heartening and demonstrates that in a humanitarian cause the nations of the regions can come together...and work to try and bring peace and closure to the 239 passengers of the ill-fated aircraft."
A total of 10 aircraft from Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and the United States will be involved in Monday's search.
31/03/14 Amanda Hoh/Sydney Morning Herald

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Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Mental state of pilot raises alarm

Even as the search for the missing Malaysian flight MH370 has led no leads yet, recent media reports raise shocking queries of the mental state of the 53-year-old pilot in the weeks preceding the incident.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had been distracted and withdrawn, Daily Mail quoted his wife and daughter as saying. However, the family is convinced that he was  not responsible for the plane’s disappearance.
His wife told investigating officials that Zaharie had stopped speaking to her in the weeks before the fateful flight on March 8 and that he had spent time alone in his room building a flight simulator.
Meanwhile, his 28-year-old daughter said she barely “recognised the man who used to dote on her. He wasn’t the father I knew. He seemed disturbed and lost in a world of his own”, Dailymail quoted her as saying. His wife of 30 years, disclosed that the couple had spoken of separating recently but no clear steps for divorce was initiated. His two sons said they had barely spoken to their dad in the weeks before the flight went missing, though they stayed in the same house.
30/03/14 Emirates 24|7

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China students' alumni urges countrymen not to condemn Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian Association of China Students Alumni has urged their countrymen not to let their grief over the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 tragedy lead them to condemn Malaysia.
Its president Adam Huang said it would not do any good to “attack” Malaysia with unnecessary criticisms as it would only strain relations between the two countries.
“We would ask them to express their emotion and sorrow in a rational way, instead of going to the streets to demonstrate,” he said in Mandarin which was then translated into English by his assistant Zhang Miao.
Huang addressed a press conference here yesterday saying the association wanted to facilitate communication between the Malaysian Government and family members of the 153 passengers from China on board the plane.
It also offered its condolences to those affected and agreed that Malaysia could have done more to communicate with the families.
“We have the right to know the facts, but we are not entitled to provoke hatred towards Malaysia,” said Huang.
31/03/14 The Star

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New finds reported as search steps up for missing Malaysia Airlines jet

An Australian aircraft has spotted four orange-coloured objects in the ocean off Western Australia as the search intensifies for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370.
The four objects were more than two metres in size and sighted by the crew of an Australian P3 Orion search plane, said the pilot, Flight Lt Russell Adams, after returning to base.
“I must stress that we can’t confirm the origin of these objects,’’ he said, adding that images of the items have yet to be verified, and a GPS buoy was dropped and ships must still investigate.
Flt Lt Adams said it was “the most visibility we had of any objects in the water and gave us the most promising leads.’’
The sightings are just the latest in a number of leads that have so far produced no confirmed debris from the Boeing 777, which went missing on March 8 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard, including six Australians.
The search for clues will go more hi-tech today when an Australian navy vessel heads out into the Indian Ocean from Perth with special equipment able to detect signals from the black box flight recorders on the missing flight.
31/03/14 AP/The Australian

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India turns to US for help over C-130J crash that claimed five lives

India has turned to the US to help establish the cause of the crash of a recently acquired C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft that ploughed into a hillock in Rajasthan, killing all five crew members on board and jolting the IAF.
Besides sending the aircraft's black box or flight data recorder to the US to decode its contents, the Indian Air Force has sent a request for assistance in probing the crash through the Office of Defense Coordination at the US Embassy in Delhi.
Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the aircraft, has been contacted by the Office of Defense Coordination to help in the investigation, sources familiar with the probe told Mail Today.
A team of experts from both Lockheed Martin and the US Air Force is expected to assist in the matter, they said.
"Both the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) have been sent to the US. Help has been sought for data retrieval because they were both slightly damaged. The IAF did not want to take the chance of losing any of the contents," an IAF spokesperson said.
Sources said the decision to send the components to the US was made because the connectors of the CVR and black box were damaged. The CVR has a recording of the last 30 minutes of the cockpit conversation while FDR has the complete flight profile.
Every squadron routinely checks FDRs to get data on performance of the aircraft and serviceability of equipment is maintained at a high level, the sources said.
Sources acknowledged that they were puzzled by the crash as the crew of the ill-fated aircraft included the most experienced pilots of the Hindon-based "Veiled Vipers" squadron that operates the C-130Js, which were acquired at a cost of over Rs 950 crore each.
30/03/14 Gautam Datt and Rezaul H Laskar/Mail Online

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US deports couple, among three

Ahmedabad: As many as three people, including a couple, were deported to Ahmedabad from the US, after they were found to have migrated there illegally. Police said all three, two of whom are women, are natives of Mehsana district.
According to the bureau of immigration’s in-charge immigration officer for the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Yashwantkumar Chauhan with Sardarnagar police, 62-year-old Raman Patel and his wife Kamu had landed at the city’s international airport by Air India flight AI-031 on Thursday night.
While passing through immigration, the natives of Nichlovaas in Ambliyasan, Mehsana were found to have been travelling with emergency certificates issued in Chicago on March 17.
While Raman had two passports — one Indian issued in September 1998 and another American issued in December 2009, which expired in December 2010 — Kamu’s Indian passport from July 1999 had expired in July 2009. However, none of their passports had any arrival or departure stamps from either country, nor did either of them have any official visa documentation. This led the authorities to suspect that they had travelled to the US on fake papers, said the police.
30/03/14 Daily News & Analysis

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Involvement of top secret services in missing flight MH370 probe sparks speculation of terrorism

Malaysian authorities have revealed secret services from the UK, the US and China have been involved in the investigations into the disappearance of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, adding to speculation that the plane’s disappearance could be down to terrorism.
MI6, the CIA and Chinese agencies have been looking into the flight simulator found in the home of the flight’s Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, though acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the FBI has found nothing sinister in the device.
He said the Inspector General of Police has highlighted the “four possible scenarios of what could have caused the plane to disappear, which are terrorism, hijacking, personal and psychological problems, or technical failure.
“These scenarios have been discussed at length with different intelligence agencies,” he added.
Meanwhile, Chinese relatives of the passengers on board the missing Malaysia airlines flight MH370 have flown to Kuala Lumpur in frustration to try and find answers from authorities, as an American naval officer has said the search could take years.
The relatives claim they have not been given enough new information from authorities dealing with the search, and on Sunday held a press conference in which they held up banners and the Chinese flag, chanting: “We want evidence, truth, dignity.”
The group, of which some have accused Malaysian withholding information, held up banners that read: “You must return relatives of MH370, no strings attached”.
They have demanded an apology from authorities for its handling of the disaster, and for Prime Minister Najib Razak’s earlier statement that suggested the plane had crashed with no survivors.
30/03/14 Malaysia Chronicle

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Malaysia Digs Deeper Into Airport Security, People Aboard Flight 370

Hundreds of interviews and background checks have turned up nothing to incriminate the passengers and crew in the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet, authorities say, prompting officials to look again and more thoroughly in a bid to identify possible suspects while scrutinizing airport security procedures.
The multinational investigative effort has left investigators with no clear leads to why the plane ended up thousands of miles off course, with satellite and radar data analysis leading searchers to zero in on the Indian Ocean to hunt for wreckage but nothing so concrete about what happened to get it there.
"We cannot zero in on any faults by passengers or crew members so we are focusing on getting into value-added information in order to strengthen our investigative findings," Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told reporters Saturday in Kuala Lumpur. He didn't elaborate.
Mr. Zahid also said that officials were re-examining airport security procedures. "We are revisiting our standard operating procedures," he said, "especially the protocol of our security at our entry points; especially at our Kuala Lumpur International Airport."
Malaysian investigators believe Flight 370 deviated from its original flight path on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing due to what Prime Minister Najib Razak has termed "deliberate action." They have been careful not to rule out any possible cause for the plane's disappearance and say they are focusing on hijacking, sabotage and personal or psychological problems, without elaborating.
The country's police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, said earlier last week that all passengers had been cleared by their respective countries and that Malaysia was looking again at the crew. He didn't provide details.
30/03/14 Jake Maxwell Watts and Jeffrey Ng/Wall Street Journal

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Flight 370 Searchers Identify Recovered Objects as Trash

Searchers for Malaysian Air Flight 370 said objects retrieved from the Indian Ocean are rubbish with no evidence they are related to the missing plane as the hunt for the jetliner enters its fourth week.
The items recovered were “fishing equipment and flotsam,” Andrea Hayward-Maher, a spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, said by phone today. It was the first time that material had been picked up.
Search activities today involve eight ships and 10 aircraft in the revised zone, the Australian agency said in an update. The HMAS Toowoomba frigate left Perth late yesterday and should arrive at the search area in about three days while the vessel Ocean Shield is being fitted with an autonomous underwater vehicle and equipment to detect the black-box recorder.
Time may be running out as the battery-powered beacons that help locate the black boxes on the Boeing Co. (BA)’s 777 last about 30 days. The latest lead in the search was based on radar and performance data as the airliner flew between the South China Sea and Malacca Strait, authorities said. It shows the plane moved faster, using more fuel, and may not have crashed as far south as estimated earlier.
30/03/14 Tracy Withers/Bloomberg

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Recovered objects ‘not related’ to Malaysia Airlines flight 370

Hopes  of a breakthrough in the search for flight MH370 have been dashed, with objects pulled from the ocean not related to the Malaysia Airlines jet.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority says a Chinese ship retrieved objects from the southern Indian Ocean yesterday after a Chinese military plane reportedly spotted material bearing colours from the missing jet.
However, it’s believed the items are not related to the flight and are more likely fishing objects or rubbish, AMSA said this morning.
The search for debris from the doomed flight shifted north on Friday after new analysis of satellite data.
As up to 10 ships combed the new area, former Defence force chief Angus Houston has reportedly been named to co-ordinate the international search effort for the plane carrying 239 passengers and crew, which disappeared on March 8.
The retired Air Chief Marshal Houston will lead a new joint agency co-ordination centre in Perth, News Corp reports.
Four Australian and Chinese ships arrived in the updated search area, 1850km off Perth, yesterday and another six ships are expected to reach the zone today.
30/03/14 AAP/Australian

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MH370 Lost in Indian Ocean: Black box detector joins search

Perth: A warship with an aircraft black box detector was set to depart Australia to search for the missing Malaysian jetliner, a day after ships plucked objects from the Indian Ocean to determine whether they were related to the missing plane.
None were confirmed to be from the plane, leaving searchers with no sign of the jet three weeks after it disappeared.
Twenty-nine Chinese family members, seeking answers from Malaysia’s government as to what happened to their loved ones, arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, said Malaysia Airlines commercial director Hugh Dunleavy.
Two-thirds of the 229 passengers aboard Flight 370 were Chinese, and their relatives have expressed deep frustration with Malaysian authorities since the plane went missing.
It could take days for the Australian warship, the navy support ADV Ocean Shield, to reach the search zone, which shifted northeast Friday to an area roughly the size of Poland.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which oversees the search, said the ship will depart Perth on Sunday for the zone, about 1,850 kilometres (1,150 miles) to the west.
The ship will be fitted with a black box detector — the U.S. Navy’s Towed Pinger Locator — and an unmanned underwater vehicle, as well as other acoustic detection equipment.
Ships from China and Australia on Saturday scooped up items described only as “objects from the ocean,” but none were “confirmed to be related” to Flight 370, AMSA said.
A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 plane spotted three floating objects, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said, a day after several planes and ships combing the newly targeted area, which is closer to Australia than the previous search zone, saw several other objects.
Meanwhile, a Chinese military plane scanning part of the search zone spotted several objects floating in the sea Saturday, including two bearing colours of the missing jet.
30/03/14 New Straits Times

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Chinese relatives demand Malaysia apologize over handling of search for missing jetliner

Kuala Lumpur/Beijing: Several dozen Chinese relatives of passengers on Flight 370 demanded Sunday that Malaysia apologize for its handling of the search for the missing plane and for the prime minister’s statement saying it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.
Holding up banners that read “We want evidence, truth, dignity” in Chinese, and “Hand us the murderer. Tell us the truth. Give us our relatives back” in English, the group staged a protest at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur just hours after flying in from Beijing.
Two-thirds of the 227 passengers aboard the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared March 8 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur were Chinese, and the plane’s disappearance has sparked broad outrage in China, with celebrities joining in and travel agencies announcing boycotts.
Flight booking website eLong said it was suspending Malaysia Airlines flight sales until the relatives are satisfied with the government’s response. Last Wednesday, Chinese touring agency CYTS said it would stop offering tours to Malaysia because of safety concerns.
Even popular actress Zhang Ziyi spoke out. “Malaysian government, you have hurt the entire world. … You have misjudged the persistence in seeking truth by the world’s people, including all the Chinese,” she wrote on her microblog.
The protesters Sunday repeatedly chanted slogans in Chinese: “We want evidence! We want the truth! We want our relatives!”
30/03/14  Scott McDonald, Didi Tang and Louise Watt/Associated Press/570 News

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Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Australian aircraft spots four orange objects at sea

An Australian military aircraft has spotted four orange objects at sea, more than two metres in size, which will be analysed by the Australian co-ordination centre for missing flight MH370.
Clear skies and a search zone closer to land had meant greater visibility and a cluster of object sightings for the Australian P-3 Orion crew captained by Flight Lieutenant Russell Adams on Sunday.
"We were able to detect many objects in the water today," Flight Lieutenant Adams said, speaking on the tarmac at RAAF Pearce base Sunday night, after an 11-hour mission.
"We were able to rule a few out as fishing buoys and fishing nets, however, of interest today we did encounter an area within approximately five nautical miles which included at least four orange coloured objects greater than approximately two metres in size each.
Flight Lieutenant Adams said the origins of the objects was still unknown, but the co-ordinates and images had been passed on to the rescue co-ordination centre and a GPS buoy dropped in the area.
30/03/14 Rania Spooner/Sydney Morninh Herald

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Unanswered questions of missing Malaysian plane haunt Pune family

Pune: The Pune-based family of a woman passenger on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 is distraught, and her husband has shot off an email to the airlines and the Malaysian government, demanding answers to various issues.
"First and foremost, why did the Malaysian government and its airlines take seven to eight hours to declare that its flight MH370 was missing? Why emergency alarms were not raised across the region and across the world when the Boeing 777 with 239 passengers and crew suddenly disappeared from its radars?" an agitated Prahlad Shirsath, whose wife Kranti (44) was on the flight, said to IANS here Saturday.
"If the plane was supposed to be received by Vietnam radar and they did not receive it, why did they not raise emergency alarm? When it was expected at Beijing airport at 6.30 a.m. (March 8) and prior to that it should have been flying for hours over Chinese territory, so why did China not raise the emergency alarm?" Shirsath said in his Friday evening's email.
Deeply concerned for his wife's fate, he has gone to the extent of accusing the Malaysian government of "hiding something from us" or all these governments "trying to cover each other".
30/03/14 IANS/Business Standard

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Threat of Taliban attack forces closure of Kabul Airport, Air India flight diverted back to Delhi

Kabul:  An Air India plane to Kabul was today diverted back to Delhi after Afghanistan's main airport was closed because of possible dangers to aircraft in the wake of a Taliban attack on the country's Election Commission headquarters nearby.
 The Air India plane was diverted along with other planes of other carriers as the Kabul airport was closed, an Air India official told PTI.
 If the situation normalises and the airport reopens, Air India plans to send a bigger plane accommodating today's passengers on tomorrow's flight, the official said.
29/03/14 Dailybhaskar.com

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Sebi to probe Jet-Etihad deal again

New Delhi: In further regulatory turbulence for Rs 2,060 crore Jet-Etihad deal, capital market regulator Sebi has initiated fresh proceedings against the Abu Dhabi carrier, whose officials may be called for personal hearing next month to explain their stance.
Etihad, which has purchased 24% stake in Jet Airways, has rejected any obligation to make an open offer for minority shareholders, but Sebi is not yet convinced with its justification, sources said.
Etihad officials will be called for a personal hearing early next month to explain its position and why action should not be taken against the carrier for not making an open offer as it is getting joint control and substantial rights in running Naresh goyal-led airline, sources said. Sebi had sought clarity on the issue from other agencies, including CCI, finance and aviation ministries, sources had said. While Sebi had earlier contended that an open offer might not be required if Etihad is classified as a 'public shareholder' after buying Jet's 24% stake, it had put a caveat saying this observation could change if some other regulator points out at transfer of control.
29/03/14 Times of India

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Saab and Pilatus secure closer ties through Memorandum of Understanding

Defence and security company Saab has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Swiss company Pilatus which includes working together to provide a PC-21 training solution for the Swedish Air Force if they decide to replace their SK 60.
On Friday 28 March, inBern,Switzerland, Saab CEO and President Håkan Buskhe and Lennart Sindahl, Executive Vice President and Head of Aeronautics at Saab, put their signatures to a MoU withPilatus, the Swiss aircraft manufacturer.
The MoU, signed by Pilatus’ CEO Markus Bucher and Jim Roche, Vice-President Government Aviation and Deputy CEO, places Saab and Pilatus on a footing to cooperate in the replacement of the Swedish Air Force’s current pilot trainer aircraft, the SK 60, shouldSwedendecide to replace the fleet.
28/03/14 Indian Defence

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272 Turtles Seized at Bangkok Airport, 2 Smugglers Arrested

Hot on the heels of three major tortoise and freshwater turtle seizures in Asia comes another in Bangkok involving nearly 300 turtles and the arrest of two men suspected of smuggling them.
On 12th March, Royal Thai Customs officers discovered 218 Black Spotted Turtles (Geoclemys hamiltonii) and 54 Indian Narrow-headed Softshell Turtles (Chitra indica) in check-in luggage.
The two Indian nationals, who took a flight from Gaya and Varanasi in India to Bangkok, were due to board a flight to Macau when their luggage was checked and the turtles found.
Initial investigations show the end destination for the turtles was Hong Kong. The duo has been handed over to Royal Thai Police for further investigations.
“This previously unknown trade route for smuggling turtles from Gaya and Varanasi to Bangkok is often used by religious tourists,” said Dr Shekhar Kumar Niraj, Head of TRAFFIC in India.
The involvement of Thailand, India and Hong Kong in the illegal trade in rare tortoises and freshwater turtles was highlighted earlier this year when over a thousand specimens were confiscated from smugglers in three separate seizures. All three seizures passed through Bangkok, with at least two involving tortoises and freshwater turtles originating from India.
28/03/14 Annamiticus

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SpiceJet wants to operate more flights to Dubai

New Delhi:  SpiceJet is keen to operate more flights to Dubai, a senior airline official who declined to be identified has said, adding that Dubai was a profitable route for the airline.
SpiceJet will look at increasing the frequency of flights to Dubai from the existing five cities that it operates to currently and also look at connecting other cities in India with Dubai, he added.
India and Dubai recently allowed airlines to offer another 11,000 seats a week. The Government is yet to decide on the airlines that will be allowed to operate more flights between the two countries.
SpiceJet is also planning to restart flights to Guangzhou in China, the official said.
“Globally airlines which operate narrow body aircraft (like SpiceJet which operates the Boeing 737 aircraft) look at operating to destinations which are about four hours away. This ensures that the aircraft does not depend on one route alone to make money. This is one of the key reasons that we are reworking some of our operations,” the official said.
28/03/14 Business Line

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Jet to double Mumbai-Kathmandu flights

Mumbai/Kathmandu: Leading private Indian carrier Jet Airways Friday announced daily double flights on the Mumbai-Kathmandu-Mumbai sector from March 30.
"In our bid to expand our business and coverage in international and domestic sectors, Jet has decided to increase frequencies," said the airlines' senior vice president (Commercial) Gaurang Shetty.
The new Jet Airways morning service, flight 9W 268, will depart Mumbai daily at 0805 and arrive Kathmandu at 1100 (local time).
On the return sector, flight 9W 267 will depart Kathmandu at 1200 hrs (LT) and arrive in Mumbai at 1440 hrs (LT).
This new service will complement the existing daily Jet Airways flight on the sector.
Jet Airways will become the only private airline to fly twice daily return flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Kathmandu.
Jet had had launched its Mumbai-Kathmandu-Mumbai flight in December 2009. The new service will be operated with a Boeing 737-800/900 Next-Gen aircraft.
28/03/14 IANS/Business Standard

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Syrian held at airport for smuggling gold worth about Rs 5

New Delhi: A Syria national has been arrested at the airport here for allegedly trying to smuggle into the country gold bars valued at about Rs five crore.
The 25-year-old Syrian was intercepted by customs officials on his arrival from Bahrain here yesterday.
"On detailed examination of his baggage, nothing objectionable was found. But on his personal search, 18 gold bars weighing 18 kg valued at Rs 494.62 lakh (Rs 4.94 crore) which he had concealed in the secret pockets of his trousers and inner jacket were recovered," a press release issued today by the customs said.
29/03/14 PTI/Business Standard

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MH370 Lost in Indian Ocean: Planes chase satellite sightings

Perth: Planes and ships were to resume the hunt Friday for wreckage of flight MH370 after the weather cleared, as they chase down more satellite sightings of suspected debris nearly three weeks after the jet crashed.
Sorties being flown by planes from Australia, China, Japan and the United States were forced back to Perth on Thursday as thunderstorms and gale force winds swept through the southern Indian Ocean, although five ships stayed put.
There were fears that the weather would set in, but the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the search would start again.
“The MH370 search will resume this morning,” it tweeted in the increasingly desperate quest to confirm that debris sighted by satellite came from the Malaysia Airlines jet that vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board.
The resumption follows Thailand reporting Thursday a satellite sighting of hundreds of floating objects. Japan also announced a satellite analysis indicated around 10 square floating objects in a similar area, the Kyodo news agency said.
They were the second sightings in two days suggesting a possible debris field from the Boeing 777.
As well as planes from six nations, five ships from China and Australia  have joined the search, battling fierce winds and sometimes mountainous seas as  they look for hard evidence that the plane crashed, as Malaysia has concluded.
The commanding officer of Australia’s HMAS Success, Captain Allison Norris, said she had instituted hourly shift changes to make sure nothing is missed in the vast and remote stretch of ocean notorious for rapidly changing weather conditions.
28/03/14 New Straits Times

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New search area for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

The search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has been shifted 1,800 kilometres northeast.
Ten aircraft from six countries are taking part in recovery operation being led by Australia.
So far, nothing has been retrieved despite satellite data showing floating objects possibly related to the disappeared jet: “The new information is based on continuing analysis of radar data about the aircraft’s movement between the south China sea and the Strait of Malacca before radar contact was lost,” explained Martin Dolan of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
“This continuing analysis indicates the plane was going faster than was previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel usage and reducing the possible distance it travelled south into the Indian Ocean,” he added.
28/03/14 Euro News

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Former Malaysia Airlines CEO defends MH370 pilots

A former Malaysia Airlines (MAS) stalwart has defended the pilots of lost flight MH370, describing them as good Muslims.
Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman, who was managing director and chief executive officer of MAS for 10 years, told CNN he knew Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah since his days as a cadet pilot.
CNN reported yesterday that in a vacuum of evidence both Zaharie and his co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid have been persistently faulted for disappearance of MH370.
The 80-year-old Aziz told CNN that he personally knew Zaharie, describing him as an excellent pilot and a gentleman.
"I think that they (the media) are going the wrong way, pointing the finger at him (Zaharie)," he said.
Asked about Fariq, Aziz said he knew his father, the Selangor Public Works Department deputy director Abdul Hamid Mat Daud.
28/03/14 The Malaysian Insider/msn news

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Missing Malaysia Airlines jet: spotters endure 'incredibly fatiguing work' as they hunt for plane

They stare out at a punishingly unbroken expanse of grey water that seems, at times, to blend into the clouds. Occasionally, they press their foreheads against the plane's windows so hard they leave grease marks, their eyes darting up and down, left and right, looking for something - anything - that could explain the fate of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.
The hunt for Flight MH370, which vanished on March 8 during a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is complicated in just about every way imaginable, from the vastness of the search area to its distance from land to the brutal weather that plagues it. But for all the fancy technology on board the planes and vessels scouring the swirling waters, the best tool searchers have are their own eyes.
Those eyes can spot things man-made equipment cannot. But they are also subject to the peculiarities of the human brain. They can play tricks. They can blink at the wrong moment. They can, and often do, grow weary.
"It is incredibly fatiguing work," says Flight Lieutenant Stephen Graham, tactical coordinator for the crew on board a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion that has made six sorties into the southern Indian Ocean search zone. "If it's bright and glaring, obviously sunglasses help, but there's only so much you can do."
Search and rescue makes up a small part of what Graham's squadron does, and visual spotting is an even smaller subset of that. But everyone on board has had to learn how to do it - and it's not as simple as most people think. Graham learned as part of a year-long training stint in Canada, further refined his skills during a six-month course in New Zealand and has had ongoing training since.
28/03/14 Kristen Gelineau and Rob Griffith/Sydney Morning Herald

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Has Etihad tightened its grip over Jet Airways?

Mumbai: Jet Airways is facing rough weather with its stockplummeting and senior executives bailing out. In the last one year, Jet Airways stock has fallen from a high of Rs 688.60 when the deal between Eithad and Jet Airways was announced to a low of Rs 210.25 in early February. It is presently trading around Rs 230, much closer to its year’s low.
 More than the share price, the exit of five senior executives since the stake sale to United Arab Emirates based Eithad Airways has raised concerns among investors. A report in business daily Mint quotes an unnamed source as saying that the exit was on account of difference between the operating strategies of the two airlines. There was lot of disconnect in the strategies of Etihad Airways and Jet Airways in terms of adding more flights via Abu Dhabi, planning route networks, etc.
There is a strong underlying message behind the resignation of Acting CEO Ravishankar Gopalakrishnan. It is clear that despite Jet Airways clarification to SEBI, Etihad airways holds complete control over the Indian airline. Naresh Goyal is no longer able to prevent his key senior executives from quitting the airline at this crucial juncture.
 This becomes clear from a news report in the Economic Times. The report says that Jet Airways is scheduling its flights in order to feed Etihad’s traffic. Since the announcement of the deal, Jet has cut 384 flights so that maximum traffic can be fed to Etihad. The priority, as has been mentioned in an article earlier (Read here) is only to use Jet Airways as a source to feed Etihad.
28/03/14 Shishir Asthana/Business Standard

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Doors shut for Jet, open to any other member airline from India: Star Alliance

New Delhi: With Jet Airways having entered into an equity partnership with West Asian airline Etihad last year, Frankfurt headquartered airline alliance group Star Alliance said its doors were shut to it.
"After that (Etihad-Jet) deal , let me say that doors are shut for Jet," said Christian Klick, vice-president, Corporate, Star Alliance, speaking to Business Today on the sidelines of a media gathering during a two-day visit to the country. With Air India having been announced as a possible member of the alliance that has a 23.6% market share and access to 1,328 global destinations through its network, Star left room for one more of country's premium airlines to be inducted into its fold as a second member. It was keen on Jet.
But Jet never committed itself to this alliance and thereby caused a lot of problems for Air India. Star member airlines in 2011 blocked Air India's entry and it was widely believed that a pending decision by Jet was one of the reasons for that. Jet did move an application before the government requesting allowing it to be a second alliance memeber.
27/03/14 Manisha Singhal/Business Today

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Star Alliance satisfied with Air India preparations for membership

Star Alliance is satisfied with Air India's process of integration into it and it sees the carrier as very different from what it was a few years ago, a senior executive said on Thursday.
"I can say with all conviction that the integration is on track and working well. That's something I can say with full confidence," Christian Klick, vicepresident at the alliance's corporate office said in a rare media interaction. "Since the last time we worked with Air India, a lot of things have changed within the company," he told reporters.
"This is an Air India which has done a lot to improve its service levels. It has done a lot in terms of not only the modernisation of the fleet, but also of the whole company. That gave us the confidence to restart the process," he added. The national carrier has pinned its hopes on joining the 28-member group as the only way it can stand up to cut-throat competition from its local and international rivals and imminent onslaught from those that are entering the market.
28/03/14 Economic Times

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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Thai satellite spots 300 objects

Planes and ships searching for debris suspected of being from the missing Malaysian jetliner failed to find any Thursday before bad weather cut their hunt short, as Thailand said one of its satellites had spotted hundreds of objects in the area.
The Thai satellite spotted about 300 objects floating in the southern Indian Ocean near an area where planes and ships have been hunting unsuccessfully for a week for any sign of debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared March 8 with 239 people aboard.
The images from the Thai satellite showed "300 objects of various sizes" in the ocean, about 2,700 kilometres southwest of Perth, said Anond Snidvongs, director of Thailand's space technology development agency.
He said the images, taken Monday by the Thaichote satellite, took two days to process and were relayed to Malaysian authorities on Wednesday.
The objects were about 200 kilometres from the area where a French satellite on Sunday spotted 122 objects, Anond said. The objects ranged in size from two metres to 16 metres long.
The announcement came after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said it had to pull back all 11 planes scheduled to take part in the search Thursday because of heavy rain, winds and low clouds. Five ships continued the hunt.
All but three of the planes — a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon, a Japanese P-3 Orion and a Japanese Gulfstream jet — reached the search zone, about 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth, before the air search was suspended, AMSA spokesman Sam Cardwell said.
27/03/14 Associated Press/CBC News

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Malaysia Airlines MH370: Passengers' families worried about funeral

Kuala Lumpur: Families of passengers of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 are in a fix over funeral preparations as there are no bodies to be claimed or any information about the time and place of death.
The Prime Minister's Department reported last rites for Muslims would not be carried out until the search mission had reached a conclusion.
Other faiths are also in a similar dilemma as details of death are imperative.
Ethnic Indian Hindu G Subramaniam, whose son Puspanathan, 34, was on the flight, said as there was no body he did not know what to do.
"I still believe my son will return as there is no death certificate issued on his status," he told local daily New Straits Times.
Tan Hoe Chieow, president of the Federation of Taoist Associations Malaysia said funeral rites could only be completed with the location and time of the incident.
In the case of Christians and Buddhists, funeral rites can still proceed.
Catholic priest Father Lawrence Andrew said that a body was not necessary. He said prayers could be performed for those who have passed away.
27/03/14 PTI/Financial Express

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Malaysia Airlines disaster: How much is a passenger worth?

How much is the life of a passenger worth to the airline industry?
About $190,000, if you consult the Montreal Convention, the legal document that binds the aviation industry to minimum compensation payouts to loved ones of airline crash victims. But legal proceedings can mean a very different outcome.
The Montreal Convention requires airlines to provide compensation of about $US175,000 ($190,000) for passengers suffering injury or death as a result of an airline accident.
The damages payment is made automatically, without relatives or the injured having to prove negligence or fault on the airline's behalf. The convention wording, put together by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) says the automatic payment "avoids the situation where passengers need to pursue long and onerous legal claims".
ICAO says "proven damages beyond this amount can be claimed and the burden of proof lies with the air carrier to show that it was not negligent".
Geoffrey Thomas, editor of the Airline Ratings website, said anything other than an "act of god" would spark lawsuits against an airline and/or the manufacturer of an aircraft.
He said airlines or manufacturers were found to be liable more often than not.
"Typically, when a plane crashes, there is a problem somewhere with either the airline's procedures and security, or the manufacturer," he said.
He said airlines were obliged to provide a timely payment to cover expenses of passengers' relatives in the short term.
"Usually there is an initial payment and this helps out with expenses; then there is a longer-term ICAO payment; and then major legal payouts can take years to settle," he said.
26/03/14 Richard Blackburn/Lindsay Murdoch/Sydney Morning Herald

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Lawsuit planned against Boeing, Malaysia Airlines

A US-based law firm said it expects to represent families of more than half of the passengers on board the missing Malaysian Airlines flight in a lawsuit against the carriers and Boeing Co, alleging the plane had crashed due to mechanical failure.
The Beijing-bound flight MH370 disappeared more than two weeks ago, and was announced to have crashed into the remote southern Indian ocean with all 239 on board, including two New Zealanders, presumed to have died.
Chicago-based Ribbeck Law has filed a petition for discovery against Boeing Co, manufacturer of the aircraft, and Malaysian Airlines, operator of the plane in a Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court. The petition is meant to secure evidence of possible design and manufacturing defects that may have contributed to the disaster, the law firm said.
Though both Boeing and Malaysian Airlines were named in the filing, the focus of the case will be on Boeing, Ribbeck's lawyers told reporters, as they believe that the incident was caused by mechanical failure.
"Our theory of the case is that there was a failure of the equipment in the cockpit that may have caused a fire that rendered the crew unconscious, or perhaps because of the defects in the fuselage which had been reported before there was some loss in the cabin pressure that also made the pilot and co-pilot unconscious," Monica Kelly, head of Global Aviation Litigation at Ribbeck Law, told reporters.
"That plane was actually a ghost plane for several hours until it ran out of fuel."
Kelly said the conclusion was made based on experience on previous incidents, dismissing the possibilities of hijacking or pilot suicide.
The lawsuit, soon to be filed, would seek millions of dollars of compensation for each passenger and ask Boeing to repair its entire 777 fleet.
27/03/14 Stuff.co.nz

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Math wizards stand ready to join Malaysia Airlines search

Reston: Math wizards who pinpointed the final resting place of a doomed Air France jet deep beneath the Atlantic stand ready to do so again for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
No one has yet asked Metron, a scientific consulting firm, to join the search for the missing Boeing 777, but that hasn't stopped it from getting a head start, using the few nuggets of data currently in the public domain.
"We're trying to get our hands on all the publicly available data so we can start doing an independent assessment," Van Gurley, head of Metron's advanced mathematics applications division, told AFP on Wednesday.
As that assessment evolves, "we'll provide it to anyone who's interested," added Gurley at Metron's head office in Reston, Virginia, a suburb of Washington.
Founded in 1982, with a staff of 170 that includes experts in applied mathematicians, Metron conducts highly specialized mathematical analysis for US national security applications, such as sonar systems.
But it has also developed a much-used search and rescue protocol for the US Coast Guard based on a theorem developed by early 18th century English statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes.
27/03/14 Robert Macpherson/AFP/GMA News

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Malaysia Airlines may need government rescue

Hong Kong: Even before Flight 370 disappeared, Malaysia Airlines was neck-deep in financial trouble. But the loss of the flight and subsequent focus on the company's management has further damaged the troubled carrier.
Analysts say Malaysia Airlines' future now hangs in the balance -- and it may take a government rescue to save the company from financial disaster.
"As in any country with a large national carrier, [Malaysia Airlines] is quite significant in terms of having someone champion the tourist industry, to carry high value cargoes, and of course, employ an awful lot of people," said Timothy Ross, head research analyst for Asia Pacific transport at Credit Suisse.
"The question is, does it require more state aid, and in what shape will that state aid come? Would it make more sense to [nationalize] the business, than to have it publicly listed?" he said.
Acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein ducked questions about a government bailout at a press briefing Wednesday, saying only that efforts were focused on searching for the missing plane.
Malaysia Airlines has faced increased competition in recent years from new regional airlines, including budget carrier AirAsia, that are able to offer much lower ticket prices.
The struggling carrier tried to boost revenue by selling more tickets, rather than raising prices, while keeping operating costs under control. It has also canceled some longer flight routes.
But the strategy never took hold, and the difficult business climate has forced the airline into the red for the past three years in a row, leading to a loss of about 4.2 billion ringgit ($1.3 billion) over that period.
26/03/14  Sophia Yan/CNN Money

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MH 370: Crash confirmed, the Answers to ‘How’ and ‘Why’ Still Hidden in the First Hours

With the announcement made by Najiv Razak, the premier of Malaysia, that “flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean”, let us hope the prolonged suffering of the dear ones of the people aboard the flight would find a definite closure.
Because, most of the hijack and other related conspiracy theories were in fact giving the family members a false sense of hope.
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Jet Airways shuffles summer schedule to feed Etihad's traffic

New Delhi/Mumbai: Jet Airways has added flights from Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bangalore to Abu Dhabi and rescheduled some of its local flights in the upcoming summer schedule, to feed maximum traffic on to its partner Etihad's global network. In May, Jet is also starting a direct flight to Paris from Mumbai, in addition to the code-share connections it gives with Etihad and other partners.
It flies to destinations such as Toronto and Newark via Brussels and is also looking to start flights to Australia, taking on national carrier Air India, who recently started flights to Sydney and Melbourne. The summer schedule lasts from April-September, while the rest of the year falls under the winter schedule.
Both airlines have been building a network to beat its formidable rival Emirates Airlines. Experts, however, say that wouldn't be so easy. "Jet and Etihad together may match Etihad's connectivity out of India but the Gulf carrier will take a while to match its rival's (Emirates') global connectivity," said an industry watcher who didn't want to be named.
26/03/14 Debabrata Das & Anirban Chowdhury/Economic Times

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Soon, Bangalore firm will be sole supplier of key gear for Airbus planes

New Delhi: From the middle of next year, Dynamatic Technologies Ltd, a Bangalore-based company, will be the sole supplier of Flap Track Beams for the long-range aircraft programme of the European aircraft manufacturer, Airbus. The beams are a part of the Airbus A-330 and Airbus-340 aircraft, which are used by several global airlines on long-haul routes .
Explaining the importance of these beams, Srinivasan Dwarakanath, Chief Executive Officer, Airbus India, said the beams help get the flaps to move so that when the flight takes off, these give the necessary force for the lift and when the aircraft gets ready to land, they help in braking.
Dwarakanath said most of the activity (for the new contract) will be done in Bangalore, although Dynamatic would also get some components from its supply chain.
25/03/14 Business Line

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MH370 crash: China demands Malaysia hand over MH370 satellite data

Beijing: China has demanded that Malaysia hand over the satellite data, which led to its judgement Monday that missing flight MH370, crashed at sea and that none on board survived.
Prime Minister Najib Razak told relatives Monday that the flight "ended in the southern Indian Ocean" after new analysis of satellite data on the airliner's path placed its last position in remote waters off Australia's west coast.
In a meeting late Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng asked Malaysia's Ambassador to China, Iskandar Bin Sarudin, to provide the "detailed evidence" that led to the conclusion, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
"We demand the Malaysian side to state the detailed evidence that leads them to this judgement as well as supply all the relevant information and evidence about the satellite data analysis," Xie said, according to a statement on the ministry's website.
"The search and rescue work cannot stop now, we demand the Malaysian side to continue to finish all the work including search and rescue," Xie said on Tuesday.
25/03/14 The Star

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Inmarsat used 19th century physics to trace MH370

Britain's Inmarsat used a wave phenomenon discovered in the 19th century to analyse the seven pings its satellite picked up from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 to determine its final destination.
The new findings led Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to conclude yesterday that the Boeing 777, which disappeared more than two weeks ago, crashed thousands of miles away in the southern Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people on board.
The pings, automatically transmitted every hour from the aircraft after the rest of its communications systems had stopped, indicated it continued flying for hours after it disappeared from its flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
From the time the signals took to reach the satellite and the angle of elevation, Inmarsat was able to provide two arcs, one north and one south that the aircraft could have taken.
Inmarsat's scientists then interrogated the faint pings using a technique based on the Doppler effect, which describes how a wave changes frequency relative to the movement of an observer, in this case the satellite, a spokesman said.
The Doppler effect is why the sound of a police car siren changes as it approaches and then overtakes an observer.
Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch was also involved in the analysis.
"We then took the data we had from the aircraft and plotted it against the two tracks, and it came out as following the southern track," Jonathan Sinnatt, head of corporate communications at Inmarsat, said.
The company then compared its theoretical flight path with data received from Boeing 777s it knew had flown the same route, he said, and it matched exactly.
The findings were passed to another satellite company to check, he said, before being released to investigators yesterday.
The paucity of data - only faint pings received by a single satellite every hour or so - meant techniques like triangulation using a number of satellites or GPS (Global Positioning System)
could not be used to determine the aircraft's flight path.
Shortly after the plane went missing on March 8, Inmarsat used the ping data to plot two broad areas where the plane likely flew after it vanished from radar. One path took it north
over central Asia, the other south to the Indian Ocean.
As days passed, more images and data became available, helping focus the search. But piecing that information together is time consuming and requires synchronising the clocks of the various data systems, sometimes to a fraction of a second, said John Goglia, a former member of the US National Transportation Safety Board.
"Every time they get additional information from an additional site, they've got to go back and revisit what they've already done," Goglia said.
But the efforts are rewarded, he said, when all the sources of the data point to one spot at the same time.
25/03/14 Malaysia Kini

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No insurance payout yet for missing plane, says MAS

Petaling Jaya: Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS) has yet to receive any monies from insurers for the loss of its aircraft but confirms that its made payments to families of the missing airliner's passengers.
"Malaysia Airlines confirms that payments were made to next-of-kins of passengers onboard MH370 to meet immediate financial hardship. However, no payment has been made to MAS for the loss of the aircraft," it told Sunbiz via email yesterday.
The national carrier, which has insured its fleet of aircraft with Etiqa Insurance & Takaful Bhd, denied a foreign news report which stated that it has already been handed US$110 million by insurers over the loss of its missing Boeing 777 on flight MH370.
The report also stated that Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, the lead reinsurer for the ill-fated aircraft, has paid the insurance money into an escrow account.
However, MAS confirms that the money paid to next-of-kins of passengers are from its own coffers and not from insurance claims.
"At this stage the payment has been made by MAS," said MAS. It however could not confirm the amount paid out.
Etiqa and Allianz SE both declined to comment when asked if any insurance payout has been made so far. Both companies had asked to refer the question to MAS instead.
Last week, Manuel Bauer, a member of the board at Allianz SE, could not confirm if any payments were made to MAS.
"I cannot confirm any payments we have made or will make to MAS at this point. We have a confidentiality towards MAS," Bauer, who is responsible for insurance growth markets at the Germany-based insurance giant, told SunBiz recently.
According to Bauer, under normal circumstance when a plane goes missing, the reinsurers involved will put a deposit into an escrow account to pay for miscellanoues items such as legal and loss adjusters.
25/03/14 Malaysia Chronicle

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Desperate scene breaks out after announcement

There was wailing and tears flowed freely at a hotel here as soon as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced on live television that Flight MH370 has been lost in the southern Indian Ocean.
The news was too much to bear for the next-of-kin who had travelled from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur.
Their gait was weak and their cheeks were wet and flushed, while a grief-stricken middle-aged woman broke down openly at the main lobby of the hotel.
“I don’t believe this! I want my son back,” she wailed as she attempted to shove a Malaysia Airlines employee.
Her loud wails rang through the high ceiling of the lobby.
Tight security was deployed at the hotel and security guards had quickly shut all glass doors at the hotel entrance to protect the privacy of the grieving families.
In BEIJING, wails of grieving relatives could be heard even outside the ballroom of the Metropark Lido hotel, where they were watching Najib’s announcement.
Hysterical crying and smashing of chairs could also be heard after the families heard the grave news.
One woman collapsed and fell on her knees, crying “My son! My son!”
Several relatives were weak-kneed and had to be supported by others as they tried to evade the multitude of cameras.
“You still want to take our photos? We have lost our loved ones!” yelled a family member.
Another elderly woman lost control of her emotions; she cried, “My son! My daughter-in-law! My grandchild! My family!”
25/03/14 The Star

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Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: search called off due to bad weather

Australian authorities have called off Tuesday’s search for wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet due to hazardous weather conditions in the southern Indian Ocean.
Two-metre waves and swells of up to four metres are forecast in the searching zone south-west of Perth on Tuesday, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).
The area is also forecast to experience winds of up to 80km/h, periods of heavy rain, and low cloud with a ceiling of between 60 and 150 metres.
As a result, the search for Flight MH370 has been temporarily suspended until the seas abate and weather conditions improve.
AMSA said a Royal Australian Navy warship that had been sent to the area on Monday night to try to recover debris spotted by an Australian aircraft earlier in the day had left the area.
"Due to rough seas, HMAS Success departed the search area early this morning and is now in transit south of the search area until seas abate," AMSA said in a statement.
The devastating announcement overnight that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people on board, was the culmination of a dramatic day of searching off the south-west coast of Australia.
At about 9am on Monday two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft took off from Perth's RAAF Pearce base, in the first Chinese air search operation since two of its military aircraft arrived in Perth on Saturday.
The planes were bound for the search zone in the southern Indian Ocean, about 2500 kilometres south-west of Perth, and would have arrived in the area at about 1pm. The planes have the capacity to search for about two hours before heading back to base.
One of the planes had completed its search mission and was returning to Perth when the crew reported spotting "suspicious objects" floating in the water. These included items that were "white and rectangular" and were scattered over an area of a "few kilometres", according to official news agency Xinhua.
Later on Monday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said a US Navy P-8 Poseidon, the most advanced search aircraft in the world, was sent to the coordinates and was unable to find the objects.
25/03/14 Sydney Morining Herala

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Embraer pitches E2 jets against turbo-props used by Indian carriers

New Delhi: Turboprop aircraft flown by Indian carriers such as SpiceJetBSE -1.15 % and JetLite on regional routes are obsolete, said Brazilian planemaker Embraer Commercial Aviation, which is trying to pitch its next-generation E2 jets as a more cost-effective alternative.
Embraer recently signed a deal with the newly-formed Air Costa to sell 50 planes at a list price of $2.94 billion and with an option to sell 50 more. "There was a time when there was a clear need for smaller planes like the turboprop planes, but I think the Indian market has outgrown the need for such planes," said Mark Dunnachie, vicepresident, Asia-Pacific, Embraer Commercial Aviation. The E2 will also score over bigger jets, he said.
"The E195-E2 jets will be at least 20% cheaper in terms of seat mile costs as compared to the Boeing 737 or the Airbus A320," said Dunnachie. "Even the cost of operating an E175-E2 will be cheaper per seat mile as compared to turbo-propeller aircraft." Airlines in India have typically opted for turboprop aircraft such as the French-made ATR-72 and ATR-42 for regional connectivity. These are used by JetLite and Air India, while SpiceJet has opted for Bombardier Q400 turboprops.
25/03/14 Debabrata Das/Economic Times

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AI Express flight from Singapore cancelled

Tiruchirappalli: An Air India Express flight from Singapore, scheduled to land here was cancelled today, airline officials said.
However, they did not give any reasons for cancellation of the flight this afternoon.
The flight was on the Kuala Lumpur-Tiruchirappalli -Chennai-Kuala Lumpur sector.
24/03/13 PTI

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No survivors, Flight MH370 'ended' in Indian Ocean

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razar said Monday that a new analysis of electronic data shows that the missing Malaysian airlines with 239 people aboard went down in a remote area of the Indian ocean and indicated there were no survivors.
Just before the prime minister spoke, Malaysian Airlines sent a brief text message to family members of the passengers saying, "(w)e have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived:
Razar said further analysis of data that earlier had sketched a possible flight path now finds that the plane flew along a southern corridor west of Perth, Australia.
"This is a remote location, far from any possible landing site," he said in a brief, televised statement. "It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that according to this new data flight MH370 3 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."
The plane, which had left Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, was last heard from on March 8.
Just before the announcement, family members of the victims were sent a text message informing them of the findings.
The purported crash area is the same location west of Perth where satellite images have shown signs of debris that could be connected to the missing Boeing 777.
A Chinese plane had already reporting spotting "suspicious objects in the southern Indian Ocean" during its search for the missing Boeing 777 and a separate Australian plane also spotted potential debris, said to be "circular" and "rectangular," boosting hopes Monday that clues to the jet's fate may shortly be recovered.
However, rain and poor weather conditions slowed down the search in the area about 1,500 miles southwest of Perth, and while the objects are giving fresh momentum in the hunt for the plane that went missing on March 8 with 239 people aboard, the unidentified objects were being treated as new leads in the case that has baffled investigators for over two weeks rather than concrete evidence.
Malaysia's transport minister said in his daily news conference earlier that both objects sighted by Australia are orange in color and that the sighted objects may be recovered by an Australian ship in as soon as a few hours.
Hishammuddin said the missing jetliner had been carrying wooden pallets in its cargo hold.
And speaking to parliament, Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott said: "I can advise the House that HMS Success is on the scene and is attempting to locate and recover these objects," adding that 'one of the great mysteries of our time" may be closer to being resolved.
24/03/14 Doug Stanglin and Bill Welch/USA TODAY

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Malaysian airliner's flight ended over Indian Ocean, PM says

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday, citing a new analysis of satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators, and apparently ending hopes that anyone survived.
A relative of a missing passenger briefed by the airline in Beijing said, "They have told us all lives are lost."
Razak based his announcement on what he described as unprecedented analysis of satellite data sent by the plane by British satellite provider Inmarsat and the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch. He didn't describe the nature of the analysis.
But he said it made it clear that the plane's last position was in the middle of the remote southern Indian Ocean, "far from any possible landing sites."
He begged reporters to respect the privacy of relatives.
"For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking," he said. "I know this news must be harder still."
The announcement came the same day as Australian officials said they had spotted two objects in the southern Indian Ocean that could be related to the flight, which has been missing since March 8 with 239 people aboard.
One object is "a grey or green circular object," and the other is "an orange rectangular object," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
The objects are the latest in a series of sightings, including "suspicious objects" reported earlier Monday by a Chinese military plane that was involved in search efforts in the same region, authorities said.
So far, nothing has been definitively linked to Flight 370.
24/03/14 Michael Pearson and Jethro Mullen/CNN

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Relatives of Flight 370 passengers sob, collapse after news of plane's fate

Beijing: Relatives shrieked and sobbed uncontrollably. Men and women nearly collapsed, held up by loved ones. Their grief came pouring out after 17 days of waiting for definitive word on the fate of the passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia jetliner.
Relatives of passengers in Beijing had been called to a hotel near the airport to hear the news, and some 50 of them gathered there. Afterward, they filed out of a conference room in heart-wrenching grief.
One woman collapsed and fell on her knees, crying "My son! My son!"
Medical teams arrived at Beijing's Lido hotel with several stretchers and at least one elderly man was carried out of the conference room on one of them, his faced covered by a jacket. Minutes later a middle-aged woman was taken out on another stretcher, her face ashen and her blank expressionless eyes seemingly staring off into a distance.
Most of them refused to speak to gathered reporters and some of them lashed out in anger, urging journalists not to film the scene. Security guards restrained a man with close-cropped hair as he kicked a TV cameraman and shouted, "Don't film. I'll beat you to death!"
Before the prime minister's announcement, CBS News correspondent Seth Doane spoke to the wife of a crew member, who is still trying to "pretend" that her husband is around.
Jacqui Gonzales told Doane that she still texts her husband, including one message that said: "Come home, we're waiting."
Wang Zhen, whose father and mother, Wang Linshi and Xiong Yunming, were aboard the flight as part of a group of Chinese artists touring Malaysia, heard the announcement on television from another hotel where he has been staying.
24/03/14 CBS News

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Transcript: Malaysian prime minister’s March 24 statement on MH370

Malaysian Prime Minister Najiv Razak on Monday said that, according to new data, flight MH370 ended up in the Indian Ocean. Here is a transcript of his full statement.

This evening I was briefed by representatives from the UK Air Accident investigation branch, or AAIB. They inform me that Inmarsat, the UK company that provided the satellite data which indicated northern and southern corridors, has been performing further calculations on the data, using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort.
They have been able to shed more light on MH370’s flight path. Based on their new analysis. Inmarsat and the AAIB have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth.
This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.
We will be holding a press conference tomorrow with further details. In the meantime, we wanted to inform you of this newest development at earliest opportunity.
We share this information out of a commitment to openness and respect for the families -- two principles which have guided this investigation.
Malaysia Airlines has already spoken to the family of the passengers and crew to inform them of this development.
For them the past few weeks have been heartbreaking. I know this news must be hard as well.
I urge the media to respect their privacy and allow them the space they need at this very difficult time.”
24/3/2014 Washington Post

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Malaysia Airlines plane hits flock of ducks in Nepal

 Kathmandu: A Malaysia Airlines aircraft on a scheduled flight (MH114) from Kuala Lumpur with 180 passengers and crewmembers on board escaped disaster while landing at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) here on Friday night.
A flock of ducks struck the aircraft’s windshield as it touched down on the runway at 10.45pm, leaving the southern tip of runway 02 strewn with broken glass, airport authorities said. There were no reports of injuries.
The airline’s cockpit crew, however, did not immediately inform the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) about the incident.
The flight captain later confirmed the "suspected bird-hit", but only after a Jet Airways crew reported it to the airport authority.
"The incident came to light after a pilot of Jet Airways, which landed minutes after Malaysia Airlines, informed us of sighting pieces of glass on the runway," said an ATC on condition of anonymity.
Upon inspection, airport officials found at least 10 dead ducks and pieces of glass on the runway. The debris was cleared and airport resumed normal operations after half an hour.
The airline cancelled a return flight to Kuala Lumpur that was scheduled at 11.00pm Friday. All passengers who were booked on the flight were subsequently transferred to Soaltee, Annapurna and Hyatt Regency hotels. The plane took off for the Malaysian capital at 3.30pm Saturday after necessary repairs.
 23/03/14 Kathmandu Post/ANN/The Star

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Misbehaviour on Dubai - Mangalore flight : Passenger arrested

Mangalore : A passenger from Dubai who landed at the Mangalore International Aiport on Saturday March 22 was arrested by the Bajpe police.
42-year-old Abdul Munir Kunhi, a passenger who arrived from Dubai on Saturday evening flight which landed at around 5.45 pm at Mangalore airport was arrested by Bajpe police for allegedly misbehaving with co-passengers and air hostesses. Officials speaking to daijiworld said that the passenger was drunk during the flight.
23/03/14 Daijiworld

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British Couple Kidnap Case: UK Court Praises Chennai Police

Chennai: A UK court has lauded the Chennai Police for the rescue of a kidnapped British couple here last year while convicting two London-based accused in the case.
The Croydon Crown Court Judge has on March 19 convicted Ajanthan and Ramesh Sornalingam, the masterminds behind the kidnap of British citizens Thavarajah and his wife and sentenced them to imprisonment for nine and seven-and-a-half years respectively, a Chennai Police release said today.
"If it was not for the good work of the Indian police in rescuing the hostages... the consequences for Mr and Mrs Thavarajah may well have been far more serious," the release quoted from the judgement.
London-based businessman Kanapathipillai Thavarajah and his wife Salajah, from Edgware in London, were waylaid and kidnapped as they arrived in Chennai airport on May 29, 2013.
The kidnappers had demanded a sum of around 2.58 crore (?300,000) ransom for their release.
22/03/14 New Indian Express

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Two kg gold seized from two air passengers

Vishakhapatnam: Two air passengers, who arrived here on Saturday by the Air India AI 952 flight from Dubai via Hyderabad, were detained by the Customs officials on the charge of smuggling gold from Dubai.
On a tip-off that two passengers — Mir Abbas Mahdi and Abbas Razi — had concealed contraband goods on their person/in their baggage, the Customs officials examined them. On persistent questioning and thorough examination, it was revealed that Abbas Razi, who boarded the flight at Hyderabad, had concealed one blue plastic tape wrapped packet in his trouser near the belly.
When the officials opened the packet, they found three gold bars covered with carbon paper pieces. The total quantity of gold was 2024 gm, valued at Rs.61,02,360 in the Indian market. The gold was seized by the officers of Customs, Air Intelligence Unit, Visakhapatnam International Airport.
22/03/14 The Hindu

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4 kg of gold seized at Nedumbassery airport

Kochi: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence on Saturday foiled an attempt to smuggle gold through the Cochin International Airport and seized about 4 kg of gold worth Rs.1.2 crore, hidden inside the toilet of a flight from Dubai.
According to officials, the smuggling was unearthed following the detention of Raheem, a native of Tamil Nadu, who had landed here from Dubai.
The step followed a specific intelligence input the DRI got about the smuggling.
23/03/14 The Hindu

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Search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: objects seen with naked eye

An Australian civil aircraft reported sighting a number of small objects during the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement early on Sunday morning.
MH370, carrying 239 people including six Australians and two New Zealanders, dropped off civilian radar on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Two weeks later Malaysian investigators still believe it was "deliberately diverted" by someone on board.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says it was too early to be sure if they are from the missing plane.
Mr Abbott gave an update on the search for Flight MH370 before leaving Papua New Guinea on Sunday morning.
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They were seen with a naked eye, among them a wooden pallet, within a radius of five kilometres in the southern Indian Ocean, the agency said.
A Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion aircraft with specialist electro-optic observation equipment was diverted to the location, but reported sighting only clumps of seaweed.
The aircraft dropped a marker buoy to track the movement of the material and a merchant ship has been tasked to locate and identify it.
The Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force and two chartered civil aircraft supported Saturday’s search for wreckage.
Since ASMA assumed co-ordination of the search on Monday more than 150 hours of air time has been committed by the air crews to the task.
23/03/14 Sophia Phan/AAP/Melanie Kembrey/Sydney Morning Herald

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Missing Malaysian jet MH370: Search boosted as wooden pallet spotted

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: The first visual sighting of objects that might be linked to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 boosted search operations Sunday for the missing airliner that mysteriously disappeared more than two weeks ago.
Australian officials said a wooden cargo pallet, along with belts or straps, was spotted Saturday in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean that has become the focus of an intense international search in recent days.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Sunday there was "increasing hope" of finding the plane.
"It's still too early to be definite," Abbott told reporters during a visit to Papua New Guinea.
"But obviously we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope - no more than hope, no more than hope - that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft."
China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence said on its website that a Chinese satellite took an image of an object 22 metres (72 feet) by 13 metres (43 feet) around noon Tuesday. The image location was about 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of where an Australian satellite viewed two objects two days earlier. The larger object was about as long as the one the Chinese satellite detected.
"The news that I just received is that the Chinese ambassador received a satellite image of a floating object in the southern corridor and they will be sending ships to verify," Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters Saturday said.
The latest image is another clue in a baffling search for Flight 370, which went missing March 8 shortly after leaving Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing with 239 people on board.
23/03/14 Gulf News

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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Indian aircraft join search operations

Kuala Lumpur: India today deployed two long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft in the Indian Ocean to help trace the Malaysian plane that mysteriously went missing over two weeks ago, carrying 239 people on board.
The two surveillance aircraft - P8-I Poseidon of the Indian Navy and C-130J Super Hercules of the Indian Air Force - took off today from Subang Airport, Malaysia for search and rescue operations in the Indian Ocean along the southern corridor.
They arrived here on March 21 following a commitment from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to assist Malaysia and render all possible assistance to it in locating the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370, the Ministry of External Affairs said.
Both the aircraft have long endurance capabilities coupled with state-of-the-art electro optronic and infra red search and reconnaissance equipment on board, it said in a press release.
23/03/14 PTI/Financial Express

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Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: France reveals images of possible debris in Indian Ocean

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia says it has received new satellite images from France showing potential debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.
It is the third set of images in a week of possible debris in the area, about 2500 kilometres south of Perth, which is currently being searched in a mission co-ordinated by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
Malaysia’s Transport Ministry said the latest satellite information showed potential objects in the vicinity of the southern corridor and images had been passed on to AMSA.
“This morning, Malaysia received new satellite images from the French authorities showing potential objects in the vicinity of the southern corridor. Malaysia immediately relayed these images to the Australian rescue co-ordination centre,” the Transport Ministry said in a statement in Kuala Lumpur.
The latest satellite image now means that three different satellites have picked up what appears to be debris in the water in the area of the southern corridor search zone.
It is not yet known when the French images were taken or what exactly they show.
The latest possible sighting of debris from MH370 comes as the search for the missing jetliner, with 239 passengers and crew on board, enters its third week.
23/03/14 Cindy Wocker/Herald Sun

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Malaysia Airlines captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah ‘called mystery woman’

The captain of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 received a two-minute call shortly before takeoff from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity.
It was one of the last calls made to or from the mobile of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah in the hours before his Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur 16 days ago.
Investigators are treating it as potentially significant because anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card in Malaysia has to fill out a form giving their identity card or passport number.
Introduced as an anti-terrorism measure following 9/11, this ensures that every number is registered to a traceable person.
But in this case police traced the number to a shop selling SIM cards in Kuala Lumpur. They found that it had been bought ‘very recently’ by someone who gave a woman’s name — but was using a false identity.
The discovery raises fears of a possible link between Captain Zaharie, 53, and terror groups whose members routinely use untraceable SIM cards. Everyone else who spoke to the pilot on his phone in the hours before the flight took off has already been interviewed.
In a separate development, The Mail on Sunday has learned that investigators are now poised to question Captain Shah’s estranged wife in detail.
They have waited two weeks out of respect, but will now begin formally interviewing Faizah Khan following pressure from FBI agents assisting the inquiry.
Although the couple — who have three children — were separated, they had been living under the same roof. A source said: ‘Faizah has been spoken to gently by officers but she has not been questioned in detail to establish her husband’s behaviour and state of mind in the days leading to the incident.
The source added: “If we want to eliminate the chief pilot from the inquiry, we must interview her in detail to find out what his state of mind was.” The mystery caller emerged when Malaysian investigators examined the phone records of both Zaharie and his copilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid. Investigators were keen to trace the caller and interview them, although they have stressed that the fact the SIM card was registered to a non-existent ID card does not necessarily indicate a criminal or terrorist connection.
Political activists in Malaysia sometimes use SIM cards bought with bogus identity cards if they fear that their phones may be bugged by the country’s authoritarian ruling party.
23/03/14 News.com.au

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Missing MH370: Plane search widens on new images of 'debris'

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was set to resume Sunday with greater resources and boosted by a new satellite image of unidentified floating debris.
Coordinating the hunt in the vast southern Indian Ocean, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said  further attempts would be made to establish whether the objects sighted were related to MH370.
A grainy March 18 photo released by China's State Administration of Science Technology and Industry showed an object measuring 22.5m by 13m (74 by 43 feet) in the southern Indian Ocean.
The location was just 120km (75 miles) distant from where March 16 satellite images - released by Australia on Thursday - had detected two pieces of possible wreckage in the remote ocean about 2,500km (1,500 miles) southwest of Perth.
"AMSA has plotted the position and it falls within Saturday's search area," the statement said.
"The object was not sighted on Saturday. AMSA will take this information into account in tomorrow's (Sunday's) search plans.
The Royal Australian Navy's HMAS Success arrived late Saturday in the search area where two merchant ships were also taking part in the effort that turned up sightings of other objects during good weather conditions on Saturday.
"A civil aircraft... reported sighting a number of small objects with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of five kilometres," AMSA said.
"A Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion aircraft with specialist electro-optic observation equipment was diverted to the location, arriving after the first aircraft left but only reported sighting clumps of seaweed."
23/03/14 The Star

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