Satellite transmissions that weren’t turned off along with other systems showed Malaysian Airline Flight 370 operated for almost seven hours after last making contact with air traffic controllers on March 8, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said yesterday. That may have taken the Boeing Co. 777-200 near the limits of its fuel load if it was airborne the whole period.
Satellite transmission data analyzed by U.S. investigators showed that the Malaysian Airline (MAS) System Bhd. jetliner’s most likely last-known position was in a zone about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) west of Perth, Australia, said two people in the U.S. government who are familiar with the readings. Najib was told that is the most promising lead on locating the plane, one of the people said.
“We’ve had no additional requests from the Malaysian authorities,” Rebecca Horton, a spokeswoman for Australian Defence Minister David Johnston, said today by phone.
Asked whether Australia had picked up any signals consistent with the aircraft on its Jindalee Operational Radar Network, which covers large swathes of the southern Indian Ocean, Leonie Kolmar, a spokeswoman for the Australian Defence Department, said the department “won’t be providing comment” on the military surveillance system.
“The further south you come from Malaysia, the more complicated, deeper and rugged the terrain gets,” Gallo said. “We could be talking about 3 miles, 4 miles, easily, of depth. Possibly deeper than Air France 447.”
A possible if less likely track goes toward Kazakhstan from northern Thailand, which would force the airliner to fly through Chinese and possibly Indian air space.
Investigators largely discount the northern track theory because the nations along that route have robust air-defense radar systems, and no evidence has turned up that the rogue plane flew into that airspace, according to a person familiar with the probe who spoke on condition of not being named because of the sensitivity of the information.
Kazakhstan hasn’t been approached for help in the mission, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhanbolat Usenov said.
16/03/14 Alan Levin, Manirajan Ramasamy and Andrew Davis/Bloomberg
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Satellite transmission data analyzed by U.S. investigators showed that the Malaysian Airline (MAS) System Bhd. jetliner’s most likely last-known position was in a zone about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) west of Perth, Australia, said two people in the U.S. government who are familiar with the readings. Najib was told that is the most promising lead on locating the plane, one of the people said.
“We’ve had no additional requests from the Malaysian authorities,” Rebecca Horton, a spokeswoman for Australian Defence Minister David Johnston, said today by phone.
Asked whether Australia had picked up any signals consistent with the aircraft on its Jindalee Operational Radar Network, which covers large swathes of the southern Indian Ocean, Leonie Kolmar, a spokeswoman for the Australian Defence Department, said the department “won’t be providing comment” on the military surveillance system.
“The further south you come from Malaysia, the more complicated, deeper and rugged the terrain gets,” Gallo said. “We could be talking about 3 miles, 4 miles, easily, of depth. Possibly deeper than Air France 447.”
A possible if less likely track goes toward Kazakhstan from northern Thailand, which would force the airliner to fly through Chinese and possibly Indian air space.
Investigators largely discount the northern track theory because the nations along that route have robust air-defense radar systems, and no evidence has turned up that the rogue plane flew into that airspace, according to a person familiar with the probe who spoke on condition of not being named because of the sensitivity of the information.
Kazakhstan hasn’t been approached for help in the mission, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhanbolat Usenov said.
16/03/14 Alan Levin, Manirajan Ramasamy and Andrew Davis/Bloomberg
