Malaysia Airlines plane vanishes over Vietnam

http://news.sky.com/story/1228904/missing-plane-objects-may-be-mh370-debris



Two objects possibly related to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been spotted in the sea, Australia's prime minister has revealed.

Tony Abbott said potential debris from the Boeing 777 had been seen on satellite imagery in the southern Indian Ocean.

There is no indication of what the objects might be, although the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the objects were of a "reasonable size", with one around 24 metres in length and the other around five metres.

"Pings" from a number of large objects are believed to have been picked up by a US spotter plane on its way to the scene.

In a statement to MPs, Mr Abbott described the reported sighting, about 1,550 miles (2,500km) southwest of Perth - or four hours by plane - as "credible" and a "potentially important development".

A Royal Australian Air Force Orion aircraft is in the remote search area looking for the objects.

A second Australian Orion, a US Navy Poseidon aircraft and a New Zealand Orion are heading there.

"The task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out they are not related to search for MH370," Mr Abbott warned.


What a welcome change - a calm and sensible statement.

But as I said earlier, no-one is going to believe the official line if a tailfin with Malaysian Airlines on it is hauled out of the Southern Ocean.

Security experts have said they don't believe the plane would have reached the point at which the debris was found without someone at the flight controls.

Neil Fergus, who was Director of Intelligence at Sydney's 2000 Olympic Games, made the claim on Australia's Channel 9.

He also ruled out a catastrophic malfunction, suggesting the plane couldn't have made it all the way to an area south west of Perth simply due to any kind of fault.

Mr Fergus told the channel the only way the plane could have made it that far from its original flight path was by human hand, be it by one or both of the pilots, or passengers.

Elsewhere, investigators are believed to be looking into a phone call made in the cockpit by pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

Analysts were looking into the call, according to The Sun.



http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/live-missing-malaysia-plane-flight-3263266#ixzz2wVJxktGs
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Carrying on with that theme, Bonny.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/20/opinion/goyer-malaysia-flight-objects/?hpt=hp_c2

(CNN) -- There are new reports that an Australian government Orion P-3 surveillance plane has spotted objects afloat in the south Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia. At this early hour, some investigators think this may be from Malaysia Air Flight MH370.

If it really is the wreckage of the Boeing 777-200, its far southern location would provide investigators with precious clues into what terrible events unfolded to result in the disappearance and loss of the airliner carrying 239 people.

The location would suggest a few very important parameters. The spot where searchers have found hoped-for clues is, based on the location information provided by the Australian government, nearly 4,000 miles from where the airliner made its unexpected and as yet unexplained turn to the west.

Based on ambiguous but solid satellite evidence, investigators now believe the airplane, after its westward deviation, made a turn to the north or the south. They favor a southern path over the Indian Ocean because its remoteness would help explain the lack of radar or satellite sightings of the lost flight.

In addition to the 4,000-mile distance presumably flown, if it flew in a straight line -- a fair guess at this point -- the location is also due south from where the plane went missing, which might be another important clue.

If the suspicious objects spotted in the water turn out to be the wreckage of MH370, we will know a few things. Some of them may sound obvious, but remember -- investigators early on seemed to have missed some clues that should have been obvious, like the computer-inputted course the airplane likely took after it first diverged from its original flight plan.

he first obvious clue is that the airplane flew for many hours. At a cruising speed of 600 mph, which is simply a ballpark guess at this point, it would have taken the 777 around six hours to reach the site in the Indian Ocean where the airplane would have crashed into the water. That is almost exactly the potential range of the flight that investigators have previously quoted.

The other clue the location provides is its due south direction from Malaysia, suggesting that the airplane flew without human direction to guide it to a safe landing site. At some point long before the presumed crash (again, still speculating here), it would have become impossible for the plane to reach land on the fuel that would have remained in its tanks.

While there are a small number of possible scenarios at play here, the most likely, it seems to me, is that the airplane was flying on autopilot without anyone at the controls and did so until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. The autopilot almost certainly would have remained working even after the plane ran out of fuel, though the dynamics of such a crash scenario are complex.

For example, would one engine have lost power before the other? And how the airplane crashed -- if that is what happened -- might make a big difference in its eventual recovery. The more controlled its impact with the water was, the more likely it would be that we could ultimately recover large sections of it from the deep ocean floor where, some investigators believe, it might lie.

Thanks, Lily.

I'm not convinced that that debris is from the crash, there is so much junk in the oceans, it could equally well be a lost shipping container.

Time will tell; I just hope the families of the missing get some answers soon.

Bonny, if it makes us upset, what must they be feeling?

So, as well as getting the story about Madeleine wrong, they've nicked the Diego Garcia story from the internet.

Lazy reporting. I guess their budgets don't stretch to great reporters?

http://news.sky.com/story/1229448/missing-malaysian-jet-debris-may-have-sunk

Missing Malaysian Jet: Debris 'May Have Sunk'


Handy, that.

Praise where it is due, the Aussie PM is at least speaking in plain language, with consideration for the families of the missing:

Meanwhile, Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the country was doing everything it could to find the suspected debris and to keep the families of the passengers informed of the progress.

"We owe it to the families, the friends and the loved ones of the nearly 240 people on board flight MH370 to do everything we can to resolve what is as yet an extraordinary riddle," he told a news conference.

"Because of the understandable state of anxiety they’re in, we also owe it to them to give them information as soon as we get it to hand.

"We have five aircraft searching the area. We’re looking for a visual that was picked up on satellite imagery and as soon as we have additional information we’ll make it available."

A very welcome change.

I'm starting to think it's never going to be found.

Me too, Bonny. My friend told me about dead spots being common. Obviously when things are going well, it doesn't matter but at times like this, it could certainly help.

Can't imagine what it would be like for the people waiting for them if they can't find it for ages yet.....

It's now a fortnight since you started this thread, Lily, and we know little more than we did that night. Except that it isn't where it was first assumed to have crashed.

It beggars belief, doesn't it? Nevertheless, we know nothing more.

http://news.sky.com/story/1230164/missing-plane-china-spots-large-object-in-sea

The Chinese government has said it has located a large object in the sea after viewing satellite imagery.

During a news conference in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was handed a piece of paper containing details of the apparent discovery.

The object is thought to be 42ft long (13m) and 74ft wide (22.5m) and was spotted somewhere in the southern search corridor in the Indian Ocean.



China said the object was captured by its high-definition earth observation satellite, Gaofen-1, and ships have been dispatched to the area.

The image was taken on March 18, two days after an Australian satellite located objects in the water. The China image shows the object is around 75 miles south of where it was pinpointed by the Australian images.

The Chinese location is just to the south of the patch of ocean being combed south and west of Australia.

During Saturday's search a civil aircraft reported sighting a number of small objects with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, with a radius of three miles, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion dropped a marker buoy to track the movement of the material and a merchant ship in the area has been relocated to try to identify the objects.

Now bad weather could affect the operation after a cyclone warning was declared for Tropical Cyclone Gillian, which is forecast to move into the southern search corridor.

Mr Hussein said: "Very strong winds and rough seas are expected there today.

More at link.

Thank you Bonny. Those videos were helpful. That cyclone won't be helping the search much if the plane is in that area.

Trouble is, there's so much junk in the ocean, it could be anything, Lily. A lost shipping container, debris from the Japanese tsunami - a lot of that is still floating.

Even supposing it is a piece of the plane, by now, it will have drifted so far from a possible crash site that it won't help much.

As you say, it could be anything which is true. However, they will have to keep taking closer looks at them.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/22/nsa-huawei-china-telecoms-times-spiegel

Quote:

The National Security Agency created “back doors” into networks maintained by the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, according to a report released on Saturday.

The report comes from a document provided by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and disclosed by the New York Times and Der Spiegel. It will add to embarrassment in US government circles, in light of an October 2012 US House of Representatives intelligence committee report which said US firms should avoid doing business with Huawei and another Chinese telecoms company, ZTE, because they posed a national security threat.

Odd how they can't find an airliner carrying Chinese passengers and people who specialise in making planes vanish, when NSA eavesdrops on the entire globe.

Back Doors? Beowolf was quite good at those.

Wulfie was a clumsy amateur in comparison to NSA, Sabot.

bb1 wrote:Wulfie was a clumsy amateur in comparison to NSA, Sabot.

Yes, I know, Bonny, which is why I am happy to believe in Back Doors. I saw the results of some of them on 3A, among other places.

Could the answer to all this be - wait for it - the Indian Ocean Triangle?       LL

In comparison to the other possibilities, the paranormal is almost down to earth, LL.

I have been of the opinion for several days, that the plane's whereabouts are known and by whom. Am also aware about all online use being observed.......