MH370: Search turns west ? "like going to the moon" (updated Monday)

Investigators probing the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 piloted an identical Boeing 777-200 on the missing plane?s suspected flight path, in a re-enactment confirming their belief that it banked west.

Please join us on our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/bangkokpostlearning

Monday, March 17

Audio follows text

Re-enactment shows plane veered off course

KUALA LUMPUR, AFP — Investigators probing the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 piloted an identical Boeing 777-200 on the missing plane’s suspected flight path, in a re-enactment confirming their belief that it banked west, a senior Malaysian military official said Sunday.

The revelation provided an insight into the lengths that international investigators who are aiding the Malaysian government are going to in probing the baffling mystery surrounding the fate of the plane.

The re-enactment, staged in recent days, was aimed at determining whether the radar and satellite data that it generated matches up with data on MH370’s flight.

“The idea of the flight was to find out the possible direction the missing plane could have gone,” the official, who is closely involved in the investigation, told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The official said the new findings generated data identical to that which is believed to show the missing airliner turned from its intended flight path across the South China Sea, doubled back across Malaysia, and then veered northwest toward the Andaman Sea.

The plane was flown on the same course, including zigzag moves possibly intended to avoid civilian radar.

“The plane was flown exactly how the missing plane flew based on military radar data. It did a turn-around, flew across the Malaysian peninsula and up north,” the official said.

“That is why we can conclusively say which two possible directions the plane flew and we have now refocused our search and rescue operations to these two new areas.”  

The now week-long search for the Boeing 777 jumbo jet initially focused on waters in the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, where the plane disappeared from radar on March 8.

However, following an investigation, it was refocused Saturday after Malaysia’s leader Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that data indicated the communications systems of MH370 were deliberately de-activated by someone aboard, and the jet diverted away from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight path.

Najib said search efforts would now be focused on one corridor stretching northwest from Malaysia to as far away as Kazakhstan and another reaching southwest toward the southern Indian Ocean.

Najib’s revelations effectively ruled out earlier theories of a catastrophic mechanical failure or mid-air explosion, but raised the disturbing scenario of a potential hijack, attempted terror attack or rogue action by a member of the crew.

No firm leads have emerged yet to support any of those theories.

Asked about the new challenges in finding the plane as the search area widens, the official likened the effort to the logistical challenge of a moon mission.

“It is like going to the moon. The operation is going to be more challenging,” the official said.

Saturday updates

16:35

Malaysia says jet's disappearance 'deliberate'

KUALA LUMPUR, AFP — A missing Malaysian airliner was apparently deliberately diverted and flown for hours after vanishing from radar, Prime Minister Najib Razak said Saturday, in an announcement that stopped short of confirming a hijack but took the "excruciating" jet drama into uncharted new territory.

Najib said investigators believed "with a high degree of certainty" that Malaysia Airlines flight 370's communications systems were manually switched off, and that the plane veered westward in a fashion "consistent with deliberate action" after dropping off primary radar.

But he told a highly anticipated press conference watched around the world that he could not confirm rising suspicions that the plane had been forcibly taken over.

"Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear: we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path," he said.

Najib said the plane could be anywhere from "Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern corridor stretching approximately from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean".

11:15

Here's more support for the hijacking theory, this time from a Malaysian official:

KUALA LUMPUR, AFP – Malaysian officials now believe that missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 may have been deliberately turned towards the Indian Ocean by someone with up-to-date knowledge of flying and radar positions, a senior military official told AFP on Saturday.

The comments lend credence to growing suspicions that the plane, which disappeared a week ago with 239 passengers and crew, might have been commandeered.

"It has to be a skilled, competent and a current pilot," said the official, who is involved in a vast international search and rescue operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said that theory was based on still undisclosed data from military radar.

9:00

Missing airplane: No new information, much speculation as Indian Ocean search begins

There was no new reliable information on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 overnight, but there is a lot of speculation.

It now seems more and more likely that the aircraft abruptly changed course and headed towards the Indian Ocean, making altitude and course changes that most analysts say indicates a human was at the controls.

Says the Wall Street Journal, there are "strong indications that one or more people on the plane deliberately changed its course and tried to mask its location."

Two different communications system were shut off almost 15 minutes apart, making it unlikely that there was a sudden, catastrophic failure, and increasingly likely that the cut-off in communications was intentional. This strengthens the theory that criminal behaviour was involved, perhaps a hijacking or even pilot suicide.

The task of finding the aircraft, thought now to have crashed somewhere in the vast, very deep Indian Ocean, will be enormously complicated. The only data comes from very imprecise contacts with a satellite system which continued for more than four hours after radar contact was lost.

Friday updates

16:00

A Reuter's "exclusive" is creating a lot of interest this afternoon. Here are excerpts from the story:

REUTERS: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane flown deliberately toward Andamans

REUTERS: Military radar-tracking evidence suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula towards the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters on Friday.

Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints – indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training - when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.

The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.

The fact that the aircraft – if it was MH370 – had lost contact with air traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone aboard had turned its communication systems off, the first two sources said.

They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified aircraft was heading – following aviation corridors identified on maps used by pilots as N571 and P628. These routes are taken by commercial planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe and can be found in public documents issued by regional aviation authorities.

In a far more detailed description of the military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, the first two sources said the last confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 90 miles off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a navigational waypoint called "Igari". The time was 1:21 a.m.

The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading towards a waypoint called "Vampi", northeast of Indonesia's Aceh province and a navigational point used for planes following route N571 to the Middle East.

15:00

When Navy Commander William Marks of the US 7th Fleet told CNN that the Indian Ocean "is a completely new game," he wasn't exaggerating.

It is the world's third largest ocean, covering more more than 13 percent of the world's surface area – five times the size of the United States. It is also very deep with an average depth of 4000 metres.

The search will likely focus on only a small part of it, however, most likely following the heading the missing aircraft was thought to be on.

Friday morning

Indian Ocean search

Once again, there has been a lot of speculation overnight and by this evening the new information may be confirmed or debunked.

A new search area is likely to opened in the Indian Ocean. This is based not on data from the planes engines, but on satellite data indicating that the plane was sending out faint "pings" for several hours after its transponders were turned off, cutting off radar and radio contact with the aircraft.

This data, together with military radar information showing an unidentified aircraft with its transponders turned off, suggests that if it was the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 plane, it was heading toward the Indian Ocean.

The US Navy is likely to play a key role in the search and a US missile destroyer, ther USS Kidd, was reported to be redeploy to the Strait of Malacca.

10:20

Here is AFP morning story on the missing flight:

(You can find the audio after the texts)

New US lead thrusts Malaysia jet search into Indian Ocean

KUALA LUMPUR, AFP — The needle-in-a-haystack hunt for a missing Malaysian airliner spread to the vast Indian Ocean Friday after the White House cited "new information" that it might have flown for hours after vanishing nearly seven days ago.

Multiple US media reports, citing US officials, said the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777's communication system continued to "ping" a satellite for a number of hours after it disappeared off radar with 239 people aboard, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

"We are consulting with international partners about the appropriate assets to deploy."

The US Navy ordered a ship and a P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane to the Indian Ocean to join another plane already aiding the search effort, one official told AFP, after India said it was also deploying assets to the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

"The USS Kidd is transiting the Strait of Malacca en route to the Indian Ocean," the US navy official said, referring to a guided-missile destroyer initially deployed to the Gulf of Thailand on the other side of Malaysia's coast.

Malaysia's government is aware of the US media reports and White House statement and is looking into the matter, a spokesman for the country's search response effort told AFP on Friday, declining further comment.

Malaysia's government has called the search "unprecedented" in the annals of modern aviation history, covering a mind-boggling stretch of sea after flight MH370 vanished early Saturday with no indication of distress.

Moving into the Indian Ocean is like going "from a chessboard to a football field", Commander William Marks of the US 7th Fleet told CNN.

"It's a completely new game... Now we have to come up with a new strategy, new tactics," he said.

The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any jet, and authorities have struggled to find any indication what went wrong, keeping alive a host of theories that include a mid-air explosion, terrorist act, catastrophic technical failure or rogue missile strike.

Thursday updates

20:00

Night has fallen here in Southeast Asia and it doesn't look like we are any closer to finding the missing plane than we were this morning. The latest news is that India is now searching some of its remote islands for the plane. Apart from that all we have had today is rumours and denials.

From today's coverage, this former Beijing-based TV news correspondent's observation seems quite accurate.

I wonder what the rumours will be like tomorrow morning

17:25

The Wall Street Journal report is "inaccurate," according to Malaysia’s defence and acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein. He said the missing plane did not continue to fly for four hours after radar contact was lost.

During this afternoon's press conference he went on to say, "The last transmission from the aircraft was at 01:07, which indicated everything was normal. Rolls Royce and Boeing teams are here in Kuala Lumpur and have worked with MAS and the investigation teams since Sunday. This issue has never been raised ... Since today’s media reports MAS has asked Rolls Royce and Boeing specifically about the data. As far as Rolls Royce and Boeing are concerned those reports are inaccurate."

Mr Hussein also confirmed that no debris had been found in the area specified by the Chinese satellite photos.He also said the photos had been released by mistake and did not actually show debris.

Thus, despite the day's excitement, no progress has been made in finding the plan – if Mr Hussein's account is accurate.

14:00

Unbelievable! This is what the Wall Street Journal (a major international news source) has just reported:

"U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU -2.04%  Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.

Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. BA -0.99%  777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program."

If true, the aircraft could have made it all the way to Australia, or somewhere equally as far.

12:05

CNN reports that the first plane, sent by Vietnam, to the area shown in the Chinese satellite image has found nothing. A second plane is being sent. Malaysia’s civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman now confirms that no plane debris has been found at the spot.

9:30

Reuters notes that the area where the "floating objects" were seen in the satellite images has been searched before. Meanwhile, one the chief investigators in the 2009 Air France accident off Brazil told CNN the large size of the objects would mean that the plane made a relatively soft landing in the water. No such large pieces were found at the Air France crash site. The aircraft was basically "obliterated", he said.

8:45

Already there are reports casting doubt on whether the objects seen in the satellite image are related to the plane. This from Reuters:

BEIJING (Reuters) – China's civil aviation chief said on Thursday that there was no proof that floating objects in the South China Sea seen by satellite images were connected to a missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft.

"Chinese satellites have found smoke and floating objects ... At present we cannot confirm this is related to the missing aircraft," Li Jiaxiang told reporters on the sidelines of China's annual meeting of parliament.

8:00

It may be just another false lead, but Chinese satellite images taken last Sunday and released last night of possible floating objects are being taken very seriously this morning because they are in an area where the plane should have been at the time of its disappearance. Here is the first story of the day from AFP

Audio follows text

China satellite finds 'floating objects' in Malaysia jet hunt

BEIJING, AFP – China says that one of its satellites has detected three large "floating objects" in a region of the sea where it suspects the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had an accident.

China's state science and technology administration said Wednesday that a Chinese satellite had seen the objects in a "suspected crash sea area" on the morning of March 9, adding that the images were being analysed.

The suspected objects were found at 105.63 degrees longitude East and 6.7 degrees latitude North, the administration said on its website.

It added that the objects were spread across an area with a radius of 20 kilometres, in sizes that appeared to be 13 x 18 metres, 14 x 19 metres and 24 x 22 metres.

From other sources

With the release of the Chinese satellite images, investigators are taking another look at an email sent by Mike McKay, a New Zealander working on an oil rig operating in the Gulf of Thailand off of the southern city of Vung Tau (circled on map).

The letter was first dismissed as irrelevant, but the company running the oil rig confirms it is genuine.

Here, in part, is what it said.

"Gentlemen. I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines flight come down. The timing is right.
“I tried to contact Malaysian and Vietnamese officials days ago. But I do not know if the message has been received.
“I am on the oil ring Songa-Mercur off the coast of Vung Tau.
"The surface location of the observation is Lat 08.22 N
Long 108.42. E
“I observed (the plane?) burning at high altitude at a compass bearing of 265* to 275*
“From when I first saw the burning (plane?) until the flames went out (at high altitude) was 10-15 seconds.
“There was no lateral movement so it was either coming toward our position  stationary (falling)  or going away.
“It is very difficult to judge the distance but I would say 50 to 70 kms along the compass bearing 260-277.
“While I observed (the plane) it appeared to be in one piece."

Wednesday updates

16:20

Criticism of the Malaysian-led search for the missing Boeing 777 is mounting. Vietnam is reportedly scaling back its search efforts until it receives better information from Malaysian authorities.

15:15

Malaysia under fire over chaotic search for missing jet

Malaysia faced a storm of criticism Wednesday over contradictions and information gaps in the hunt for a missing airliner with 239 people on board, as the search zone dramatically veered far from the intended flight path.

Efforts to locate Malaysia Airlines flight 370, involving the navies and air forces of multiple nations, had focused on Vietnam's South China Sea coast where it last made contact Saturday on a journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

But Malaysian authorities said they were now expanding the search to the Andaman Sea north of Indonesia, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away, in a decision that added to a sense of a chaotic lack of coordination.

"We are not going to leave any chance. We have to look at every possibility," civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told AFP, confirming the new search but not specifying whether it was based on any firm sign the plane might be there.

Authorities had earlier expanded the zone to the Malacca Strait off Malaysia's west coast after citing radar data they said indicated a "possibility" the plane may have changed course from its intended flight path.

The shifts have fuelled perceptions that Malaysian authorities are unable to handle a crisis on this scale, and infuriated relatives gathered in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur as they endure an unbearable wait for news of their loved ones.

Morning report

There is lots of confusion this morning over reports and denials of a drastic change in the route of vanished Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

First Royal Malaysian Armed Forces (RMAF) chief General Tan Sri Rozali Daud was quoted as saying saying that the military had detected the missing MAS flight MH370 in the vicinity of Pulau Perak in the Straits of Malacca on Saturday morning.

This morning, however, he has been quoted as flatly denying he made such a statement.

Nevertheless, a major search is being carried out on that side of Malaysia in the Straits of Malacca. If it did reach the area, it would have been more than an hour after all communications with the aircraft had been lost.

Tuesday updates

18:50

Reuters has just reported that MAL flight 370 may have flown for more than an hour after radio contact was lost in a different direction than its intended route. This report is unconfirmed and it may turn out to be false, but it is new information. Here is what the reports says:

The Malaysian military believes an airliner missing for almost four days with 239 people on board flew for more than an hour after vanishing from air traffic control screens, changing course and travelling west over the Strait of Malacca, a senior military source said.

Malaysian authorities have previously said flight MH370 disappeared about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for the Chinese capital Beijing.

At the time it was roughly midway between Malaysia's east coast town of Kota Bharu and the southern tip of Vietnam, flying at 35,000 ft (10,670 metres).

"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait," the military official, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.

18:00

Investigators are not completely ruling out terrorism as a cause of the aircraft's disappearance, but they say it looks increasingly unlikely, especially after the two men travelling on stolen passports have been identified. For that story, see here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/399284/mh370-tickets-bought-in-pattaya

12:20

CNN reports that an experienced Cathy Pacific pilot saw a large piece of debris during a flight and Thai PBS said fishermen reported seeing a bright light about the time contact was lost with the missing. These seem to be the only new developments in the search from this morning. Previous leads have not been productive and it remains to be seen if this new information will lead to the discovery of the missing aircraft.

8:30

Audio follows text

Search for Malaysia jet widens as frustrations grow

KUALA LUMPUR, AFP —The desperate search for a Malaysian jet that vanished with 239 people aboard was significantly expanded Monday with frustrations mounting over the failure to find any trace of the plane.

The initial zone spread over a 50-nautical mile (92-kilometre) radius around the point where Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared over the South China Sea in the early hours of Saturday morning, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Malaysian authorities announced they were doubling the size of the search area to 100 nautical miles.

"The area of search has been expanded in the South China Sea," Civil Aviation Department chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters.

He also confirmed the area now covers land on the Malaysian peninsula itself, the waters off its west coast and an area to the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The vast stretch under consideration reflects authorities' bafflement over the disappearance of the aircraft, with 40 ships and more than 30 planes finding no sign of it

Boeing joins search team

NEW YORK, AFP — Boeing said Monday it has joined an official US team investigating the still-mysterious disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines 777 aircraft, feared to have plunged into the Gulf of Thailand.

Boeing said it would act as technical advisor to the US National Transportation Safety Board team already in Southeast Asia to offer assistance.

The Malaysia Airlines plane that went missing Saturday on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was a Boeing 777, a model which up to now has seen only one fatal crash.

The popular family of long-range, wide-body, twin-engine planes have a  solid safety record and have been among the world’s most widely flown passenger  jets since first entering service in 1995.

In the sole fatal crash involving the planes, a Boeing 777-200 operated by  South Korea’s Asiana Airlines skidded off the runway upon landing at San  Francisco’s international airport in July 2013, with three dead as a result.

Monday's stories

20:10

Night has fallen in the suspected crash zone and there is still no sign of the missing aircraft. Everyone is wondering how a modern, very safe aircraft could suddenly vanish, especially since it was flying at its at cruising altitude, 35,000 feet (11 kilometres) above sea level, when it last made contact. That is supposed to be the safest part of the flight.

But if something sudden and catastrophic did happen at that altitude, it could spread debris over a wide area, making it extremely difficult to find.

Air France flight 447, for example, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009 while on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing 216 passengers and 12 crew. Debris was not found for days and it took years to locate the wreckage.

Adam Air flight 574 with 102 people on board disappeared from radar in January 2007, also at its cruise phase during a domestic flight in Indonesia. Debris was found nine days later after an extensive search and it took months to recover the plane's black box.

Information adapted from an AFP report.

17:30

Malaysian officials say the missing plane is still missing and none of the suspicious objects seen earlier are not related to the aircraft. According the New Straits Times, what was thought to be part of the tail section turned out to be logs tied together and the substance floating on the water has been tested and it is not jet fuel.

11:31

There have still been no confirmed reports of debris from the missing Malaysian aircraft, a press conference in Kuala Lumpur has just announced. That includes the oil slicks which have not been identified as as coming from the aircraft. Tests on the substance should be completed today to determine if it is jet fuel.

10:35

One piece of possible debris sighted by a Vietnamese aircraft last evening appeared to be a door of a plane. Six planes and seven ships were sent to the area this morning, but the latest report from Vietnamese authorities says nothing has been found yet. Several other sighting were reported yesterday but, thus far, none have been confirmed to have come from the missing plane.

Meanwhile, the economic effect of the missing flight is beginning to be felt. Shares in Malaysia Airlines have plunged 18% to an all-time low.

Vietnam spots possible wreckage from Malaysian plane

HO CHI MINH CITY, AFP – Vietnamese searchers on Sunday spotted possible aircraft debris after combing the sea for nearly 48 hours in the hunt for a Malaysian passenger jet that vanished with 239 people aboard, officials said.

The discovery, which could confirm the worst fears of anguished relatives, came after Malaysia's government launched a terror probe into the Boeing 777's disappearance, investigating suspect passengers who boarded with stolen passports.

"We received information from a Vietnamese plane saying that they found two broken objects, which seem like those of an aircraft, located about 50 miles (80 kilometres) to the southwest of Tho Chu Island," said an official from Vietnam's National Committee for Search and Rescue, who did not want to be named.

The island is part of a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Vietnam, and lies northeast of Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur, from where Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 left early Saturday bound for Beijing.

"As it is night they cannot fish them out for proper identification. They have located the position of the areas and flown back to land," the Vietnamese official added.

Planes and boats would be sent back to the area Monday to investigate further, he said.

Two large oil slicks which authorities suspect were caused by jet fuel were detected late Saturday farther south of the island chain, and observed later by an AFP journalist aboard a Vietnamese spotter plane.

Both MAS and Malaysia's civil aviation authority, however, said they had no new information to offer after the apparent Vietnamese discovery.

The plane, captained by a veteran MAS pilot, had relayed no indications of distress, and weather at the time was said to be stable.

A total of 40 ships and 34 aircraft from an array of Southeast Asian countries, China and the US have been involved in the search, with two Australian surveillance aircraft due to join in.

Earlier, Malaysian Military radar indicated that the missing aircraft might have turned back before vanishing.

"There is a distinct possibility the airplane did a turn-back, deviating from the course," said Malaysia's air force chief, General Rodzali Daud, citing radar data.

But MAS chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the Boeing 777's systems would have set off alarm bells in that case.

"When there is an air turn-back the pilot would be unable to proceed as planned," he said, adding authorities were "quite puzzled" over the situation.

After it emerged that two people boarded the flight with stolen European passports, Malaysia's transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he was looking at four suspect passengers in all.

He said authorities were examining CCTV footage of the two with fake passports.

"We have managed to get visuals of them," he said, adding that Malaysia was liaising with other countries' intelligence agencies on the findings. He gave no more details.

Two European names – Christian Kozel, an Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi of Italy – were listed on the passenger manifest. But neither man boarded the plane, officials said. Both had their passports stolen in Thailand over the past two years.

Thai police said Sunday they were investigating a possible passport racket as flight information seen by AFP gave new details about bookings made in Thailand with the two stolen European passports.

The tickets booked in Maraldi and Kozel's names were made on March 6, 2014 and issued in the Thai city of Pattaya, a popular beach resort south of Bangkok.

สามารถฝึกอ่านออกเสียงและดูคำแปลได้ที่ : http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/399096/missing-plane-mystery-continues