Missing MH370: Debris sighting, new sat images raise hopes

There were two, possibly related, events yesterday (Saturday) that have put the hunt for the missing Malaysian Flight MH370 back on the front pages. First new satellite images were released and later unidentified but actual debris was sighted.

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

Sunday morning update

There were two, possibly related, yesterday that has put the hunt for the missing Malaysian Flight MH370 back on the front pages. First new satellite images were released and later unidentified but actual debris was sighted.

Here are AFP reports on both

PERTH, AFP – New satellite images

China released Saturday a new satellite image of a large floating object possibly linked to missing Malaysian Flight MH370, boosting search efforts as anger with the pace of the operation boiled over among Chinese relatives in Beijing.

The grainy photo taken on March 18 released by the State Administration of Science Technology and Industry showed an object measuring 22.5 metres by 13 metres (74 by 43 feet) in the southern Indian Ocean.

The location was given as just 120 kilometres (75 miles) distant from where March 16 satellite images -- released by Australia on Thursday -- had detected two pieces of possible wreckage in a remote, storm-swept stretch of ocean around 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth.

Six planes, including four Orion anti-submarine aircraft packed with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, scoured the area for a third straight day without success Saturday.

'Increasing hope' of solving MH370 mystery: Australian PM

SYDNEY, AFP – Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott voiced increasing hope Sunday of discovering the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and the 239 people on board after unidentified debris was sighted in the search zone.

"It's still too early to be definite, 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," Abbott said.

The prime minister spoke after several unidentified objects were seen in the search zone for the Boeing 777, about 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) off Perth.

Asked for details, Abbott referred to "a number of small objects fairly close together within the Australian search zone, including, as I understand it, a wooden pallet."

The comments came hours after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) announced that "further attempts will be made to establish whether the objects sighted are related to MH370," on Sunday.

The prime minister did not specifically mention a Chinese satellite image dated March 18 and released on Saturday, which showed a large piece of floating debris close to where previous satellite images showed two pieces of possible wreckage in the remote ocean.

Abbott's confidence was also supported, he said, by the growing resources being thrown at the hunt.

Saturday morning update

'Nothing spotted' in MH370 search

PERTH, AP – Search planes scoured a remote patch of the Indian Ocean but came back empty-handed Friday after a 10-hour mission looking for any sign of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, another disappointing day in one of the world's biggest aviation mysteries.

Australian officials pledged to continue the search for two large objects spotted by a satellite earlier this week, which had raised hopes that the two-week hunt for the Boeing 777 that disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board was nearing a breakthrough.

But Australia's acting prime minister, Warren Truss, tamped down expectations.

"Something that was floating on the sea that long ago may no longer be floating - it may have slipped to the bottom," he said. "It's also certain that any debris or other material would have moved a significant distance over that time, potentially hundreds of kilometres."

Friday updates

15:00

The weather remains good but there are no reports of the sighting/finding of any wreckage. One big problem is that the pieces seen in the satellite photo could have drifted hundreds of kilometres by now.

Early morning Friday:

CNN reports that two search planes have taken off from Perth for the area where suspected debris was sighted in satellite images and two more will follow later. It takes four to five hours to reach the site and planes have only about two hours there before having to return to base, so it may be a long while before we know if the pieces seen are actually from MH370.

Experts interviewed said the debris in the satellite images may be from the plane, but one large piece is also the size of a shipping container. There is a lot of shipping debris in the area.

Here is a report about today's search from AFP

Audio follows texts

Better weather to aid Malaysia plane search

SYDNEY, AFP — Improving weather conditions should help the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on Friday, forecasters said, as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott vowed everything "humanly possible" was being done to find the aircraft.

Grainy satellite imagery taken on Sunday detected a pair of floating objects in the southern Indian Ocean which Malaysia and Australia called a credible lead in the drawn-out hunt for the jet that vanished on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew on board.

But four planes from Australia, New Zealand and the United States that flew over a 23,000-square kilometre area of the vast ocean some 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth on Thursday saw nothing of significance, hampered by low cloud.

"The weather conditions were such that we were unable to see for very much of the flight," Royal Australian Air Force Flight Lieutenant Chris Birrer told reporters of his crew's sortie.

But conditions are improving, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology told AFP.

"Showers associated with the passage of a cold front on Thursday, which saw low cloud and drizzle affect visibility, are easing," the bureau said.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), which Malaysia tasked with heading the southern Indian Ocean search, said the four planes would leave again Friday on further missions to try and find the two objects, one as large as 24 metres in size.

A Norwegian merchant ship is currently in the search area and AMSA said another merchant ship was expected Friday evening, but Australia's HMAS Success, which is capable of retrieving any wreckage, was still some days away.

New Zealand Air Commodore Mike Yardley, commenting to TV3 on the sortie flown by a New Zealand P3 Orion on Thursday, warned that "there's a lot of debris out there in the ocean".

"Our crews picked up debris out there that was not part of the aircraft," he said.

"Our radar will pick up containers that have fallen off container vessels as well, and last night our radar system was picking up marine life – whales and dolphins."

Thursday's stories

17:30

Investigators are warning that even with satellite images, any debris will be difficult to find. Thus far rain and poor visibility have made things difficult and night is coming, so we shouldn't expect much until tomorrow at the earliest. The objects sighted are about 2500 km from Perth, so it's a long trip for the crews involved.

13:25

According to the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the images come from a commercial satellite. A large search is now underway. One plane has reached the site and three others are on the way along with several ships.

This has just come in from ABC news in the US:

"A flight crew scouring the southern Indian Ocean for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane tells ABC News that they're getting radar hits of 'significant size,' indicating something lurking below the water's surface.

ABC News' David Wright, the only TV reporter on board the US Navy P-8 Poseidon, said the crew tells him the radar indicates 'there is something down there.' "

10:20

This is turning out to be a big news day. Now Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has just revealed "new and credible information," saying satellite images show  two noteworthy objects in waters off Perth. An Australian P-3 Orion aircraft  has been ordered to check them out and it should be on the scene shortly. (Via Sydney Morning Herald)

CNN analysts point out that the fact the Australian Prime Minister himself made the statement – in parliament – gives it added significance. Even if debris is found, however, locating the plane will be very difficult after almost two weeks in the deep ocean.

9:15

There is some new information after all. CNN has just reported that the Malaysians say they have been given new and possibly useful radar information by an unidentified country. They have also given Indian authorities new and more specific coordinates for carrying out their search in the Indian Ocean. It is not clear if the two developments are related, but the CNN news team is taking the new information very seriously.

Early morning story (Audio follows texts)

MH370 relatives rage as Malaysia probes 'deleted' data

KUALA LUMPUR, AFP – Angry Chinese relatives tried to gatecrash Malaysia's tightly controlled daily media briefing on the missing plane Wednesday in chaotic scenes underlining the frustrations surrounding the 12-day search.

Shouting and crying, a handful of relatives of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines flight 370 unfurled a protest banner reading "Give us back our families". They accused Malaysian authorities of withholding information and doing too little to find the plane.

The dramatic protest unfolded just before Malaysian officials arrived for the briefing, in which they announced no progress in determining what befell the jet.

"They give different messages every day. Where's the flight now? We can't stand it anymore!" one woman wailed as reporters mobbed her and other relatives.

Shortly afterwards, Malaysia staged a shorter-than-usual press conference during which officials indicated the investigation was zooming in closer on the pilot.

Authorities said investigators had discovered that data had been deleted from the home flight simulator of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah about one month before the plane vanished early on March 8. But they cautioned against a rush to judgement.

"Some data had been deleted from the simulator, and forensic work to retrieve this data is ongoing," said Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. Officials gave no details on the simulator data.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Malaysia had asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to help recover the deleted data.

A senior US law enforcement official told the Times on condition of anonymity that FBI agents in Kuala Lumpur would likely make copies of the simulator's hard drive and send the contents to the US for analysis.

Zaharie, a 33-year veteran of the airline, was highly regarded by his peers. But suspicion has clouded him since investigators concluded that the plane's communication systems were manually disabled and the Boeing 777 was deliberately diverted by a skilled aviator.

Hishammuddin said Malaysia's own investigations, and background checks received from other countries, had so far raised no indications that any of the plane's 227 passengers might have been responsible.

The aircraft also carried 12 crew.

Wednesday stories

I've taken a break of several days from my continuing story on the missing Malaysian Boeing 777 jet, flight MH370, simply because not that much new has happened.  You can read the full coverage here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/399096/missing-plane-mystery-continues

The Malaysian government continues to take criticism, fairly on not, for its slow, poorly coordinated and secretive response to the crisis. The lack of information given out has even caused some Chinese relatives of passengers onboard the ill-fated flight to threaten a hunger strike.

More information has also come out on the flight's chief pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah. We now know that he was extremely experienced, a flight simulator enthusiast and a harsh critic of the current government. But he was definitely not an Islamic extremist. He was also a strong family man and an avid cook and there is no convincing evidence he would deliberately hijack his own aircraft. For an interesting look at the man through his Facebook postings, see this story: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/malaysia-airlines-370-zaharie-ahmad-shah-facebook-page

Meanwhile, the search has been expanded westward to an area estimated to be approximately 5.2 million square kilometres, an area roughly equal to that of the mainland USA.

Yesterday, a Thai connection to the story emerged. Here is our story from the Bangkok Post:

Air force says radar spotted missing jet

WASSANA NANUAM
PATSARA JIKKHAM

The Royal Thai Air Force detected a radar signal of a plane turning and flying to the north of Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur before disappearing early on March 8, around the same time Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was reported missing.

Air force chief Prajin Juntong said the radar signal was received from a plane around midnight of March 8, when the missing jet left Kuala Lumpur and headed northeast towards Vietnam.

“The air force’s radar stations in Surat Thani, Phuket and Songkhla’s Hat Yai received some signals that need to be verified by both the Aeronautical Radio of Thailand Co and Malaysian radars to check whether they are the same,” ACM Prajin said.

“A plane made a U-turn before flying to the north of Kuala Lumpur and Butterworth army base in Malaysia before vanishing,’’ the air force chief said.

ACM Prajin said it was possible the plane could have headed to the Straits of Malacca.

He said the plane’s direction was consistent with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s comments the plane made a U-turn and flew over an area of the southern border of Thailand and then headed northwest to the Strait of Malacca.

He said he would send the radar information to Malaysia to verify whether it was consistent with information they have about flight MH370.

He also said Thailand was assessing the possibility that its radar stations lost the plane’s signal because it had already flown out of radar range. Thailand would also have to find out whether the signals picked up by other radar stations were from the same plane.

When asked why it took so long to release the information, air force spokesman Air Vice Marshal Montol Suchookorn said, ‘’Because we did not pay any attention to it. The Royal Thai Air Force only looks after any threats against our country, so anything that did not look like a threat to us, we simply look at it without taking actions.’’

ACM Prajin said the incident should prompt air forces in the region to discuss ways of improving radar coordination.

สามารถฝึกอ่านออกเสียงและดูคำแปลได้ที่ : http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/400641/missing-mh370-a-thai-connection