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Thursday, August 21, 2014

Missing MH370: New underwater hunt claims 'reasonable chance' of finding missing plane

Believed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean far off the west coast of Australia

A new underwater hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had a "reasonable chance" of finding the plane, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Wednesday, adding that searchers would not give up easily.

Flight MH370 vanished inexplicably en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, and there has been no sign since of the aircraft or the 239 people onboard.

It is believed to have crashed into the southern Indian Ocean far off the west coast of Australia, but a massive air and sea search failed to find any wreckage while an underwater probe gave no answers.

Experts have now used technical data to finalise the most likely resting place of the plane deep on the ocean seabed and are preparing for a more intense underwater search to find it.

"They are now going to search the entire probable impact zone which is, from memory, something like 60,000 square kilometres (23,000 square miles) of the ocean floor, off the coast of Western Australia," Abbott told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"If the plane is down there - and the best expert advice is that it did go into the water somewhere in this arc off the coast of Western Australia - if the plane is down there, there is a reasonable chance that we'll find it because we are using the best possible technology."

Abbott said authorities "did the best we could with the equipment available" in the first stage of the search in harsh and remote seas.

He said the next stage, the deep-water search for which Australia has engaged Dutch firm Fugro Survey, would start "in the next month or so" and could take up to a year.

Abbott has repeatedly said Australia will do its utmost to find the plane and help determine what went wrong with the Boeing 777 to provide closure to the families of those onboard and the flying public generally.

"We're determined to do the right thing by the Australian families who lost their loved ones in this plane, we're determined to do the right thing by all of the bereaved families," he said.

"And we've got a long way to go before we're going to give this one up."

Six Australians were onboard MH370, with the majority of passengers from China.

The sea floor search will use sonar equipment and video cameras to locate and identify any debris.

Search for Pakistani who stole money from passengers

Malaysian police have arrested a bank officer and her husband over allegations they stole more than $30,000 from the accounts of four passengers aboard missing flight MH370, an official said Friday.

The couple have been held in police custody since Thursday on suspicion of withdrawing 110,643 ringgit ($34,850) from the accounts of two Malaysian and two Chinese MH370 victims, said Zainuddin Ahmad, a district police chief in Kuala Lumpur.

Police are also looking for another suspect, a Pakistani man, who is believed to have received part of the money in his account through an online transfer, he added.

"We believe he is still in the country. But as to the full particulars of the case -- it's all still under investigation," Zainuddin told AFP.

Zainuddin declined to name the bank, where the woman in custody reportedly worked at for the last 10 years.

The Star daily reported that the four bank accounts were with HSBC and quoted HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd saying in a statement that the matter was referred by the bank to the police, declining further comment.

HSBC officials could not immediately be reached.

The Malaysia Airlines plane lost contact en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 with 239 people aboard and mysteriously disappeared.

The Boeing 777 is believed to have veered off course and have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean but no sign of wreckage has been found thus far.

Dutch firm Furgo to head search

Australia awarded a contract to Dutch engineering firm Fugro to search the sea floor where missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is believed to have crashed, hoping to unlock modern aviation's greatest mystery.

Months of searches have failed to turn up any trace of the missing Boeing 777, which disappeared on March 8, carrying 239 passengers and crew shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.

The next phase of the search is expected to start within a month and take up to a year, focusing on a 60,000 sqkm (23,000 square miles) patch of ocean some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) west of Perth.

Australian Transport Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said on Wednesday that Fugro was selected after "offering the best value-for-money technical solution" for the search.

"I remain cautiously optimistic that we will locate the missing aircraft within the priority search area," Truss told reporters in Canberra.

Investigators say what little evidence they have to work with suggests the aeroplane was deliberately diverted thousands of kilometres from its scheduled route before eventually crashing into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.

Fugro will use two vessels equipped with side scan sonar, multibeam echo sounders and video cameras to scour the seafloor, which is close to 5,000 m (16,400 ft) deep in places.

The Dutch company is already conducting a detailed underwater mapping of the search area, along with a Chinese naval vessel.

"We haven't completed the mapping, so we are still discovering detailed features that we had no knowledge of, underwater volcanoes and various other things," said Martin Dolan, the head of the Australian Transport Safety Board, which is heading the search.

"We are finding some surprises as we go through."

Australia has set aside A$80 million to A$90 million for the search, already the most expensive ever undertaken.

Earlier reports:

Australia says the hunt for the Malaysian airliner that vanished off the Australian coast continues uninterrupted despite the top search official shifting his attention to recovering bodies from the Ukraine air disaster.

Angus Houston heads Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Center, which oversees the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean in March 8 after veering far off course.

The former Australian defense chief was on Wednesday in the Ukraine town of Kharkiv as the prime minister's special envoy to receive the bodies of Australian victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 which was shot down last week by a suspected surface-to-air missile.

Transport Minister Warren Truss said in a statement on Wednesday the search for Flight 370 "continues uninterrupted."

The search for the missing Malaysia Airline’s aircraft MH370 will now only resume in August.

Till then, relatives of 238 passengers and crew onboard, have to make do with the facts and analysis as contained in an Australian Transport Safety Bureau report.

The report, after analysis by aviation experts, seems expose gaping holes in any simplistic crash explanation.
The Malaysia Airlines plane went missing on March 8, sparking an international search for the wreckage. Search in a new zone: a 60,000-square-kilometre area of the sea floor about 1800 kilometres west of Perth will begin in August.

Here are three key, likely theories that have so far emerged from books (already) written, analysis of what the report says and interviews with relatives:

Diego Garcia still alive

The wife of one of the pilots onboard the missing MH370 flight has reportedly confirmed that her husband spoke to her from the cockpit, according to a report in the Independent.

That and other ‘on-flight’ activity, or lack of it, has kept the conspiracy theorists favourite bogeyman – Diego Garcia – still on a slow boil.

For the complete theory and explanation click here: Diego Garcia and MH370 conspiracy of 'lost' island in middle of it all

Spectre of hijacking

According to aviation experts quoted by the UK’s The Telegraph, analysing the report suggests hijackers may have tampered with vital cockpit equipment in a bid to avoid radar detection.

The report details evidence of a “not common” power outage on the plane less than 90 minutes after take-off from Kuala Lumpur.

The interruption of electrical power on board the Beijing-bound plane could have been the result of a hijacking attempt, aviation expert Peter Marosszeky from the University of New South Wales told The Telegraph.

In the report, crash investigators reveal that the missing Boeing 777's satellite data unit had unexpectedly tried to log on to a satellite, around an hour and a half after the flight left from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.

This request, known as a 'handshake', was likely to have been caused by a power failure on board, the 55-page report says.

The 4-hour communication gap

Every time investigators probing the disappearance of MH370 seek some sort of closure on the mystery – a new angle emerges to blow the conspiracy angle wide open.

Against the backdrop of the 55-page report released by the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) - narrowing down the possible final resting place from thousands of possible routes, while noting the absence of communications and the steady flight path and a number of other key abnormalities in the course of the ill-fated flight, an interview with the wife whose husband was on the plane has emerged.

Excerpts from the interview, which is the cover story of Australian ‘New Idea’ magazine, raise a pertinent question that is haunting surviving relatives of the tragedy.

"There’s a four-hour gap between when communication with the plane was lost, before a search team was activated. And no mention of what was in two tonnes of cargo," the exclusive interview quotes Danica Weeks as saying.

Weeks’ husband and father of her two sons, Paul, was among the 238 passengers and crew on MH370.

"I’ll never stop pushing for answers. I want to know what happened to my husband," Danica goes on to say.

The ‘no-hope’ passengers and crew theory

The passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 most likely died from suffocation and coasted lifelessly into the ocean on autopilot, a new report released by Australian officials said.

In a 55-page report released by the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) outlined how investigators had arrived at this conclusion after comparing the conditions on the flight with previous disasters, although it contained no new evidence from within the jetliner.

The report narrowed down the possible final resting place from thousands of possible routes, while noting the absence of communications and the steady flight path and a number of other key abnormalities in the course of the ill-fated flight.

"Given these observations, the final stages of the unresponsive crew, hypoxia event type appeared to best fit the available evidence for the final period of MH370's flight when it was heading in a generally southerly direction," the ATSB report said.

All of that suggested that the plane most likely crashed farther south into the Indian Ocean than previously thought, Australian officials also said, leading them to announce a shift farther south within the prior search area.

The new analysis comes more than 100 days after the Boeing 777, carrying 239 passengers and crew, disappeared on March 8 shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.

Investigators say what little evidence they have to work with suggests the plane was deliberately diverted thousands of kilometres from its scheduled route before eventually plunging into the Indian Ocean.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was almost certainly on autopilot when it ran out of fuel and crashed, with the crew likely "unresponsive", Australian officials said Thursday, announcing the search for wreckage would shift further south.

An expert group has reviewed all the existing information and Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said it was now "highly, highly likely that the aircraft was on autopilot" when it went down.

"Otherwise it could not have followed the orderly path that has been identified through the satellite sightings," he told reporters.

Martin Dolan, commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is leading the search, agreed.

"Certainly for its path across the Indian Ocean we are confident that the aircraft was operating on autopilot until it went out of fuel," he said.

He quantified this by saying the experts assessed that the plane flew in a straight line, according to the electronic "handshakes" it periodically exchanged with satellites.

"If you look at our detailed report, you will see there are seven arcs that we are looking at and we're saying the path the aircraft took to intercept each of those arcs was a straight path," he said.

Australia's Deputy PM says it is 'highly likely' that the missing flight MH370 was flying on autopilot when it flew into the southern Indian Ocean and disappeared more than 100 days ago.

Dead, alive or lost? How to live for 100 days... A wife's story

Zhang Qian's world has collapsed in the more than 100 days since her husband disappeared along with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. She quit her job, sleeps rarely and prefers not to go out, except to Buddhist temples, where she has found some solace.

In the more than 100 days since her husband disappeared along with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Zhang Qian's world has collapsed. She quit her job, sleeps rarely and prefers not to go out, except to the Buddhist temples where she has found some solace.

"At the temple, I can speak from my heart to my husband," Zhang, 28, said on a recent visit to the Temple of Spiritual Light in the western hills of Beijing. She broke down in sobs before continuing.

"I think he can hear me ... I have so much to tell him, there is so much I have not said. I hope the Buddha will carry those words to him and bring him back."

Much of the world has moved on from the frenzied interest in the mysterious March 8 disappearance of the plane, but relatives of the 239 people missing cannot. Satellite data shows that the plane went down in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean far from any land, but with no trace of the aircraft recovered, many cling to a flicker of hope — however faint — that their loved ones might still be alive.

"It may be my fantasy, but what if one day he sends some distress signals and he gets saved, and that will be the end of this?" Zhang said.

Her husband was among 153 Chinese on the plane. Chinese culture places an especially heavy emphasis on finding and seeing the remains of people believed dead before true grieving and the process of moving on can begin.

The absence of proof of death has made closure elusive for all relatives, said Lawrence Palinkas, professor of social work at the University of Southern California.

"When there is no physical proof of death, it is easier to remain in (denial) for a much longer period of time," he said. "At this point, those who have not accepted the possibility that the plane crashed and all aboard were lost are relying on extended family and friends to maintain the belief that family members are still alive, or that hope is still viable until the remains are found."

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