Here's a wee gem - Damage control by the ATSB! This off their website....

This is an interesting attempt by ATSB to defend themselves.

Sorry but it just ain't doing it for me!

Correcting the Record

Inaccurate media reporting on search for MH370

9 September 2016

An article, Inquiry into MH370 to probe ‘years of wasted effort’ by Byron Bailey which appeared in The Australian on 8 September 2016 contains inaccuracies that require correction and clarification.

Firstly, the article says that “the Australian Transport Safety Bureau decided on an unresponsive pilot scenario…”

The ATSB's suggested end-of-flight scenario only applies to the final segment of MH370’s flight when it was heading in a southerly direction into the Indian Ocean. This was for a period of about five-and-a-half hours. Analysis of the sequence of events and the SATCOM data matches most closely with a scenario in which there was no human intervention during that time, and most critically, the final phase of the flight when the aircraft had probably exhausted its fuel.

Mr Bailey also states that “… instead of asking the advice of aviation professionals, they passed the baton to a group of scientists. These scientists with qualifications more suited to esoteric pursuits of gravitational waves and dark matter analysed the final satellite ping based on an unresponsive pilot scenario.” [Sounds like a sincere and genuine concern from Mr Bailey. The entire debacle seems to have directed itself towards the unresponsive pilot scenario. Also - are the people who have been working within the ATSB anything other than scientists? It certainly makes me wonder!]

The ATSB has consulted widely with aviation experts, including Boeing, the aircraft’s manufacturer. The Search Strategy Working Group includes representatives from Boeing, the NTSB, the AAIB, Thales, INMARSAT, and the Defence Science and Technology Group. The world-leading scientists who specialise in satellite communications, aviation, physics, and probability are the most appropriate experts to examine the satellite communication signals to determine the most likely final resting place of the aircraft.

Mr Bailey also states that the ATSB is a taxpayer-funded organisation that deals with road, rail, ship and aviation safety.

The ATSB is Australia’s national safety investigator for aviation, rail and maritime transport. The ATSB’s remit does not include road safety.

Mr Bailey’s article claims that the ATSB has no in-house aviation professionals, but is staffed by bureaucrats. [Fair comment!]

In fact, many of the ATSB’s investigators had extensive industry experience before joining the ATSB in a range of areas of aviation. These include airline and general aviation pilots, licensed aircraft maintenance engineers, aeronautical engineers, air traffic controllers and human factors specialists. [Is this anything special?]

Mr Bailey also suggests an inquiry is needed into why the ATSB went with an unresponsive pilot scenario that ended in 2.5 years of wasted effort.

The search for MH370 is on-going and we continue to review all credible evidence that will

help define the priority search area. My understanding was that the search exercise was finished, according to the ATSB report dated January 11 2017. I would also like to know what the ATSB or other authorities associated with this "search," would deem to be credible evidence because I can provide them with plenty that would stand up under judicial interrogation. Who decides what is and isn't credible when they have no bloody idea re anything by the apparentness of this entire bungled weak attempt at a search exercise. In my opinion it is nothing short of a public relations stunt in an attempt to pacify the public and make it appear they are doing something to locate MH370, airframe 9M-MRO]

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, working closely with other members of the Search Strategy Working Group, has defined the MH370 search area based on careful consideration of all of the pertinent evidence and analysis of all the hard data available. [What a huge joke! If there was any careful consideration involved, they would listen to US and take their search elsewhere. I'm thinking....hmmm...maybe Ukraine would be a great place to start!]