MH370 - FOUR YEARS ON - RESULTS?

World News

May 29, 2018 / 7:23 PM / Updated 19 hours ago [My observations/notes are contained within brackets]

Four years on, MH370 families await report as search ends for missing plane

Rozanna Latiff

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -

Malaysia’s new government has promised to release a long-awaited report into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 as a privately funded underwater search ended on Tuesday.

Flight MH370, carrying 239 people, vanished enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, becoming one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.

The government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said last week that U.S. seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which had scoured the southern Indian Ocean for the aircraft since January, would end its hunt on Tuesday. [May 29th]

The previous administration of Najib Razak, who was defeated in a stunning election upset on May 9, had promised up to $70 million to the Texas-based firm if it found the plane within 90 days.

Malaysia’s transport minister, Anthony Loke, said a full report into MH370’s disappearance would be published in the near future, but he did not give a date.

“I can assure you the final report will be published with full disclosure. There will not be any edits, or anything hidden,” he told reporters late on Monday.

Asked whether the report would refer to controversial elements of the MH370 case, he said: “To me, whatever elements, we will just publish it”.

Last year, Australian authorities said the MH370 captain had flown a route on his home simulator six weeks before the disappearance that was “initially similar” to the course actually taken by the aircraft.

[An ABC Four Corners documentary spoke with the brother-in-law of Captain Zaharie. He said Zaharie’s wife said the simulator had not been used for approx a year as it was broken. Also, what is “initially similar,” (as mentioned above) supposed to imply?]

Peter Foley, who led the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s search efforts, told an Australian Senate hearing “control inputs” had been made to fly the airliner off course, but he could not say if one of the pilots had done so. [I was not impressed with what I deemed a surly and arrogant manner from Foley in a video interview. “Control inputs” does NOT, (or should not) infer that it was done from the flightdeck by anyone ABOARD 9M-MRO (MH370) Since Foley, (and no doubt others in this pathetic circus of what is purported to be a “search”), cannot say if one of the pilots had any involvement, they should cease making these idle statements which have no substance behind them. Of particular concern is the haphazard way in which they have flip-flopped between ‘catastrophic event’ and ‘pilot suicide’ as their ‘reason’ for the event involving MH370. The credibility of these so-called, or self-proclaimed ‘aviation experts,’ went under immediately from when the cover-up began.]

Malaysian investigators said in 2015 they had found nothing suspicious in the financial, medical or personal histories of the pilots or crew.

FAMILIES CALL FOR REVIEW

The decision to engage Ocean Infinity came after Australia, China and Malaysia ended a fruitless A$200-million ($159 million) search across a 120,000 square-kilometer (46,332 square mile) expanse of the Indian Ocean last year.

This was despite investigators calling for the target area to be extended north by 25,000 square kilometers (9653 square miles).

Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Plunkett said on Tuesday their team had searched more than 112,000 square kilometers (43,243 square miles) of ocean floor in a little over three months. [Why did it only take three months to search 112,000 sq km, when it took four years to cover the initial 120,000 km? Unless there were more resources at hand or more advanced technology, I find this difficult to fathom.]

While the outcome was “extremely disappointing”, Plunkett hoped the company would be able to offer its services again in a future search for the airliner.

Asked if China would consider further funding for the search, or whether search organizations had asked China for more resources, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had always maintained close communication with the relevant parties.

“We will continue to maintain communication with relevant parties,” Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing in Beijing. [Why can’t they simply answer the question instead of side stepping it].

Voice 370, a group representing the relatives of those aboard the flight, has pressed the new Malaysian government to review all matters related to MH370, including “any possible falsification or elimination of records related to MH370 and its maintenance”. [9M-MRO was serviced on February 24 2014 for its ‘A’ check service.]

Calvin Shim, whose wife was a crew member on the plane, said he was concerned that the accident report would not include key information such as the plane’s full cargo manifest and the results of a separate investigation by Malaysian police.

[There should be no reason why the cargo manifest or the Malaysian Police details are not released, unless there is criminal intent/cover-up]

“We know that this issue is already four years old and a lot of people involved want closure,” he said.

“These four years have not been fun to us, the families.”

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said the search had tested the limits of technology and capacity of experts and people at sea.

It would only resume if there was “credible evidence which identifies a specific location of the missing aircraft”. [As I have previously commented – WHO decides what is and isn’t credible evidence, considering we have had little ‘evidence’ actually positively confirmed.]

“We will always remain hopeful that one day the aircraft will be located,” McCormack’s office said in a statement.

The only confirmed traces of the plane have been three wing fragments found washed up on Indian Ocean coasts. [I have just located an 81 page Debris Examination Report which I have yet to read. It, once again, makes reference to ‘based on drift analysis….. it is highly likely that it is from 9M-MRO.]

Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Additional reporting by Jamie Freed in SINGAPORE, Michael Martina in BEIJING and Colin Packham in SYDNEY; Editing by Darren Schuettler