Thread: Contact lost with Malaysia Plane.

Satellite looking into missing Malaysia flight detects 'suspected crash area'

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Satellite eyeing Malaysia flight detects 'suspected crash area' - CNN.com

CNN) -- A Chinese satellite looking into the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 "observed a suspected crash area at sea," a Chinese government agency said -- a potentially pivotal lead into what has been a frustrating search for the aircraft.

China's State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense announced the discovery, including images of what it said were "three suspected floating objects and their sizes."

The objects aren't small: 13 by 18 meters (43 by 59 feet), 14 by 19 meters (46 by 62 feet) and 24 by 22 meters (79 feet by 72 feet). For reference, the wingspan of an intact Boeing 777-200ER like the one that disappeared is about 61 meters (200 feet) and its overall length is about 64 meters (210 feet).

The images were captured on March 9 -- which was the day after the plane went missing -- but weren't released until Wednesday.

The Chinese agency gave coordinates of 105.63 east longitude, 6.7 north latitude, which would put it in waters northeast of where it took off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and south of Vietnam, near where the South China Sea meets the Gulf of Thailand

It's where it's supposed to be," Peter Goelz, a former National Transportation Safety Board managing director, told CNN's Jake Tapper, noting the "great skepticism" about reports the plane had turned around to go back over Malaysia. "I think they've got to get vessels and aircraft there as quickly as humanly possible."

This isn't the first time authorities have announced they were looking at objects or oil slicks that might be tied to aircraft. Still, it is the latest and comes on the same day that officials, rather than narrowing the search area, more than doubled it from the day earlier to nearly 27,000 square nautical miles (35,000 square miles).

Bill Palmer -- author of a book on Air France's Flight 447, which also mysteriously went missing before its remnants were found -- said having a search area of that size is immensely challenging. He compared it to trying to find something the size of a car or truck in Pennsylvania, then widening it to look for the same thing in all of North America.

It's a very, very difficult situation to try to find anything," Palmer told CNN's Brooke Baldwin. "Looking for pieces on the shimmering water doesn't make it any easier."

The Chinese satellite find could help, significantly, in that regard.

"I think the size of the pieces ... everything we've heard... gives good cause to believe that we've now (refocused) the area," former Federal Aviation Administration official Michael Goldfarb told CNN. "And that's a huge relief to everybody ... I think it's a high chance that they're going to confirm that these (are) pieces of the wreckage."

But not every expert was convinced this is it. Clive Irving, a senior editor with Conde Nast Traveler, said that the size of the pieces -- since they are fairly square and big -- "don't conform to anything that's on the plane."

Regardless, time is of the essence -- both for investigators and the loved ones of the plane's 239 passengers and crew, who have waited since Saturday for any breakthrough that would provide closure.

The flight data recorders should "ping," or send out a signal pointing to its location, for about 30 days from the time the aircraft set off, noted Goldfarb. After that, Flight 370 could prove exponentially harder to find.

Originally Posted by taxexile

why?

if a hijacked plane was suspected of being aimed at a populated area/capital city do you not think the military would down it first?

Because who has a beef with the Malaysia?
it's a predominantly Muslim country, so not those Iranians.

A prominent Iranian lawmaker has blamed the US for the disappearance of Malaysian flight MH370, claiming Washington wants to cause "psychological warfare" between Iran and China.


Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, the spokesman for Iran's Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said the missing plane has been "kidnapped" by the US in order to "sabotage the relationship between Iran and China and South East Asia".


Hosseini was responding to the news that two of the 239 passengers on board the flight were Iranians with forged passports. This lead to some speculation the plane may have been involved in a terrorist attack or a botched hijacking.

Hosseini described this as a "plot" against Iran initiated by the US.
"Documents published by the Western media about two Iranians getting on the plane without passports is psychological warfare," he told the Tasnim news agency.


"Americans recruit some people for such kinds of operations so they can throw the blame on other countries, especially Muslim countries."
Officials said that the two men who used forged documents to board the flight had no links to terrorist organisations.


Iran's foreign ministry said it was ready to cooperate in the investigations.
"We have received information on possible presence of two Iranians among the plane's crews. We are pursuing the issue," said Marzieh Afkham, the Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman.


"We have informed our embassy in Malaysia that we are ready to receive further information about the issue from Malaysian officials. We have announced that we were ready for cooperation."


Confusion still reigns over where MH370 could be, spurred on by Malaysian officials being unable to clarify the plane's last known movements.
There were reports the plane was tracked flying over the Malacca Strait by a military radar – far to the west of its planned route. This would have proved the plane was in the air for more than an hour after it vanished from radar.


"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait," the unnamed official told Reuters.
Malaysia's air force chief denied the reports came from him, but instead pointed out the air force had "not ruled out the possibility of an air turn-back".
Vietnam has said it has stopped its air search and scaled back its sea search until Malasia can offer more detail on the flight's suggested whereabouts.


"We've decided to temporarily suspend some search and rescue activities, pending information from Malaysia," Vietnam's deputy transport minister Pham Quy Tieu told reporters.


"We still have plans to search with a few flights today, while other activities are suspended."


Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: US Kidnapped Missing Plane, Says Iran Lawmaker

Because who has a beef with the Malaysia?
it's a predominantly Muslim country, so not those Iranians.

the muslims will always find something to bicker about, even amongst their own, and will resort to extreme measures to right any perceived wrong.

never underestimate their capacity for violence and terror.

the plane was filled with mostly non believers, why should the malay be concerned with even finding them if it wasnt for national pride regarding the state airline.

an awful faith that has corrupted the intentions and behaviour of what would otherwise be regular folk.

The email from the kiwi on the oil rig seems to be the most credible.

especially compared to the malaysian military - incompetent cnuts

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’ 30.20” N
Lat 108 42.22.26” E

“I observed (the plane?) burning at high altitude at a compass bearing of 265* to 275*

‘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.
“The sea surface current at our location is 2-2.3 knots in the direction of 225-230.
“The wind direction has been E-ENE averaging 15-20 knots.
“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.
“The general position of the observation was perpendicular/ south west of the normal flight paths.

(We see the con trails every day) and at a lower altitude than the normal flight paths or on the compass bearing 265 to 275 intersecting the normal flight paths at normal altitude but further away.

“Good Luck"

Michael Jerome McKay

Yup thats the one I put up yesterday afternoon, seems to make the most sense to me, plus its near the location of the findings of the Chinese satellite.

They'll find it exactly where it should be..... it's probably the one place that it hasn't occurred to them to look....

Originally Posted by baldrick

The email from the kiwi on the oil rig seems to be the most credible.

especially compared to the malaysian military - incompetent cnuts

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’ 30.20” N
Lat 108 42.22.26” E

“I observed (the plane?) burning at high altitude at a compass bearing of 265* to 275*

‘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.
“The sea surface current at our location is 2-2.3 knots in the direction of 225-230.
“The wind direction has been E-ENE averaging 15-20 knots.
“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.
“The general position of the observation was perpendicular/ south west of the normal flight paths.

(We see the con trails every day) and at a lower altitude than the normal flight paths or on the compass bearing 265 to 275 intersecting the normal flight paths at normal altitude but further away.

“Good Luck"

Michael Jerome McKay

he could also be describing a meteorite...

Originally Posted by Necron99

he could also be describing a meteorite...

yes - but any "flaming object" reported in that area during that time should be subject to investigation

Originally Posted by bangkokbonecollector

don't know what it is about Malaysians but they appear to be a bunch of kids stuck in men's bodies.

They are only one rung up the ladder from a Thai.........

They say they have searched that area already but it was probably nothing more than a fly-past. I would have expected ships to have started from the predicted crash site.

Originally Posted by baldrick

The email from the kiwi on the oil rig seems to be the most credible.

especially compared to the malaysian military - incompetent cnuts

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’ 30.20” N
Lat 108 42.22.26” E

“I observed (the plane?) burning at high altitude at a compass bearing of 265* to 275*

‘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.
“The sea surface current at our location is 2-2.3 knots in the direction of 225-230.
“The wind direction has been E-ENE averaging 15-20 knots.
“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.
“The general position of the observation was perpendicular/ south west of the normal flight paths.

(We see the con trails every day) and at a lower altitude than the normal flight paths or on the compass bearing 265 to 275 intersecting the normal flight paths at normal altitude but further away.

“Good Luck"

Michael Jerome McKay

I read that the BBC have scotched this having checked with the company operating the rig?

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Satellite image area 'already searched'

The area where Chinese satellite images show what might be debris from the missing Malaysian jetliner has been thoroughly searched in recent days, Vietnam has said as Malaysia urged caution over the findings.

Satellite images from China's State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence show three floating objects in the Strait of Malacca, where it's speculated the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 travelled after it left its approved flight path.

The photos were taken on Sunday - a day after the plane carrying 239 passengers went missing - but they have only been released today, according to CNN.

Pham Quy Tieu, deputy transport minister, said the area had been "searched thoroughly" by forces from other countries over the past few days. Doan Huu Gia, chief of air search and rescue coordination centre, said Malaysian and Singaporean aircraft were scheduled to visit the area again today.

Malaysia's civil aviation chief, Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, urged caution, noting that the images were taken on Sunday.

"There have been lots of reports of suspected debris," he said.

A Malaysian military attache in Hanoi told Vietnamese search authorities that two ships and two aircraft had been dispatched to the area.
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Satellite image area 'already searched' - World News | TVNZ

I wonder how much longer Malaysian Airlines will remain in business. Perhaps it will become Malaysia's equivalent of Orient Thai, but propped up with State funds.

from the wall street journal.

U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines 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.
from todays wall street journal


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. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.

That raises a host of new questions and possibilities about what happened aboard the widebody jet carrying 239 people, which vanished from civilian air-traffic control radar over the weekend, about one hour into a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

Six days after the mysterious disappearance prompted a massive international air and water search that so far hasn't produced any results, the investigation appears to be broadening in scope.

U.S. counterterrorism officials are pursuing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board the plane may have diverted it toward an undisclosed location after intentionally turning off the jetliner's transponders to avoid radar detection, according to one person tracking the probe.

The investigation remains fluid, and it isn't clear whether investigators have evidence indicating possible terrorism or espionage. So far, U.S. national security officials have said that nothing specifically points toward terrorism, though they haven't ruled it out.

But the huge uncertainty about where the plane was headed, and why it apparently continued flying so long without working transponders, has raised theories among investigators that the aircraft may have been commandeered for a reason that appears unclear to U.S. authorities.

Some of those theories have been laid out to national security officials and senior personnel from various U.S. agencies, according to one person familiar with the matter.

At one briefing, according to this person, officials were told investigators are actively pursuing the notion that the plane was diverted "with the intention of using it later for another purpose."


As of Wednesday it remained unclear whether the plane reached an alternate destination or if it ultimately crashed, potentially hundreds of miles from where an international search effort has been focused.

In those scenarios, neither mechanical problems, pilot mistakes nor some other type of catastrophic incident caused the 250-ton plane to mysteriously vanish from radar.
The latest revelations come as local media reported that Malaysian police visited the home of at least one of the two pilots.

Boeing officials and a Malaysia Airlines official declined to comment.

The engines' onboard monitoring system is provided by their manufacturer, Rolls-Royce PLC, and it periodically sends bursts of data about engine health, operations and aircraft movements to facilities on the ground.

Rolls-Royce couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

As part of its maintenance agreements, Malaysia Airlines transmits its engine data live to Rolls-Royce for analysis. The system compiles data from inside the 777's two Trent 800 engines and transmits snapshots of performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet.

Those snippets are compiled and transmitted in 30-minute increments, said one person familiar with the system. According to Rolls-Royce's website, the data is processed automatically "so that subtle changes in condition from one flight to another can be detected."

The engine data is being analyzed to help determine the flight path of the plane after the transponders stopped working. The jet was originally headed for China, and its last verified position was half way across the Gulf of Thailand.

A total flight time of five hours after departing Kuala Lumpur means the Boeing 777 could have continued for an additional distance of about 2,200 nautical miles, reaching points as far as the Indian Ocean, the border of Pakistan or even the Arabian Sea, based on the jet's cruising speed.

Earlier Wednesday, frustrations over the protracted search for the missing plane mounted as both China and Vietnam vented their anger over what they viewed as poor coordination of the effort.

Government conflicts and national arguments over crises are hardly unique to the Flight 370 situation, but some air-safety experts said they couldn't recall another recent instance of governments publicly feuding over search procedures during the early phase of an international investigation.

Authorities radically expanded the size of the search zone Wednesday, which already was proving a challenge to cover effectively, but the mission hadn't turned up much by the end of the fifth day.

Also on Wednesday, a Chinese government website posted images from Chinese satellites showing what it said were three large objects floating in an 8-square-mile area off the southern tip of Vietnam. The objects were discovered on Sunday , according to the website, which didn't say whether the objects had been recovered or examined.

Ten countries were helping to scour the seas around Malaysia, including China, the U.S. and Vietnam. Taiwanese vessels are expected to be on the scene by Friday, with India and Japan having also agreed to join the search soon.

In all, 56 surface ships were taking part in the search, according to statements issued by the contributing governments, with Malaysia providing 27 of them. In addition, 30 fixed-wing aircraft were also searching, with at least 10 shipboard helicopters available, mostly in the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam.

China's government was especially aggrieved. More than 150 of the 239 people on board are Chinese, and family members in Beijing have at times loudly expressed their frustration over the absence of leads.

More than a dozen Chinese diplomats met with Malaysian authorities in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday as tension grew over the search.
"At present there's a lot of different information out there. It's very chaotic and very hard to verify," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a regular press briefing. "We've said as long as there is a shred of hope, you can't give up."
The day before, Beijing pointedly pressed Malaysia to accelerate its investigation, which has been hampered by false leads on suspected debris and conflicting reports on radar tracking.

Vietnam on Wednesday suspended its search flights after conflicting reports from Malaysia that authorities had tracked the plane to the Strait of Malacca before it disappeared.

Gen. Rodzali Daud, Malaysia's air force chief, denied saying he had told local media that military radar facilities had tracked the plane there, saying they were still examining all possibilities. Vietnam later resumed normal search sweeps.
Malaysian authorities divided the search area into several sectors on either side of the country, as well as areas on land.

The challenge, said Lt. David Levy, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet, isn't so much coordination as the sheer size of the area involved. The search grids are up to 20 miles by 120 miles, and ships and aircraft employ an exhaustive methodical pattern "like mowing your lawn" in their search for the plane, he said.

U.S. defense officials sought to play down any suggestion that the Malaysian government was doing a poor job with the search.

"It is not unusual for searches to take a long time, especially when you are working with limited data," one official said.

Aviation experts say the absence of an electronic signal from the plane before it disappeared from radar screens makes it difficult to pin down possible locations. Some radar data suggested the Boeing 777 might have tried to turn back to Kuala Lumpur before contact was lost, a detail that prompted a search for the plane on both sides of the Malaysian peninsula.

A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft has been searching the northern Strait of Malacca, west of Malaysia, while destroyers USS Kidd and USS Pinckney have been deploying helicopters in the Gulf of Thailand to the east.

So far the U.S., like other nations taking part in the search, has had no success. Many aviation experts are concluding that searchers might not have been looking in the right places. Even if the plane broke up in midair, it would have left telltale traces of debris in the ocean. The cracks now emerging between some of the participants in the search could make it even more difficult.

Diplomatic feuds over air disasters have generally erupted over the conclusions of the investigations, long after the initial search is over.

The results of the 1999 crash of an Egyptair Boeing 767 en route to Egypt from New York, which killed 217 people, spawned a dispute between Washington and Cairo that strained ties for years.

The National Transportation Safety Board concluded the plane's co-pilot purposely put the twin-engine jet into a steep dive and then resisted efforts by the captain to recover control before the airliner slammed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nantucket.

Egyptian authorities insisted the evidence indicated mechanical failure.
Years earlier, Washington and Paris butted heads over the investigation of an American Eagle commuter turboprop that crashed in 1994 near Roselawn, Ind. The French objected to the NTSB's conclusions that French regulators failed to take actions that could have prevented the accident.

—Jon Ostrower, Trefor Moss, Gaurav Raghuvanshi and Josh Chin contributed to this article.

The plot thickens.....

I think everybody is being a bit hard on Malaysia.
They have never had a crisis like this, they have limited or no data to work with.
They have no history of disasters which would have built crisis management structures and expertise.
They might be fucking up PR but they sound no different than other Asian "Face" cultures when things have gone wrong.

Remember how long it took FEMA to get water to the stadium after Katrina?

Originally Posted by taxexile

Boeing officials and a Malaysia Airlines official declined to comment.

Originally Posted by taxexile

Rolls-Royce couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Why is that? On another note, how long is the flight from KL to Beijing?

Wotif the plane were gassed?

If that Wall Street Journal article is accurate, it throws a whole new element into the mystery. It seems to me that it would make the possibility of a hijacking far more feasible. But, it does beg even more questions......Is it possible to hijack a plane and land it somewhere where it can be hidden from the world? To me, only stashing it in a totally controlled country, North Korea, might work - but why would they want it?

Also, if a hijacking, why has nobody claimed responsibility? Hijackers usually want to go somewhere, or to put a political issue in the eyes of the world....if the first, we should have known when they got where they were going; if the latter, why has nothing been heard? If they were going to use it for a 9/11 type action, why stash the plane and wait?

Strange one........

Further quote from Ibrahim Mat Zin: “We use fish trap hook and a bamboo binocular to look and ask for the victims to be found as soon as possible,” he told reporters here today.

Makes me sad that these people can vote.

Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble

Nothing found 9 countries involved.

BBC News - Malaysia Airlines: How is the search being carried out?

^^^ maybe Moonface wanted a new Dear Leaders Plane....

They have a track record of kidnapping SKs and Japs.
I don't think it's possible to steal a 777 and just hide it, outside of NK.

Personally, I think this supports the pilot guys theory on slow decompression causing them to all black out and a plane full of brain dead passengers and crew just flying on until the fuel ran out. A plane with no gas wouldn't attract a lot of attention to itself crashing in a wilderness area.