Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is missing

[sn26567]

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 plunged into sea at almost 400km/hr

Australia's crash investigator has revealed that data indicates that MH370 could have been descending at up to 20,000ft (6700m) a minute in the moments just before it smashed into the sea with 239 passengers and crew.

In his first interview after taking over as Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), Greg Hood told AirlineRatings.com in Perth, Western Australia, that the automated satellite communication with the Boeing 777 in its final minutes showed that its descent increased dramatically from about 5,400ft (1200m) a minute to up to 20,000ft (6700m) a minute.

The big increase suggests that no one was in control of the aircraft, he said.

The exclusive interview comes after some media outlets have cited a two-year-old FBI report into a flight simulator program on MH370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's home computer to claim that he glided the Boeing 777 in a controlled water landing and that the ATSB is looking in the wrong place.

Mr Hood also said that the FBI report was not new. "We have known about the FBI report for two years and it was widely reported in the media at the time. It is nothing new."

But Mr Hood was emphatic to AirlineRatings.com that the FBI report only "potentially shows planning and possibly intent, but it does not tell us where the aircraft is."

Source: eTN

[Passenger]

"...The Australian-led search for MH370 has again been accused of looking in the wrong place for the Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing 777 based on evidence someone was in control of the plane till the very end. Senior air crash investigator Larry Vance told Channel 9’s 60 Minutes program, a flaperon found on Reunion Island last year and handed over to France for analysis was the strongest clue yet the aircraft was “glided” into the ocean..."

Continues here:
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-up ... 1151c0c417

https://twitter.com/60mins

[sn26567]

MH370 pilot had Indian Ocean route on simulator, Malaysia officials confirm

A Malaysian government official said this week the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 operating as flight MH370 had entered a course to the southern Indian Ocean on his home flight simulator, the New York Times, AP and other news organizations are reporting.

At a press briefing in Kuala Lumpur for local journalists Thursday, Aug. 4, Malaysia transport minister Liow Tiong Lai confirmed that data recovered from the home flight simulator of the captain who piloted MH370, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, included a flight path to the southern Indian Ocean.

But the minister also said that thousands of destinations were found on the simulator. According to the NYT report, the minister did not say when the Indian Ocean track was entered into the simulator and he cautioned that it was too soon to draw conclusions from the finding.

In their statement, the ministers said none of the debris collected so far had provided information that positively identified the precise location of the aircraft. “Despite the best efforts of all involved, the likelihood of finding the aircraft is fading,” they said.

Source: ATW Online

[sn26567]

A new piece of MH370 might have been found in Mozambique

A new piece coming from an aircraft might have come ashore, this time in Mozambique, according to British newspaper The Daily Mail. It is thought that this peice may be originating from the Boeing 777-200ER of Malaysia Airlines. This one-meter-high part was found by a South-African guide.

The fact that it is distorted gives birth to speculations that there was an explosion on board. It is indeed one of several aircraft parts found on the East Coast of Africa.

Mike Exner, a member of the Independent Group, has examined all aspects of the disappearance of the MH370 aircraft. He believes that the newly discovered piece was part of the tail of the Boeing.

[sn26567]

Australia's ATSB confirms that a piece of aircraft debris recently found off Tanzania is from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

[sn26567]

Five new pieces of debris that could belong to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been found in Madagascar.

Two fragments appear to show burn marks, which if confirmed would be the first time such marks have been found.

Another small piece was found in the same area and two others in the north-eastern beaches of Antsiraka and Riake, where debris had already been found.

All five fragments have the "honeycomb" material found in other MH370 debris.

Full story and pictures: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37333762

[sn26567]

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has confirmed that a piece of wing trailing edge debris, found in Mauritius around May 10 is from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that crashed in March 2014 while operating as MH370.

In an update released Oct. 7, the ATSB said the item of composite debris —referred to as part number six— was a trailing edge section of 777’s left, outboard flap, originating from the Malaysia Airlines aircraft.

To date, the ATSB has confirmed six items as being from —or almost certainly from— MH370.

French air accident investigation body BEA has also positively confirmed that a flaperon, found on Reunion Island on July 29, 2015, was from MH370.

Full story: http://atwonline.com/safety/atsb-confir ... bris-mh370

[sn26567]

In a technical report released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the theory that that no one was at the controls of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 when it ran out of fuel and dove at high speed into a remote patch of the Indian Ocean off western Australia in 2014 is supported by several factors.

For one thing, if someone was still controlling the Boeing 777 at the end of its flight, the aircraft could have glided much farther, tripling in size the possible area where it could have crashed. Also satellite data indicates that the aircraft was travelling at a “high and increasing rate of descent” at the last moments it was airborne.

The report also said that an analysis of a wing flap that washed ashore in Tanzania indicates the flap was likely not deployed when it broke off the plane. A pilot would typically extend the flaps during a controlled ditching.

More from eTN: http://etn.travel/article/pilot-malaysi ... 0-crashed/

Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is still missing...

[sn26567]

ATSB plans to extend MH370 search should be confirmed soon

It’s been made selectively clear for months by the ATSB that there will be a follow-up search for MH370 if the current search area in the south Indian Ocean fails to give up the sunk wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER.

https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalkin ... rmed-soon/

[Passenger]

Last Monday (12th Dec 2016), the Dutch vessel "Fugro Equator" left Fremantle harbour (Australia) for its final search mission. Meanwhile, the Chinese search vessel "Dong Hai Jiu 101" is heading home from its search mission.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/nation ... d251bd62c5


Fugro Equator - photo Fugro.com

[Passenger]

Press Release Australian ATSB, 20th December 2016:

Today the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) released its report MH370 – First Principles Review and CSIRO’s supporting report The search for MH370 and ocean surface drift. The First Principles Review report summarises the outcomes of a meeting conducted in November and attended by Australian and international experts in data processing, satellite communications, accident investigation, aircraft performance, flight operations, sonar data, acoustic data and oceanography. The purpose of the First Principles Review was to reassess and validate existing evidence and to consider any new analysis that may assist in identifying the location of MH370. The CSIRO report, which should be read in conjunction with the ATSB report, was commissioned by the ATSB earlier in 2016 and was considered by the experts attending the First Principles Review.

The experts confirmed their agreement that the analysis of the last two SATCOM transmissions, the likely housed position of the main flaps at impact, and results from the recent flight simulations indicate with high probability that the aircraft lies within 25 NM of the 7th arc that had been derived from analysis of the last satellite communications with the aircraft.

Given the high confidence in the search undertaken to date, the experts agreed that the previously defined indicative underwater area is unlikely to contain the missing aircraft between latitudes 36°S and 39.3°S along the 7th arc.

The experts also agreed that CSIRO’s debris drift modelling results present strong evidence that the aircraft is most likely to be located to the north of the current indicative underwater search area. When considered together with updated flight path modelling, the experts concluded that an unsearched area between latitudes 33°S and 36°S along the 7th arc of approximately 25,000 km², has the highest probability of containing the wreckage of the aircraft.

Press release:
http://www.atsb.gov.au/newsroom/2016/mh ... o-reports/
Additional info:
http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv ... -2014-054/
Report - pdf 2,2 Mb:
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5772107/ae ... report.pdf
Same - via ReadSpeaker:
http://docreader.readspeaker.com/docrea ... report.pdf

[Treeper]

right...
so after more than 2 years and a half they conclude they have been searching in the wrong place ever since.

that's 60million $ down the drain.

If I'm not mistaken, one of the Fugro ships is in the 'original' search zone for the moment.
Any idea if they're going to relocate then?

[luchtzak]

Search for MH370 has been suspended: https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/malaysi ... suspended/

[quixoticguide]

Missing MH370 plane ‘was carrying a mystery extra passenger who seized control of the packed jet before it vanished from radars’, shock theory claims

MISSING Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was hijacked by a mysterious extra passenger, according to a shocking new theory.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3041916/m ... -passenger

[Passenger]

Another one of those "perhaps..." stories:

...A Chinese satellite has identified another object in the Indian Ocean that could be from the missing Malaysia Airlines airliner...
http://www.drive.com.au/world/missing-m ... 35ap6.html

[Treeper]

Another one of those "perhaps..." stories

Not even.
I thought I saw that already before. And I did.
Look at the av herald. It's a sat photo already released in 2014.

[Passenger]

Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation: "What debris and the Indian Ocean told drift modellers about MH370 search area"

Blog article 21 April 2017:
https://blogs.csiro.au/ecos/mh370/


(photo CSIRO)

[quixoticguide]

Simulated trajectories of many flaperons drifting in accordance with what was observed in field testing. It shows that none of the black dots marking the end of trajectories land in Australia, they all head towards Reunion Island.

[Treeper]

An interesting 'side-effect' on the deep ocean search:
https://eos.org/project-updates/geologi ... 370-search

[sn26567]

New reports offer clues to MH370 location

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released two new reports that analysed data gathered during the surface search for Malaysia Airlines MH370.

The reports, prepared by Geoscience Australia and the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), analysed satellite imagery taken on 23 March 2014 – two weeks after the Boeing 777-200ER went missing over the Southern Indian Ocean.

The area captured by the imagery was not searched from the air, but is close to the underwater search area for the missing aircraft, says the ATSB. The images were taken just west of the seventh arc in the vicinity of the new search area proposed by ATSB in 2016.

Experts from Geoscience Australia examined the images and classified 12 out of 70 identified objects as "probably man-made". The image resolution is however not high enough to ascertain whether the objects originated from MH370, says ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood.

A drift study by CSIRO found that the projected location of the objects identified in most of the satellite images is consistent with the area identified by experts in the "First Principles Review' report released last November. The review had identified a new area where the aircraft was likely to have come down, outside of the 120,000 square kilometres primary search area in the southern Indian Ocean.

"Taking drift model uncertainty into account, we have found that the objects identified in most of the images can be associated with a single location within the previously-identified region suggested by other lines of evidence. Furthermore, we think it is possible to identify a most-likely location of the aircraft, with unprecedented precision and certainty," says the CSIRO study.

It pointed to 35.6°S, 92.8°E, adding that nearby locations to the east of the seventh arc and a range of locations on the western side of the arc are also possible.

"Clearly we must be cautious," says Hood. "These objects have not been definitely identified as MH370 debris."

He adds the information in the reports may be useful for a further search effort, but that Malaysia retains overall authority and responsibility for any future search of the aircraft. The search for the missing aircraft concluded in January.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... on-440313/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mh370-new- ... 1502872824