Latest developments:
Will no one ever be blamed for MH370?
1:55 pm: "We only get denials and apologies but is no one going to take the blame for MH370?” A Malaysian whose husband, Azrai Izet, was on the still missing plane, asked this in an open letter published on AstroAwani's website.
Fadzilah Abdul Rahim questioned why the authorities cannot own up to mistakes or give the truth. She said that more than false comforts offered by MAS, the passenger's families really wanted the truth.
"I am sure Malaysians don't want 239 people to perish for no good reason. We want an assurance that such an incident cannot happen again to anyone else," Fadzilah wrote in Malay.
Specifically, Fadzilah added she would like to know:
"Who is responsible for passenger and aircraft safety, airline industry standards and for guarding Malaysia's airspace? And has anything been changed since?"
She noted that authorities have yet to explain why the army and the airport control tower could not trace or intercept the flight in time and how two stowaways could have boarded using false passports.
Read her full letter here.
Now 'raja bomoh' is heading down under
12.15pm: Since his last 'raise the dead' ritual on Pulau Sembilan late last month didn't get any clear signals from the afterworld, self-styled 'Bomoh King' Ibrahim Mat Zain is now saying passengers on board MH370 may still be alive.
In
his latest offering, Ibrahim says he will go to Australia so that Malay
traditional methods can work hand-in-hand with “science and technology”
methods now being used in the search operation.
"In my view, as a raja bomoh, they are alive. It (the plane) can be in the air, on an island somewhere, but surely not in the ocean," Ibrahim says in a YouTube video uploaded by Suara TV yesterday.
Speaker: No intention to mislead with 'assumption'
12pm: Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia finds that Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri did not intend to confuse Parliament when he initially claimed the Royal Malaysia Air Force (RMAF) had "assumed" the missing Flight MH370 was ordered to turn back by air traffic control.
M'sia needs 'more than PR exercise'
11.40 am: Bloomberg columnist William Pesek says the Malaysian government has much to do, much more than a major PR exercise, to regain its reputation that in the aftermath of the MH370 crisis, saying it must be "nothing less than a political revolution".
Ahead
of possible upcoming visit of US President Barack Obama - the first by a
US leader to Kuala Lumpur in 50 years - Pesek recommends Prime Minister
Najib Abdul Razak end all affirmative action policies based on
ethnicity, which he dubbed "apartheid economics."
Writing from Tokyo, Pesek urges Najib to also take a break from his punitive campaign against the opposition and the ‘Allah’ issue.
"The Flight 370 crisis has fully exposed the dangers of allowing one party to rule a nation for six decades," Pesek writes in an editorial on Bloomberg View.
US: Deigo Garcia conspiracy untrue
11.18am: The United States denies the conspiracy theory that the missing jetliner is at its Indian Ocean naval base Diego Garcia.
"The speculation that passenger Philip Woods had sent a photo message from Diego Garcia is not true...
"There is no sign that MH370 flew anywhere close to the Maldives or Diego Garcia," an unnamed spokesperson for the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur is quoted by Sinar Harian as saying.
The spokesperson adds that it only provides information upon request and Malaysia has not requested for data from US satellite located in Pine Gap, Australia.
What is the black box?
11am: The black box contains a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder. In 1960, Australia became the first country in the world to make black boxes mandatory for all commercial aircraft.
The black box is especially useful in the aftermath of a plane crash, with its underwater locator beacon (ULB). The ULB is activated as soon as the recorder hits water and can transmit from a depth of up to 14,000 feet (4.3 kilometres).
According to the National Geographic Channel,
the cockpit voice recorder picks up all sounds within the cockpit,
including pilot and crew banter, engine noise, warning pings and pops.
Located in the tail end of a plane, it records on a two-hour loop.
In the case of MH370, other than recording the last words of the pilots before the plane went down, this recorder may not be able to shed much light at to the reason it deviated course as the plane had continued to fly for more than two hours after it ceased contact with air traffic control.
The flight data recorder, meanwhile, picks up the plane's altitude, airspeed and direction among others. It can help generate computer video reconstructions of a flight to help investigators visualise a crash and can record for 25 hours straight.
Also, to help investigators find them: a black box is not actually black at all, but bright orange.
Total four pings detected from man-made device
10am: To recap, the towed pinger locator being used by Ocean Shield has to date detected four ping signals northwest of Perth - two on Saturday and another two were reacquired on Tuesday.
Acoustic
analysis of the first two transmissions assessed they were not of
natural origin, but were emitted from a man-made electronic equipment,
most likely a flight data recorder such as those contained in a plane's
black box.
The signals were, however, getting weaker, possibly indicating that the black box battery is dying out as it has surpassed its 30-day expected lifespan.
According
to a map from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the four pings
heard so far came from a triangular zone with one side almost 30
kilometers long.
Yesterday, JACC chief Angus Houston (left) told reporters it would be a "matter of days" before a torpedo-like mini-submarine drone is deployed to the bottom of the ocean, some 4.5kilometres down.
Searchers want to exhaust use of the pinger locator until they are certain the black box’s emergency beacon has ceased all transmissions.
The underwater device, called Bluefin-21 and loaned from the US Navy, will hopefully give conclusive evidence as to MH370's “final resting place”, he said.
Nazri to visit Chinese ambassador
9am: In his capacity as Inter-Parliamentary Union Malaysia chairperson, Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz, along with several other MPs, will visit Chinese ambassador Huang Huikang today.
The Star Online reports that the visit is an "expression of solidarity" with the Chinese people who are grieving over missing Flight MH370.
Nazri (right) also reiterates that he is halting all tourism roadshows in China until there is closure for MH370.
"So long as there is no closure, I do not think it is appropriate to continue the roadshows in China."
China is Malaysia's third largest market for tourism and the MH370 incident, with 152 China nationals on board, have affected tourist arrivals during Visit Malaysia Year 2014.
Search area significantly reduced
6am: The
Australia-led search for Flight MH370 has successfully narrowed the
search area by nearly four-fold after discovering four transmissions, a
from likely black box, by using a towed pinger locator to comb the south
Indian Ocean from last Friday.
As the eight-nation backed search enters its 34th day, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) says today they are now confident of spotting the Boeing 777 within an area of 58,000 square kilometre northwest of Perth.
This compares to the initial search area of 217,000 sq km when the pinger locator was first deployed into the waters on April 4.
Up
to 10 military aircraft, four civil aircraft and 13 ships will assist
today's search, while the main underwater search will still be led by
Australia’s defence vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield, assisted by Chinese ship
Haixun 01 and the HMS Echo.
"Aircraft and ships reported spotting a large number of objects during yesterday's search, but only a small number were able to be recovered.
"None of the recovered items were believed to be associated with MH370," JACC adds in its daily statement.
On the weather, JACC ays it expects moderate winds and isolated showers, although visibility is expected to be fair.
Background:
-
'Raja bomoh' says passengers are alive, not in ocean
-
'Plane not at US Diego Garcia naval base'
-
Visit Malaysia tourism roadshows in China scrapped
-
Search area refined four fold with ping findings
- Floating objects retrieved not from MH370
Will no one ever be blamed for MH370?
1:55 pm: "We only get denials and apologies but is no one going to take the blame for MH370?” A Malaysian whose husband, Azrai Izet, was on the still missing plane, asked this in an open letter published on AstroAwani's website.
Fadzilah Abdul Rahim questioned why the authorities cannot own up to mistakes or give the truth. She said that more than false comforts offered by MAS, the passenger's families really wanted the truth.
"I am sure Malaysians don't want 239 people to perish for no good reason. We want an assurance that such an incident cannot happen again to anyone else," Fadzilah wrote in Malay.
Specifically, Fadzilah added she would like to know:
"Who is responsible for passenger and aircraft safety, airline industry standards and for guarding Malaysia's airspace? And has anything been changed since?"
She noted that authorities have yet to explain why the army and the airport control tower could not trace or intercept the flight in time and how two stowaways could have boarded using false passports.
Read her full letter here.
Now 'raja bomoh' is heading down under
12.15pm: Since his last 'raise the dead' ritual on Pulau Sembilan late last month didn't get any clear signals from the afterworld, self-styled 'Bomoh King' Ibrahim Mat Zain is now saying passengers on board MH370 may still be alive.
In
his latest offering, Ibrahim says he will go to Australia so that Malay
traditional methods can work hand-in-hand with “science and technology”
methods now being used in the search operation."In my view, as a raja bomoh, they are alive. It (the plane) can be in the air, on an island somewhere, but surely not in the ocean," Ibrahim says in a YouTube video uploaded by Suara TV yesterday.
Speaker: No intention to mislead with 'assumption'
12pm: Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia finds that Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri did not intend to confuse Parliament when he initially claimed the Royal Malaysia Air Force (RMAF) had "assumed" the missing Flight MH370 was ordered to turn back by air traffic control.
The speaker today says he accepts Rahim's added-on explanation that the
latter had relayed his own personal "assumption" when informing MPs on
March 26 that that was the reason the RMAF did not act to intercept the
plane when it had the chance to on the day it went missing.
Read more here.
Read more here.
M'sia needs 'more than PR exercise'
11.40 am: Bloomberg columnist William Pesek says the Malaysian government has much to do, much more than a major PR exercise, to regain its reputation that in the aftermath of the MH370 crisis, saying it must be "nothing less than a political revolution".
Ahead
of possible upcoming visit of US President Barack Obama - the first by a
US leader to Kuala Lumpur in 50 years - Pesek recommends Prime Minister
Najib Abdul Razak end all affirmative action policies based on
ethnicity, which he dubbed "apartheid economics."Writing from Tokyo, Pesek urges Najib to also take a break from his punitive campaign against the opposition and the ‘Allah’ issue.
"The Flight 370 crisis has fully exposed the dangers of allowing one party to rule a nation for six decades," Pesek writes in an editorial on Bloomberg View.
US: Deigo Garcia conspiracy untrue
11.18am: The United States denies the conspiracy theory that the missing jetliner is at its Indian Ocean naval base Diego Garcia.
"The speculation that passenger Philip Woods had sent a photo message from Diego Garcia is not true..."There is no sign that MH370 flew anywhere close to the Maldives or Diego Garcia," an unnamed spokesperson for the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur is quoted by Sinar Harian as saying.
The spokesperson adds that it only provides information upon request and Malaysia has not requested for data from US satellite located in Pine Gap, Australia.
What is the black box?
11am: The black box contains a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder. In 1960, Australia became the first country in the world to make black boxes mandatory for all commercial aircraft.
The black box is especially useful in the aftermath of a plane crash, with its underwater locator beacon (ULB). The ULB is activated as soon as the recorder hits water and can transmit from a depth of up to 14,000 feet (4.3 kilometres).
According to the National Geographic Channel,
the cockpit voice recorder picks up all sounds within the cockpit,
including pilot and crew banter, engine noise, warning pings and pops.
Located in the tail end of a plane, it records on a two-hour loop.In the case of MH370, other than recording the last words of the pilots before the plane went down, this recorder may not be able to shed much light at to the reason it deviated course as the plane had continued to fly for more than two hours after it ceased contact with air traffic control.
The flight data recorder, meanwhile, picks up the plane's altitude, airspeed and direction among others. It can help generate computer video reconstructions of a flight to help investigators visualise a crash and can record for 25 hours straight.
Also, to help investigators find them: a black box is not actually black at all, but bright orange.
Total four pings detected from man-made device
10am: To recap, the towed pinger locator being used by Ocean Shield has to date detected four ping signals northwest of Perth - two on Saturday and another two were reacquired on Tuesday.
Acoustic
analysis of the first two transmissions assessed they were not of
natural origin, but were emitted from a man-made electronic equipment,
most likely a flight data recorder such as those contained in a plane's
black box.The signals were, however, getting weaker, possibly indicating that the black box battery is dying out as it has surpassed its 30-day expected lifespan.
According
to a map from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the four pings
heard so far came from a triangular zone with one side almost 30
kilometers long.Yesterday, JACC chief Angus Houston (left) told reporters it would be a "matter of days" before a torpedo-like mini-submarine drone is deployed to the bottom of the ocean, some 4.5kilometres down.
Searchers want to exhaust use of the pinger locator until they are certain the black box’s emergency beacon has ceased all transmissions.
The underwater device, called Bluefin-21 and loaned from the US Navy, will hopefully give conclusive evidence as to MH370's “final resting place”, he said.
Nazri to visit Chinese ambassador
9am: In his capacity as Inter-Parliamentary Union Malaysia chairperson, Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz, along with several other MPs, will visit Chinese ambassador Huang Huikang today.
The Star Online reports that the visit is an "expression of solidarity" with the Chinese people who are grieving over missing Flight MH370.Nazri (right) also reiterates that he is halting all tourism roadshows in China until there is closure for MH370.
"So long as there is no closure, I do not think it is appropriate to continue the roadshows in China."
China is Malaysia's third largest market for tourism and the MH370 incident, with 152 China nationals on board, have affected tourist arrivals during Visit Malaysia Year 2014.
Search area significantly reduced
6am: The
Australia-led search for Flight MH370 has successfully narrowed the
search area by nearly four-fold after discovering four transmissions, a
from likely black box, by using a towed pinger locator to comb the south
Indian Ocean from last Friday.As the eight-nation backed search enters its 34th day, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) says today they are now confident of spotting the Boeing 777 within an area of 58,000 square kilometre northwest of Perth.
This compares to the initial search area of 217,000 sq km when the pinger locator was first deployed into the waters on April 4.
Up
to 10 military aircraft, four civil aircraft and 13 ships will assist
today's search, while the main underwater search will still be led by
Australia’s defence vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield, assisted by Chinese ship
Haixun 01 and the HMS Echo."Aircraft and ships reported spotting a large number of objects during yesterday's search, but only a small number were able to be recovered.
"None of the recovered items were believed to be associated with MH370," JACC adds in its daily statement.
On the weather, JACC ays it expects moderate winds and isolated showers, although visibility is expected to be fair.
Background:
-
The Beijing-bound Boeing 777-200ER aircraft went missing not long after
taking off from KL International Airport in the early hours of March 8,
with 12 crew members and 227 passengers.
-
Authorities have determined the plane intentionally turned back and
altered its course shortly after cutting communications with tower
controllers for unknown reasons.
-
"Groundbreaking" data analysis on the six last 'pings' between MH370 and
British company Inmarsat's communications satellite has yielded clues
to the aircraft's position and heading, leading investigators to narrow
down the search area to the south Indian Ocean.
- Australia leads the search in the south Indian Ocean. As of March 30, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) is tasked with overseeing the operations, led by retired air marshal and former defence chief Angus Houston.
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