Malaysia says new search for flight MH370 to end mid-June

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Malaysia says new search for flight MH370 to end mid-June

 

 

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A search by a U.S. firm for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is expected to complete its survey by mid-June, the Southeast Asian nation said on Saturday, as families marked the fourth anniversary of one of aviation's greatest mysteries.

 

Flight MH370, carrying 239 people, disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

 

Australia, China and Malaysia ended an unsuccessful A$200-million (112.5 million pounds) search across a 120,000 square-kilometre area in the Indian Ocean in January 2017, despite investigators urging authorities to extend the operation 25,000 sq km north of the search area.

 

Earlier this year, Malaysia agreed to pay U.S. firm Ocean Infinity up to $70 million if it found the plane within 90 days. The search vessel, the Seabed Constructor, began its search on Jan. 23.

 

The 90-day agreement, however, did not include days for the search vessel to travel to a port for refuelling, Civil Aviation Authority chairman Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said.

 

"The vessel has a working cycle of 26 days before it needs to refuel and resupply," Azharuddin said at a memorial event marking the fourth year of the plane's disappearance.

 

Plans to recover the Boeing 777's wreckage or its flight recorders, in the event the aircraft is found, will be finalised in two weeks, and will involve several Malaysian and Australian agencies, he said.

Malaysia will take custody of any parts recovered from the seabed, he said.

 

The Seabed Constructor has completed the first part of its search, covering 8,200 sq km, and has now moved into a new area, Ocean Infinity said in its weekly update on Tuesday.

It has not yet made any significant findings, the firm said.

 

Saturday's memorial event featured talks and musical performances, as families paid tributes to the passengers and crew aboard the aircraft.

 

"We want to remind everyone that MH370 is not history, it's the future," said Grace Nathan, a lawyer whose mother, Anne Daisy, was on the plane.

 

"It's very important in the interests of aviation safety that we find MH370, so that we can prevent something like this from happening again," she said.

 

Investigators are divided on whether the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure or whether it was deliberately diverted over the southern Indian Ocean.

 

Debris has been collected from Indian Ocean islands and Africa's east coast and at least three pieces have been confirmed as coming from the missing plane.

 

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Sam Holmes)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-03-04

[lanista]

Probably nothing left to find anyway.  The bodies would have long since been eaten away incl bones by marine organisms and the  plane would of disintegrated on impact scattering  the fuselage  thousands of miles with the currents.  Nothing to see except for the engines.  Good luck finding those in 28000 ft of ocean.

[ravip]

Just saw this awhile ago >>> New MH370 probe shows controls manipulated, but mystery remains unsolved

[MJKT2014]

On ‎7‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 8:48 PM, ravip said:

Just saw this awhile ago >>> New MH370 probe shows controls manipulated, but mystery remains unsolved

It's interesting to read the final report from  http://mh370.mot.gov.my/MH370SafetyInvestigationReport.pdf that it barely mentions the pilot in charges mental health status or what investigations went on the ground after to determine if he was suicidal or not?

 

The fact that he had a flight simm at home with waypoints tested in the Indian ocean, he was likely the only capable person on board able to avoid radar immediately after last call, not send a distress signal, fly the route he did over his home town of Penang by manually entering new flight route seems to ring more alarm bells than anything else to a regular Joe Bloggs who doesn't know the first thing about flying. The Malaysian Civil Aviation head quitting is at least a start.

[gk10002000]

nothing new here.  the plane flew in a controlled manner, so either the autopilot that can fly routes and to waypoints with manual inputs was used, or whoever was in the cockpit manually steered the plane.  The INMARSAT doppler shift analysis is scientifically very valid, ( I have worked with radar and test range best estimate trajectory analysis using all sorts of sensors) although I have not see the details of the actual error analysis and position and velocity uncertainties.  The debris recovered out in the ocean by all accounts seems to have been confirmed it came from the actual plane.  At least the report excerpts in the linked article do not exclude the possibility of 3rd party involvement.  And can't rule out the possibility that the crew was partially overcome by bad air, or a malfunctioning air system and they were simply not all together mentally but did not realize it.  The article used the words the simulator flight path looked initially similar, is vague. I even read a report that quietly showed some parts of the air system were serviced just the day before due to some issues on a recent earlier flight.

[WorriedNoodle]

On 8/1/2018 at 9:21 AM, gk10002000 said:

not all together mentally but did not realize it

Or the captain did know what he was doing, but politics precludes this from being talked about much. It seems rather more likely the pilot deliberately flew to remotest place on earth , did a controlled sea landing to sink without trace and with as little debris as possible. These guys on The Situation Room seem to sum up things...