An average of 1.2 aircraft go missing each year, according to an illustrated map released last week by Bloomberg News that pinpoints the last known position of 83 aircraft that have gone missing since 1948.
The Douglas DC-3 is the aircraft lost more often than any other in the past 65 years. The fact that the number of aircraft lost in the past 20 years has declined dramatically reflects the continual improvements in aviation safety over the past seven decades.
In my previous post I postulated what the discovery of debris in the Ocean meant for MH370. I stated that cause was likely be a catastrophic hull depressursation or on-board fire disabling electronic systems, passengers and crew; or was it deliberate intervention from the pilot(s) or passenger(s). I have always leant toward to the castastrophic systems failure as the most likely cause of the disappearance of MH370. While media outlets have been suggesting improbable and unlikey events, the simple explanations (from pilots) are always the most likely.
9M-MRO – the B777-200 aircraft involved in the crash
Aviation experts now say that if the 122 objects detected by satellite do turn out to be part of the jet that disappeared 13 days ago, then the most likely cause of a crash would have been a catastrophic malfunction.
Commercial pilot Robert Mark, editor of Aviation International News Safety magazine, said that because the plane deviated off-course in a straight line that it’s most likely passengers on the plane were rendered unconscious by a depressurised cabin and then ran out of oxygen.
Mr Mark said: “What I think is interesting is that if you look at where the plane was last seen on radar and where the debris has been found, it is almost a straight line”.
“I would say it means that once the aircraft turned, it didn’t change course. A mechanical fault or emergency seems more plausible to me.”
Experts say that because the flight path would have taken the plane south, a hi-jacking was extremely unlikely.
Mr Mark stated that it was possible for the plane to fly four or five hours on auto-pilot until fuel ehaustion caused the aircraft to crash into the ocean.
The new evidence would also clear pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah from accusations he may have been involved in a plot to steal the plane.
While Australian authorities have said the objects were a “credible lead”, they were careful to say that there was no confirmation that this was the missing plane.
New satellite images have identified 122 objects in a 400-square-kilometre area of the Indian Ocean 2,500km SW of Perth, WA, which Malaysian authorities believe are from the missing Malaysian airliner, Flight MH370.
These objects seen in images from a French satellite range in size from one metre to 23 metres in length and some appeared to be bright, possibly indicating solid materials, Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday night.
Officials said the images corroborate other credible leads, raising hopes ships in the area will be able to recover wreckage that can be identified as being from the plane that was carrying 239 people.
“This will enable us to further reduce the search area and locate more debris from the plane,” Mr Hishammuddin said.
Mr Hishammuddin released the images, which showed white dots between cloud formations.
Satellite images dated 23 March. Photo: MRSA
“They are not very far from objects sighted by the Chinese government,” he said. “This is clearly the most credible lead we have had so far.” Mr Hishammuddin said satellite and radar data now “corroborates some form of objects and debris”. “If it is confirmed to be MH370, at least we can move on with deep sea surveillance search and rescue and hopefully [find] the black box,” he said, referring to the plane’s recorder.
Mr Hishammuddin said the discovery is about 2500 kilometres south-west of Perth, in the same area where experts from Australia and China identified other objects from satellite images. Mr Hishammuddin said Australian authorities will factor in possible drift and other factors while planes and ships head to the area.
The images have been sent to the Australian Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Perth, which is organising the search by countries including China, Japan and India.
“It must be emphasised that we cannot tell whether the potential objects are from MH370. Nevertheless, this is another new lead that will help direct the search operation,” Mr Hishammuddin said.
Of course, until the debris has been located and recovered, confirmation that this is MH370 cannot be confirmed. As more satellite imagery comes to hand from the search area, it is more and more likely that this will be MH370. as the debris is has been sighted in the area identified by aviation search and rescue experts. The mystery of how MH370 came to end up so far of course will still need to be answered. Was it a catastrophic depressursation or on-board fire disabling passengers and crew with the aircraft flying on autopilot, or was it delibrate intervention the pilot(s) or passenger(s).
In this day and age with Australia moving inexorably towards becoming a constitutional republic, the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott wants to bring back (in part) the imperial honours system that was abolished in 1986. Mr Abbott asked the Queen to restore the system of pre-eminent honours.
However, Prime Minister Tony Abbott insists he’s not bringing knights and dames back into the Australian honours system to lock Australia into the monarchy, even though he freely admits that he is a staunch monarchist.
Retiring Governor-General Quentin Bryce has become a Dame and her successor General Peter Cosgrove will become a knight, after he takes post as the next Governor-General.
The honours category, will recognise extraordinary and pre-eminent Australians for their service to Australia or humanity. Up to four knights or dames may be appointed annually.
“I believe this is an important grace note in our national life,” Mr Abbott said on Tuesday.
Mr Abbott, a former director of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, defended the decision, saying it would enhance the dignity of the existing system. Asked whether he was seeking to cement the monarchy into Australian life, Mr Abbott said: “No, I’m not.” “Everyone knows where I stand on this particular issue,” he said. “I am a staunch supporter of our existing constitutional arrangements – always have been and, I imagine, always will be.
it just goes to show how out of touch Mr. Abbott is, by restoring a system which backdates back into English history for thousands of years. With more and more Australians wnating to move to a presidential republican model, this decision is completely out of step with popular belief.
Opponents were quick to mock the government’s move, some adopting a humorous approach.
“I have consulted my economic roundtable and can categorically state that by adopting this policy, dozens and dozens of pounds can be saved,” Labor senator Sam Dastyari told the Senate, at times adopting Shakespearean language.
He welcomed news from “Sir Anthony Abbott of Warringah” that ministries will now be decided by way of a jousting tournament in the caucus room.
His Labor colleague Stephen Conroy was more serious in his criticism, asking why the government can find money for knighthoods but not $250,000 a year for the families of Australian veterans.
Australian Republican Movement national director David Morris called it a retrograde step. “This is turning the clock back to a colonial frame of mind that we have outgrown as a nation,” he said. Mr Morris also questioned why the current system was deemed insufficient. “Our identity today is Australian, so our national honours should be thoroughly Australian.”
The Australian Monarchist League commended Mr Abbott’s announcement.
The prime minister consulted Dame Quentin and General Cosgrove on the proposition and said they were happy to accept.
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said the move showed the government was rushing back to the 19th century. “Even the arch-monarchist John Howard didn’t bring back knights and dames,” Mr Dreyfus said.
Australian Greens leader Christine Milne said Australia had gone socially backwards under Mr Abbott’s government. “Bring on a republic,” she said.
In conclusion, it is my firm belief that British honours have no place in an egalitarian Australian society. Australia is the great classless society where anyone can achieve their goals if they are perpared to work for them. The reintroduction of knights and dames is a blatant attempt to install a imperial class system into modern Australia.
The captain of flight MH370 was facing serious family problems, including separation from his wife and problems with another woman he was seeing, according to a long-time associate who believes he may have taken the Boeing 777 for a “last joyride” before crashing into the Indian Ocean.
The fellow pilot has revealed to The New Zealand Herald that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s world was crumbling and he was in no state of mind to fly the day the Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the man told the newspaper he believed Captain Zaharie, who had been left “terribly upset” when his wife told him she was leaving, may have decided to take the airliner with 239 people on board to a part of the world he had never flown.
“He’s one of the finest pilots around and I’m no medical expert, but with all that was happening in his life Zaharie was probably in no state of mind to be flying,” the friend said.
The background of the captain and his co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, continue to be investigated by authorities struggling to determine what caused the plane to turn dramatically off its flight path and head to the southern Indian Ocean where it is believed to have crashed.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that senior investigators believed the plane had been crashed deliberately in a suicide mission.
The unnamed friend of Captain Zaharie told The New Zealand Herald he spoke with the pilot several times when they met through work.
He claimed Captain Zaharie spent hours using his home-made flight simulator – which was last week seized to be analysed by the FBI – for a variety of situations he wouldn’t experience at the controls of a commercial airline, such as flying at the highest and lowest possible altitudes.
“It is very possible that neither the passengers nor the other crew on-board knew what was happening until it was too late,” the man said.
Source: The New Zealand Herald.
Is this a plausible explanation, or is this another attempt to make news when there is none?
As aircraft and ships continued to search for debris which might be that of the missing flight MH370 on Friday a Malaysian woman on a flight across the Indian Ocean claimed to have seen an aircraft in the water near the Andaman Islands on the day the jet disappeared.
The Kuala Lumpur wife was so convinced about what she saw at 2.30pm on March 8, several hours after MH370 vanished, that she filed an official report with police that very day – a full five days before the search for the plane was expanded to the area around the Andaman Islands.
News of her apparent sighting came as a blank was drawn after two days of searching in the Indian Ocean for two objects deemed by experts as possibly being from the missing plane.
9M-MRO – the B777-200 aircraft involved in the crash
But Mrs Dalelah insisted to the paper: ‘I know what I saw. I am convinced that I saw the aircraft. I will not lie. I had just returned from my pilgrimage.’
A large part of what she thought was an aircraft was submerged, she said. When she tried to tell an air stewardess what she had seen, she was told to get some sleep.
When her plane landed at Kuala Lumpur at about 4pm on that Saturday she told her children what she had seen. ‘That is when they told me that MH370 had gone missing,’ she told the paper.
‘My son-in-law, a policeman, was convinced that I had seen an aircraft and asked me to lodge a police report the same day.
‘Many of my friends on the flight doubted me at first, but they are beginning to believe me now that we know the plane (MH370) turned back and entered the Indian Ocean.’
Many will warn against dismissing Mrs Dalelah’s claims too quickly. The islands do lie across a route MH370 could have taken after radar contact was lost and it would easily have been able to reach them before Mrs Dalelah’s sighting at 2.30pm.
After its transponder was turned off at 1.21am on March 8 the plane, with enough fuel to last 2,500 miles, turned west, following an established route towards India.
An ephemeral satellite ping registered at 8.11am suggested the plane was heading in one of two directions – south to where the potential debris was spotted, or north into China and central Asia.
The Andaman Islands lie 890 miles to the north-west of Kuala Lumpur, well within range.
Officials still haven’t ruled out MH370 being found in a northerly location, with aircraft and ships renewing their search in the Andaman Sea between India and Thailand on Friday.
Source: Daily Mail (on-line)
A colleague sent me this article by email today.
Bogus copy supposedly from MAS
Original MAS advertising copy for A380
The modification the of ad to depict the B777 and the change of the text therein, is done by somebody with far too much time on their hands, and under the present circumstances with the aircraft still missing, is in extremely poor taste!
Now for a light hearted look at aviaition with “Strange Planes From Around the World”.
Some of these aircraft are real, and some of them are just, well, make believe. I liked them, I think you will too!
Low cloud and rain has hindered Australian efforts to find debris seen yesterday 2,500km south-west of Perth, that may be linked to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. A pilot returning from the search zone described the weather conditions as “extremely bad”.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is intensifying their efforts to identify two objects seen on an commercial satellite images in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean, 2,500 kilometres south-west of Perth.
The large objects, which were spotted by satellite five days ago, are the most promising find in days as searchers scour a vast area for flight MH370, which is lost with 239 people on board, including six Australians.
An RAAF Orion plane was unable to locate the debris overnight because of limited visibility from cloud and rain. “The weather conditions were such that we were unable to see for very much of the flight today but the other aircraft that are searching, they may have better conditions,” Flight Lieutenant Chris Birrer told reporters.
A reporter aboard a US Navy aircraft told America’s ABC network that their sweeps of the area yesterday only turned up a freighter and several pods of dolphins.
“This is a plane that gets very close to the water, most of the time we were skimming at about 300 feet (about 90 metres) above the water – you could see a basketball if it were in the water,” he said.
“Plus they had high-tech radar, sweeping 16 miles (about 25km) on each side of the plane. If there was something there, this plane surely would have spotted it.”
Hoegh St. Petersburg – courtesy Hoegh Autoliners
Australian search planes will continue the hunt for the debris today, along with aircraft from the US and New Zealand. Also, a Norwegian ship the Hoegh St Petersburg (a RO-RO car carrier) has arrived in the 23,000-square-km search zone last night after diverting its route from Port Louis in Mauritius to Melbourne, after responding to an Australian request for assistance. The ship will travel back and forth over a set route in an attempt to identify the objects seen by the sattelite. The ship however does not have capacity to lift any found objects out of the sea.
Another merchant ship is travelling to the area, one of six involved in the search since a shipping broadcast was issued last Monday night.
The search is continuing.
Two objects that may possibly be wreckage from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 have been spotted floating in the southern Indian Ocean.
The Australian government released pictures taken by satellite on March 16 of possible plane debris seen around 2,500km (1,500miles) southwest of Perth – one of the most remote areas of the planet that’s a four-hour flight from the Australian coast.
One of the objects is estimated to be 24m/78ft in size, the other 5m/15ft, and the sighting of the objects was said by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to be ‘credible and potentially important’.
George Brown is a decorated soldier and health professional and 40 year veteran in the field of emergency nursing and paramedical practice, both military and civilian areas. He has senior management positions in the delivery of paramedical services. Opinions expressed in these columns are solely those of the author and should not be construed as being those of any organization to which he may be connected.
He was born in the UK of Scottish ancestry from Aberdeen and a member of the Clan MacDougall. He is a member of the Macedonian community in Newcastle, and speaks fluent Macedonian. While this may seem a contradiction, it is his wife who is Macedonian, and as a result he embraced the Macedonian language and the Orthodox faith.
His interests include aviation and digital photography, and he always enjoys the opportunity to combine the two. Navigate to his Flickr site to see recent additions to his photo library.
Џорџ Браун е украсени војник и професионално здравствено лице и 40 годишен ветеран во областа на за итни случаи старечки и парамедицински пракса, двете воени и цивилни области. Тој има високи менаџерски позиции во испораката на парамедицински услуги. Мислењата изразени во овие колумни се исклучиво на авторот и не треба да се толкува како оние на било која организација тој може да биде поврзан.
Тој е роден во Велика Британија на шкотскиот потекло од Абердин и член на Kланот MacDougall. Тој е член на македонската заедница во Њукасл, и зборува течно македонски. Иако ова можеби изгледа контрадикција, тоа е неговата сопруга кој е македонски, и како резултат научил македонскиот јазик и ја примија православната вера.
Неговите интереси вклучуваат авијација и дигитална фотографија, и тој секогаш ужива во можност да се комбинираат двете. Отиди до неговиот Фликр сајт да видите последните дополнувања на неговата слика библиотека.
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