Flight MH370 - The Hunt for the Missing Malaysian Boeing 777 Jet

[bsteadman1]

Australian PM says searchers confident of position of MH370's black boxes

Reuters
Swati Pandey and John Ruwitch
4/11/2014

Excerpt:

(Reuters) - Search and rescue officials in Australia are confident they know the approximate position of the black box recorders from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Friday.

At the same time, however, the head of the agency coordinating the search said that the latest "ping" signal, which was captured by a listening device buoy on Thursday, was not related to the plane.

"We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometers (miles)," Abbott said in a speech in the Chinese commercial capital Shanghai.

"Still, confidence in the approximate position of the black box is not the same as recovering wreckage from almost four and a half kilometers beneath the sea or finally determining all that happened on the flight."

The mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared more than a month ago, has sparked the most expensive search and rescue operation in aviation history.

The search was focusing on a small patch of the Indian Ocean on Friday, after the latest "ping" seemed to lend credence to four previous "pings" detected by a U.S. Navy "Towed Pinger Locator" (TPL) towed by Australia's Ocean Shield vessel.

All five acoustic signals were detected in this small area.

But Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency supervising the search effort, said on Friday that analysis of acoustic data confirmed that the latest signal was unlikely to be related to the missing plane's black boxes.

"On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370. I will provide a further update if, and when, further information becomes available," he said in a statement.

The black boxes record cockpit data and may provide answers about what happened to the plane, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished on March 8 and flew thousands of kilometers off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.

BATTERIES FADING AS SEARCH CLOSES IN

Search efforts are now focused on three areas.

Aircraft and ships are combing two large search zones, some 2,390 km (1,485 miles) northwest of Perth, for possible floating debris related to the crash.

But it is the much smaller search zone, just 600 sq km (232 sq miles, located about 1,670 km (1038 miles) northwest of Perth that has generated fresh optimism.

The smaller zone is near where the Ocean Shield picked up the acoustic signals and where dozens of sonobuoys capable of transmitting data to search aircraft via radio signals were dropped on Wednesday.

The batteries in the black boxes have already reached the end of their 30-day expected life, making efforts to swiftly locate them on the murky ocean floor all the more critical, Abbott said.

"We are now getting to the stage where the signal from what we are very confident is the black box is starting to fade and we are hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires," he said.
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View the complete article at:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A3A06W20140411

[bsteadman1]

MH370 Hostage Crisis: Alive In Afghanistan

Before It's News
4/10/2014

Excerpt:

Terrorists hijacked Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370, flew the plane to Afghanistan, and passengers are alive but in severe condition, according to a Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets on Thursday that newspapers across the world are reporting this afternoon.

The plane with 239 passengers has been missing since March 8th. The paper also was told that all passengers survived the hard landing but were in severe condition due to a food shortage.

The new report, albeit not confirmed by the international investigative team dictating what Malaysian officials can and cannot say publicly, concurs with Russian officials’ earlier statement, that the plane had been hijacked and flewn to a location near Pakistan.

The report also concurs with officials’ messages that loved ones of passengers have recieved at briefings that led them to believe their loved ones are alive.

An intelligence agent reported anonymously to the Russian newspaper that the plane was in Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan.

“Pilots are not guilty, the plane was hijacked by unknown terrorists. We know that the name of the terrorist who gave instructions to pilots is ‘Hitch’,” the report says.

“The plane is in Afghanistan not far from Kandahar near the border with Pakistan,” claims the newspaper, that has a circulation of about 1.1 million.

The report added, “Plane is on the road near the mountain range, and has a broken wing. Maybe it made a hard landing. All passengers survived. They live in shacks almost without food.”

The report claims all the high-tech expert passengers on the plane were taken into a bunker in Pakistan. The intellectual value of those experts has been estimated to be many billions of U.S. dollars.

“Twenty Asian specialists were captured. There is one Japanese among them,” it said, possibly referring to Freescale Semiconductor company employees.

No ransom message pitched

The terrorists intended to kidnap experts travelling through the airline for pitching their demands. The sources added that the plane was on a road near the mountain range with a broken wing due to the emergency landing.

The sources said a militant named “Hitch” instructed the pilot throughout its journey while the world kept finding clues for the missing plane.

The Nation has reported this as has FAR News Agency.

Russian officials had already reported that the plane was in this region, but were dismissed, as were eyewitness reports on the whereabouts of the plane and one passenger’s phone calls to his sister.

The Independent had reported on March 16:

“The missing Malaysian airlines flight MH370 may have been deliberately flown under the radar to Taliban-controlled bases on the border of Afghanistan, it has emerged, as authorities said that the final message sent from the cockpit came after one of the jet’s communications systems had already been switched off,” the Independent wrote.

Also on March 16, Malaysia Transportation Minister Hishammuddin said no ransom had been demanded over the missing Flight MH370.

That was the day the SAR mission “entered a new phase,” in the northern and southern corridors and 26 countries were involved in the search, according to Malay Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Najib announced that the plane flew for hours in a manner “consistent with deliberate action” after dropping off the primary radar. He said the plane’s last communication with the satellite was in one of two possible corridors, including a northern corridor stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand.
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View the complete article at:

http://beforeitsnews.com/internation...s-2480634.html

[bsteadman1]

"LANDING AT DIEGO GARCIA WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE!" CNN Debunks Diego Garcia Theories

Published on Apr 8, 2014 by 'MOXNEWSd0tC0M'

[bsteadman]

Missing flight MH370 was ''thrown around like a fighter jet'' in deliberate bid to avoid radar detection

Daily Mirror
Sam Chadderton
4/13/2014

Excerpt:

Malaysian military investigators' new theory adds weight to the suggestion that captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own plane after tricking his co-pilot into leaving the cockpit

The missing flight MH370 carried out drastic manoeuvres just after it disappeared from radar to avoid detection - a new theory suggests.

Malaysian military investigators believe the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 jet was "thrown around like a fighter jet" to dodge radar signals and disappear.

Flight MH370, which disappeared more than five weeks ago en route to Beijing, is thought to have climbed to heights of 45,000ft - 10,000ft above its normal altitude - before plummeting to just below 5,000ft.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, a source claimed: "It was being flown very low at very high speed. And it was being flown to avoid radar."

This latest claim - combined with yesterday's reports that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid made a "desperate last-ditch call" just before the plane vanished - adds weigh to the theory that captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own plane after tricking Hamid into leaving the cockpit.

Malaysia's New Straits Times carried a front page story yesterday claiming that Fariq Abdul Hamid tried to use his mobile phone while the plane was in the air.

Citing its source as an investigator, the paper says the call was traced as the plane flew low near Penang.

FOR ALL THE LATEST ON MISSING FLIGHT MH370 FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG. - http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...ralian-3398513

It's not believed the call connected - but ended abruptly after making contact with a network substation.

The newspaper's sources would not divulge full details of the investigation, including what number Fariq was trying to call.

But it has also revealed Fariq's last communication through the WhatsApp mobile phone app was about 11.30pm on March 7, just before he boarded the plane.

Despite Malaysian acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein immediately denying the claims - saying "If this did happen, we would have known about it earlier" - the Sunday Times cites the reports as the first apparent proof that someone was alive and conscious as the jet flew back over the west coast of Malaysia - well off its planned course.

It quotes a source "close to the investigation" as saying: "If it's true it would lead to the possibility that the pilot shut the co-pilot out of the cabin - asked him to go for coffee and then promptly locked the door - and then took over the plane.

"The co-pilot, unable to gain access, may have tried to use his mobile phone to alert the authorities."

It is likely any call was cut off because the plane was quickly moving away from the telecommunications tower.

Experts have said that it is possible for a mobile phone to be connected to a telecommunications tower at 7,000 feet.

That altitude is low for a large passenger jet such as the MH370 Boeing 777 - unless it was flying very quickly to maintain height.

The New Straits Times also said that Fariq's cousin, Nursyafiqah Kamarudin, 18, had said recently that the 28-year-old co-pilot was very close to his mother.

"If Fariq could make one call before the plane disappeared, it would have been to her," said the cousin.

Police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said earlier in the week that investigators had obtained 'some clues' as to what might have happened, based on the statements from 176 people who had been interviewed.

The crew, he said, were the main subjects of the investigation, a probe which has focused on four possible areas - hijack, sabotage, and personal and psychological problems among the crew or passengers.

The New Straits Times is regarded as a mouthpiece for the Malaysian government - meaning it is unlikely to carry such strong claims without official confirmation.

Meanwhile, the search continues into its sixth week amid fears that batteries powering signals from the black box recorder on board may have died.

The search area narrowed dramatically to an area of the Southern Indian Ocean 1,670 miles off Perth because of a change in thought over the plane's descent.

The Sunday Times says that an assumption MH370 glided for a period of time after running out of fuel has been abandoned and it is now thought that it simply plunged into the sea. Its erratic manoeuvres also probably used up more fuel than first estimated - leading investigators to move the search area further north.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned on Friday that signals picked up during the search in the remote Southern Indian Ocean, believed to be "pings" from the black box recorders, were fading.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared soon after taking off on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, triggering a multinational search that is now focused on the Indian Ocean.

Search officials say they are confident they know the approximate position of the black box recorder, although they have determined that the latest "ping’, picked up by searchers on Thursday, was not from the missing aircraft.

Batteries in the black box recorder are already past their normal 30-day life, making the search to find it on the murky sea bed all the more urgent. Once they are confident they have located it, searchers then plan to deploy a small unmanned "robot" known as an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.
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View the complete article, including links, at:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...around-3408431

[bsteadman1]

Malaysia Airlines search heads deep underwater in new phase

Reuters
Matt Siegel and Byron Kaye
4/14/2014

Excerpt:

(Reuters) - A U.S. Navy underwater drone will be deployed to scour the floor of the Indian Ocean for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, search officials said on Monday, launching a new phase of the operation after nearly six weeks of fruitless searching.

The hunt for flight MH370 will head deep underwater as the batteries in the flight's black box recorders had probably died and there was little chance of finding floating debris, said Australian search chief Angus Houston.

The search is now relying on the U.S. Navy's sophisticated Blue-fin 21 autonomous underwater vehicle, which is set to search the ocean floor for wreckage some 4.5 kms (2.8 miles) beneath the surface.

The aircraft disappeared soon after taking off on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, triggering a multinational search that is now focused on the Indian Ocean.

Searchers are confident they know the approximate position of wreckage of the Boeing 777, some 1,550 km (963 miles) northwest of Perth, and are moving ahead on the basis of four acoustic signals they believe are from its black box recorders.

"Despite the lack of further detections, the four signals previously acquired taken together constitute the most promising lead we have in the search for MH370," Houston told reporters in Perth.

"The experts have therefore determined that the Australian Ocean Shield will cease searching with a towed pinger locator later today and deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle, 'Bluefin-21', as soon as possible," he said, referring to the U.S. Navy device designed to detect the tell-tale "pings".

The batteries in the black boxes are now two weeks past their 30-day expected life and searchers will be relying on sonar and cameras on the Bluefin-21 drone.

An aircraft's black box records data from the cockpit and conversations among flight crew and may provide answers about what happened to the missing plane.

The Blue-fin robot will build up a detailed acoustic image of the area using sophisticated 'sidescan' sonar, hoping to repeat its success in finding a F-15 fighter jet which crashed off Japan last year.

If it detects possible wreckage, it will be sent back to photograph it in underwater conditions with extremely low light.

Building up the necessary mosaic of thousands of high-definition photos in the undersea gloom can be a long and frustrating task, a point Houston reiterated on Monday, citing the extremely large, remote and deep search area.

Officials are currently focusing their acoustic search on an area about the size of a medium city - 600 sq km (230 sq miles) - and say it could take the underwater robot months to scan and map the whole search zone.

"I would just say to everybody, don't be over optimistic, be realistic and let's hope, let's hope that that very strong signal that we were receiving is actually coming from the black box," Houston said.

The mystery of Malaysian Airlines MH370 has sparked what is on track to be the most difficult and expensive search and recovery operation in aviation history. Up to a dozen planes and 15 ships will be searching in three separate areas on Monday.

Malaysian authorities have still not ruled out mechanical problems as causing the plane's disappearance, but say evidence suggests it was deliberately diverted from its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Houston added that although an oil slick was located in the search area on Sunday evening, he was pessimistic about the likelihood of finding anything floating on the ocean surface after this amount of time.
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View the complete article, including photo, at:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A3A06W20140414

[bsteadman]

Malaysia Airlines MH370: Wreck hunter confident plane will be found

ABC News / Australia
Adam Harvey
4/15/2014

Excerpt:

One of the world's foremost wreck hunters believes searchers have found the crash site of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, and recovering the plane's black boxes is inevitable.

"I think essentially they have found the wreckage site," the director of the UK-based Bluewater Recoveries, David Mearns, told 7.30.

"While the government hasn't announced that yet, if somebody asked me: 'Technically, do they have enough information to say that?' my answer is unequivocally 'Yes'."

Mr Mearns solved one of the nation's greatest maritime mysteries when he found the wreck of HMAS Sydney deep in the Indian Ocean.

He was awarded an honorary Order of Australia for his work.

His advice was also crucial in helping to find the wreckage of Air France flight 447.

His confidence is based on the strength of the sonar "pings" emitted from the plane's black box recorders.

Those signals appear to have now stopped as the device ran out of battery strength.

"You just don't hear these signals randomly in the ocean. And these are not fleeting sounds - they have got four very very good detections, with the right spectrum of noise coming from them, it can't be from anything else," Mr Mearns said.

However, he understood why the searchers were being cautious.

The leader of the joint task force searching for MH370, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, says he will wait to see wreckage before confirming the plane has been found.

"Obviously for the sake of the families and for everybody else they will want photographic proof and that will be coming shortly," Mr Mearns said.

A robotic submarine, the Bluefin21, is already scanning a five kilometre by eight kilometre area of the seabed - 4,500 metres below the surface of the Indian Ocean.

It was due to stay down for 24 hours, but automatically ascended after just two hours of scanning when it reached its maximum operating depth.

Mr Mearns says he would be surprised if the sonar search turned up anything quickly.
The crew of the HMAS Sydney Photo: The crew of the HMAS Sydney, which disappeared off the WA coast after a gun battle with the German raider Kormoran on November 19, 1941. (Supplied: AAP)

He expected it would take weeks, if not months, to recover the black boxes from the Boeing 777.

The plane's cockpit voice recorder and data recorder are separate devices.

He says the real breakthrough in the investigation was made during the analysis of MH370's flight path.

"Somewhere out of some place fantastic pieces of intelligence were put together to really narrow it down to a small small area," he said.
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View the complete article, including photos and video, at:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-1...mearns/5392440

[bsteadman1]

Malaysia Airlines MH370: Submarine completes first dive in search for debris

ABC News / Australia
4/14/2014

Excerpt:

An unmanned submarine has been forced to cut short its first search mission looking for debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said the Bluefin-21 sub was deployed last night from Australian vessel Ocean Shield on a mission that lasted six hours.

The search ended sooner than expected when it exceeded its depth limit of 4,500 metres and an inbuilt safety feature brought it back to the surface, the JACC said in a statement.

"The six hours of data gathered by the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is currently being extracted and analysed," the centre said.

Authorities say it takes two hours for Bluefin-21 to reach the ocean floor.

Bluefin-21 will be redeployed later today and up to 11 aircraft and 11 ships will also take part in a visual search for signs of MH370.
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View the complete article, including images, at:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-1...t-dive/5390786

[bsteadman]

MH370: submersible begins second mission as 14 planes continue search

US navy Bluefin craft will hover at a depth of 4,500m to collect data on the seabed where team believes plane crashed

The Guardian
Associated Press
4/15/2014

Excerpt:

A submersible looking for the lost Malaysia Airlines jet continued its second seabed search on Wednesday as up to 14 planes prepared to make some of the final sweeps of the Indian Ocean for signs of the ill-fated airliner.

The US navy's Bluefin 21 submarine began its second 20-hour underwater mission on Tuesday after cutting short its first because the ocean waters where it was sent were too deep, officials said.

The unmanned sub is programmed to hover 30 metres (100 feet) above the seabed, but it started searching a patch that was deeper than its maximum operating depth of 4,500m, the search coordination centre and the US navy said.

A built-in safety feature returned the Bluefin to the surface and it was not damaged, they said.

The data collected by the sub was later analysed and no sign of the missing plane was found, the US navy said. Crews shifted the search zone away from the deepest water before sending the Bluefin back for Tuesday's mission.
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View the complete article at:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...second-mission

[Lucas Daniel Smith]

Robot submarine makes first complete search for MH370

The Times of India / India Times
Apr 17, 2014, 06.20 AM IST

Excerpt:

PERTH, Australia: A robotic submarine has completed its first full 16-hour mission scanning the floor of the Indian Ocean for wreckage of the missing Malaysian airliner after two previous missions were cut short by technical problems and deep water, authorities said on Thursday.

The Bluefin 21 had covered 90 square kilometers (35 square miles) of the silt-covered sea bed off the west Australian coast in its first three missions, the search coordination centre said on Thursday. While data collected by the sub from its latest mission, which ended overnight, was still being analyzed, nothing of note had yet been discovered, the centre said.

...

More than 100 relatives of Chinese passengers on the plane walked out of a teleconference meeting with senior Malaysian officials, an act of defiance over a lack of contact with that country's government and for taking so long to respond to their demands.

...

Jiang said the Malaysian government had not met demands the relatives had presented to them weeks ago in Malaysia — an apology for the way they've handled the matter along with meetings with the Malaysian government and airline officials. They also asked to sit down with executives from Boeing and Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer of the plane and its engines.


Read more:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/w...w/33841130.cms

[Lucas Daniel Smith]

MH370 search is fast running out of time, says Australian prime minister

Paul Farrell in Perth
theguardian.com
Thursday 17 April 2014 04.58 BST

'We believe that search will be completed within a week or so,' says Tony Abbott

Bluefin 21 submersible.jpg
(Photo data and credit: The Bluefin-21 submersible, which is searching for the Malaysian plane. Photograph: MC1 Peter D. Blair/US NAVY/EPA)

Excerpt:

Tony Abbott says the most promising leads in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean will be exhausted in a week.

On Monday it was announced the search would be conducted by a remote controlled submersible called Bluefin-21 that would scour the ocean floor with sonar to attempt to locate signs of the plane.

But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal the prime minister said: "We believe that search will be completed within a week or so.

"If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider."

...


Read more:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ys-tony-abbott

[Lucas Daniel Smith]

False MH370 leads prompt hope, theories from families and experts, says WSJ [Wall Street Journal]

The Malaysian Insider
April 18, 2014


Bluefin 21 April 18 2014.jpg
(Photo data and credit: The Bluefin-21 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is craned over the side of the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield in the southern Indian Ocean during the continuing search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in this picture released by the Australian Defence Force yesterday. – Reuters pic, April 18, 2014.)


Excerpt:


Mohamad Sahril Shaari, 24, whose cousin Muhammad Razahan Zamani was on board, told The Wall Street Journal, "I do not think it is in any sea because if it was, they would have found the broken pieces. I think the plane most probably landed somewhere. You should spend time looking for the plane on land.”

Like many other relatives of the flight's passengers, he demanded evidence about his cousin's fate.

"Show us irrefutable proof, or we are not going to accept that they are dead." he was reported as saying.

...

Another relative of a flight steward on board the plane is Philip Tan, who told The Wall Street Journal that the lack of debris from the plane gives him hope that his brother might be alive and that the plane landed somewhere.

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This was concluded from a poll by the center released this week, revealing that 54% Malaysians feel that the government is hiding information about the plane and only 26% believed the government was being truhtful.

Family member of passengers from China has also voiced their need to see something tangible in order to believe the plane had crashed.

In the report, Che Yutian who has a 25 year old cousin on board the plane said, "Unless there is physical evidence, we refuse to accept any conclusion from Malaysia Airlines that there are no survivors. Right now it's all based on guessing and deduction."

...


Read more:

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/m...perts-says-wsj

[Lucas Daniel Smith]

The Second Mystery Around Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

OpEdNews Op Eds
4/18/2014 at 10:26:49
By JOHN CHUCKMAN


Excerpt:


A second mystery around the disappearance of Flight MH370 has largely gone unnoticed: why hasn't the United States been in the forefront of providing information about it? The implications of this question are massive.

America has a fleet of the most sophisticated spy satellites, called "keyhole" satellites, covering the earth's surface daily with imaging systems comparable to those of the Hubble Space Telescope, but instead of data from any of these, we read of data from China and France. One can understand that the CIA does not want others to understand fully the capabilities of its satellites, but surely the lives of more than two hundred people are cause for some information, however indirectly supplied.

Then again, the American military has some of most sophisticated radars on earth, and there is, without a doubt, an installation of the highest capability at the secret base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. How could there not be? But we have read of no data from them, only from others less capable of telling us what happened.

Could it be that the United States shot down Flight MH370, either accidentally or deliberately, and now wants to keep it secret? The possibility of recovery of the full wreckage, even if its location were found, from 4 miles under the sea amongst underwater mountains is extremely remote at best, so the United States can remain confident that physical evidence will never emerge.

There would be nothing unprecedented in such an act: on at least 3 occasions, regrettably, America's military has shot down civilian airliners, only admitting eventually to the one they could not hide. They are also indirectly responsible for a fourth.

Iran Air Flight 655 was stupidly shot down in 1988 by the USS Vincennes in Iranian waters during the Iraq-Iran War, not only killing 290 people including 66 children, but there was a long period afterwards in which the U.S. admitted no wrong-doing, offered no apology, and no compensation to its victims (only 8 years later was a quiet settlement made).

It was a quite vicious set of circumstances and the injustice of it led unquestionably to the motive for bombing Pan Am Flight 103, killing 259 people and 11 on the ground, later the same year by people still unknown.

...

Read more:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The...40418-976.html

[bsteadman]

MH370: two-thirds of focused search now complete with no sign of debris

Australia’s joint co-ordination centre says Bluefin-21 submersible has finished eight missions looking for the missing plane

The Guardian
Paul Farrell in Perth
4/21/2014

Excerpt:

Two-thirds of the focused underwater search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight has now been completed, with no sightings of wreckage or debris.

Australia’s joint co-ordination centre said on Monday that the underwater vehicle Bluefin-21 had completed eight missions looking for the missing plane, but that “no contacts of interest have been found to date”.

The underwater search is focused on the area where the second of a series of pings, believed to be from the plane’s black box, were detected weeks ago.

But the mission has been plagued by difficulties, with the Bluefin-21 forced to surface early from missions twice, once because of a technical issue. The submersible has been operating slightly deeper than 4,500m below sea level to scour the ocean floor using sonar.

Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, said in an interview last week that authorities would reconsider the operation if nothing was found after the focused search had been completed.

Weather conditions may also be problematic, with conditions expected to deteriorate as tropical cyclone Jack continues south.
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View the complete article at:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...sign-of-debris

[Lucas Daniel Smith]

MH370: cyclone hits plane search area

Operation suspended with still no sign of wreckage from days of scanning by submersible drone in area of black box 'pings'

The Guardian
Reuters in Perth
4/22/2014

Excerpt:

A tropical cyclone heading south over the Indian Ocean caused the air search for a missing Malaysian jetliner to be suspended on Tuesday as a US submarine drone neared completion of its undersea search without any sign of wreckage.

The daily air and sea sorties have continued for a week since Australian authorities said they would end that component of the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared on 8 March with 239 people on board.

On Tuesday, hours after authorities said up to 10 military aircraft and 10 ships would join the day's search, the operation was suspended because of tropical cyclone Jack.

"It has been determined that the current weather conditions are resulting in heavy seas and poor visibility, and would make any air search activities ineffective and potentially hazardous," the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said in a statement.

The ships involved in the day's search about 1,600km (990 miles) north-west of the Australian city of Perth would continue with their planned activities, the centre said.

The setback occurred as the $4m US navy submersible Bluefin-21 was scheduled to complete its mission as soon as Wednesday with search officials confirming the device had not found any sign of wreckage so far.

...

Read more at:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ne-search-area

[bsteadman]

Missing MH370: Sub's 'Search Will Continue' Beyond Target Zone

NBC News
4/22/2014

PERTH, Australia - A robo-sub will keep scouring the Indian Ocean floor for traces of missing Flight MH370 after it finishes its current targeted search, Australian officials said as a tropical cyclone suspended the air search.

Authorities are under growing pressure to decide their next course of action as the U.S. Navy-owned Bluefin-21 drone nears the end of its first sweep of remote seabed which authorities believe is the most likely resting place of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 77 which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board.

The Bluefin-21 is expected to finish its targeted search of a 6.2 square mile stretch of ocean floor, where a signal suspected to be from the plane's black box was detected, on Wednesday. No wreckage has yet been found.

"Bluefin-21 has now completed more than 80 percent of the focused underwater search area and further missions are planned," the Perth-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in an email. "The search will continue. We are currently consulting very closely with our international partners on the best way to effect this for the future."

As the Bluefin embarked on its 10th trip to depths of more than 2.8 miles, some 1,200 miles northwest of the Australian city of Perth, a tropical cyclone heading south over the Indian Ocean suspended the air search.
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- Reuters

View the complete article, including video, at:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mis...et-zone-n86411