Malaysia has signed a “no find-no fee” deal with Texas-based Ocean Infinity to locate the wreckage of downed flight MH370.
According to Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester, the Malaysian government accepted an offer from Ocean Infinity.
Ocean Infinity will foot the bill if it fails to find the wreckage.
The disappearance of MH370 in March 2014 remains shrouded in mystery. The Malaysia Airlines flight fell off radar between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, with 239 people on board.
A massive maritime search operation for the plane cleared 120,000 sq km at an estimated cost of about A$200 million ($157 million), before it was suspended in January.
The company has not revealed the estimated cost of the new search. According to Darren Chester, Ocean Infinity will focus on a 25,000 sq km area identified by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau as having a “high probability” of containing the aircraft.
Ocean Infinity is using a centuries-old model known in the salvage industry as “no cure-no pay” – a type of deal usually applied in the recovery of valuable sunken cargo.
Under such a deal, a salvage company will take on the financial risk of a recovery and recoup from the owner a percentage of the cargo’s value if it is found, often 80 or 90%.
MH370 was carrying passengers and crew from 14 different countries when it disappeared. Most were from China and Malaysia.
Australia led the initial search, after aviation officials identified the ocean floor off its coast as the likely location of the wreckage. The country has agreed to provide technical assistance for the new search, Darren Chester said.
Earlier this month, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said the government had received proposals from three private search companies – Ocean Infinity, Dutch firm Fugro and an unidentified Malaysian company.
Delivering its report into the MH370 disappearance earlier this month, Australia’s Transport Safety Bureau said it was “almost inconceivable” that the aircraft had not been found.
Malaysian PM Najib Razak has confirmed that part of the aircraft wing found on Reunion Island is from the missing MH370 plane.
Najib Razak said international experts examining the debris in France had “conclusively confirmed” it was from the aircraft.
The Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people veered off course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014.
The debris found on Reunion Island was examined at an aeronautical test centre near Toulouse.
It was found on the remote French Indian Ocean island of Reunion a week ago.
In a statement, Najib Razak said the “the burden and uncertainty faced by the families” in the 515 days since the aircraft disappeared had been “unspeakable”.
“We now have physical evidence that flight MH370 tragically ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” he added.
French prosecutor Serge Mackowiak later confirmed the wing fragment, known as a flaperon, was from a Boeing 777 – the same make and model as the missing Malaysian airliner.
He said the results of initial tests showed there were “very strong indications” the flaperon was from flight MH370.
Serge Mackowiak said confirmation would come after further tests on the fragment, which would begin on August 6.
Malaysia PM Najib Razak has announced that debris found on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion is to be transported to France to find out whether it is from the missing airliner MH370.
Initial reports suggest the 2-meter long wreckage is very likely to be from a Boeing 777, the prime minister said.
Malaysia Airlines’ flight MH370 is the only Boeing 777 to have disappeared over an ocean.
There were 239 people on board when the plane went missing in March 2014.
Razak Najib said French authorities were taking the debris to the southern French city of Toulouse – the site of the nearest office of the French body responsible for air accident investigations (the BEA) – to verify it as quickly as possible.
A Malaysian team of investigators and representatives from the government and the airline was travelling to Toulouse, and a second team to the site of the find on Reunion, the prime minister said.
Najib Razak said the location was “consistent with the drift analysis provided to the Malaysian investigation team”.
“As soon as we have more information or any verification we will make it public…
“I promise the families of those lost that whatever happens, we will not give up.”
Aviation experts who have studied photos of the debris found on Reunion on July 29 say it does resemble a flaperon – a moving part of the wing surface – from a Boeing 777.
On July 30, a municipal employee found what appeared to be a very badly damaged suitcase on the Reunion coast, according to local media.
The item was found at Saint-Andre, the same location as the earlier debris.
Reunion, a French overseas department, is about 370 miles east of Madagascar.
The search efforts for MH370, led by Australia, are focused on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean – around 2,500 miles to the east of Reunion.
After MH370 disappeared from radar screens, experts analyzed data from faint “pings” the aircraft sent to satellites to narrow down its last known location.
It was this information that identified the search area in the southern Indian Ocean, west of Perth.
A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said: “We have noticed the reports and are wasting no time in obtaining and checking the information.”
More than half of those on board the missing plane were Chinese citizens.
A group of relatives of many of the Chinese passengers said in a statement that they wanted “100%” certainty about where the part is from, and that the search for the airliner should continue.
According to the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese officials, the search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will be doubled if nothing is found in the current search zone, officials say.
The Australian, Malaysian and Chinese ministers have met to discuss progress.
Malaysia Airlines plane, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.
It is believed to have crashed off Western Australia, but so far no trace has been found.
At the moment teams using sophisticated sonar equipment are scouring a 23,000 sq mile area of seabed far west of the Australian city of Perth. About 40% of this remains to be searched.
If nothing is found, the search will be extended by another 23,000 sq mile to “cover the entire highest probability area identified by expert analysis”, a joint statement from the ministers said.
The additional search area could take up to a year to complete given adverse weather conditions in the upcoming winter months, the statement said.
Investigators still do not know what happened to the plane.
The search zone has been defined based on analysis of hourly “handshakes” between the plane and a communications satellite.
There is still no explanation as to why it flew so far off course – making finding the plane and its “black box” voice recorders key to understanding its fate.
Malaysia remains committed to finding flight MH370, said PM Najib Razak on the first anniversary of its disappearance.
Relatives of the 239 missing passengers and crew are holding a series of remembrance ceremonies.
The Malaysian airliner was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it vanished on March 8, 2014. No trace has ever been found.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian government has released its official report into the disappearance of flight MH370.
The report contains masses of technical information about the missing aircraft, its maintenance record, the background of the crew, and the various air traffic control and military radar tracking records of the plane.
It appears to offer no significant new information which might explain where the plane went, or what happened to it.
“No words can describe the pain the families of those on board are going through. The lack of answers and definitive proof – such as aircraft wreckage – has made this more difficult to bear,” said Najib Razak in a statement.
He added that the search team had followed the “little evidence that exists” but remained “hopeful” that the plane would be found.
The international search team is focusing on an area of the southern Indian Ocean, approximately 1,000 miles off the coast of western Australia.
Earlier on Sunday, the families of MH370 crew members held a remembrance ceremony at the house of missing in-flight supervisor Patrick Gomez.
“We’re always thinking exactly what happened on that day itself, you know the conversations that we were having, the tears, the hugs that we were giving each other,” said his wife, Jacquita Gonzales.
The event has not been billed as a commemoration ceremony because many family members still believe that their loved ones are alive.
The search team is due to release an interim report about MH370 later today.
Earlier, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said that he was confident that the plane would be found in the southern Indian Ocean.
Liow Tiong Lai promised his government would continue to back the search and said he was confident they could complete the search operation “hopefully by May this year”.
He told AFP that investigators would go “back to the drawing board” if the search failed to yield results by May.
Some families of those on board the plane have accused the Malaysian authorities of hiding some information, but the transport minister urged them not to believe the conspiracy theories.
Earlier this year, the Malaysian government declared flight MH370 to have been lost with all on board, in a move it said was necessary to start processing compensation claims for the families.
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been officially declared an accident with no survivors.
No trace of the Beijing-bound aircraft has been found since it disappeared on March 8, 2014.
Malaysian government officials say that the recovery operation is ongoing but that the 239 people onboard are now presumed dead.
The plane’s whereabouts are still unknown despite a massive international search in the southern Indian Ocean.
The declaration on January 29 should allow compensation payments to relatives of the victims.
Malaysian officials added that the recovery of the missing aircraft remained a priority and that they had pursued “every credible lead”.
Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) Director-General Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said that it was “with the heaviest heart and deepest sorrow that we officially declare Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 an accident.”
“All 239 of the passengers and crew onboard MH370 are presumed to have lost their lives,” he said.
Following today’s announcement, China’s foreign ministry called for compensation for the victims’ families.
“We call on the Malaysian side to honor the promise made when they declared the flight to have been lost and earnestly fulfill their compensation responsibilities,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.
The majority of the passengers on MH370 were Chinese.
Four vessels are currently searching the seafloor with specialized sonar technology in a remote stretch of ocean where the plane is believed to have ended its flight.
Azharuddin Abdul Rahman added that Malaysia, China and Australia have spared no expense in the hunt for the plane.
Based on analysis of satellite and aircraft performance data, MH370 is thought to be in seas far west of the Australian city of Perth.
The vessels have so far searched an area of over 11,185 sq miles, according to officials.
The search area involved also has known depths of up to 19,685ft.
Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said that the progress of the safety investigation into the accident would be released soon, but that “at this juncture, there is no evidence to substantiate any speculations as to the cause of the accident”.
The DCA plans to release an interim report on the investigation on March 7, a day before the first anniversary of the disappearance.
Malaysia Airlines apologized for a year-end promotion tweet that draw anger after it inadvertently drew parallels with the still-missing MH370 flight.
“Want to go somewhere but don’t know where?” read the post on Twitter that was meant to promote special deals by Malaysia Airlines, prompting scorn from online users.
Malaysia Airlines said the tweet “was intended to inspire travelers during this holiday period to explore destinations and deals” it was offering.
“Unfortunately, it unintentionally caused offence to some, and we have since removed the tweet,” it said in a brief statement.
It is the second time Malaysia Airlines, which has been devastated by the loss of 537 people in two air tragedies this year, has run into criticism over its advertising recently.
In September, the airlines said it had changed the name of a ticket-sale promotion that invoked an “inappropriate” death reference by asking travelers which places were on their “Bucket List”.
Bookings have plummeted due to the two disasters.
MH370 vanished in March with 239 passengers and crew aboard when it inexplicably diverting from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing course. It is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, but no trace has been found.
MH17 went down in July – believed hit by a surface-to-air missile – in rebellion-torn eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 aboard.
Malaysia Airlines said on November 28 its Q3 loss widened 54% year-on-year in the wake of the disasters that have sent its business into a tailspin and prompted a government rescue.
Malaysia Airlines and the Malaysian government are being sued by two children whose father, Jee Jing Hang, was on MH370 flight that disappeared on March 8.
It is believed to be the first legal case filed in Malaysia since the incident.
The lawsuit accuses the civil aviation department of negligence for failing to contact the plane within a reasonable amount of time after it disappeared.
Flight MH370, from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, had 239 people on board.
Lawyers representing the two underage sons of passenger Jee Jing Hang filed the suit with the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
They are suing the national carrier for breach of contract, saying it failed to take all measures to ensure a safe flight. They are also suing civil aviation authorities, the immigration department and the air force for negligence.
Flight MH370, from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared with 239 people on board
“We have waited for eight months. After speaking to various experts, we believe we have sufficient evidence for a strong case,” said their lawyer Arunan Selveraj.
“A big plane missing in this age of technology is really unacceptable,” he said.
The legal team said they would seek damages but did not give a figure.
In March a civil action case was brought in the US by a law firm on behalf of relatives. But a judge dismissed it, calling it an improper filing.
The Malaysian government believes MH370 ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean, in seas far off the Australian city of Perth.
But there is no explanation yet for what happened to the plane or caused it to stray so far off course.
Despite extensive searches coordinated by Australian authorities, no wreckage of any kind has been found yet.
Some legal experts say this could hamper any lawsuits filed, as it leaves much to speculation.
The team searching for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has released detailed images of the seabed.
The new images reveal features such as extinct volcanoes and 1,400-metre depressions for the first time.
The collection of data from one of the most secret parts of the world is a by-product of the search.
Until now there were better maps of Mars than of this bit of the sea floor.
The Malaysia Airlines plane vanished without trace on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.
Twenty-six countries have helped look for the Boeing 777, but nothing has ever been found.
The aircraft was flying from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing.
The new search images reveal features such as extinct volcanoes and 1,400-metre depressions for the first time
The team at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is leading the hunt for the plane, is using sonar to map the new “priority” search area, at the bottom of the Southern Indian Ocean.
After that they will deploy two or three deep sea vehicles to begin the painstaking, inch-by-inch seabed search for wreckage.
The “priority” area is based on the only piece of hard evidence investigators have, which is a series of brief, electronic “hellos” between the Boeing and a satellite.
It is the equivalent of your mobile phone buzzing next to a loud speaker because it is checking in with a ground station, even when you are not making a call.
However, those “hellos” don’t give an exact location, just a very rough idea, so the smaller, “priority” area is still 23,200 square miles – an area roughly the size of Croatia.
Making sonar maps is vital to ensure the team does not crash its deep-water vehicles into ridges and volcanoes. The equipment is pulled along just above the sea floor by a 10km-long armored cable.
Snagging that cable could damage the kit, or even cut it free, so the maps help them avoid any obstructions.
The deep sea search vehicles have sonar that can pick out odd lumps, cameras that can double check if that lump is wreckage or just a rock and an electronic nose that can smell aviation fuel in the water, even if it is heavily diluted.
The operation to find flight MH370 is the most complex search in history.
Australian government has announced a new search area for the missing Malaysian plane after further analysis of satellite data.
The search will now shift south to focus on an area 1,100 miles off the west coast of Australia, Deputy PM Warren Truss confirmed.
Flight MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 with 239 passengers on board.
Officials said they believed the plane had been on autopilot when it crashed.
The search for missing MH370 flight will now shift south to focus on an area 1,100 miles off the west coast of Australia
A 64-page report released by the Australian government concluded that the underwater search for the plane should resume in the new area.
An extensive search of the ocean floor was conducted in April after several acoustic pings, initially thought to be from the plane’s flight data recorders, were heard. However, officials now believe the pings were not caused by the plane.
“It is highly, highly likely that the aircraft was on autopilot otherwise it could not have followed the orderly path that has been identified through the satellite sightings,” Warren Truss said.
The underwater search for the plane was put on hold to allow more time for survey vessels to map the ocean floor.
The new search is expected to commence in August and is expected to be completed within a year, Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) chief Martin Dolan confirmed.
Submarines will scour the ocean floor to look for signs of the missing Boeing 777.
The search for the missing plane is already among most expensive in aviation history.
After more than 100 days since the disappearance of the airliner, many of the relatives of the missing passengers have continued to express frustration at the lack of progress in the search.
Families of MH370 passengers have begun to receive initial compensation payments of $50,000.
So far six Malaysian families and one Chinese family have received the money, and insurers are assessing the claims of 40 more Chinese families.
Relatives of all 239 missing passengers can claim up to $175,000 each.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. No trace of the plane has been found.
Families of MH370 passengers have begun to receive initial compensation payments of $50,000 (photo Getty Images)
Malaysian deputy foreign minister Hamzah Zainudin stressed that the government has not yet declared the plane lost.
“When we talk about the full payment, we have to wait until we announce the issue on the tragedy MH370 is over,” he said.
Malaysia Airlines’ insurer, a consortium led by Germany’s Allianz, is making the payments.
Many of the relatives also refuse to accept that their relatives may be dead.
A group of families has joined together to raise $5 million to investigate the plane’s disappearance and encourage anyone who might have information to come forward.
A massive search operation conducted in seas hundreds of miles from any land has failed to find any debris from the plane.
Experts are continuing to survey the sea floor and are bringing in specialist equipment.
They believe the jet ended its journey in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles north-west of the Australian city of Perth.
According to the Australian officials, the area where acoustic signals thought linked to the missing Malaysian plane were detected can now be ruled out as the final resting place of flight MH370.
The Bluefin-21 submersible robot had finished its search of the area and found nothing, they said.
Efforts would now focus on reviewing search data, surveying the sea floor and bringing in specialist equipment.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Using satellite data, officials have concluded that the airliner, which had 239 people on board, ended its journey in the Indian Ocean, north-west of the Australian city of Perth.
No trace of the plane has been found and there is no explanation for its disappearance.
Four pings that officials believed could be from the missing plane’s “black box” flight recorders were heard by search teams using a towed pinger locator device.
The area where acoustic signals thought linked to the missing Malaysian plane were detected can now be ruled out as the final resting place of flight MH37
These pings were used to define the area for the sea-floor search, conducted by the Bluefin-21. It had scoured over 850 sq km of the ocean floor, JACC said.
“Yesterday afternoon, Bluefin-21 completed its last mission searching the remaining areas in the vicinity of the acoustic signals detected in early April by the towed pinger locator,” a statement from the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) said.
“The data collected on yesterday’s mission has been analyzed. As a result, the JACC can advise that no signs of aircraft debris have been found by the autonomous underwater vehicle since it joined the search effort.
“The Australian Transport Safety Bureau [ATSB] has advised that the search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections can now be considered complete and in its professional judgement, the area can now be discounted as the final resting place of MH370.”
The statement came hours after a US Navy official told CNN that the acoustic signals probably came from some other man-made source.
“Our best theory at this point is that [the pings were] likely some sound produced by the ship… or within the electronics of the towed pinger locator,” Michael Dean, the US Navy’s deputy director of ocean engineering, told CNN.
“Always your fear any time you put electronic equipment in the water is that if any water gets in and grounds or shorts something out, that you could start producing sound,” Michael Dean said.
A US Navy spokesmen subsequently described his comments as “speculative and premature”.
In its statement, JACC said an expert working group would continue to review and refine existing data to better define a search area for the missing plane.
A Chinese ship had already begun mapping an area of ocean floor in a survey process that was expected to take three months.
Meanwhile, the ATSB would soon seek bids from commercial contractors for the specialist equipment needed for the underwater search – a process expected to begin in August, JACC said.
Malaysia has released the raw data used to determine that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 crashed into the southern Indian Ocean.
The data was first released to relatives of passengers, who have been asking for greater transparency, before copies were also provided to media.
The document released on Tuesday comprises 47 pages of data, plus notes, from British firm Inmarsat.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Malaysia has released the raw data used to determine that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 crashed into the southern Indian Ocean
There were 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on board. No trace of the aircraft has been found, nor any reason for its disappearance.
The satellite data released includes the hourly “handshakes” between the plane and a communications satellite that led investigators to conclude that the plane ended its journey far off Australia.
“Inmarsat and the DCA have been working for the release of the data communication logs and the technical description of the analysis,” Malaysia’s civil aviation authority said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a sea-bed search for the missing plane is continuing in waters far west of the Australian city of Perth.
The robotic submarine Bluefin-21, on loan from the US, is still being operated off the Australian vessel Ocean Shield.
The Bluefin-21, which can identify objects by creating a sonar map of the sea floor, restarted its mission last week after experiencing technical problems.
It is expected to leave the search area on Wednesday and return to base on 31 May, said a previous statement from Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which is leading the search.
The Bluefin-21 completed the initial search of the area where acoustic signals thought to be from flight recorders were heard without finding anything concrete.
The Australian government is now preparing for a fresh deep-sea search using commercially-contracted equipment.
Rupesh Paul has revealed he is making a movie about missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Speaking at this year’s Cannes film festival, the Indian film director told the Hollywood Reporter the drama – titled TheVanishing Act – “will not affect any passengers’ families”.
The search is continuing for the Boeing 777 plane, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board.
Rupesh Paul’s movie about missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, The Vanishing Act, has been promoted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (photo YouTube)
The film is expected to be ready for an autumn release date. Rupesh Paul insisted he was not exploiting the ongoing search.
“The controversy will help indirectly, but we are not cashing in on the flight,” he said.
Rupesh Paul added there had been a lot of interest in the film, particularly from Asian markets.
The director is in Cannes to promote several of his films.
Rupesh Paul wrote the screenplay in 20 days based on a Malaysian journalist’s theory about what happened.
The journalist is one of the film’s investors and wants to remain anonymous for now.
Malaysia Airlines’ losses widen after flight MH 370 vanished over two months ago, raising questions about the future of the 76-year-old carrier.
The company’s net loss rose by 59% to 443 million ringgit ($138 million) in the January-to-March period, marking its fifth straight quarter of losses.
Malaysia Airlines attributed it to “tough operating conditions” and “negative sentiment”.
Investors shrugged off the news with shares rising 2.4%.
Only 30% of the company is able to be bought freely on the stock exchange in Kuala Lumpur, with the rest held by state investment firm Khazanah Nasional.
Malaysia Airlines’ losses widen after flight MH 370 vanished over two months ago
Of the 30% that trades on Malaysia’s stock exchange, most of that is owned by the country’s pension funds and other institutions, leaving a small proportion for retail investors to trade.
Overall though, Malaysia Airlines has lost more than 40% of its market value this year.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, leading to a massive search and rescue operation that is still ongoing and may cost millions of dollars.
The Malaysian government believes the plane ended its journey in the Indian Ocean, but no trace of the plane or wreckage has been found so far.
The crisis led to a high number of cancellations and reputational damage to the carrier, including a 60% drop in sales from China.
About two-thirds of the 239 people on board MH370 were from China, prompting boycotts by some travel agents on the Mainland.
Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the disappearance of MH370 added to its poor results, which were “not unexpected”.
“The results were made worse with the impact on air travel in general following the disappearance of MH370. The whole market has reacted by slowing down demand,” he said in a statement.
The company “needs to accelerate efforts to improve its revenue stream and better manage our high costs which have increased” he added.
“This need has become even more urgent for Malaysia Airlines’ future survival and sustainability in a market that is not showing any signs of letting up on competition.”
Malaysia Airlines has been struggling in the face of high fuel prices, foreign exchange fluctuations and increased competition from budget carriers in the region.
“Further efforts need to be made to manage fuel costs which increased 14% despite a decrease in jet fuel price,” the company said.
Malaysia Airlines has racked up losses of more than $1.3 billion over the last three years and analysts expect that to rise further.
Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at a news conference on Thursday that the government has no plans to financially bail out Malaysia Airlines.
Malaysia Airlines said much of the costs associated with the disappearance of MH370 will be covered by insurance.
However, the mounting red ink has increased speculation it may be forced to file for bankruptcy or possibly be broken up even though it is majority-owned by Malaysia’s state investment firm
Despite the grim outlook, Malaysia’s airline chief plans to continue with the company’s turnaround effort.
“We still have much work ahead of us to deal with the reality of the business and competition as a dynamic and nimble operation,” he said.
“MH370 has brought out the best of our Malaysia Airlines team to stand united to face the crisis. We will be leveraging on this team spirit to fight for our future.”
A full search of the suspected crash area of Malaysia airliner MH370 could take up to a year, officials said.
Speaking in Malaysia, Australia’s ACM Angus Houston said he was confident an “effective search” would find the plane.
Officials from Australia, China and Malaysia will meet in Canberra next week to discuss the ongoing search.
On Thursday a report revealed a four-hour gap between MH370’s disappearance and the start of a search operation.
The preliminary report, from Malaysia’s transport ministry, also revealed that air traffic controllers did not realize the plane was missing until 17 minutes after it disappeared off radar.
The plane, carrying 239 people, disappeared over the South China Sea as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
A full search of the suspected crash area of Malaysia airliner MH370 could take up to a year (photo Reuters)
Officials believe it ended its journey in seas west of the Australian city of Perth, thousands of kilometers off course, but do not yet know why. An intensive multinational search has so far turned up no sign of the plane.
Earlier this week, Australia announced that the operation was entering a new phase, after an initial search of the area where acoustic signals thought to be from “black box” flight recorders were heard found nothing.
Next week’s meeting in Australia will help determine what happens next.
“That’s a very important meeting because it will formalize the way ahead to ensure that this search continues with urgency and doesn’t stop at any stage,” said Angus Houston.
The aerial search for floating wreckage has been called off. The search of the sea floor will be expanded in the area where officials believe – based on satellite data – that the plane crashed.
“The search will take probably in the order of eight months, maybe eight to 12 months if we have bad weather or other issues,” Angus Huston said.
“But we’re totally committed to find MH370 and I’m confident that with an effective search we will eventually find the aircraft.”
Late on Thursday, Malaysian officials released their preliminary report on the missing airliner.
According to the draft, Vietnamese air traffic controllers contacted their counterparts in Kuala Lumpur at 01:38 to say MH370 was missing, 17 minutes after it disappeared off radar.
The official search-and-rescue operation was launched four hours later, at 05:30.
The report also recommended the introduction of real-time tracking of commercial air transport, saying there had now been two recent occasions when large planes had gone missing with their last position unclear – MH370 and Air France Flight 447 in 2009.
“This uncertainty resulted in significant difficulty in locating the aircraft in a timely manner,” the report noted.
There is no requirement from the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO), the UN body that oversees global aviation, for real-time tracking.
Malaysia Airlines, meanwhile, has asked relatives of passengers to leave the hotel accommodation it has been providing and go home.
The airline said it was “deeply sympathetic to the continuing unimaginable anguish, distress and hardship suffered by those with loved ones on board the flight”.
It warned that the continuing search would be a “prolonged process” and said relatives should wait for updates “within the comfort of their own homes”.
The Australian team co-ordinating the search for the missing Malaysian plane have played down marine survey company GeoResonance’s claim it has identified possible debris.
The Australia-based company said on Tuesday it might have located the wreckage of a plane.
But the agency leading the search said the area was not consistent with satellite data showing MH370’s likely flight path.
MH370 went missing on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Carrying 239 people, it disappeared off radar over the South China Sea. Based on satellite data, investigators believe it ended its journey in the sea far off the Australian city of Perth.
It is still not known why the plane went so far off course. Finding the “black box” flight recorders is seen as key to explaining what happened.
Australia-based marine survey company GeoResonance said on Tuesday it might have located the wreckage of a plane
Search efforts so far have focused on a “southern corridor” that the plane could have flown, based on calculations derived from “pings” the aircraft emitted after it disappeared off radar.
A robotic submersible has been scouring the sea floor in an area north-west of Perth after acoustic signals consistent with flight recorders were heard.
The possible wreckage identified by GeoResonance, however, was in the Bay of Bengal to the south of Bangladesh.
The company said it had used proven technology to search for a seafloor location where all the elements that comprise a Boeing 777 – such as titanium, copper, jet fuel residue – were present.
“The company is not declaring this is MH370, however it should be investigated,” it said.
It said it had passed the information on to relevant authorities in late March and early April.
In a statement, Australia’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) said the Bay of Bengal location was not within the data-indicated search area.
“The joint international team is satisfied that the final resting place of the missing aircraft is in the southerly portion of the search arc,” it said.
Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said his country was “working with its international partners to assess the credibility of this information”.
Meanwhile, the search for Malaysia Airlines plane off Perth is continuing. The Bluefin-21, the robotic submersible, was due to embark on another underwater search mission when weather conditions eased, JACC said.
The air search for surface debris has ended, however. Australian PM Tony Abbott said on Monday that wreckage would most likely have sunk by now.
A “new phase” of the operation involving a more intensive underwater search was the planned strategy for the weeks ahead, Tony Abbott said.
Australian officials have announced that the underwater search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane could widen from its focused area in the Indian Ocean.
The Bluefin-21 submersible has completed 95% of its search in the area where possible signals from the plane’s flight recorder were heard on April 8.
If nothing is found, the Bluefin-21 will move to an adjacent area, the agency co-ordinating the search said.
Meanwhile, Malaysia said a report on the plane could be released next week.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people – mostly Chinese nationals – on board.
The underwater search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane could widen from its focused area in the Indian Ocean
Using satellite data, officials have concluded that MH370 ended its journey in waters north-west of the Australian city of Perth.
However, the ongoing multi-national search for the missing plane has yet to yield anything concrete. The daily operation is already shaping up to be the most expensive in aviation history.
The robotic submarine Bluefin-21, operated by the US Navy off the Australian vessel Ocean Shield, is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that can identify objects by creating a sonar map of the sea floor.
It is operating at a depth of more than 13,000 feet.
The AUV has been mapping the area of the sea bed within a 10km (6.25 mile) radius of where acoustic signals believed to have come from the aircraft’s flight recorder were detected.
On Friday Australia’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) said in a statement that the AUV had “completed approximately 95% of the focused underwater search area”.
“If no contacts of interest are made, Bluefin-21 will continue to examine the areas adjacent to the 10km radius,” JACC said.
“We are currently consulting very closely with our international partners on the best way to continue the search into the future,” JACC added.
Authorities still do not know why the plane went off course and finding the flight recorders is seen as key to understanding what happened.
Meanwhile, Malaysian PM Najib Razak told CNN on Thursday that there was “a likelihood” the report on the investigation into the missing plane could be released next week.
Malaysian officials said on Wednesday that the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization already had a copy of the report.
In China, relatives of passengers on the missing flight held another protest outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing, after Malaysian officials failed to update them on the search.
Australian authorities are examining material washed ashore to determine if it is related to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
The debris was found by a member of the public near the town of Augusta, some 190 miles south of Perth.
Images of the debris have been sent to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is now investigating.
“It’s sufficiently interesting for us to take a look,” an ATSB chief Martin Dolan told CNN.
Martin Dolan said the debris looked like sheet metal with rivets in it, but added: “The more we look at it, the less excited we get.”
The ATSB confirmed it was examining the photographs “to determine whether further physical analysis is required and if there is any relevance to the search of missing flight MH370”.
The images have also been sent to authorities in Malaysia and the ATSB is expected to collect the material later on Wednesday.
The material was metallic and about 8ft long, ABC News reported.
The debris was found by a member of the public near the town of Augusta, some 190 miles south of Perth
The Malaysia Airlines aircraft was carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared in March.
Malaysia is running the investigation into the plane’s disappearance, but search efforts are being led by Australia’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC).
For the past two days, bad weather has prevented planes from taking part in the search about 990 miles north-west of Perth.
The US Navy Bluefin-21 mini-submarine scanning the ocean bed has covered more than 80% of a120 sq mile search area in the southern Indian Ocean, without finding any sign of debris in water.
Up to 10 military aircraft and 12 ships are currently taking part in the hunt. The daily operation, involving some two dozen nations, is already shaping up to be the most expensive in aviation history.
Australia said on Wednesday that it would not abandon the hunt, insisting that the cost of the operation was not a concern.
Australian PM Tony Abbott said if the current underwater search was unsuccessful, a new strategy would begin.
Defense Minister David Johnston has said that sophisticated sonar equipment will probably be used in the next stage.
“The next phase, I think, is that we step up with potentially a more powerful, more capable side-scan sonar to do deeper water,” David Johnston said.
Tony Abbott said the probable impact zone of the airliner was in an area of the sea floor 430 miles long and 50 miles wide.
In a separate development, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that his country’s cabinet had approved the formation of an international investigation team to find out what happened to the missing plane.
“The main purpose of the team is to evaluate, investigate and determine the actual cause of the accident so similar accidents could be avoided in the future,” he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
Australia says that it is now consulting with Malaysia, China and the US on the next phase of the search, which is likely to be announced next week.
Tony Abbott said a new search strategy would be put into action if nothing was found in the current seabed search.
“If at the end of that period we find nothing, we are not going to abandon the search, we may well rethink the search, but we will not rest until we have done everything we can to solve this mystery,” he said.
“We owe it to the families of the 239 people on board, we owe it to the hundreds of millions – indeed billions – of people who travel by air to try to get to the bottom of this.”
“The only way we can get to the bottom of this is to keep searching the probable impact zone until we find something or until we have searched it as thoroughly as human ingenuity allows at this time,” Tony Abbott said.
Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has announced that the search area for the missing MH370 plane has narrowed and will be at “a critical juncture” in the next two days.
Hishammuddin Hussein said underwater drone Bluefin-21 would finish searching the area within the next week.
The Bluefin 21 mini-submarine has so far found nothing after six missions.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing carrying 239 people.
The Bluefin is mapping the area of the sea bed within 6 miles radius of where acoustic signals were detected believed to have come from the aircraft’s flight recorder.
It is operating at a depth of more than 13,000 feet.
The Bluefin 21 mini-submarine searching for missing Malaysia Airlines plane has so far found nothing after six missions
Hishammuddin Hussein said it was important to focus on the search on Saturday and Sunday.
“The narrowing of the search for today and tomorrow is at a critical juncture,” he said.
“I appeal to everyone around the world to pray and pray hard that we find something to work on in the next couple of days.”
Using satellite data, officials have concluded that the MH370 ended its journey in seas west of the Australian city of Perth.
They do not know why the plane flew so far off course and finding the plane’s flight recorders is seen as key to understanding what happened.
The Bluefin-21, operated by the US Navy off the Australian vessel Ocean Shield, is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that can identify objects by creating a sonar map of the sea floor.
It is searching in an area defined by four acoustic signals picked up by an Australian search team, and was deployed after officials concluded that the batteries on the plane’s flight recorders would likely have expired, given their one-month shelf life.
Submersible Bluefin-21 has an operating depth of 4,500m (15,000ft) and on its first mission a built-in safety device returned it to the surface after it exceeded that depth.
The authorities have now adjusted the device to allow it to go as deep as 4,695m.
The Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) said on Thursday that the machine could operate deeper than 4,500m at “a small but acceptable level of risk”.
Mini-submarine Bluefin-21 searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has completed a full mission at its third attempt.
Two previous missions to scour the floor of the Indian Ocean for wreckage were cut short by technical problems.
The data from the sub’s latest mission is being analyzed. Previous forays have not shown anything significant.
It is searching in the area acoustic signals thought to be from the missing plane’s “black box” flight recorders were heard.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Using satellite data, officials have concluded that it ended its journey in seas west of the Australian city of Perth.
Bluefin-21 searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has completed a full mission at its third attempt
They do not know why the plane flew so far off course and an investigation is ongoing. Finding the plane’s flight recorders are seen as key to understanding what happened.
The Bluefin-21, operated by the US Navy off the Australian vessel Ocean Shield, is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that can identify objects by creating a sonar map of the sea floor.
It is searching in an area defined by four acoustic signals picked up by an Australian search team, and was deployed after officials concluded that the batteries on the plane’s flight recorders would likely have expired, given their one-month shelf life.
The submersible has an operating depth of 15,000ft and on its first mission a built-in safety device returned it to the surface after it exceeded that depth.
Its second mission was also cut short because of unspecified technical difficulties, but the third mission – a full 16 hours, plus two hours each way for diving and surfacing – went according to plan.
“Overnight Bluefin-21 AUV completed a full mission in the search area and is currently planning for its next mission,” the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) said in a statement.
“Bluefin-21 has searched approximately 90 square kilometres to date and the data from its latest mission is being analyzed.”
JACC also said that an oil sample collected in the area the acoustic signals were heard had arrived in Perth for testing.
“We will provide details of the results when they become available,” it said.
Officials have warned that the search for wreckage on the sea floor could take weeks or months.
Bluefin-21 robotic mini submarine deployed to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane in the southern Indian Ocean has had its first mission cut short.
The drone was sent to search the sea floor for wreckage after signals believed to be consistent with “black box” flight recorders were detected.
The Bluefin-21 exceeded its operating limit of 15,000ft and was brought back to the surface.
It was due to return later on Tuesday if weather conditions permitted.
“To account for inconsistencies with the sea floor, the search profile is being adjusted to extend the sonar search for as long as possible,” an update from the US Navy – which operates the Bluefin-21 – said.
The Bluefin-21 exceeded its operating limit of 15,000ft and was brought back to the surface
The US Navy said in a later update that no objects of interest were found when the six hours of data were downloaded and analyzed.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 with 239 people on board. It was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it lost contact with air traffic controllers over the South China Sea.
Malaysian officials believe, based on satellite data, that it ended its flight thousands of miles off course, in seas west of the Australian city of Perth.
Amid a major international search, an Australian navy vessel last week detected four acoustic signals using a US Navy towed pinger locator. Officials believe these could come from the missing plane’s flight recorders.
No signals have been detected since 8 April, however, leading to fears that the recorders’ batteries – which last about a month – have run out.
Bluefin-21 is an almost 5m-long vehicle that can create a sonar map of the sea floor. On Monday officials said each mission was expected to last 24 hours, with 16 hours spent on the ocean floor, four hours’ diving and resurfacing time, and four hours to download data.
The submersible has a safety feature that brings it to the surface if it exceeds its performance capabilities, however.
The sea where the Bluefin-21 is searching is estimated to be about 4,500m deep, but experts say there could be variations on the sea floor.
Robotic submarine Bluefin-21 will be deployed for the first time to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.
Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said the Bluefin-21 drone would be sent down as soon as possible to search for wreckage on the sea floor.
Teams have been using a towed pinger locator to listen for signals from the plane’s “black box” flight recorders.
But no new signals have been heard since April 8, amid concerns the flight recorders’ batteries have expired.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 with 239 people on board. It was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it lost contact with air traffic controllers over the South China Sea.
Malaysian officials believe, based on satellite data, that it ended its flight in the southern Indian Ocean, thousands of kilometres off course.
Teams searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane are to deploy robotic submarine Bluefin-21 for the first time
An international search has focused on waters west of the Australian city of Perth, with teams racing against time to detect signals before the flight recorder batteries – which last about one month – run out.
ACM Angus Houston, who heads the joint agency coordinating the search effort, said that given no signals had been detected in six days, it was time to go underwater.
The Bluefin-21 – an almost 5m-long underwater autonomous vehicle that can create a sonar map of the sea floor – will search for wreckage in an area defined by four signals heard last week.
Officials believe those signals – picked up by the pinger locator towed by an Australian vessel – are consistent with flight recorders.
“Analysis of the four signals has allowed the provisional definition of a reduced and manageable search area on the ocean floor,” ACM Angus Houston said.
“The experts have therefore determined that the Australian Defense Vessel Ocean Shield will cease searching with the towed pinger locator later today and deploy the… Bluefin-21 as soon as possible.”
Angus Houston warned that the submersible search would be a long, “painstaking” process that might, in the end, yield no results.
Each Bluefin-21 mission will last 24 hours, with 16 hours spent on the ocean floor, four hours’ diving and resurfacing time, and four hours to download data.
Australian vessel Ocean Shield had also spotted an oil slick in the same area where the signals had been heard, ACM Angus Houston said, and a sample was being sent for testing.
“I stress the source of the oil is yet to be determined but the oil slick is approximately 5,500m downwind… from the vicinity of the detections picked up by the towed pinger locator,” he said.
Australian officials have said previously that they are confident they are searching in the right area for the missing plane.
Officials have no idea yet why the plane diverted so far from its intended flight path. Investigators are looking at options including hijacking, mechanical failure, sabotage and pilot action.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid tried to make a call with his cellphone after the plane was diverted from its scheduled route, Malaysia’s New Straits Times reported investigative sources as saying on Saturday.
The newspaper cited unidentified sources as saying the attempted call from Fariq Abdul Hamid’s phone was picked up by a cellphone tower as the plane was about 200 nautical miles northwest of the west coast state of Penang. That was around where military radar made its last sighting of the missing jet at 2:15 a.m. local time on March 8.
“The telco’s [telecommunications company’s] tower established the call that he was trying to make. On why the call was cut off, it was likely because the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one,” the New Straits Times cited a source as saying.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid tried to make a call with his cellphone after the plane was diverted from its scheduled route
The publication quoted Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein as saying that the report needed to be verified.
However, Hishammuddin Hussein appeared to cast doubt on the report by saying: “If this did happen, we would have known about it earlier.”
The New Straits Times cited separate investigative sources as saying that a signal had been picked up from Fariq Abdul Hamid’s cellphone, but that it could have resulted from the device being switched on rather than being used to make a call.
Malaysia is focusing its criminal investigation on the cabin crew and the pilots of the plane – 53-year-old captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and 27-year old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid – after clearing all 227 passengers of any involvement, police have said.
Investigators believe that someone with detailed knowledge of both the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial aviation navigation switched off the plane’s communications systems before diverting it thousands of miles off its scheduled course.
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