MH370: Today's Latest Verified Updates Of Search And Rescue Ops

Investigators hunting for missing Flight MH370 have widened their ocean floor search to a larger zone and don't know where else to focus if the jet can't be found there, authorities announced Wednesday.

The underwater operation has been "modified" and experts have started searching a larger area of the southern Indian Ocean even before a survey of the original zone has been completed.

nbcnews.com

Both Australia and Malaysia are leading the search for the missing plane, which was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

A statement from the Australia Transportation Safety Bureau's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said: "The search plan has been modified to enable continuous search operations during winter and to ensure that the entire 120,000 square kilometre area is searched as quickly and effectively as possible."

"The search into the expanded area has already commenced, with search efforts focused in the south to take advantage of the last of the usable weather in that area. Expert advice is that the highest probability of locating the aircraft is within the 120,000 square kilometre search area. Beyond that, it is not possible to refine the search area to one of greater likelihood."

Three specialist ships involved in the ocean floor search — GO Phoenix, Fugro Discovery and Fugro Equator - were all bound for, or returning from, the Australian supply port of Fremantle.

"Our work will continue to be thorough and methodical, so sometimes weekly progress may seem slow," it said. "Please be assured that work is continuing and is aimed at finding MH370 as quickly as possible."

msnbc.com

Several Chinese family members of passengers on board the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 have threatened to gather outside the airlines' headquarters over the decision to declare the plane's disappearance as an accident.

Dressed in red shirts printed with the words "Pray for MH370", they have not forgotten even as international attention has died down over what is viewed as a mystery in aviation history. "Who can tell us what happened? Please help us! Come back MH370," read a placard, summing up their emotional plea

themalaymailonline.com

They are also prepared to spend Chinese New Year in Malaysia unless their demands were met. "We will try to meet with the management of MAS," said Kelly Wen, the wife of Chinese passenger Li who was on board the ill-fated flight.

themalaysianinsider.com

Malaysia Airlines said it had notified all the families and relatives of passengers on board flight MH370 ahead of the government's official announcement on Thursday to declare the plane lost in an accident and all those on it dead.

themalaysianinsider.com

“Prior to the scheduled announcement by the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia, all next-of-kin were notified via telephone calls and in certain instances by text messages, when the calls were unanswered.

“These were done personally by its Family Support Centre, caregivers or representatives from the airline’s regional offices,” it said in a statement today. Families in China were notified via text messages by Malaysia Airlines’ Family Communications and Support Centre in Beijing, it added.

themalaymailonline.com

"Together with the Government of Malaysia and its related agencies, the airline will continue to organise engagement sessions with family members to discuss various matters related to the declaration," it said.

themalaysianinsider.com

“We are ready to pay compensation but the next-of-kin must show proof of their relationship, such as birth and marriage certificates, and these must be verified by a commissioner of oath.”

Fuad said the compensation to be paid was more than what has been set by the Montreal Convention 1999 but he did not disclose the amount. The convention amount is US$175,000 (RM635,550) per passenger.

“Our compensation is more than the minimum scheme (Montreal Convention). We are giving a certain amount (compensation). There may be some adjustment if the NOK can prove that the passenger should get more.

therakyatpost.com

The undersea search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has covered almost a third of its target area, the Department of Civil Aviation said on Friday, adding that they were confident the aircraft is in the zone.

DCA flight operations assistant director Captain Mior Nor Badrishah Mohamad also told a media briefing that searchers have covered so far one-third of the 60,000 sq km search area off Perth, Australia, and that they expect to complete the underwater search area by May.

“Based on the available data that we have, this is the place,” Mior said. “Based on the satellite communication data, the Inmarsat data and the aircraft performance data,” he added at the technical briefing for the media here, referring to British satellite telecommunications firm Inmarsat.

themalaymailonline.com

"If we cannot find MH370 within this area, we need to sit down again and decide what's the best way forward, based on the data we have," said Mior, adding that poor weather after May would make the search more difficult.

Australia remains committed to the search for Flight MH370 and will continue to work collaboratively with Malaysia and China, said the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC).

The JACC said in a statement on Friday that it would continue with the search operations in service of the families of those on board and the wider travelling public.

“We understand that the families of those on board MH370 are experiencing enormous grief, heightened by not knowing the circumstances under which the aircraft disappeared.

“Providing support to those families, particularly at this difficult time, will continue to be a priority,” it said in a statement issued here today.

nst.com.my

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak expressed his sympathy for the families of passengers and crew of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, following the announcement by the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) that it was an accident.

themalaysianinsider.com

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Thursday assured the families of passengers and crew on board flight MH370 that Malaysia, together with Australia and China, remains committed to finding the aircraft.

An interim report on the investigation into the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will be released by the country’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) on March 7, Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Aziz Kaprawi said Wednesday. The report, which will be available on the DCA website, will be published a day before the one-year anniversary of the jet’s disappearance.

ibtimes.com

"‎I cannot reveal the details of the interim report but it will be on the investigation that has been carried out so far in search of the missing plane. We have not concluded on the status of the plane, as the search is still on-going." Aziz said to reporters after opening the ‎Southeast Asia Regional Aviation Security Workshop: Strengthening Passenger and Baggage Screening Procedures, here.

nst.com.my

Investigators say they could finish scouring the priority search zone by May, more than a year after the plane vanished, if there are no delays with vessels, equipment and weather.

A press conference, widely speculated to be on the declaration of loss on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 plane, has been called off.

The Home Ministry is expected to get in touch with the media later to clarify matters.

Families of those on board the missing flight MH370 have been told to prepare for a move by Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and the authorities to collect DNA samples, similar to the exercise done during the MH17 tragedy.

themalaysianinsider.com

Syafinaz Hasnan, the sister of flight attendant Mohd Hazrin Hasnan, who was among the 12 crew members on board the ill-fated flight that went missing on March 8, said this was announced during the two-hour briefing session held at the MAS Academy in Kelana Jaya last night.

themalaysianinsider.com

“They said we now need to provide our DNA samples to the authorities for safekeeping and in case they find the wreckage or remains. This is the first time they have made an official announcement on DNA samples. Prior to this, we only heard stories that they had taken samples from a few family members,” said Syafinaz.

themalaysianinsider.com

Malaysia is optimistic of finding missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 as the new search phase begins.

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said he was 99.9% optimistic of finding the aircraft.

“If based on the technology that we are using and whether we are looking at the right place, then we are talking about 99.9% optimistic."

asiaone.com

“However, that is not an answer that says we are definitely going to find it as the ocean is huge. The aircraft is minuscule compared to the vast ocean,” he told a press conference after launching the GO Phoenix Vessel and sophisticated underwater search equipment called the ProSAS towed side scan sonar at Freemantle Port here yesterday.

The GO Phoenix Vessel and the sonar are a Malaysian government contracted vessel funded by Petronas. Hishammuddin said they were additions to the Malaysian-Australian Contracted Vessel by Fugro Survey Limited that Malaysia had co-shared with the Australian government.

asiaone.com

“The Pro Synthetic Aperture Sonar (ProSAS) which is mounted on the GO Phoenix Vessel has the ability to search up to a depth of 6,000m and can cover up to 194 sq km per day. In addition, the GO Phoenix Vessel is equipped with a multibeam sonar for blind spots,” he said, adding that the contribution was a testament to Malaysia’s inclusiveness in the next phase of the search effort.

After a four-month hiatus, the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is about to resume in a desolate stretch of the Indian Ocean, with searchers lowering new equipment deep beneath the waves in a bid to finally solve one of the world's most perplexing aviation mysteries.

usatoday.com

The GO Phoenix, the first of three ships that will spend up to a year hunting for the wreckage far off Australia's west coast, is expected to arrive in the search zone Sunday, though weather could delay its progress. Crews will use sonar, video cameras and jet fuel sensors to scour the water for any trace of the Boeing 777, which disappeared March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

independent.ie

The search has been on hold for months so crews could map the seabed in the search zone, about 1,100 miles west of Australia. The 23,000-square mile search area lies along what is known as the "seventh arc" — a stretch of ocean where investigators believe the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed, based largely on an analysis of transmissions between the plane and a satellite.

ecumenicalnews.com

Given that the hunt has already been peppered with false alarms — from underwater signals wrongly thought to be from the plane's black boxes to possible debris fields that turned out to be trash — officials are keen to temper expectations.

examiner.com

"We're cautiously optimistic; cautious because of all the technical and other challenges we've got, but optimistic because we're confident in the analysis," said Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the agency leading the search. "But it's just a very big area that we're looking at."

usatoday.com

That area was largely unknown to scientists before the mapping process began in May. Two ships have been surveying the seabed using on-board multibeam sonar devices, similar to a fish-finder. The equipment sends out a series of signals that determine the shape and hardness of the terrain below, allowing officials to create three-dimensional maps of the seabed.

theepochtimes.com

Those maps are considered crucial to the search effort because the seafloor is riddled with deep crevasses, mountains and volcanoes, which could prove disastrous to the pricey, delicate search equipment that will be towed just 330 feet above the seabed. Two of the search ships will be using underwater search vessels worth around $1.5 million each.

independent.ie

With the mapping nearly complete, the GO Phoenix, provided by Malaysia's government, will begin hunting in an area considered the likeliest crash site, based on an analysis of satellite data gleaned from the plane's jet engine transmitter and a series of unanswered phone calls officials on the ground made to the plane. The other two vessels, the Equator and Discovery, provided by Dutch contractor Fugro, are expected to join the hunt later this month. Malaysia and Australia are each contributing around $60 million to fund the search.

usatoday.com

Family members of the passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are still seeking answers and closure six months after the plane's disappearance.

themalaysianinsider.com

But at an emotional gathering in Beijing on Monday, relatives' sorrow was mixed with fierce resentment of Chinese authorities who they feel have turned against them after dozens of family members were reportedly beaten and arrested in recent months.

businessinsider.com

About 30 of their relatives gathered at Beijing's Lama Temple, a popular Tibetan Buddhist site, to vent their frustration and pray for the missing on a day that marks both the six-month anniversary of the flight's disappearance as well as China's traditional Mid-Autumn Festival, a day for families to reunite. "In China, today is Family Reunion Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival," said a 55-year-old woman who gave only her surname, Zhang, and whose daughter was aboard the flight. "Every day is torture, but today we're suffering even more."

msn.com

In Malaysia, relatives of the missing also expressed anger and frustration at the uncertainty. Selamat Umar, 60, whose son Mohamad Khairul Amri was onboard the ill-fated airliner, said he held special prayers attended by about 100 people Sunday for "Allah to protect my son and bring him back". "There is no peace of mind for me at all," he said. "We want to know where are our loved ones."

businessinsider.com

Jacquita Gonzales, 52, the wife of inflight supervisor Patrick Gomes, said it was "daily torture for us not knowing where they are". "Six months on we are no closer to the truth, we are no closer to any closure. We are in limbo," she said. "A lot of people say, 'It's been six months. It's time to move on.' But I can't. How do you expect me to move on?"

themalaysianinsider.com

An HSBC bank officer and her husband were charged at the Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur today with transferring and withdrawing money totalling RM85,180 from the accounts of four victims of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, between May and July this year.

themalaysianinsider.com

Nur Shila Kanan, 33, was charged with 12 counts of the alleged offences, while her husband, Basheer Ahmad Maula Sahul Hameed, 33, a mechanic, was charged with four. Both of them pleaded not guilty to all charges which were read to them before Judge Mat Ghani Abdullah.

astroawani.com

It's alleged that between May 14 and July 8, Nur Shila transferred $12,600 (40,000 ringgits) from the account of Malaysian passenger Hue Pui Heng to the account of Chinese passenger Tian Jun Wei, according to Bernama.

The bank officer is accused of then using fake documents to apply for a new debit card in Tian's name, and making applications to transfer money from savings accounts belonging to Chinese passengers Ju Kun and Malaysian flight attendant Tan Size Hiang, Bernama said. The first of the alleged offenses was committed two months after flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

She was also charged with using fake Internet Banking Service Request Form on the name of Judy Margaret Lai to acquire the security device to activate the Internet banking service. Nur Shila was also charged with cheating her supervisors, Nor Aini Derus@Mat Rose and Mohd Fazli Mokhtar, into believing that the applications for the new debit card for Tian and Judy were made personally by the applicants.

bernama.com.my

eanwhile, Basheer Ahmad Maula was charged with four counts of using Tian's debit and ATM cards to withdraw a total of RM7,650 in four transactions.

bernama.com.my

The government will continue the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 although the whole country was focusing on the MH17 crash tragedy, said Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. He said the whole world was now giving attention to Malaysia following the shooting down of the MH17 aircraft in Ukraine last month, but this did not mean the search for the MH370 would be stopped.

astroawani.com

In fact, he said, he would be going to Australia at the end of the month to ensure that the search mission for MH370 proceeded smoothly. "I'm still waiting for confirmation from the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) on the latest position of the ships KD Mutiara and Bunga Mas 5 before leaving for Perth.

themalaysianinsider.com

"I wish to inspire our personnel besides giving a signal to family members of the victims that while we are busy with the MH17 crash, we don't forget about the search for MH370 which is still going on," he said after opening the 2014 Delegates Meeting of the Tanjong Piai Umno division, here today.

therakyatpost.com

Two ships surveying the sea floor where Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is thought to have crashed are making steady progress with a deep-water search to get underway in September, Australian authorities said Thursday.

Malaysia will send a hydrographic survey vessel to join Chinese and Australian ships in the deep-water survey ahead of the renewed search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. The KD Mutiara will join the Chinese navy vessel Zhu Kezhen and the Australian-contracted specialised survey vessel Fugro Equator in the ocean survey.

Since May experts have been surveying an area of about 60,000 square kilometres along the seventh arc -- a thin but long line that includes all possible points where the last known communication between the aircraft and a satellite could have taken place.

ndtv.com

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said that as of Wednesday the Zhu Kezhen had sounded over 25,000 square kilometres while the Fugro Equator had surveyed more than 43,000 square kilometres.

ndtv.com

It is expected that the bathymetric survey work will be completed by September," JACC said in a statement. "The deep-water search is expected to commence in September following the appointment of a prime contractor through a request for tender process."

The sister of the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has broken her silence to defend her brother's name. Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah remains under suspicion for the plane's disappearance.

channelnewsasia.com

In the special entitled “The Mystery of MH370”, Sakinab rejected the theory that Zaharie had hijacked his own plane. “If it was done, if he was the one who planned it, he has to be some kind of Einstein, which he was not,” she was quoted as saying in the interview.

themalaysianinsider.com

“We couldn't figure out why somebody who would want to commit suicide would prolong the agony of flying for four, five, six hours just to land down there. “He was just a man who took so much to aviation. He loved aviation, he spent a lot of his funds buying model airplanes. If he could, I think he would attach wings to himself and fly – he loved flying that much.”

channelnewsasia.com

Efforts are now being directed at an area of the southern Indian Ocean, which satellite data suggests is the final resting place of Boeing Triple 7 jetliner. Data shows that the plane continued flying for over six hours after disappearing from radar.

channelnewsasia.com

Malaysia is deploying more assets for the pursuant deep-sea search for its missing jetliner MH370 in the new location in the Southern Indian Ocean, said Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

astroawani.com

Hishammuddin said the Royal Malaysian Navy vessel, KD Mutiara, which has the capability of the multi-beam echo sounder would join the search efforts to assist in the current bathymetric survey process. "The ship will set sail on Aug 4," he told reporters after launching the MH370 Photo Exhibition here today.

channelnewsasia.com

Also present were Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, Department of Civil Aviation director-general Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman and Malaysia Airlines (MAS) chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahaya.

thesundaily.my

On commercial assets, Hishammuddin said that Petronas together with DEFTECH and Phoenix International would immediately deploy a Prosas Side Scan Sonar (Towed Synthetic Aperture Sonar), which would be mounted on a mother vessel which was soon to be identified. Hishammuddin said another company, Boustead Heavy Industries, together with iXBlue Australia would also be deploying a deep towed side scan sonar with a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) mounted on the mother vessel called John Lethbridge.

astroawani.com

The assets were expected to reach the search area in mid-August and the operational requirements for these assets would be coordinated with the Australian authorities, he added. He further explained that the Royal Malaysian Navy vessel, Bunga Mas 6 (BM6), which had been actively present since the surface search was carried out in April, would remain in the search area in the coming phase to assist in the search for MH370.

firstpost.com

He said BM6 was currently assisting with logistical support and data transfer for the vessels within the search area.

channelnewsasia.com

Air crash investigators probing the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH-370 have discovered possible new evidence of tampering with the plane's cockpit equipment.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has released a report detailing evidence of a “not common” power outage occurring on the plane less than 90 minutes after take off from Kuala Lumpur. Investigators revealed that after the power outage, the Boeing 777’s satellite data unit (SDU) attempted to log-on to a satellite – a process called a “handshake” in aviation industry lingo.

smh.com.au

"A log-on request in the middle of a flight is not common," said the report, by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. "An analysis was performed which determined that the characteristics and timing of the logon requests were best matched as resulting from power interruption."

David Gleave, an aviation safety expert from Loughborough University, said the interruption to the power supply appeared to be the result of someone in the cockpit attempting to minimise the use of the aircraft's systems. The action, he said, was consistent with an attempt to turn the plane's communications and other systems off in an attempt to avoid radar detection.

The new phase in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will include assets such as multi-beam echo sounders and the Prosas towed side scan sonar, said Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein. The Defence Minister said the assets, which would be used as the Government’s furnished equipment, would be deployed for the bathymetric survey and the search of the sea floor.

“Chairman of the Asset Deployment Committee Datuk Rahim Bakri led a delegation to Canberra to discuss and coordinate the arrangements for Malaysia’s participation in this phase of the search operation,” he said in a statement yesterday.

firstpost.com

On the new phase, he said an expert satellite working group had been working for eight weeks and they had reviewed and refined all existing information to define the search zone along the arc in the southern Indian Ocean. Hishammuddin explained that the refinement of the search area involved the expertise of Australia’s Transport Safety Bu­­­reau, China’s Civil Aviation Administration and Aircraft Accident Investigation Department, the United Kingdom’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the United States’ National Transportation and Safety Board and Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation.

He revealed that the priority was now focused on an area of up to 60,000sq km within the new search area where the aircraft last communicated with the satellite. “This area is further south along the arc based on the calculations carried out by the expert satellite working group,” he said.

asiaone.com

Hishammuddin said extremely difficult calculations had to be performed on specialised satellite communications information to refine the search area due to the unprecedented scale and complexity of the search operation.

Hishammuddin also announced that Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Hamzah Zainudin, who is the chairman of the Next-of-Kin Committee, would lead a delegation of all four Chairs of the Ministerial Sub-Committees and other senior officials to China today. “This meeting is primarily aimed at updating our Chinese counterparts on the latest efforts at the tripartite level and Malaysia’s contribution,” he said.

asiaone.com

The passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 most likely died from suffocation and coasted lifelessly into the ocean on autopilot, a new report released by Australian officials yesterday said.

In a 55-page report, the Australian Transport Safety Board outlined how investigators had arrived at this conclusion after comparing the conditions on the flight with previous disasters, although it contained no new evidence from within the jetliner.

The report narrowed down the possible final resting place from thousands of possible routes, while noting the absence of communications and the steady flight path and a number of other key abnormalities in the course of the ill-fated flight.

reuters.com

"Given these observations, the final stages of the unresponsive crew/hypoxia event type appeared to best fit the available evidence for the final period of MH370's flight when it was heading in a generally southerly direction," the ATSB report said.

reuters.com

Come Thursday, a new search area to locate the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 aircraft which vanished on March 8, will be disclosed, said Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

abnxcess.com

He said Australia would make the announcement. “After discussions with the Australian and Chinese counterparts, we should be announcing the new area of search on Thursday.

abnxcess.com

"This is something that we have done while looking and discussing with experts from around the world. "It is a discussion and announcement that's going to be done with the consensus of the three nations, Australia, China and Malaysia," he said.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 did not dramatically climb to 45,000 and then dive below 23,000 feet after completing a U-turn before it disappeared. That is the conclusion of investigators looking into the disappearance, who say Malaysian radars hadn’t been calibrated precisely enough to draw any conclusions about altitude.

malaysia-chronicle.com

The New York Times reported today investigators discovered the jet had not soared and swooped as they believed earlier, but remained in controlled flight for hours after contact was lost, until it ran out of fuel over the southern Indian Ocean.

themalaysianinsider.com

Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) chief Angus Houston (right) and Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) chief commissioner declined to discuss the specifics of Malaysia’s military radar, but both agreed that it is unreliable.

“The primary radar data pertaining to altitude is regarded as unreliable,” said Angus Houston, the retired head of the Australian military who is in charge of the search.

malaysia-chronicle.com

However, revelations that the Malaysian military radar has not been calibrated has helped investigators determine that the aircraft was probably in controlled flight and not seriously damaged, the report said.

The report said dismissal of the radar altitude data prompted a change in the focus of the search, as the plane's fuel would have lasted longer if it maintained a steadier altitude. "Everyone agrees that is where the aircraft ran out of fuel," said Dolan in the report.

themalaysianinsider.com

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein today denied a report, published in a newspaper in the United Kingdom (UK), that Captain Zaharie Shah was the prime suspect behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370.

themalaymailonline.com

He described the action by the newspaper concerned in publishing the report as irresponsible and that it was only to increase the newspaper circulation. “If we want to entertain the newspapers in UK, they have new stories every day. If there is a basis to it, they have to give us the proof and leads. We will investigate. There is no need to announce it in the newspapers,” he told reporters.

themalaymailonline.com

A new Sunday Times reports states that the official police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has reportedly identified the plane's captain as the prime suspect.

emirates247.com

After conducting 170 interviews, investigators noted strange behaviour by the pilot. He had made no future plans - socially or professionally - and his home flight simulator was programmed with a flight path into the depths of the Southern Ocean before landing the plane on an island with a small runway.

news.com.au

The pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane which disappeared in March with 239 people on board had plotted a flight path to a remote island far into the southern Indian Ocean where the search is now focused, investigators have discovered.

The route, which was deleted before MH370 disappeared on March 8, was made on a home flight simulator machine used for practice by its captain, Zaharie Shah. Its discovery has intensified suspicion that he deliberately hijacked his own plane and diverted it from its approved flight path to Beijing.

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will return to an area 1,800 kilometres west of Perth that was first searched three months ago, it was reported today. The area was previously only searched by air looking for wreckage before the search moved further north. But experts have now concluded that the more southern area represents the “highest probability” of where the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean on March 8.

The new search zone comes as Dutch engineers begin a survey to map uncharted deep sea terrain at the bottom of the Indian Ocean in search of the plane. A survey ship from Dutch engineering company Fugro, carrying 40 crew and technicians, began mapping out an area larger than the Netherlands, some 1,600 kilometres off the West Australian coast.

Once an accurate map has been constructed with the aid of computers on board the ship, searchers can begin more detailed and slower surveys in a bid to find the plane itself, using unmanned robots and submarines to search the ocean floor.

It could take up to 12 months to map the 60,000-square-kilometre search area. “The area has mountains, ridges, valleys and you can't see a lot down there unless you make it visible with technology,” according to Rob Luijnenburg, strategy coordinator on the Fugro Equator.

Australian officials said Wednesday they will announce the new search zone for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 by month's end, as mapping of the Indian Ocean seabed resumed.

emirates247.com

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said data collected from the ongoing bathymetric (mapping of the sea floor) survey, would be used progressively to make a map of the search area. “It is already clear from the provisional results of that analysis that the search zone will move, but still be on the seventh arc (where the aircraft last communicated with satellite),” it said in a statement.

abnxcess.com

The government has yet to decide whether or not to table a White Paper in Parliament on the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370, said Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

abnxcess.com

He said the government had also not decided on the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) or a Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate the MH370 tragedy. “The decision on the matter will be made after the missing aircraft is found, investigation on the incident carried out and cause of the tragedy identified. “Efforts to find the MAS aircraft will continue,” he said in a written reply to Liew Chin Tong (DAP-Kluang) at the Dewan Rakyat sitting here today.

therakyatpost.com

There is no joy this Father's Day for the families of victims on board of the lost Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 as the aircraft remains missing for the 100th day today. However, the quest for closure continues, and Voice370, an association for the families of the passengers and crew on board MH370 today will release a video to mark Father's Day along with the 100th day anniversary of Flight MH370's disappearance.

"We hope that through expressing our faith and longing for their returns will be able to continue knocking on the doors for the release of necessary information to help find our loved one. "There will also be a series of articles and letters for 'Vanished 100 days'," it said in a statement.

astroawani.com

In traditional Chinese culture, the family of a deceased person mourns for 100 days, wearing somber clothing and performing solemn rituals. Even in contemporary China, a country whose rush into modernity has enabled many of its citizens to travel abroad for the first time, the old traditions remain powerful.

ibtimes.com

June 16 marks the 100th day since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared with 239 people onboard. Had it been a "normal" crash, the families of the plane's 153 Chinese nationals would be coming to the end of the customary mourning period now, prepared to resume their lives. But for many, that ritual -- and the comfort it would bring -- are elusive.

astroawani.com

“To know that somebody is alive, you need to see them," the mother of one Chinese victim told CNN. "To know that somebody is dead, you need to see the body. That's all I ask.” It's a request that may, unfortunately, never be honored. The fate of the plane and its passengers is as mysterious as it was when the Boeing 777 went off the radar on March 8.

ibtimes.com

The next-of-kin of at least seven passengers who went missing onboard flight MH370 have received US$50,000 (RM160, 700) per claimant as advanced payment from the airline’s insurance.

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.

bbc.com

The amount is part of the final insurance payment, to be calculated when the plane's wreckage is finally found. So far, there has been no sign of any wreckage from the Boeing B777-200 jet despite the largest aviation search-and-recovery operation in history.

straitstimes.com

"Most claimants from other countries have also appointed their own lawyers and we are dealing with them. "That's what we are ready to pay, including for all crew members," said Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin who chairs the MH370 next-of-kin committee.

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.

bbc.com

The nation has so far spent about RM27.6mil on search-and-recovery (SAR) operations for MH370, said Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. “The cost spent was on food and fuel for the Malaysian agencies that took part in the first phase of the SAR,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby yesterday.

The five agencies were the Royal Malaysian Air Force, Royal Malaysian Navy, Royal Malaysian Police, Fire and Rescue Department and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. “The cost that we had to bear is relatively small compared with the other assets contributed by other countries in the search.

The Australian government has set aside almost $90m for the search, expected to be the most expensive in aviation history, but it is possible that figure could increase. The treasure, Joe Hockey, said Australia wouldn't try to avoid picking up the tab.

theguardian.com

"It is understood that the plane went down in waters that are our responsibility, and there is a cost to having responsibility and we don't shirk that," he told reporters on Tuesday morning. "We accept responsibility and will pay for it. We're not a country that begs others for money to do our job.

theguardian.com

"There's another $60m that's been allocated for the underwater search." "That money has been allocated but we're still to crunch, or still to negotiate the burden-sharing with, for example, Malaysia." But a senior Malaysian government official has already said Australia was expected to share the cost of the next phase, adding that there were no figures yet for how much would have to be spent. "Costs will be shared 50-50 between Malaysia and Australia," Malaysia's deputy defence minister, Abdul Rahim Bakri, said.

theguardian.com

New Zealand daily, the Sunday Star Times, has reported that Mike McKay, the New Zealander who claimed to have sighted a burning aircraft going down off the Vietnamese coast in March, has been sacked from his job following that claim.

New Zealander Mike McKay, who was working on an oil rig operating in the Gulf of Thailand, was so certain he saw the ill-fated flight on fire that he emailed his employers, urging them to forward the information on to authorities. Mr McKay said that after his incident report was leaked to the media, his contractor and rig owner, Songa Offshore, was inundated with calls which blocked their communications.

news.com.au

“I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines plane come down,” he said in the leaked email. “The timing is right. I tried to contact the Malaysian and Vietnam officials several days ago. But I do not know if the message has been received. “While I observed the burning (plane) it appeared to be in ONE piece.”

independent.co.uk

“This became intolerable for them and I was removed from the rig and not invited back,” he told the Sunday Star Times . The drilling fluids consultant, who had worked in Vietnamese waters since 2008, said he was released from the rig five days early — but did get his full pay.

news.com.au

In the ensuing media storm, Mr McKay said the company, Idemitsu, was flooded was emails leading to his subsequent dismissal. "I was only trying to privately help," Mr McKay told Fairfax.

ninemsn.com.au

Three months has passed since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 but prayers and thoughts are still with the 239 passengers on board and their loved ones. In line with that spirit, the National Union of Flight Attendants Malaysia (Nufam) held a charity dinner last night to commemorate and pay tribute to the 10 stewards and stewardess on board the missing plane.

fz.com

Nufam president Ismail Nasaruddin said the event was not only a tribute but also part of an on-going charity drive which hopefully will provide some financial assistance to the loved ones of the MAS crew members on board the missing flight. "This is a night where we are gathered to give them hope and and to extend our support," he told members of the media at a press conference.

themalaymailonline.com

Also present was Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil who officiated the event in her capacity as National Welfare Foundation chief and Wanita Umno head. She extended her sympathy to the family members and said if they ever needed help, the foundation and Wanita Umno would gladly provide assistance.

Nufam yesterday managed to collect RM50,000 and presented the mock cheque to representatives of family members present. The amount included RM10,000 from the foundation and RM20,000 from the Empire Hotel where the event was held. Nufam has been critical of the Malaysian Airlines System Employees Union's (Maseu) manner in handling the welfare of the family of crew members involved in the MH370 tragedy.

fz.com

However, pressed by reporters to elaborate further, Ismail said he prefers to reserve his comments later as last night was not the appropriate function to speak on the matter.

msn.com

Almost three months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370, some relatives are launching a crowd-funding campaign to raise US$5 million (RM16 million) in total, which is set to be launched on Monday via the crowd-funding website Indiegogo.

astroawani.com

From the total, US$3 million (RM9.6 million) will be rewarded for a whistle-blower to expose key information about the missing jetliner. The remaining US$2 million (RM6.4 million) is to fund for private investigators to follow up on any promising leads.

The campaign, called "Reward MH370: The Search for the Truth", is a joint effort by families from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, France and India as they are frustrated by the lack of concrete evidence on the missing plane.

news.com.au

Sarah Bajc, an American citizen whose partner Philip Wood, 50, was on the flight, is convinced that "somebody is concealing something." "We are taking matters into our own hands. If there was any evidence that that plane was wrecked in the water, even a seat cushion, I would be taking a totally different approach. But there's been nothing," she told USA Today.

astroawani.com

The 48-year-old business studies teacher based in Beijing said the US$2 million reward for investigation services "won’t go very far" but said the families are taking a different approach from the international search team. "Clearly, they've already spent US$100 million dollars and they've gotten nothing. But we're not going to approach it with boats in the ocean, we're going to approach it with human intelligence. "There are no promises here, but we believe we need to try something, if we just sit back on our heels and allow the existing path to continue, I don't think this will ever be solved," she added.

news.com.au

Meanwhile, the Malaysian next-of-kins have requested for a meeting with Chair of Next-of-Kin Committee Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin to seek clarification on specific aspects of the committee that it is assigned to oversee. "We would like to know clearly the committee's specific plan and on-going action in helping us to go through this difficult moment. "We would like also to discuss with Hamzah on the area that we really need assistance and also the possibility to have a briefing by him and/or Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) on the search progress of MH370," said the group in a media statement.

wwmt.com

After leading a fruitless three-month hunt for the wreckage of flight MH370, authorities in Australia have taken the first step towards handing over search operations to a private contractor, who will have the daunting task of scouring the Indian Ocean down to a depth of 6,000 metres.

independent.co.uk

The next phase of the search for the plane, which disappeared on 8 March shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a scheduled flight to Beijing, could take up to a year, according to the tender documents, which have been released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).

independent.co.uk

Inviting bids to undertake “an intensified underwater search” from late August, the ATSB said a specialist company would be engaged as a prime contractor, working under the board’s direction. It would be expected to “bring together and manage the expertise, equipment and vessels to carry out the search”.

independent.co.uk

A private contractor will have exactly 300 days to search a remote area in the Indian Ocean slightly smaller than Sri Lanka for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, CNN reported. "The winning bidder will have to cover 5,000 square kilometres of the area every 25 days or risk payment being withheld," CNN reported.

themalaysianinsider.com

Documents seen by CNN revealed that the contractor would have to provide daily progress reports and submit plans for the following 24 hours. The chosen company will face a stern challenge, operating in one of the most isolated and hostile environments on the planet.

themalaysianinsider.com

A British woman who was sailing near Indonesia at the time Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared has said she believes she saw the plane “burning” and billowing smoke before it crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

independent.co.uk

An eye-witness account from yachting enthusiast Katherine Tee, 41, has now been filed with the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) leading the search based in Australia, which is yet to find any trace of the missing jet.

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

In her account, Ms Tee has described seeing “an elongated plane glowing bright orange, with a trail of black smoke behind it”, heading from north to south. The object was flying at “about half the height” of two other flights in the same patch of sky at the time, she said, in a series of posts detailing the sighting on the yachting website Cruisers Forum, where Ms Tee is a moderator.

independent.co.uk

She later told the Phuket Gazette that she initially dismissed the incident as being “just a meteor” or even a figment of her imagination – until a recent check of GPS logs confirmed that the plane’s projected track may have taken it very close to where the yacht was sailing at the time.

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

She said: “I saw something that looked like a plane on fire. That’s what I thought it was. Then, I thought I must be mad… It caught my attention because I had never seen a plane with orange lights before, so I wondered what they were. “There were two other planes passing well above it – moving the other way – at that time. They had normal navigation lights. I remember thinking that if it was a plane on fire that I was seeing, the other aircraft would report it.”

independent.co.uk

She has now filed two reports to the JACC, which she said had replied to say her data logs would be looked into. The Phuket Gazette reported that officials are yet to confirm the account will be investigated in full.

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Authorities from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and England have assured continued support as the search for missing flight MH370 enters a new phase.

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said that this was one of the assurances made by the defence ministers from the said countries during the ninth Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) defence ministers' meeting held here Sunday. "They have affirmed that they will continue to support us for the search and coordination efforts pertaining to MH370," he said during a press conference after the meeting.

Hishammuddin added that officials from the four countries had been briefed on the four committees set up for the new phase, which included the committee to care for the welfare of families, passengers and crew of MH370, committee to overlook the deployment of assets, committee of field experts and a bilateral committee for the search.

"Officials from China, Australia and Malaysia will be a part of the bilateral committee and we will work together to address the speculation and conspiracies surrounding MH370," he said, adding that the base for the search would be retained at Canberra. He added that the committee would also assist in the search efforts and identifying which assets to be used.

An issue with the Chinese survey ship Zhu Kezhen's multi bean echo sounder stalled the dwindling search for the Malaysian Airlines flight which went missing on March 8. Instead of scanning the waters, the ship was today making its way to a port in Western Australia, which is expected to take a couple of days.

msn.com

An issue with the Chinese survey ship Zhu Kezhen's multi bean echo sounder stalled the dwindling search for the Malaysian Airlines flight which went missing on March 8. Instead of scanning the waters, the ship was today making its way to a port in Western Australia, which is expected to take a couple of days.

msn.com

The ship was mapping the ocean floor to help decide how to carry out the next part of the search. That part of the Indian Ocean has never been mapped before. It is scheduled to take three months, with the whole search expected to last at least a year.

express.co.uk

The ship was mapping the ocean floor to help decide how to carry out the next part of the search. That part of the Indian Ocean has never been mapped before. It is scheduled to take three months, with the whole search expected to last at least a year.

express.co.uk

A new area of up to 800 kilometres long and 70 kilometres wide is likely to be the size of the new search zone to hunt for any clues as to where the aircraft, which was carrying 292 passengers and crew, has gone. The search has already hit a blunder when acoustic pings, believed to be coming from the aircraft's black box, turned out to be coming from search equipment or the search ship.

asiaone.com

A new area of up to 800 kilometres long and 70 kilometres wide is likely to be the size of the new search zone to hunt for any clues as to where the aircraft, which was carrying 292 passengers and crew, has gone. The search has already hit a blunder when acoustic pings, believed to be coming from the aircraft's black box, turned out to be coming from search equipment or the search ship.

asiaone.com

The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in an area of the southern Indian Ocean where acoustic signals were detected in early April has been in vain, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said in a statement today.

The JACC said that the Bluefin-21 autonomous underwater vehicle completed its last mission yesterday, and after having scoured over 850 square kilometres of the ocean floor had found no sign of the missing aircraft.

themalaysianinsider.com

“The joint agency co-ordination centre can advise that no signs of aircraft debris have been found by the autonomous underwater vehicle since it joined the search effort,” search authorities said. “The search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections can now be considered complete and, in its professional judgment, the area can now be discounted as the final resting place of MH370.”

theguardian.com

The JACC statement reiterated that the search for the missing Boeing 777-200 continues and will involve three major stages:

reviewing all existing information and analysis to define a search zone of up to 60,000 square kilometres along the arc in the southern Indian Ocean;

conducting a bathymetric survey to map the sea floor in the defined search area; and

acquiring the specialist services required for a comprehensive search of the sea floor in that area.

themalaysianinsider.com

Australia's deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, told parliament in Canberra on Thursday that the search would move into a new phase beginning in August that could take 12 months. "The pings were the best information available at the time and that is all you can do," he said. "We are still very confident that the resting place of the aircraft is in the southern [Indian] Ocean and along the seventh ping line."

theguardian.com

The four acoustic pings at the center of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 for the past seven weeks are no longer believed to have come from the plane's black boxes, a U.S. Navy official told CNN.

CNN reports Michael Dean, the Navy’s deputy director of ocean engineering, as saying authorities now almost universally believe the pings instead came from some other man-made source unrelated to the aircraft that disappeared on March 8. Mr Dean, when asked if other countries involved in the search had reached the same conclusions, answered “yes”.

theaustralian.com.au

"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," Mr Dean said. "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."

Chris Johnson, a spokesman for the US Navy, described Mr Dean's comments as "speculative" and "premature". He said the US Navy would "defer to the Australians, as the lead in the search effort, to make additional information known at the appropriate time".

smh.com.au

"Regarding the news that was reported earlier, Mike Dean's comments today were speculative and premature, as we continue to work with our partners to more thoroughly understand the data acquired by the Towed Pinger Locator," he said in a statement.

Global satellite company Inmarsat's raw tracking data on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 supports the conclusion that the aircraft had run out of fuel and crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, the New York Times (NYT) reported today.

themalaysianinsider.com

Australia has concluded that the Malaysian passenger jet missing since early March likely crashed into the Indian Ocean after running out of fuel. The Australian report Tuesday said the conclusion was based on analysis of the final brief data exchange between the jet with 239 people aboard and a satellite monitoring air traffic.

voanews.com

Quoting Tim Farrar, a satellite communications consultant based in California, calculations show that the lost plane turned south after it did a U-turn over the Gulf of Thailand, flew west across Peninsular Malaysia and then disappeared from radar just north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

themalaysianinsider.com

The data released today confirms that small changes in the position of Inmarsat’s satellite relative to the Earth supported the conclusion that the plane flew south, not north, Farrar told NYT. He also discounted any possibility that the plane flew west-southwest, perhaps to Diego Garcia, a British atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean where the United States has a large military base.

themalaysianinsider.com

The full satellite data can be obtained (here)[http://www.dca.gov.my/mainpage/MH370%20Data%20Communication%20Logs.pdf].

Data from communications between satellites and missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was released Tuesday. For weeks, the satellite company Inmarsat said it didn't have the authority to release the data, deferring to Malaysian authorities, which are in charge of the search for the plane that disappeared more than two months ago over Southeast Asia.

Last week, the two sides announced that they would aim to make the information available to the public. They released a 47-page document on Tuesday. The satellite signals -- called "handshakes" -- with MH370 were part of a larger set of data that investigators have used to try to establish the whereabouts of the Boeing 777 that went missing on March 8 with 239 people on board.

A team of international experts used the data -- in combination with other information, including radar data and engine performance calculations -- to conclude that the plane ended up in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean. Searchers have so far found no wreckage and have not been able to say for sure where MH370 might be.

Relatives of people who were on the passenger jet, scientists studying its disappearance and media covering the search have become increasingly critical about the lack of public information about why the search has focused on the southern Indian Ocean. They have been calling for the release of the data that has informed the search efforts.

sky.com

The families of flight MH370 passengers and crew have derided Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein’s weak defence of military inaction during the early hours of the plane’s disappearance, and in a show of anger some have even demanded that he step down as the acting Transport Minister.

themalaysianinsider.com

Hishammuddin told the Australian Broadcasting in an interview aired on Monday (May 19) that the Malaysian military had been told to keep an eye on the plane but allowed it to disappear off their radar after considering it to be not hostile.

todayonline.com

His statements have drawn much flak from the families of those on board the ill-fated jetliner, who said he has only fuelled more questions instead of providing answers to the incident.

msn.com

They also said the statements by Mr Hishammuddin, who is also Defence Minister, smacked of incompetence and that more honest people should be allowed to lead the investigation into the aircraft’s disappearance, instead of covering up the military’s and the government’s flaws.

todayonline.com

Indian national Pralhad Shirsath whose wife was a passenger on the plane, questioned how the plane was allowed to pass through Malaysian airspace without any action taken, when the military knew that MH370 was missing or in trouble. He said the minister’s statement only showed that it was part of “a plan” to make the plane disappear with some purpose.

msn.com

“Mr Transport Minister said, ‘If you’re not going to shoot it down, what’s the point of sending it up? Well, he should understand that sending up military planes does not always mean shooting it down, but rather investigating risk and taking action when it was already identified as a commercial jet and not hostile but travelling through Malaysian territory without authorisation in terms of giving feedback to those to whom the plane belongs,” Mr Shirsath told The Malaysian Insider when contacted.

themalaysianinsider.com

“Or is it OK to fly over Malaysian territory without prior permission or clearance?” he asked. Shirsath believed that the latest revelation only proved that the Malaysian government was hiding more information from the families and the public. “If they have reason to hide information, they should tell us and probably we will try to understand them," he said.

todayonline.com

Shirsath also said Malaysia’s image has been dented by the way the government has dealt with the tragedy. He was puzzled as how the people who ruled the country and those in charge of the search and rescue operation managed to remain in power. “How can Malaysian people tolerate these blunders? These leaders must step down and more honest people should lead the investigation,” he said.

msn.com

“It is not too late, they should tell us all truth, stop misguiding the media and families and make sure passengers and crew return to their homes safely and we will forgive them,” he added.

todayonline.com

The underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 resumed today in the Indian Ocean with the deployment of the Bluefin-21 at about 2am, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre based in Perth said.

themalaysianinsider.com

Bluefin-21 will search for a week the remaining areas in the vicinity of the acoustic signals detected in early April by the Towed-Pinger Locator deployed from Ocean Shield. Today’s search is to enable the search team to discount or confirm the area of the acoustic signals as the final resting place of the Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO), said JACC.

“Over the next week, Bluefin-21 will search the remaining areas in the vicinity of the acoustic signals detected in early April by the towed pinger locator... that are within its depth operating limits,” JACC said.

nst.com.my

“This continues the process that will ultimately enable the search team to discount or confirm the area of the acoustic signals as the final resting place of MH370.” The Australian ship which deployed the Bluefin-21, Ocean Shield, is expected to leave the search area on May 28 and return to Perth on May 31 to demobilise the mini-sub.

nst.com.my

While the aerial and sea surface searches have been scaled down, the operation is moving to the next phase which will involve using sophisticated equipment to scan the unmapped ocean bed. Negotiations are underway to engage contractors to do this work.

nst.com.my

After months of clamoring, the MH370 raw satellite data that families have been demanding may soon be publicized. Until now, Inmarsat, the company whose satellites communicated with the missing plane in its last hours, has said it didn't have the authority to release it. But on Tuesday, Inmarsat and Malaysian authorities said they were trying to make the raw data accessible.

Inmarsat said in a joint statement with Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) on Tuesday the data communication logs, or raw data, would be released along with an explanation of the analysis used to work out the route.

The data and analysis would be available in about a week, the spokesman said.

themalaysianinsider.com

Some relatives of passengers weren't sure what to make of the announcement. "Their intentions have to be backed by actions, so I'd like to wait to see when that really happens," said K.S. Narendran, whose wife was on the plane.

The raw satellite data used to shape the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 could soon be made public, according to a senior Malaysian official.

It has been 73 days since MH370 went missing. As we enter the tenth week of the search operations, we have now started moving into a new phase, which involves deep-sea search requiring specialized expertise and assets. - Hishammuddin Hussein

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As deliberated in the Tripartite meeting in Canberra, a team of hydrographic experts from Malaysia, China and Australia, met over the weekend and agreed that an extensive bathymetric survey of the areas provided by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau will be carried out in the Southern Indian Ocean. This survey will be conducted by the Chinese navy vessel, Zhu Kezhen (872). The vessel is scheduled to sail for the survey area on Wednesday, 21 May 2014, weather permitting. - Hishammuddin Hussein

facebook.com

On a similar note, a team of technical experts had convened in Canberra to discuss and refine the satellite data, calculations and analysis which have been made available by Inmarsat. In light of the recent demands by the Next of Kin (NOK) for the Inmarsat “raw data”, I have instructed the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) to discuss with Inmarsat on the release of the aforementioned data for public consumption.

facebook.com

Following the announcement by the Malaysian Minister of Defence and Acting Minister of Transport on 19th May 2014, the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) is pleased to provide further information on the discussion with Inmarsat, assisted by the AAIB, to get a common descriptor for the Inmarsat satellite data which had been provided to Malaysia Airlines when MH370 first went missing. - INMARSAT UK AND DCA MALAYSIA

facebook.com

In moving forward, it is imperative for us to provide helpful information to the next of kin and general public - which will include the data communication logs as well as relevant explanation to enable the reader to understand the data provided. It must also be noted that the data communication logs is just one of the many elements of the investigation information. - INMARSAT UK AND DCA MALAYSIA

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In line with our commitment towards greater transparency, all parties are working for the release of the data communication logs and the technical description of the analysis for public consumption. DCA notes Inmarsat’s full support for the ongoing MH370 investigation.” - INMARSAT UK AND DCA MALAYSIA

facebook.com

The family members of seven missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crew are claiming that they have been “abandoned” by the company for seeking legal advice. They claimed that MAS had stopped its caregiving services and severed communication with them since May 8 after learning that they had acquired the lawyer’s services.

The five families which had sought the services of Chicago-based firm Ribbeck Law were notified by MAS via e-mail that they should channel all their queries to MAS through their lawyers.

Jacquita Gonzales, 52, the wife of MH370 in-flight supervisor Patrick Gomes, told reporters that her caregiver had stopped giving her updates on the status of the search mission in Perth over a week ago. “Don’t just put us aside as if we don’t matter anymore just because we engaged a lawyer. It’s not fair,” she said, unable to hold back tears.

themalaymailonline.com

Gonzales, whose husband worked for MAS for 35 years, said it was akin to unplugging the families “lifeline”. “From Day 1, they all said we are family, anything we wanted, they said, just come to us we will help you... that’s why the caregivers were assigned to us,” she said. Gonzales said their caregivers were the only ones they could engage for detailed news on the ongoing search mission in Australia at a time when the the media attention of the flight is waning.

themalaymailonline.com

Calvin Shim, whose wife Christine Tan was among the missing crew, said MAS stopped its communication without any notice and that they left the families with no one to turn to for updates on the search. “When we called our caregivers, they informed us that MAS had instructed them to stop talking to us because we had enlisted legal advice, which is our right,” he said.

“Two days ago, they sent us an e-mail saying that since we had hired a lawyer, whatever queries on MH370 should be directed to them via our lawyer to their legal team,” he told a joint press conference with several family members of the crew yesterday.

Military radar and satellite data from countries in the region will be requested again by the investigation team as the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 enters phase two. Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said the investigation team would review all the data received from all international agencies, including data given by Inmarsat.

asiaone.com

"We want to look into the data again to better coordinate the search efforts in the South Indian Ocean," he told reporters at a hotel here yesterday. In reply to a question on the cost of the operation, he said they could only ascertain this once they knew where the plane was. "The cost involved in searching for the plane is worth it in my opinion. Firstly, the ocean sea floor has never been charted in the history of mankind."

fz.com

He said the cost hinged on the technology used, adding that very little of such technology was available and it was "very specific". "We are looking at sonar technology to search the sea bed," he said.

astroawani.com

On the handling of the families of the passengers and crew on board, he said that was the toughest part of managing the incident. "We will be looking at the possibility of a body of experts to oversee and reach out to the families," he said, adding that Malaysia Airlines should keep to their promise of dispensing compensation to the families soon. "Based on Inmarsat's advice and what we have heard from the Australians, the Southern corridor is the best lead we have. Our second best lead is the ping signals and of the five pings, two have been covered fully and three more are being searched for under the new phase," he said.

asiaone.com

Meanwhile, he said there was a need to upgrade the country's primary military radar. "We already divulged our primary military radar data when the plane went missing and it was in the interest of national security to upgrade it soon," he said, adding that it could only be done if the budget allowed.

fz.com

On questions about the four-hour gap before any action was taken to find the missing plane, he said it took France seven hours before they responded to the Air France flight 447 crash. "If our airforce had scrambled its jets, what would have happened? Would we shoot down our own passenger plane if we sent up the Sukhois?" Hishammuddin asked. He said it was vital for the air force and civil aviation to work together in tracking planes. "All over the world, civil aviation faces the same problem," he said.

asiaone.com

Malaysia is considering deploying underwater vehicles as authorities prepare for a long-term search effort for missing flight MH370, an official said Thursday.

themalaysianinsider.com

Deputy defence minister Abdul Rahim Bakri said national oil company Petronas would provide two autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to help search for the Malaysia Airline Boeing 777-200 which disappeared without a trace. "Up to now Petronas has given full commitment, dedicating at least two AUVs to help the search," he said at a press conference.

mole.my

As the so-far futile search continues, he said Petronas was also mulling providing underwater sonar equipment and remotely operated vehicles. Abdul Rahim said Malaysia's oil and gas firm Sapura Kencana was offering a multibeam echo-sounder which was being considered by the government.

themalaysianinsider.com

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

It has been 69 days since MH370 went missing. After more than nine weeks, the search has now entered a Transition Phase prioritising deep-sea search. Since the last time I held a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, along with China and Australia have met and agreed upon the next course of action which will be jointly undertaken. Reiterating what the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable Warren Truss said when we met in Canberra last week – we have entered a new difficult phase which brings with it new challenges which we will overcome together.

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TRIPARTITE MEETING

With regards to the Tripartite Ministerial Meeting, I have briefed the Malaysian Cabinet yesterday on the outcomes of the meeting and it has been deliberated. I now have the mandate to announce that the details of the Transition Phase have been approved. As previously mentioned, our three nations have agreed that the search operation has entered a Transition Phase prioritising deep-sea search. In this context, the air and surface search has been suspended. However, an Australian P3 Orion and naval ships from Malaysia, Australia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remain on standby in Perth for any eventuality. In the meantime sub-surface search using the Bluefin - 21 will ensure the continuation of previous efforts.

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During this transition phase, the 3 main priorities are:

To re-analyze all data to verify a more accurate search area. This analysis will be conducted by the group of experts together with INMARSAT.

To conduct a bathymetric survey involving an extensive mapping of the seabed.

To conduct the search operation by identifying and deploying the relevant towed and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) required for the terrain.

It is important that the bathymetric survey and deep water search needs to be seamless. In the meeting, we have also agreed to conduct weekly conferences via video teleconferencing between representatives of the three nations to discuss the latest developments regarding the search operation. This will commence next Monday 19 May.

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*ASSET DEPLOYMENT

With regards to Asset Deployment, the Tripartite Meeting has agreed that specific assets would be required for the new phase of the search and we are jointly finalising the acquisition process. Prior to that, a comprehensive bathymetric survey will be undertaken. This is so that experts can better understand the sea bed terrain to ensure the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and Deep Water Towed Side Scan Sonars, which are very expensive and scarce, are safely deployed. The same knowledge of the ocean floor will be required for the operation of the Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV).

facebook.com

The meeting also confirmed that procurement arrangements for the use of commercial contractors will be undertaken by Australia, in consultation with Malaysia. This will reinforce our strong bilateral relationship and will enhance the coordination of activities for the overall search. The procurement process will be done through an open or limited tender process based on Commonwealth standards to facilitate cost-effectiveness and best value for money. Malaysia and China will be consulted and detailed briefings will be provided at each step of the process. The meeting also emphasised the requirement that these contracts be put in place as soon as possible to ensure that search operations are not interrupted.

facebook.com

Besides the commercial assets, Malaysia and China are also assigning specific assets for operations in this new phase. On that note, Malaysia is in the process of acquiring related assets from Petronas, SapuraKencana, Boustead and Deftech. It should be noted that, any services that will or may be provided by government agencies of the 3 nations or other friendly nations will be complementary to the services and contribute to cost savings.

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NEXT OF KIN

Our three nations have also agreed to a proposed reception programme for any planned visit for the next of kin to Perth. In the event of confirmation of the final resting place of MH370, or identification of debris related to MH370, it was agreed that any visit will take place between two to four weeks upon confirmation. Australia has agreed to provide necessary support and information to the next of kin in terms of entry requirements to ensure their travel into and out of Australia are well taken care of. The Western Australian Government will take a lead role in organising services according to their traditions and religions, and facilitate arrangements for basic needs of the next of kin during their stay in Australia.

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Malaysia Airlines will be responsible for travel arrangements for the next of kin from Malaysia and all other countries. The airline will also retain broad responsibility for their support during the visit including flights, accommodation, transportation and family support. The Chinese government has also given their assurance that they will continue to actively facilitate and support matters relating to the Chinese next of kin. We understand the anguish that the families are going through and I can assure you that their interests have always been paramount in all our considerations thus far.

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TECHNICAL

With regards to the Technical Committee, the establishment of the International Investigation Team has fared well with the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the international aviation community and the next of kins. The announcement of the establishment of the International Investigation Team have assured them that the investigation would be conducted by an independent, competent and credible team in accordance with Annex 13 - Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation , the Chicago Convention.

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COMMUNICATION, COORDINATION AND MEDIA COMMITTEE

In the Malaysian Cabinet meeting yesterday, the Malaysian Cabinet has agreed on establishing a specialised Communication, Coordination and Media committee which will be headed by Jailani Johari, the Deputy Minister for Communications and Multimedia. The Committee will be focusing on streamlining and strengthening effective communication between the three nations, families of those on board MH370 and other related stakeholders. This is to ensure the release of timely and transparent information which is consistent with our effort to improve communications related to this incident.

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SPECIAL MALAYSIAN TEAM IN CANBERRA

As the negotiation process about further details of the operation are expected to continue for the next 1 to 2 months, Malaysia is placing a special team in Canberra which include representatives from all the committees to represent Malaysia during the period. This special team will coordinate any aspects related to the operations between Malaysia and Australia. This team will comprise of senior officials from the 4 respective ministerial committees.

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First Admiral Hanafiah Bin Hassan and Colonel Hassan Bin Loman will represent the Asset Deployment Committee to discuss aspects of the acquisition of assets. Captain Meor Mohamad Nor Badrishah from the Civil Aviation Department will represent the Technical Committee to discuss data analysis and investigative matters and HE Dato’ Zainal Abidin Ahmad, the Malaysian High Commissioner in Canberra will represent the Next of Kin Committee to discuss aspects relating to the Next of Kin management. 2 Officers from the newly established Communications, Coordination and Media Committee will also be placed along with the team for media affairs. To update you, a part of the team are already in Australia.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

I understand that the disappearance of MH370 has caused terrible anguish for the families. As pointed out by the Malaysian Prime Minister, the lack of definitive evidence combined with all the speculations that has been going around has made this all the more difficult to bear. The best we can offer at this point in time is our personal assurance that Malaysia will keep searching for the plane for as long as it takes.

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The underwater search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is on hold -- and probably will be for at least four days -- because of a malfunctioning part on the submersible Bluefin-21 and a broken transponder on the Bluefin's mother ship, the U.S. Navy's deputy director of ocean engineering said Wednesday.

According to a CNN report, the Bluefin-21 and a navigation transponder were damaged when the submersible was being loaded onto the deck of Australia’s Ocean Shield. Citing the US Navy’s deputy director of ocean engineering, the CNN report said the submersible struck the transponder when it was being hoisted on board, damaging it in the process.

themalaymailonline.com

Although repairs were made to the submersible, tests showed the acoustic communications link on the autonomous water vehicle and the ship’s navigation transponder were still malfunctioning.

themalaymailonline.com

No spare parts for either device were on the ship, Dean said. Later, he added that the Navy recommended that the ship return to a port to conduct repairs. According to the vessel tracking site MarineTraffic.com, the Ocean Shield has left the search area and is headed toward the Australian coast.

"Those are just not parts that you would expect to go bad, so they are not parts that you carry," he said. Dean said some replacement parts have been found, but officials are searching for parts closer to Australia to expedite the repairs. "We haven't been in the water for two days," Dean said, referring to the submersible. "We've already lost two days. We have another few days to get parts. So it can add up to seven pretty quick," Dean said.

Australia has committed up to A$89.9 million (RM272 million) towards the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 over two years, budget papers released today show.

themalaysianinsider.com

"The government will provide up to A$89.9 million over two years from 2013-14 as part of Australia's commitment to the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370." "Further funding of up to A$60 million over two years from 2013-14 will be provided to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau for Australia's contribution to the next phase of the search," the papers said.

msn.com

Some A$27.9 million would be given to the defence department to pay for its activities up to June 30, 2014 in looking for the Boeing aircraft, while another A$2 million would be spent on the Joint Agency Coordination Centre established to liaise with key stakeholders.

themalaymailonline.com

While the aerial and sea surface searches have been scaled down, Australia is now working on the next phase which will involve using sophisticated equipment to scan the unmapped ocean bed some 4.5 kilometres below the surface. Negotiations are underway to engage contractors to do this work which Abbott has previously said could cost A$60 million.

themalaymailonline.com

Malaysia’s prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has called for international aviation regulators to implement real-time tracking of airliners to prevent a recurrence of the baffling disappearance of flight MH370, while admitting missteps in the first days of the crisis.

nst.com.my

"In an age of smartphones and mobile Internet, real-time tracking of commercial airplanes is long overdue," he said in a signed article in the Wall Street Journal. Najib also recommended changing airplane communications systems so they could not be disabled in mid-flight and prolonging the battery life of "black boxes", which record cockpit conversations and aircraft data, to make them easier to locate after accidents.

Malaysia's Defence and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the search for the missing MH370 is proof Asian nations can come together despite conflicting geopolitical interests. He added that when Malaysia chairs ASEAN next year, his government will draw on its recent experiences to help bring stability to a region dealing with escalating territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

channelnewsasia.com

Dozens of nations came together in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. But few have played as big a role as Australia, which has been leading the search for the plane in the Southern Indian Ocean. The defence minister has again thanked Australia as its navy chief Vice Admiral Ray Griggs pays a three-day visit to Kuala Lumpur.

bernama.com.my

"The relationship between Australia and Malaysia strengthened to the extent that people could not believe how we overcame geopolitical considerations, phobias and paranoia when it came to MH370," Mr Hishammuddin said. It's this proven cooperation that has Malaysia confident that security and stability in the Asian region is possible despite escalating tensions over territorial disputes between ASEAN nations and Beijing in the South China Sea.

channelnewsasia.com

"When Malaysia chairs ASEAN next year, we can show, at the very least, how we handled the MH370 search. If we translate that into a security context, it's not impossible to avoid conflict like what's going on in the Middle East from happening in our region," said Mr Hishammuddin.

bernama.com.my

Meanwhile, Malaysia today ruled out releasing raw satellite data to the families of the 239 people on board the crashed MH370, as the transport ministry prepared to table a report on the outcome of a tripartite meeting in Australia on the future of the search for the plane.

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Commenting on the request from the families of those on board Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 for the government to release raw satellite data, Acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said it was better for the International Panel of Experts to decide which information should be made public.

business-standard.com

He said the transport ministry is preparing a joint cabinet paper with the defence and foreign ministries on the outcome of the tripartite ministerial meeting between Malaysia, Australia and China in Australia, to be tabled this Wednesday. Hishamuddin said the cabinet paper, among others, would put forward suggestions by the tripartite meeting on the new search phase for the plane.

ptinews.com

The new phase of search includes an analysis and refinement of the Inmarsat satellite data and the mapping of the seabed in the southern Indian Ocean, where the flight was believed to have ended, he told reporters. "The report will also, among others, include the deployment of assets, which have specific capabilities for the search mission," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Bernama news agency.

bernama.com.my

An Australian naval vessel carrying an underwater drone involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 left port on Saturday on its second mission to scan part of the Indian Ocean where the longest sonar "ping" was heard over a month ago.

The search had been centred on a 314-square-km (121-sq-mile) area around the second "ping" located and monitored for about 13 minutes on April 5, and which search authorities identified as their strongest lead. With the search of that area complete, the focus is shifting to the area where the first, and longer, signal was detected the same day, U.S. Navy Captain Mark Matthews told journalists at a naval base near Perth.

torontosun.com

The Ocean Shield is heading to the area where a signal was first located and heard for some two hours on April 5, about 1,600 km (1,000 miles) northwest of Perth to launch the Bluefin-21 submersible.

dnaindia.com

"What you do is you go look at your best indications and you pursue them until they're exhausted," he said. "These things don't happen fast. These searches don't happen on the hours or days cycle. These happen on the weeks and months cycle." Australia, China and Malaysia earlier this week pledged not to give up searching for the plane, even though air and surface searches for debris have been abandoned.

dnaindia.com

More than two dozen countries have been involved in the hunt for the Boeing 777 that disappeared from radar shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 people, mostly Chinese, on board in one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries. Weeks of daily sorties have failed to turn up any trace of the plane, even after narrowing the search to an arc in the southern Indian Ocean. Batteries on the black box voice and data recorders have gone flat.

Families of the 239 people missing on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are appealing to authorities to independently review information about the ill-fated flight. New Zealand woman Danica Weeks, whose husband, 38-year-old mining engineer Paul Weeks, was among those on the missing plane, says MH370 families are committed to supporting each other and finding out the fate of their loved ones.

"Having seen first-hand, the Indian Ocean search for MH370 spearheaded by Australia, has been very commendable. However with no hard evidence being found based on the investigation conducted so far, we feel it prudent as a Group to appeal to the authorities go back and have an independent review of the information," Mrs Weeks says.

asiaone.com

"Since the beginning this has been a daily torment for us all, we need closure and answers not only for us to reconcile with the outcome and be able to move on, but also for the aviation industry and all those that fly." Mrs Weeks says the pain of the mystery grows as the days of not knowing and continuous lack of information continue. "This is one of Asia's largest commercial airlines, who would have thought a plane could just disappear and no one know where it ended up," she questions.

Meanwhile, the next of kin of the passengers and crew of Flight MH370 have formed Voice370, short for MH370 Victims Families and Crew Association. In an open letter signed by family members from China, Malaysia, the United States, New Zealand and India, it urged the Malaysian Government to release the raw Inmarsat data so that "it can be subject to broader analysis by relevant experts. The Inmarsat satellite data is the only lead we have and is key in identifying MH370's flight path after the plane vanished from civilian radar screens on March 8. In view of the lack of emergency locator transmitter activation and zero debris, we feel it is necessary that the data be subject to independent third-party review," said Voice370, which claims to represents 800 family members so far."

asiaone.com

The letter, addressed to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Chinese President Xi Jinping, also requested the Joint Agency Coordination Centre to release the pings recorded by the towed pinger locator. Meanwhile, family members of Chinese passengers claimed they had not been updated on the search effort since they left Lido Hotel here a week ago. One of them, Steven Wang, said Malaysia Airlines had not been in contact via phone or e-mail. "For instance, it was reported that the experts would re-analyse the data and information pertaining to the flight. "We have to find out about this from the media," Wang said.

Malaysian life insurers have paid over RM14.2 million in compensation payouts to the family members of passengers with life insurance onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, Flight MH370.

abnxcess.com

President of Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) Vincent Kwo said payments had been and was being made to several next-of-kin over the past two weeks without having to go through the normal process.

nst.com.my

"The total amount of claims paid to the next of kin to date stands at approximately RM14.2 million out of a total exposure of RM18.7 million. A total of 184 policies were issued by life insurance companies in Malaysia. "The balance of RM4.5 million in claims is pending the official submission of documentation by the next of kin."

malaysia-chronicle.com

“We have waived the requirement of death certificates, and setting this as a top priority and we have put in our best efforts to pay out the claims within a week from the receipt of full documentation of the claimants.

“We encourage family members to get in touch with the respective insurance companies and submit your claims. If they are unsure if their family members onboard had purchased life insurance, they may contact the LIAM hotline at 03-26916628 which handles queries on MH370 claims’ procedures,” he said.

abnxcess.com

A survey conducted by News Corp Australia websites yesterday found that although 60 per cent of respondents (2,686) believe the plane will eventually be found, 77 per cent of them (3,411) don’t believe search teams are even looking in the right area.

news.com.au

And although more than half of respondents (55 per cent) think the search should continue until it is found, 71 per cent (3,198) don’t think Australia should keep funding it.

news.com.au

Most Americans believe the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 should continue, but roughly half the country thinks the arduous search is being conducted in the wrong place, according to a new national poll.

Nearly eight in 10 respondents, or 79%, think there are no survivors. Slightly more than half of all Americans -- or 52% -- believe that the general public will eventually find out what occurred, but 46% say that the fate of the missing airliner will always remain a mystery.

Only 26% of Americans say that the Malaysian government has done a good job managing the search and providing information to the general public.
The survey, which is based on interviews with 1,008 adult Americans conducted by telephone from May 2 through May 4, has an overall sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Europe’s aviation safety watchdog called today for the transmission time of tracking beacons fitted onto black box flight recorders to be extended from 30 to 90 days, a reform that may have made it easier to find the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

nst.com.my

As part of the measures, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said large aeroplanes flying over oceans should be equipped with a new pinger frequency, making it easier to locate the recording devices under water. In addition, the minimum recording duration of cockpit voice recorders installed on new planes should be increased from two to 20 hours.

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"The tragic flight of Malaysia Airlines MH370 demonstrates that safety can never be taken for granted," EASA director Patrick Ky said in a statement on Tuesday. "The proposed changes are expected to increase safety by facilitating the recovery of information by safety investigation authorities."

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The recommendations need to be adopted by the European Commission, and will apply to all planes and helicopters registered in the 32 EASA member states.

nst.com.my

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said new sonar and submersible equipment would be needed to scour a large area of ocean floor.

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An international panel of experts will re-examine all data gathered in the nearly two-month hunt for the missing Malaysia jet to ensure search crews who have been scouring a desolate patch of ocean for the plane have been looking in the right place, officials said today.

nst.com.my

Senior officials from Malaysia, Australia and China met in the Australian capital to hash out the details of the next steps in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which will center around an expanded patch of seafloor in a remote area of the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. The area became the focus of the hunt after a team of analysts calculated the plane’s likeliest flight path based on satellite and radar data.

time.com

Starting Wednesday, that data will be re-analyzed and combined with all information gathered thus far in the search, which hasn't turned up a single piece of debris despite crews scouring more than 4.6 million square kilometers (1.8 million square miles) of ocean.

"We've got to this stage of the process where it's very sensible to go back and have a look at all of the data that has been gathered, all of the analysis that has been done and make sure there's no flaws in it, the assumptions are right, the analysis is right and the deductions and conclusions are right," Angus Houston, head of the search operation, told reporters in Canberra.

“Unfortunately, all of out effort has found nothing,” Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said. “We’ve been confident on the basis of the information provided that the search area was the right one, but in practice, that confidence has not been converted into us discovering any trace of the aircraft.” Houston has warned the underwater search is likely to drag on for up to a year.

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Australian, Malaysian and Chinese officials will meet in Canberra, Australia, on Wednesday to hash out plans for the next stage of the hunt. One group will analyze the data and information collected so far. Another will look at the resources needed.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said the trilateral discussions were structured, with all three countries expressing a sense of urgency to continue with the new phase of the search, adding that it was an opportunity for other nations and research institutes to join in the operations. He was speaking at a joint press conference with Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss and Chinese Transport Minister Yang Chuantang on Monday.

"A key element of the next stage will involve deep ocean searches and a mix of sonar and capable underwater autonomous vehicles. We are looking at where this equipment may be available. "Oceanographic mapping will also be looked at as much of the area has never been mapped," Truss said.

Truss said international experts would attend a follow-up meeting in Canberra on Wednesday to analyse all data and information collected so far “that is likely to help us identify the path” flight MH370 took on 8 March. “It will be something of an audit of the information that has been collected since the beginning of the search,” he said at a joint media conference with Malaysian and Chinese ministers on Monday.

theguardian.com

Truss said the search had been one of the most difficult ever undertaken, in a very remote location, and had covered 4,638,370 square km of ocean. Some 334 search flights had been conducted with 3,137 hours spent in the air. “Unfortunately all of that effort has found nothing,” Truss said.

theguardian.com

Australia estimates the next phase of the search will cost about $60 million (RM195 million), Truss said. Until now, all countries involved in the search have paid for their own costs.

For the transitional period of the new phase, Yang said the Chinese government would deploy three search vessels and will select a company with sophisticated technological assets to organise a follow up search in the new phase.

China will go all out for underwater search for flight MH370, according to China Maritime Search and Rescue Center. Navy vessel 872 with strong underground searching capacities has left for the southern Indian Ocean and is expected to arrive on May 10, said Wang Zhenliang, deputy head of the center, on Friday.

The search will face more complicated situations in the southern Indian Ocean, Wang said. China has sent a total of 18 naval vessels, 13 planes, and used 21 satellites in the search operation, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday. Malaysia Airlines said in a press release on Thursday that as there is still no trace of the missing flight MH370, the search operation in the southern Indian Ocean is moving to a new phase.

MALAYSIA Airlines (MAS) will allocate US$50,000 as advanced compensation payment to the next-of-kin of each Chinese passenger on board the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 aircraft which vanished on March 8. The payments would be made to individuals entitled to claim compensation to meet their immediate economic needs, MAS said in a statement which was pasted on the door of a ballroom at the Lido Hotel here on Friday.

nst.com.my

It said MAS would notify the next-of-kin on details of the payment within a fortnight. "The notification of the payment details will be posted at MAS' official platform. We will send a written notice to the Chinese next-of-kin, too," it added.

malaysiandigest.com

Meanwhile, Steve Wang, whose mother was on board the ill-fated aircraft told Malaysian reporters that the families would leave the hotel despite receiving the "last minute" notification last night. In a separate statement earlier today, MAS confirmed that it would close its MH370 Family Assistance Centres here at 6pm Friday. The statement said a MH370 Family Support Centre would be established on May 4 at the Shunyi district here, whose function was to communicate with the Malaysian and Chinese governments, MAS and liaise with the affected families. It said three hotlines would be set up to enable the public to contact the centre. They are 10-800-130-1364 (toll-free), 10-800-713-1404 (toll-free) and 400-720-8792.

bbc.com

Introduction

It has now been 56 days since MH370 went missing. The fact that MH370 is still not found after more than seven weeks of searching on land, air and sea, indeed highlights the complexity of this entire mission. Nevertheless, we are resolute in our commitment to find MH370 and will continue to intensify the search efforts. On that note, as promised by the Prime Minister last week, we have released the Preliminary Report that was sent to ICAO along with additional information. This is consistent with our stand that in the interests of openness and transparency- all information which does not jeopardise the investigation or the search operation; should be made public. It must be stressed that the report made public yesterday, is a preliminary report. Nevertheless, as I have repeatedly stressed since the beginning, we have nothing to hide.

nst.com.my

Meeting with Angus Houston and Jean Paul Troadec

Earlier today I met with Retired Air Marshall Angus Houston- who has been leading the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) in Perth, coordinating the search of MH370 in the Southern Indian Ocean and Mr Jean Paul Troadec, the Head of the French Investigation Team for Air France Flight 447 and the former Head of the Aviation Accident Investigation Bureau. The presence of these two individuals in Kuala Lumpur is to discuss the new phase we are entering in the search operation. The meeting was a testament to Malaysia’s inclusiveness in coordinating the next phase of this “unprecedented” search effort and it reaffirms our relentless commitment as well as that of the international community in searching for MH370.

malaysiandigest.com

Sub Committee Progress

The three sub committees led by the three deputy ministers have been meeting and efforts have been intensified to prepare ourselves for the next phase. Let me now update you on their progress.

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Technical Committee

The International Investigation Team which is led by Dato Kok Soo Chon - the former Director General of the DCA and a former permanent representative to the ICAO Council in Montreal - has commenced investigations on the incident as stipulated by the Terms of Reference laid out by ICAO. The investigation team has convened 5 times so far and progress will be reported in due course.

nst.com.my

Next of Kin Committee

Yesterday, Malaysia Airlines had announced it will make advanced compensation payments as soon as possible to the nominated next-of-kin who are entitled to claim compensation. The compensation package is aimed to meet the immediate economic needs of the families. I would like to reaffirm the government’s stand as iterated yesterday by Hamzah Zainuddin, the Deputy Foreign Minister who heads the next of kin subcommittee, that we are confident in Malaysia Airlines’ commitment in assisting and supporting the families of those on board MH370. On that note, I would also like to record our sincerest appreciations to the Chinese Government for their strong support on this matter. I strongly urge that Malaysia Airlines continue to engage the families of the passengers as we enter this new phase. It is imperative for MAS to maintain and improve the communication platforms and channels which have been established between the airline and the families in the past eight weeks. The designated family members of the passengers, wherever they are, must be kept informed consistently and timely on significant developments relating to the search. We owe it to the families to keep them abreast with the progress and to get to the bottom of this incident.

malaysiandigest.com

Asset Deployment Committee

On the asset deployment front, we have had detailed discussions with several Malaysian companies namely Petronas, DEFTECH, Boustead and Sapura Kencana in the past few days on deploying specialised assets. These highly specialised underwater systems and platforms include the Autonomous Unmanned Vehicles (AUVs), Deep-water towed side scan sonars, Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), and support vessels to deploy these assets to join in the new phase of this search mission. It is important for all the Malaysian entities involved in this effort to be on the same page- working as one team, flying the Malaysian flag to find MH370.

nst.com.my

Trip to Canberra

Next week, I will lead a delegation to Canberra to attend the Trilateral Ministerial Meeting which will be hosted by our Australian counterparts on 5 May 2014. The meeting will be chaired by Hon Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and the Minister of Infrastructure and Industry. I will be accompanied by the heads of three sub committees, the Deputy Minister of Defence, Deputy Minister of Transport and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs along with Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman from the DCA, Ahmad Jauhari from MAS and other relevant representatives from the respective Ministries. In addition, a Chinese delegation will also be joining us for the meeting led by the Transport Minister, HE Yang Chuantang, and accompanied by the Vice Minister of Transport, HE He Jianzhong and the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, HE Xie Hangsheng and other senior government officials.

nst.com.my

Bay of Bengal Allegation

On the Bay of Bengal allegation, we agree with Angus Houston’s statement that this claim is highly unlikely. Many leads in the past have proven to be negative and this is similar to what we have done before. There is nothing new but we have informed the littoral states to verify this claim. Currently, there are 3 naval ships from Bangladesh including a survey ship in the search area. To date, nothing has been found.

malaysiandigest.com

Concluding Remarks

As we enter the new phase of this search, we are grateful for the continuous support that we have received from the international community as well as stakeholders domestically. We are also heartened by the new support from countries who have come forward but were not in the initial phase of the SAR operation. We will strive to overcome the new challenges facing the search operations in this new phase which requires expensive, sophisticated and complex underwater assets. As always, our thoughts and prayers remain with those on board MH370 and their families and the search goes on.

nst.com.my

Adelaide-based GeoResonance was quoted in Malaysian media and by Australia's Channel Seven as saying it had detected possible debris from a plane 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) from the current search location.

msn.com

On Tuesday, Malaysia's acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he was verifying the information but Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which is fronting the search, downplayed any link. "The location of MH370 suggested by the GeoResonance report (in the Bay of Bengal) is not in the Australian search and rescue zone," a spokesman for the government agency told AFP.

msn.com

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which is coordinating the multinational search, dismissed the claim. "The Australian-led search is relying on information from satellite and other data to determine the missing aircraft's location," the JACC said. "The location specified by the GeoResonance report is not within the search arc derived from this data. The joint international team is satisfied that the final resting place of the missing aircraft is in the southerly portion of the search arc."

Hishammuddin says they have also appointed the Investigator in Charge for the International Investigation Team – Dato Kok Soo Chon. He is the former Director General of the Department of Civil Aviation and also a former permanent representative to the ICAO Council in Montreal.

nst.com.my

The main purpose of the International Investigation Team is to evaluate, investigate and determine the actual cause of the incident so similar incidents could be avoided in the future.

nst.com.my

The International Investigation Team, which has already commenced its work, has accredited representatives from the US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB), the UK Air Accident Investigation Bereau (AAIB), China’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Department (AAID) of The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), France’s Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA), the Austrialia Transport Safety Bereau (ATSB) and representatives of ASEAN from Singapore and Indonesia. Included in the team are also Boeing, who is under the US Accredited Representative and Rolls Royce and Inmarsat, who are under the UK Accredited Representative.

nst.com.my

An Australian exploration company has claimed that it has found the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370, six weeks after it left Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing on March 8

The news portal reported Adelaide-based GeoResonance as saying it has detected possible wreckage in the Bay of Bengal, 5,000km away from the current search location in the southern Indian Ocean off Perth, Australia. It had said that its own search for the missing Boeing 777-200ER started on March 10.

msn.com

GeoResonance’s search covered 2,000,000 square kilometres of the possible crash zone, using images obtained from satellites and aircraft, with company scientists focusing their efforts north of MH370’s last known location, using over 20 technologies to analyse the data including a nuclear reactor, reported Star Online.

themalaysianinsider.com

According to company spokesperson David Pope, “The technology that we use was originally designed to find nuclear warheads, submarines. Our team in the Ukraine decided we should try and help.” “We identified chemical elements and materials that make up a Boeing 777... these are aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys and other materials,” Pavel Kursa, a spokeman from GeoResonance was quoted saying.

themalaymailonline.com

Pope added GeoResonance had compared their findings with images taken on March 5, three days before MH370 was reported missing – and they did not find what they had detected at that spot. “The wreckage wasn’t there prior to the disappearance of MH370. We’re not trying to say that it definitely is MH370, however it is a lead we feel should be followed up,” said Pope.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Monday admitted it was "highly unlikely" that any surface wreckage will be found from Flight MH370 as he announced a more intensive underwater search.

"I am now required to say to you that it is highly unlikely at this stage that we will find any aircraft debris on the ocean surface," he said on Monday following the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines plane on March 8. Australia on Monday said it would intensify the underwater hunt for missing MH370 as it conducts as thorough a search as "humanely possible".

It is "highly unlikely" that any debris will be found on the ocean surface, Abbott said. By this time, most of the debris will have become waterlogged and will have submerged, he said. As such, authorities will be suspending aerial searches.

The search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will be expanded to include a large new part of the ocean floor, in an operation that may take eight months to complete, Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on Monday.

independent.co.uk

The unmanned submarine has created a 3D sonar map of the ocean floor near where signals consistent with aeroplane black boxes were heard on 8 April.

independent.co.uk

The search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight has been expanded after the Bluefin-21 underwater drone found no trace of the passenger jet. The automated underwater vehicle (AUV) has completed sidescan sonar work in a narrowed-down circular zone 10km in radius, 1584km north west of Perth, which centred on an acoustic ping detected on April 8. Other man-made acoustic signals were picked up in the vicinity on April 5.

Now on its 15th mission, the Bluefin-21 is combing adjacent areas, the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said in a statement on Sunday. Due to deteriorating weather conditions, the air and surface search for floating debris has been suspended for the day. On Friday, the AUV was forced to resurface after a software issue that required re-setting.

theguardian.com

The search area is a circle with a radius of 10km, at a depth of 4.5km. The submarine was expected to complete the underwater search area and continue examining adjacent areas, the search co-ordinator said in a statement. The submarine spends four hours travelling to and from the seabed, and 16 hours searching. It takes another four hours for the data collected in each search to be returned for analysis.

livemint.com

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama on Saturday promised fresh support to Malaysia in tracking down the plane missing for past 50 days even as a robotic mini-submarine failed to locate any wreckage despite scouring about 95 per cent of the search area in Indian Ocean. Obama, who flew into Malaysia on his three-day visit, was welcomed by King Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah and Prime Minister Najib Razak.

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Families of Chinese passengers on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have engaged in a rare late-night act of civil disobedience in this tightly-controlled city. After unsuccessfully demanding a meeting with the Malaysian ambassador at their hotel for more than eight hours, angry relatives pushed past police officers who tried to stop them from making a midnight march across the Chinese capital. Their destination: the Malaysian Embassy.

"The ambassador kept saying he would come but he never showed," an elderly man told CNN as he and scores of others walked quietly through Beijing's streets. As has been the practice of many other Chinese passengers' next of kin, the man asked not to publish his name. "They're lying. They're lying to us," the man repeated. "And now we're going to the embassy. If they won't come to us, we'll go to them."

The surreal late-night procession was followed closely by police squad cars. Around midnight, more than one hundred relatives staged a pre-dawn sit-in outside the embassy gates. Though vastly out-numbered by Chinese security forces, the family members continued their stubborn vigil throughout the morning. They remained camped out by the diplomatic mission more than 15 hours later.

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Periodically, they chanted "Fulfill your commitments! No more delays! No more lies!" Throughout the sit-in, no Malaysian diplomat came out to meet with protesters. The demonstrators finally dispersed peacefully before sunset on Friday, after camping out by the diplomatic mission for more than 17 hours.

asiaone.com

The small gathering departed after delivering a letter of protest to the embassy demanding an explanation for how the prime minister of Malaysia has concluded that the plane ended its flight over the Indian Ocean.

Up to 8 military aircraft and 11 ships will assist in today's search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has planned a visual search area totaling approximately 57,311 square kilometres. The centre of the search area lies approximately 1584 kilometres north west of Perth.

astroawani.com

The weather forecast for today is for isolated showers, with south easterly winds up to 20 knots, sea swells of two to 2.5 metres and visibility of one kilometre in thunderstorms and three kilometres in rain. Early into mission 13 yesterday Bluefin-21 was recovered due to a software issue that required resetting. The AUV has technically sophisticated equipment and a reset is not uncommon. Overnight Phoenix technicians resolved the issue and mission 14 is now underway.

Bluefin-21 has completed approximately 95 per cent of the focused underwater search area. No contacts of interest have been found to date. The focused underwater search area is defined as a circle of 10km radius around the second Towed Pinger Locator detection which occurred on 8 April. If no contacts of interest are made, Bluefin-21 will continue to examine the areas adjacent to the 10km radius. - Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC)

The Royal Malaysian Navy’s (RMN) auxiliary ship Bunga Mas 6 (BM6) has joined the RMN’s frigate KD Lekiu in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370, in the planned search location in the southern Indian Ocean. It is the seventh RMN vessel to join the multinational search for the missing aircraft.

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The spokesperson noted that the vessel did not dock or stop at HMAS Stirling, the RAN base, but instead continued sailing to the search zone. BM6 has Commander J. Kuharaj as its commanding officer and a crew of 25 comprising personnel of the Malaysian International Shipping (MISC) absorbed into the RMN Volunteer Reserve Force. A medical officer from the Army has been included in this aid mission.

nst.com.my

In a TV exclusive, Najib Razak told CNN the preliminary report on the plane's disappearance will be available to the public next week. "I have directed an internal investigation team of experts to look at the report, and there is a likelihood that next week we could release the report," Najib said. Later in the interview with CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest, he gave a more definitive statement, saying the report will be released next week.

The report has already been sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the U.N. body for global aviation, but not made available to the public. The ICAO told CNN about a safety recommendation in the report: Malaysia said the aviation world needs to look at real-time tracking of commercial aircraft. It's the same recommendation that was made after the Air France Flight 447 disaster in 2009

Najib also stressed that his government was not yet prepared to declare the passengers on board flight MH370 dead. "At some point in time I would be, but right now I think I need to take into account the feelings of the next of kin -- and some of them have said publicly that they aren't willing to accept it until they find hard evidence," Najib said. But he added it was "hard to imagine otherwise".

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The Australian Transport Safety Bureau ruled out Thursday any link between material found on a beach in southwestern Australia and the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.

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On Thursday morning an ATSB spokesman, Martin Dolan, told ABC radio: "We've carefully examined detailed photographs that were taken for us by the police, and we're satisfied that it's not a lead in terms of the search for MH370." Dolan said the object appeared to be sheet metal with rivets, according to CNN. "It's sufficiently interesting for us to take a look at the photographs," he said on Wednesday, but added: "The more we look at it, the less excited we get."

theguardian.com

Officials had previously called the piece of metal, which appeared to have rivets on one side, an "object of interest" in the search. Police picked it up near Augusta, Australia, roughly 1,000 miles away from the suspected crash site, after many futile days of searching for the missing plane. Authorities haven't said what they think the object could be.

About 96 per cent of the claims submitted by the Chinese next-of-kin of passengers on board the missing flight MH370 has been reimbursed by the Malaysia Airlines (MAS). Jaffar said out of the total 124 expense claims, some 106 (86 per cent) have been fully reimbursed to the relatives. Jaffar said however, there were three claims (two per cent) which have been approved by the MAS headquarters but rejected by the families.

nst.com.my

The mini-submarine in the hunt for flight MH370 has completed more than 80% of an area believed to be the best hope of finding wreckage from the aircraft, though no contacts of interest have been found.

msn.com

Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) today said that the Bluefin-21 AUV is completing its 10th mission in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean, approximately 855 kilometres northwest of Perth, where searchers located pings believed to have from originated from the jetliner’s black boxes.

msn.com

The hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet will likely soon deploy more powerful sonar equipment that can delve deeper as the current search of the most likely crash site in the Indian Ocean has failed to yield any clues, Australia’s defence minister said Wednesday.

nst.com.my

Australia's defence minister, David Johnston, said more powerful towed side-scan commercial sonar equipment would probably be deployed, similar to the system that found the Titanic 3,800m (12,500f) under the Atlantic Ocean in 1985 and the Australian second world war wreck HMAS Sydney in the Indian Ocean, north of the current search area, in 2008.

theguardian.com

"The next phase, I think, is that we step up with potentially a more powerful, more capable side-scan sonar to do deeper water," Johnston said.

theguardian.com

Australia said Wednesday cost was not a concern in the search for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370, after the mini-sub plumbing the depths of the Indian Ocean for wreckage ended its ninth mission empty-handed. “There will be some issues of costs into the future but this is not about costs,” Defence Minister David Johnston told reporters in Canberra.

A high-level delegation, comprising government representatives and Malaysia Airlines management officials, is expected to arrive in Beijing to meet with the next of kin of passengers onboard the missing flight MH370, within the next 24 to 48 hours.

themalaysianinsider.com

The families, however, angrily rejected any offer of meeting another high-level delegation from Malaysia and the airline. Instead, the Chinese families insisted on meeting with a technical team comprising experts from satellite operator Inmarsat and the missing aircraft manufacturer, Boeing.

They believe their participation in the discussion with the technical team could assist the team in locating the whereabouts of the missing aircraft. "Unless there is a technical team comprising experts from Inmarsat and Boeing to meet us, now is not an appropriate time for other delegations to meet us," said Steve Wang, one of the next of kin, at the briefing.

themalaysianinsider.com

In an email on behalf of "The United Families of MH370", Sara Bacj, whose partner Philip Wood is among the 239 people on board MH370, demanded an explanation from Putrajaya on why it went with the analysis by Inmarsat, the British satellite company.

themalaysianinsider.com

"We don't expect that they find all of the plane, or all of the bodies, or even that they know everything about how this surreal situation happened, but we do expect at least a tiny bit of concrete evidence," WSJ quoted another version of the email, written in Chinese and sent to relatives of Chinese passengers. "WE ARE IN UTTER OUTRAGE, DESPAIR AND SHOCK!" the email concluded.

themalaysianinsider.com

The email comes as Putrajaya prepares to issue death certificates to the families of passengers and crew missing on board flight MH370. The move is significant as it will open the door to financial aid for families and also allow any potential suits against the airline to begin.

themalaysianinsider.com

Search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 continues today as the United States navy’s remote-controlled submarine Bluefin-21 completes its ninth mission scouring the seabed for any sign of wreckage, the Australian agency coordinating the search said today.

msn.com

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.

theguardian.com

"Bluefin-21 has searched approximately two-thirds of the focused underwater search area to date. No contacts of interest have been found to date," the Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement.

nst.com.my

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has said that even if no debris was recovered, the scope of the search may be broadened or other assets may be used.

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Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said statements had been taken from 260 individuals to assist in police investigations in connection with missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370.

nst.com.my

He said investigations were still being conducted and many more people would be called up to give their statements. “I am sorry because I cannot give you anything on the recovery of the plane so far. First, because it is related to a criminal investigation. Secondly, when we say something, people will resort to speculation. So, it is best we continue our investigations until we are ready to make announcements to the public,” he said.

He said investigations into the missing plane had been classified as a criminal case under Section 130 (c) under Penal Code which covered investigations into any elements of sabotage, hijacking and so on. However, Khalid said at present, the main focus was on finding the plane.

malaysiandigest.com

The underwater drone scanning the ocean for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ended its eighth mission Monday, having covered about two thirds of its intended territory without finding any sign of the missing plane. It is expected to start its ninth mission later Monday.

Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre announced Monday morning that up to 10 military aircraft and 11 ships would participate in the day's search.

The government is working out a perimeter to set the time frame for the issuance of death certificates for the passengers of flight MH370, Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin said today. "We have to find a way to move forward to help the next of kin of the passengers who have been waiting for 44 days, especially those whose breadwinners were on the flight," said Hamzah."We have to provide them with assurance and brief them on what we are going to do next,” he said.

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"There are many issues involved in it, we must set a timeline on all the issues and tell them the details. "As a chairman for the next of kin committee, I understand the pain of the family members are going through. As such, I giving my personal assurance that we are kept the family close to our hearts. I completely understand that some family members want to find the answers but as I had said earlier, we are looking the answer by ourselves," he added. Hamzah was speaking at press conference after conducting a close door briefing for the next of kin of Malaysian passengers on board the ill-fated flight.

nst.com.my

"We also touched on the financial assistance to the family members. I have promised them that I will bring up their proposal and discuss it in the committee meeting," he said. When asked whether the assistance is restricted to Malaysians, he said: "When we talk about financial assistance, we have to be fair to everybody. The financial aid is not only for Malaysians." Hamzah added that MH370 special envoy to China Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun will go over to Beijing to discuss the matter with family members of Chinese passengers. The financial assistance will be borne by Malaysia Airlines and the government will only come into picture if its help is needed, he said.

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Hamzah also stressed that the government has been putting in a lot of effort to locate the missing plane over the past 44 days. "This is an unprecedented event and it has never happened before. We have to make sure all information distributed to the public and family members have been verified and analysed to avoid confusion. "Nonetheless, we would not scale down the ongoing search and recovery operation until we find the missing plane," he added.

themalaysianinsider.com

Meanwhile, the family members of the Malaysian passengers hoped that the government would not stop its operation to locate the missing flight after providing them financial assistance. "I hope they wouldn't stop their search operation after paying the 'compensation'," said Mohd Sahril Shaari, who is a cousin of passenger Mohd Razahan Zamani.

indiatimes.com

"We want the search to continue until the missing plane is found," he said, expressing his disappointment over the delay in locating the aircraft. "They should reconsider the approach used. They should have diversified their manpower and searched at different areas, including the land. "How long do you still expect us to wait? Another one year, two years or three years?" he asked.

asiaone.com

It is understood that the briefing was arranged following a lot of requests from the family members. About 50 relatives of the passengers attended the briefing. Mohd Sahril urged the authorities to update the family members on investigations into the two passengers who boarded the flight using false passports as well as on the cargo manifest. "It could be the reason that contributed to the incident. But they did not update us on the investigation process so far," he added.

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Introductory statement

I would like to begin this statement with a message. On behalf of the Malaysian government and specifically the MH370 SAR team, we would like to extend our deepest sympathies and condolences to those on board the tragic incident involving the South Korea ferry that departed from Incheon planned for Jeju. We empathise and can imagine how difficult it can be for the families and the SAR team coping with the situation. All our thoughts and prayers are with them. I will now continue with MH370. We have now entered day 43 of the search operation for MH370. It has been six weeks since we started the operation in which we have continously refined the search area in the quest to locate the missing aircraft. We have pursued every possible lead presented to us at this stage and with every passing day, the search has become more difficult.

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Search updates

On Thursday, I spoke with Angus Houston and he has briefed me on the images captured from the Bluefin – 21 AUV. I can confirm that the Bluefin - 21 has captured clear and sharp images of the seabed while conducting its search mission in the underwater search area. However, from all 6 missions conducted, no contacts of interest have been found to date. Bluefin-21 AUV's seventh mission has commenced this morning. From the images, Angus has also informed me that the terrain of the seabed is undulating and that the Bluefin – 21 is focusing on the immediate search area based on the pings that have been detected. Some media reports have stated that it would take the Bluefin-21 anywhere from six weeks to two months to scan the entire underwater search area. This is incorrect. The immediate search area that the Bluefin – 21 is now scouring should be completed within the next week. As Prime Minister Abbott stated earlier this week, and I quote – “We will regroup and reconsider the SAR operations, if there are no new updates in the given time” – end quote.

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I have to stress that this is not to stop operations but to also consider other approaches which may include widening the scope of the search and utilising other assets that could be relevant in the search operation. The search will always continue. It is just a matter of approach. All efforts will be intensified for the next few days with regards to the underwater search. I would also like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the Malaysian government, to again thank Australia on narrowing the search area and doing all they can in the search for MH370.

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Updates on Ministerial Committees

As I announced a few weeks ago, three ministerial committees have been established. They have been working tirelessly and I will now update you on their progress. The next of kin committee, led by Hamzah Zainuddin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, is working closely with various Governments especially the countries whose nationals were on board MH370. From the meetings with the respective embassies and high commissions, various issues that needed urgent attention were addressed.

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Hamzah has also discussed with his counterparts in Beijing and both sides have exchanged views and discussed ways and means to deal with the situation with regards to the families of those on board. The technical committee, led by Aziz Kaprawi, Deputy Minister of Transport, has developed and drafted the proposed structure and Terms of Reference of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Team For MH 370 in accordance with the Malaysian Civil Aviation Regulations 1996 (MCAR 1996) and Annex 13 - Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation, Chicago Convention. The structure was developed after consulting the experts from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, United Kingdom (AAIB), National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), United States, Australian Transportation Safety Board (ATSB) and Air Accident Investigation Department, China. The proposed team would comprise of local and international experts. We have also spoken with the ASEAN secretariat on the possibility of appointing some of our counterparts to come onboard. This is in accordance with the ASEAN Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation Relating to Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation that was signed in 2008.

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The Asset Deployment committee has identified private companies that have the capabilities for deep water salvage and recovery work, and other national assets that can be deployed to support this operation. Local companies such as DEFTECH and Boustead have been tasked to discuss with their international collaborative partners such as SAAB, DCNS (Direction des Constructions Navales) and others to identify the relevant assets and instruments required for the search operation. I have also been in consultations with Jean Paul Troadec given his experience in handling Air France Flight 447 in deploying private commercial assets to assist in their search operation.

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Concluding remarks

As we move on to the next phase of the search, I am humbled that more friends from other nations have expressed their willingness to assist and support our efforts to locate MH370.
Thank you.

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The mini submarine hunting for wreckage of missing flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean detected nothing of interest in its fourth mission today, dashing hopes of a definitive answer to the whereabouts of the jetliner.

themalaysianinsider.com

“Bluefin-21 has searched approximately 110 square kilometres to date. Data analysis from the fourth mission did not provide any contacts of interest,” Australia’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) said in a statement. The search team added that the autonomous search drone has already been deployed for its fifth mission.

The hunt by a mini-submarine for a Malaysian airliner in the uncharted depths of the Indian Ocean -- the latest phase in a huge international search -- will end in about a week, Australia says. If the best leads now being pursued to locate wreckage from the Boeing 777 prove fruitless, said Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the search would not be abandoned but enter a new phase.

An oil slick sighted during the sea search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 did not come from the plane, officials said yesterday, dashing hopes of finding a definitive answer to the fate of the jet.

themalaysianinsider.com

The authorities looking for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have said that tests on an oil slick found near the search area show it didn't come from the missing Boeing 777.

independent.co.uk

Experts analysed samples of oil taken from the slick at a lab in the western Australian city of Perth, but they tested negative for either aircraft fuel or hydraulic liquid.

independent.co.uk

A mini-submarine hunting for wreckage of a missing Malaysian airliner has completed its first full mission at the third attempt, officials said Thursday, as seabed data it retrieved was being analysed.

"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.

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The Bluefin 21 had covered 90 square kilometres (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 analysed, nothing of note had yet been discovered, the centre said.

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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 analysed. Previous forays have not shown anything significant.

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A total of 12 planes and 11 ships were to join what could be the final day of the surface ocean search for debris from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777. Thursday’s search would cover a 40,300-square-kilometre (15,600-square-mile) patch of sea about 2,200 kilometres (1,400 miles) northwest of the Australian city of Perth, the centre said.

abnxcess.com

A mini-sub searching for missing Flight MH370 was again sweeping the Indian Ocean seabed Wednesday after aborting its first mission, officials said, as Malaysia vowed to reveal any "black box" data found.

The unmanned submarine equipped with sonar gear was deployed Tuesday night after data analysis of the first failed foray drew a blank, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said.

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"The autonomous underwater vehicle was again deployed last night (Tuesday) from ADV (Australian Defence Vessel) Ocean Shield," JACC said. "The data from Bluefin-21's first mission has been downloaded and analysed. No objects of interest were found," JACC said.

msn.com

The US Navy estimated it would take the Bluefin-21 from six weeks to two months to scan the search zone, which has been deduced using satellite data and the detection of electronic pulses linked to black box recorders which were last heard a week ago.

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"To account for inconsistencies with the sea floor, the search profile is being adjusted to extend the sonar search for as long as possible," the US Navy statement said. JACC chief Angus Houston announced Monday the end of listening for signals from the plane's black boxes and launch of the submarine operation.

Great Eastern Life Assurance (Malaysia) Bhd will pay a total of RM2 million to 14 next-of-kin of those on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, said director and chief executive officer, Datuk Koh Yaw Hui.

He said the company will set aside procedures and proceed with the claims payment. "We understand their situation, and will therefore, just make the payments," he told the media on the sidelines of the official opening of the All-New Great Eastern Life Centre For Excellence, here today.

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Koh said the process of making the payments will take just a day. He also said all the clients insured with Great Eastern Life Assurance were Malaysians.

bernama.com.my

A mini-sub hunting for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 aborted its first search in the remote Indian Ocean seabed after just six hours because the water was deeper than its operating limits, officials said Tuesday.

"After completing around six hours of its mission, Bluefin-21 exceeded its operating depth limit of 4,500 metres and its built in safety feature returned it to the surface," the Australian agency coordinating the search and recovery operation said. "The six hours of data gathered by the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is currently being extracted and analysed."

msn.com

It had been expected to spend up to 16 hours scouring the silty sea floor, after a two hour descent. If it detects possible wreckage, it will be sent back to photograph it in underwater conditions with extremely low light.

themalaysianinsider.com

US Navy Captain Mark Matthews explained the vehicle had exceeded its programmed operational limit and automatically resurfaced. "There's certain abort criteria that the vehicle has as it's executing its mission," he told CNN from Perth. "If there's certain conditions that occur, it stops and it comes to the surface. "In this case the vehicle's programmed to fly 30 metres over the floor of the ocean to get a good mapping of what's beneath." "It went to 4,500 metres and once it hit that max depth, it said this is deeper that I'm programmed to be, so it aborted the mission."

A US official said the mobile phone of missing flight MH370's co-pilot had been switched on and made contact with a telecommunications tower in Penang, but there was nothing to show a call was made, CNN reported.

themalaysianinsider.com

This followed investigators checking millions of mobile phone records for evidence of calls from the plane after it went missing, it said. The claim partly reaffirms a report by the New Straits Times over the weekend, which quoted Malaysian investigators as saying that Fariq Abdul Hamid had attempted to make a phone call from his mobile phone while the aircraft was flying over Penang, about the time it was reported missing.

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Speaking to CNN, the US official cited information from Malaysian investigators who said the co-pilot's phone had searched for service some 30 minutes after authorities believed the plane made a sharp turn-back to the Malaysian peninsula.

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Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein earlier questioned the claim, saying he had not been informed of it. "I cannot comment (on the newspaper report) because if it is true, we would have known about it much earlier," David Soucie said.

themalaysianinsider.com

Search crews will send a robotic submarine deep into the Indian Ocean on Monday for the first time to try to determine whether underwater signals detected by sound-locating equipment are from the missing Malaysian plane's black boxes, the leader of the search effort said.

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Speaking about the decision to dive down towards the approximate location of previously-detected “pings” – believed to be from black boxes – Australian search orchestrator Angus Houston said: “We haven't had a single detection in six days, so I guess it's time to go underwater.”

independent.co.uk

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. 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.

bbc.com

The Australian defence vessel, Ocean Shield has detected an oil slick in the Indian Ocean within the search area for flight MH370. Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) head Angus Houston said the oil slick is approximately 5,500 meters downwind and downsea from the vicinity of the signals picked up by the vessel earlier.

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"A sample of about 2 liters have been collected and we have a number of days before it lands ashore and conclusively tested," he said at a press conference in Perth today. However, Houston cautioned that the source of oil is yet to be determined.

astroawani.com

Australian officials leading the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are weighing when to deploy an underwater robot to aid in the hunt, now in its sixth fruitless week.

themalaysianinsider.com

Searchers are confident they know the approximate position of wreckage of the Boeing 777, some 1,670km northwest of Perth, after picking up several acoustic signals they believe are from its black box recorders.

msn.com

With the batteries on the locators now two weeks past their 30-day expected life, the focus may soon shift to trying to find wreckage using sonar and cameras on a small unmanned "robot" known as an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.

Two ships, one towing a sophisticated "towed pinger locator", are still criss-crossing the zone where four signals or pings were picked up, but the last was almost a week ago. "This work continues in an effort to narrow the underwater search area for when the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is deployed," the Australian agency heading the search said in a statement on Sunday.

"Trying to locate anything 4.5km beneath the surface of the ocean about 1,000km from land is a massive, massive task and it is likely to continue for a long time to come," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said at the weekend.

themalaysianinsider.com

Malaysia on Sunday rejected claims that phone calls were made from Flight MH370 before it vanished, but refused to rule out any possibility in a so far fruitless investigation into the jet's disappearance. The New Straits Times, quoting an anonymous source, had reported Saturday that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid made a call which ended abruptly, possibly "because the aircraft was fast moving away from the (telecommunications) tower".

independent.ie

There had also been unconfirmed reports of calls by the Malaysia Airlines plane's captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah before or during the flight. Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters Sunday that authorities had no knowledge of any calls from the jet's cockpit.

asiaone.com

"As far as I know, no," he said when asked if any calls had been made. However, he added that he did not want to speculate on "the realm of the police and other international agencies" investigating the case. "I do not want to disrupt the investigations that are being done now not only by the Malaysian police but the FBI, MI6, Chinese intelligence and other intelligence agencies," he said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

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Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has clarified his earlier statement said to contradict the inspector-general of police (IGP) Khalid Abu Bakar’s statement that the passengers on-board MH370 had been cleared of any suspicion.

He said what Khalid had meant was that investigations on the passengers have not turned up anything suspicious with regards to the four areas of investigation so far, at the time when the police chief said the passengers had been ‘cleared’ of suspicion. The four areas are the possibility of hijacking, sabotage, personal problems, or psychological problems of the passengers or crew.

Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has dismissed speculation of the US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) involvement in causing MH370’s disappearance. “If there is, I don’t think we will see such a strong presence of the US here,” he said referring to the Defence Services Asia (DSA) exhibition.

He was speaking at a press conference after inspecting preparations for the exhibition that begins tomorrow at the Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur. He was asked to comment on speculation by Utusan Malaysia speculating that the missing aircraft had been hidden in the joint US-UK military base in Diego Garcia

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The Umno-owned daily claimed that it was a CIA ploy to sour ties between Malaysia and China. “Like any Western media too, they are free to report what they like to report. But at the end of the day, if their reporting is false, they lose credibility,” he added.

Search teams looking for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will abandon use of the U.S. Navy’s underwater black box locator in the next few days unless credible new signals are picked up from possible emergency beacons, a U.S. Navy captain said today. “When the time is right, we’ll say ‘Yes, the beacons have probably stopped transmitting’ and it’s time to shift,” Capt. Mark Matthews told ABC News. That time, he said, is coming in a “few more days.”

“As long as we have a chance to receive another signal from the beacon, we’re going to try. But eventually we’re going to shift to the autonomous underwater vehicle,” Matthews said. Matthews is in charge of the TPL-25 (the Towed Pinger Locator) and the Bluefin-21 underwater autonomous vehicle currently on board the Royal Australian Navy ship Ocean Shield. Last Saturday, the TPL-25 detected “pings” consistent with beacons attached to black boxes - aircraft flight data and cockpit voice recorders. Two more sets of pings were heard Tuesday.

Later in the week, floating sonobuoys dropped from search aircraft also reported hearing signals underwater, but officials said they were unlikely to be coming from a black box beacon. No credible signals have been heard since, Matthews said. While acknowledging the pinger locator search will soon end without new leads, he said the team wants a few more days to try and narrow the underwater search area down from its current size of approximately 500 square miles. Ocean Shield, along with a British ship and submarine, is operating in deep-ocean waters about 1,400 miles northwest of Perth, Australia.

The Bluefin-21 will pick up the search from the TPM-25 by using sonar to map the ocean floor for any sign of wreckage. It travels slower than the TPM-25 - up to about 5 mph - and scans about 12 square miles a day, Matthews said. “We’re not going to be convinced we’ve found the aircraft until we can actually take a look at a picture and say, ‘Yes, that is Malaysia 370,” he said. Matthews - who earlier in the week was “shocked” at the news that pings had been detected in such a massive search area - said the operation is actually making rapid progress. “It is abnormal for things to proceed as quickly as they have. Normally these things are done over months and months,” he said. “We are in a much better position than we could really hope for in one of these searches.”

On Saturday, ten planes and 14 ships continued the search for debris on the surface of the Indian Ocean, an area of about 16,000 square miles. Ships recovered a small number of items from the water on Friday, officials said, but nothing appeared associated with the missing airliner.

MH370 co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had attempted to make a phone call as his aircraft flew low over Penang, a news has report claimed. According to anonymous sources quoted by The New Straits Times today, criminal investigators found that his phone had been connected to a telecommunications sub-station in the state, before ending abruptly.

“The telco’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 report quoted the source as saying. The source reportedly refused to divulge details, such as who Fariq was trying to contact on March 8 the morning, when the plane was mysteriously and deliberately diverted off its original Beijing-bound course towards the Indian Ocean.

straitstimes.com

The report also quoted a second set of sources supposedly close to the investigations saying that Fariq’s phone was disconnected from the telco’s network just before the plane took off. According to this source, the phone reconnected to the network somewhere between Waypoint Igari, off the coast of Terengganu, where air traffic controllers lost contact with the aircraft, and a location near Penang. However, he says this does not necessarily mean that a call was made, but only that the phone was switched on.

themalaysianinsider.com

Hishammuddin mum on NST report

3.30pm: Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein declines to weigh in on New Straits Times (NST) report that MH370 co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid purportedly made a call while flying north of Penang on its unauthorised diversion. "You have to ask NST's comments about that," he says at a press conference today, when asked to confirm the "exclusive" front-page report today that quoted unnamed sources. .

Search teams looking for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are confident they have found the location of a black box, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says. Mr Abbott told reporters this afternoon that authorities now believe they know the location of the black box from the plane that went missing in mysterious circumstances on March 8.

bbc.com

The prime minister said Australian authorities had significantly narrowed down the search area. "It's been very much narrowed down because we've now had a series of detections, some for quite a long period of time,'' he told reporters in Beijing today. "Nevertheless, we're getting to the stage where the signal from what we are very confident is the black box is starting to fade. "We are hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires."

nzherald.co.nz

The man leading the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane says he is cautiously optimistic that the search is about to enter a new phase. In an interview with the BBC's Jonah Fisher, Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's acting transport minister defended the way the investigation had been handled so far and said that he remains confident that the plane will be found.

bbc.com

Asked if the world would ever fully know what had happened on board, he said: "I hope so. At the end of the day, we hope we do not stray from focus... we will find out. I know we will know the answers. I know we will find the plane, it is just a matter of when."

nst.com.my

Asked if the one week spent scouring the South China Sea was a waste due to the black box's battery limit, he cited the 2009 crash involving Air France flight AF447. "Air France took two years to find its black box... I think we have done well to be where we are right now," said Hishammuddin. When asked about the cost of the search-and-recovery operation, he said the cost was pittance compared with the money spent on the crises in Ukraine, Syria and Egypt.

bbc.com

When accused of inconsistency in delivering information, he said committees were formed with international experts on board and information was revealed in time. "Malaysia has got nothing to hide." He said the authorities had to be cautious in revealing information to families of the passengers and crew on board as their emotions were raw. "I have been through this roller-coaster ride. We have been following all sorts of leads, from the South China Sea to the Straits of Malacca to the Andaman Sea, to the northern and southern corridors, and now at the tip of the southern corridor of the Indian Ocean."

nst.com.my

The search area for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has been narrowed following the detection of two more signals from what is hoped to be the plane's black box.

Australian Defence vessel Ocean Shield has now detected four signals in an area less than 40 kilometres apart, prompting the Indian Ocean search zone to be reduced from 75,000 square kilometres to 57,923. The centre of the search area lies approximately 2,280 kilometres north west of Perth.

The smaller area would make the task far more manageable and would allow searchers to “plan much tighter search patterns”. “Ocean Shield is now searching a reduced and much more manageable search area on the ocean floor,” he said. “I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to identity wreckage to be sure that this is the final resting place of MH370,” Head of Australia’s Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre, Angus Houston.

theguardian.com

"Yesterday's signals will assist in better defining a reduced and much more manageable search area on the ocean floor," Houston told a press conference. "I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify the aircraft before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370."

Speaking live on CNN earlier today, aviation expert Richard Quest said he believes the authorities have a “high degree of credibility” on their latest find, and were only maintaining a cautious front for the sake of the families of the 239 people on board. “They know where that plane is now,” he said. “They’ve got one level deeper. They’ve got the experts who know this backwards basically.”

themalaymailonline.com

A ship searching for the missing Malaysian jet has detected two more underwater signals that may be emanating from the aircraft's black boxes, and the Australian official in charge of the search expressed hope Wednesday that the plane's wreckage will soon be found.

ap.org

“The two recent signals were detected by the Australian Defence Vessel (ADV) Ocean Shield at 4.27pm and 10.17pm yesterday.” Experts in Australia and the United States have confirmed that the pulse signals picked up by vessels searching for a missing Malaysian airliner in the southern Indian Ocean are from a man-made device and are not natural sounds from the sea.

therakyatpost.com

“It looks like the signals we picked up recently are much weaker, so probably we are either a long way away from it, or more likely in my view, the batteries are fading and the signals are weaker. “I believe we are searching in the right area but we need to visually identify aircraft wreckages before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370,” he said.

themalaymailonline.com

"What we are picking up is a great lead. But we have got to visually acquire it before we can say that is it the final resting place of the flight MH370,” he said. "I am more optimistic that we will find the aircraft, or what is left of the aircraft, in the not too distant future," he added while stressing that JACC believed they are searching in the right area.

fz.com

Thick siltation at the bottom of the Indian Ocean could keep the wreckage of flight MH370 well out of sight, Australian officials said today, as efforts intensify to narrow down the search area prior to deployment of a deep sea submersible to find the missing plane.

themalaymailonline.com

Retired Air Marshal Angus Houston, who helms the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) in charge of the search, said experts believe the siltation could be “tens of metres thick”, adding to the difficulty of the search that could reach over 4 kilometres deep. “The silt will complicate that search... it is a very difficult environment. The more effort we put in location, the more certainty we will have to find something at the bottom."

themalaymailonline.com

Four days after the announcement of what was hailed as the "most promising lead" in the month-long search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a US Navy commander indicated that such optimism was temporary. "As hours pass, our optimism is fading away, ever so slightly," CNN quoted Commander William Marks of the US 7th Fleet as saying.

themalaysianinsider.com

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is currently drafting a D-day plan, which is subject to approval of the Malaysian and Chinese governments, to make arrangements for the families of passengers on board its vanished MH370, to fly to Perth once the aircraft is found.

MAS regional senior vice-president (greater China) Joshua Law Kok Hwa said the airliner was currently in discussion on the necessary arrangements to enable the next-of-kin to collect the relevant information once the plane was found, mode of travel to Perth and hotel accommodation, among others.

theborneopost.com

He said, due to limited hotel rooms in the Australian city, the Chinese next-of-kin needed to re-register or re-verify their identities to MAS staff. “They need to identify themselves to decide who among them will be part of the team to go to Perth,” he added. On visa arrangement, Law said the Australian Embassy would fully cooperate with MAS once the latter was ready to announce the D-day.

themalaymailonline.com

On another development, MAS plans to inform the Chinese next-of-kin of passengers on board MH370 on the latest development of the missing aircraft, via short message service (SMS). "The move is aimed at informing the next-of-kin on the latest development, via a true channel, instead of keep them waiting for the latest development. Currently, he said, there were about 300 contact numbers of the legal next-of-kin on the SMS list.

Retired Australian defence force chief Angus Houston said the acoustics emanating from deep down in the Indian Ocean showed that the multinational search by ships and planes seemed to be "very close to where we need to be".

msn.com

The hunt for missing Flight MH370 could soon head to the ocean floor using an autonomous sonar vessel after possible black box signals were detected.

Houston told ABC radio Tuesday that once the position of the signals was pinpointed, autonomous underwater vessel Bluefin-21 would be deployed to the ocean floor to search for wreckage. And this could happen soon. "I haven't had the discussion this morning, we'll be having that discussion a little later on," he told ABC radio. "I imagine we'd be getting very close to that point."

channelnewsasia.com

The search is now focusing on a 600-kilometre (370-mile) arc of the southern Indian Ocean, far off the West Australian coast. "Unfortunately with the passage of time, oceanic drift and all the rest of it -- particularly as a cyclone went through that area in the last few days -- the chances of finding anything on the surface are diminishing with time."

channelnewsasia.com

The apparent signals breakthrough came as the clock ticks past the 30-day lifespan of the emergency beacons of the two data recorders from the Malaysia Airlines jet, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Houston explained that the 4,500m depth of the ocean floor was the absolute operating limit for a Bluefin-21, which is designed for deep sea surveying and can carry video cameras. "It can't go deeper than that, so it's quite incredible how finely balanced all of this is," he said. "It's a long, painstaking process, particularly when you start searching the depths of the ocean floor."

straitstimes.com

Malaysia’s defense minister says he is “cautiously hopeful” that there will be positive developments in the next few days, “if not hours”, in the search for the missing airliner. Mr Hishamuddin Hussein made the comments today (April 7) during a press conference in light of news about underwater sounds detected by ships searching the southern Indian Ocean. At least some of the sounds are consistent with pings from aircraft black boxes.

todayonline.com

Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said during a news briefing on Monday that Prime Minister Najib Razak has been briefed by Australia on the progress in Perth. Hishammuddin said he is more optimistic with the recent leads than previous ones. He said they are the most promising leads that the team has had so far, adding that he is upbeat on possible positive developments in the next few days.

channelnewsasia.com

Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein today denied reports that missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 had skirted Indonesian Airspace to avoid radar detection. “Untrue,I have got the Chief Of Defence Force to contact his counterpart in Indonesia and they have confirmed that there was no sighting of the plane,” he said at a press conference in Hotel Royale Chulan here. CNN earlier in their report quoted an senior Malaysian government official as suggesting that there is a more sinister reason for the disappearance of MH370 as it skirted to avoid detection.

fz.com

The minister said three ministerial committees -- the airworthiness, operations, and medical/human factors groups -- have been set up to streamline operations and they have begun tasks and will report to the public in due course. He added that Singapore has offered to help and give its inputs when dealing with the Silk Air crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997.

channelnewsasia.com

Ships searching the vast Indian Ocean for a Malaysian airliner have detected three separate underwater signals, and more ships and planes were diverted yesterday to investigate whether they could have come from its black box. Angus Houston, head of the Australian search mission, said the detections were being taken "very seriously" as time ticked down on the battery life of the black box's tracking beacons.

msn.com

Some planes and ships searching for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner in the Indian Ocean moved today towards waters where a Chinese vessel had picked up "ping" signals at the weekend, raising hopes of finding the airliner's black-box recorders.

themalaysianinsider.com

He said China's Haixun 01 has twice detected an underwater signal on a frequency used for the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, once for 90 seconds on Saturday and another more fleeting "ping" on Friday a short distance away. A third "ping" was also being scrutinised, 300 nautical miles away in the Indian Ocean.

msn.com

"The 37.5kHz is the specific frequency that these locator pingers operate on," said Anish Patel, president of Sarasota, Florida-based Dukane Seacom, which made the black box locator. "It's a very unique frequency, typically not found in background ocean noise," such as whales or other marine mammals, he said.

themalaysianinsider.com

Britain's HMS Echo, which is equipped with underwater sonar equipment, is due to reach the area, where the water is around 4,500m deep, later today. "The fact we've had two acoustic events in that location provides some promise, which requires a full investigation of the location," Houston said, but he stressed there was no conclusive evidence linking it to the Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO).

reuters.com

The Ocean Shield will continue to investigate a separate "acoustic event" some 300 nautical miles away in the original search zone 2,000km northwest of Perth. A decision on whether to send it to the new area is likely to be made later today, Houston said. "We need to ensure before we leave any of those areas that this does not have any connection with MH370.”

themalaysianinsider.com

"We are running out of time in terms of the battery life," Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, head of the Australian agency coordinating the operation, told a news conference in Perth on Sunday.

reuters.com

Australia has expressed hope that a pulse signal detected in the southern Indian Ocean could be linked to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. But Prime Minister Tony Abbott also warned this was "by no means certain".

bbc.com

Australian authorities are sending planes to the region where the signal was picked up by a Chinese ship. A dozen military aircraft and 13 ships are searching three areas about 2,000 km (1,240 miles) north-west of the Australian city of Perth. They will cover some 216,000 sq km on Sunday, the Australian agency co-ordinating the search says.

Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has apparently contradicted the police’s statement that all passengers of missing MH370 were cleared of suspicion. “I don’t think anyone has been cleared from any of the investigations,” he said at a press briefing.

“Like I said the manifest list - this includes the crew as well - the four possibilities that the inspector-general of police has constantly reminded us - which is whether it is terrorism, hijacking, psychological or personal (issues) - that as I know is still ongoing.” Hishammuddin said this when fielding questions from reporters, where he was asked why there is still no word on whether the crew of MH370 has been cleared since the passengers have reportedly been cleared earlier.

On Wednesday, inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar reportedly said the police have cleared all passengers of hijacking, sabotage as well as psychological and personal problems, which are the focus of the investigation into ill-fated plane.

Hishammuddin also told reporters today that the recordings of MH370’s communication with air traffic control cannot be released for the time being. “On the audio (recording), I am told that they are still investigating the audio evidence that exists. “It is still pending, it cannot be released at the moment,” he said, when asked if the recording can be released so that relatives can help identify the MH370 pilot who last spoke to air traffic controllers.

A Chinese vessel equipped with a black box detector on Saturday picked up a pulse signal in the designated search area of the southern Indian Ocean, according to the government-run Xinhua news agency.

foxnews.com

Xinhua said China's Haixun 01 patrol ship "discovered a pulse signal" with a frequency of 37.5 kilohertz, which some reports indicate is the frequency emitted by pings from a black box. The agency said it is yet to be confirmed whether the pulse detected is related to the Malaysia Airlines plane.

"That is the standard beacon frequency" for both so-called black boxes -- the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, said Anish Patel, president of pinger manufacturer Dukane Seacom. "They're identical."

But experts cautioned that no confirmation had been made that the signal was linked to the missing plane. "We are unable to verify any such information at this point in time," the media office of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in an e-mail.

saratogian.com

"This could be a variety of things," said oceanographer Simon Boxall, who said the frequency is used by a variety of instruments. "We've had a lot of red herrings, hyperbole on this whole search," the lecturer in ocean and earth science at the University of Southampton told CNN. "I'd really like to see this data confirmed."

But, if this proves to be what investigators have been searching for, "then the possibility of recovering the plane -- or at least the black boxes -- goes from being one in a million to almost certain," he said. But, he added, "It could be a false signal."

Introduction

It’s been almost a month since MH370 went missing. The search operation has been difficult, challenging and complex. In spite of all this, our determination remains undiminished. We will continue the search with the same level of vigour and intensity. We owe this to the families of those on board, and to the wider world. We will continue to focus, with all our efforts, on finding the aircraft.

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Investigation into MH370

As per the requirements set out by the ICAO in Annex 13 of the International Standards and Recommended Practices, Malaysia will continue to lead the investigation into MH370. As per the ICAO standards, Malaysia will also appoint an independent ‘Investigator In Charge’ to lead an investigation team. The investigation team will include three groups: An airworthiness group, to look at issues such as maintenance records, structures and systems; An operations group, to examine things such as flight recorders, operations and meteorology; And a medical and human factors group, to investigate issues such as psychology, pathology and survival factors. The investigation team will also include accredited countries. Malaysia has already asked Australia to be accredited to the investigation team, and they have accepted. We will also include China, the United States, the United Kingdom and France as accredited representatives to the investigation team, along with other countries that we feel are in a position to help.

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Formation of committees

In addition to the new investigation team mentioned above, the Government - in order to streamline and strengthen our on-going efforts - has established three ministerial committees.
Firstly, we have established a Next of Kin Committee. Hamzah Zainuddin, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, leads this committee. This committee will oversee all aspects regarding the Next of Kin of those on board MH370, providing families with information on the search operation, and offering support after the search operation has been concluded. The committee will co-ordinate with relevant foreign governments, and will complement the work already being done for the families by Malaysian Airlines. The second committee oversees technicalities, specifically, the formation and the appointment of the investigation team. Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, the Deputy Minister of Transport, leads this committee. The third committee takes over issues related to the deployment of assets for the search operation. Abdul Rahim Bakri, the Deputy Minister of Defence, leads this committee. This committee will work with foreign counterparts involved in the search operation, and liaise closely with the Australian Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre.

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US-ASEAN Defence Forum

This morning, I returned from the US-ASEAN Defence Forum, which I attended in my capacity as Defence Minister. At the forum, I updated our ASEAN counterparts, and the United States, on the latest developments in the search for MH370. I also spoke to officials from other countries involved in the multi-national search operation. The spirit of co-operation at the meeting, and the support offered, was commendable. During my bilateral meeting with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Secretary Hagel reiterated his commitment that the United States would continue to support the search operation, and will provide whatever assets are deemed necessary. I thanked Secretary Hagel for the United States’ unwavering support, which has included both the deployment of naval and air assets, sophisticated underwater search equipment, and assistance from the FBI, the NTSB and the FAA. At the Forum, I also received strong support from our ASEAN partners in the search for MH370.

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I would like to read out the joint statement issued by the ASEAN Ministers, which I believe underscores the tremendous spirit of co-operation within ASEAN, in the face of this difficult search operation: “We, the Defence Ministers of the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations express our deepest sympathies to the family members of the passengers and crew on board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. “We acknowledge that the member nations of ASEAN have participated in the search operations directly and indirectly since the plane went missing on 8th March 2014. “From the South China Sea, the Andaman Sea to the Indian Ocean - ASEAN has continued to assist in every way possible, true to the spirit of regional cooperation and friendship without any hesitation in sharing of information, assets and expertise. “We believe that Malaysia has done its level best in its response to this unprecedented predicament given the sheer scale of the Search and Rescue (SAR) operation which is the biggest and most complex we have ever seen. “We reaffirm our commitment for greater cooperation between each member nation especially in the field of disaster management under the framework of the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response. This incident stressed upon us the importance of information and resource sharing as we strive to be in the utmost state of readiness in mitigating potential calamities and risks. “ASEAN’s unity will remain solid and is totally committed to assisting Malaysia in coordinating this massive SAR to locate MH370. We are resolute in finding a closure to this tragic chapter in aviation history. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families in these difficult times.”

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Concluding remarks

Before I end, let me touch on some unfounded allegations made against Malaysia. These allegations include the extraordinary assertion that Malaysian authorities were somehow complicit in what happened to MH370. I should like to state, for the record, that these allegations are completely untrue. As I have said before, the search for MH370 should be above politics. And so I call on all Malaysians to unite; to stand by our armed forces as they work in difficult conditions, with their foreign counterparts, thousands of miles from home; and to support all those who are working tirelessly in the search for MH370.

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Lastly, as I mentioned on Wednesday, while I was at the US-ASEAN Defence Forum, I spoke by telephone to the British Secretary of State for Defence, Phillip Hammond, regarding the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Tireless. I hereby confirm that the submarine is now in the search area and helping in the search operation. I shall now invite the Chief of the Defence Force to update you on the submarine’s capabilities.

facebook.com

HONOLULU: Asean defence ministers said Malaysia has done its level best in responding to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and subsequent efforts to locate the missing plane.

“We believe that Malaysia has done its level best in its response to this unprecedented predicament given the sheer scale of the search and rescue (SAR) operation, the biggest and most complex we’ve ever seen,” they said.

themalaymailonline.com

The ministers stressed that Asean's unity remained solid and the 10-member group of Southeast Asian nations was totally committed to assisting Malaysia in coordinating the massive SAR operation to find MH370. "We are resolute in finding closure on this tragic chapter in aviation history," they said in a joint statement on MH370 issued here, where they are gathered for the first United States-Asean Defence Ministers Forum convened by US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel.

nst.com.my

The Asean defence ministers acknowledged the participation of Asean member states in the search operations, directly or indirectly, since the Boeing 777-ER200 aircraft with 239 people on board went missing on March 8. "From the South China Sea, the Andaman Sea and now to the Indian Ocean, Asean has continued to assist in every possible way, true to the spirit of regional cooperation and friendship without any hesitation in sharing information, assets and expertise," they said.

therakyatpost.com

"This incident stressed upon us the importance of information and resource sharing as we strive to be in the utmost state of readiness in mitigating potential calamities and risks," they said. The Asean group comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

I would like to start by thanking the men and women who are giving their all to find MH370. Over the past three weeks, hundreds of people have journeyed thousands of kilometres to help. They have searched through stormy seas and freezing fog. They have sailed through storms to find the plane. We owe them each a debt of gratitude.
This has been a remarkable effort, bringing together nations from around the world. When MH370 went missing, dozens of countries answered the call for help. Their commitment will not be forgotten.

facebook.com

This morning I met with sailors and aircrew at Pearce Air Force Base. I also spoke to the commanders of the seven nations who are here to search for MH370. They told me of the difficulties of a search like this; of distance, and weather, and of maintaining morale over a long period.

facebook.com

As we speak, 10 aircraft and 9 ships are searching the Indian Ocean for any sign of the missing plane. The search area is vast, and the conditions are not easy. But the new refined search area has given us new hope. And I believe the courage of the crews is more than equal to the task. Once again, I thank them all for what they are doing.

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I would also like to thank Prime Minister Abbott for hosting us here in Perth; for agreeing to lead the search operations in the southern Indian Ocean; and for accepting our invitation for Australia to participate as an Accredited Representative in the investigation. We will continue to work closely with the Australian government to draw up a comprehensive agreement on the search.

facebook.com

We are here today, but our thoughts are thousands of kilometres away. In the cities and countries around the world, where families of those on board wait desperately for news. And in the vastness of the Indian Ocean, where MH370 awaits.
I know that until we find the plane, many families cannot start to grieve. I cannot imagine what they must be going through. But I can promise them that we will not give up. Thank you.

facebook.com

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak visited the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Pearce base, here today, to get a firsthand look at the search operation for the missing Malaysian airliner. He arrived at 7.30 am and was welcomed by his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott at the airbase.

theborneopost.com

Accompanying Najib are Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, Advisor in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Jamaluddin Jarjis, Malaysia High Commissioner to Australia Datuk Zainal Abidin Ahmad, Department of Civil Aviation Director-General Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman and Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) Chief Tan Sri Rodzali Daud.

astroawani.com

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak met with his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, at the base near the west coast city of Perth, and received a briefing by Angus Houston, the head of a joint agency coordinating the search.

"This is one of the most demanding and challenging search and rescue operations, or search and recovery operations, that I have ever seen — and I think probably one of the most complex operations of this nature that the world has ever seen," Houston told Najib and Abbott.

The protracted search for missing flight MH370 was boosted Wednesday by the arrival of a British submarine in the Indian Ocean ahead of a visit to Australia by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

freemalaysiatoday.com

The Ministry of Defence said the Trafalgar class submarine HMS Tireless had arrived in the southern Indian Ocean and would help search for the plane's black box recorder. It will soon by joined by Royal Navy coastal survey ship HMS Echo.

bbc.com

The vessel will help with efforts to find the plane's black box recorder in order to piece together its final moments, as a transcript of the last words spoken from the cockpit contradicts earlier reports on what the pilot said.

theguardian.com

The personal jet of Oscar-winning New Zealand movie director Peter Jackson is also now reportedly being used in the multinational hunt for the plane that vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board.

freemalaysiatoday.com

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson’s private jet is now involved in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Jackson’s spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. The company that operates Jackson’s Gulfstream G650 is using the aircraft to aid in the international search effort with Jackson’s consent, Radio New Zealand reports. Jackson’s plane is helping to facilitate communication among search teams.

time.com

Hishammuddin is sticking to the line that MH370 disappearance came after a deliberate act by someone on board. Asked about the assumption in the second part of an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, he said: "it seems that way." He added: "The four areas that the police are looking into: the possible terrorists angle, hijacking, personal problems or the psychological dimension of it. That is being shared by all intelligence agencies around the world." Asked about possible survivors, Hishammuddin said: "miracles do happen".

theguardian.com

Hishammuddin has expressed frustration at the failure of international agencies, and the makers of the missing Boeing, to explain what went wrong. At the end of his interview with CCTV, Hishammuddin suggested it was unfair for Malaysia Airlines to be singled out for criticism in the way they communicated to the families of the missing passengers.

theguardian.com

He said: MAS [Malaysia Airlines] will have to do a better job in engaging those families. But just putting MAS on the witness stand [is not enough] - we also need to bear in mind what is the role and the responsibility of Rolls Royce, of Boeing, of all these expert agencies. Where is there voice? Hishammuddin questioned why the airline sent out a text message in English last week stating there no survivors.

theguardian.com

A full transcript of the final communication between the pilots of MH370 and air traffic control has been released by Malaysia. It confirms that the final sign off was "Goodnight Malaysian 370" not "all right Goodnight" as previously stated.

theguardian.com

The Malaysian government has insisted that there is nothing "abnormal" about the transcript of the communication with MH370's cockpit. Its acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein has issued a statement saying the transcript does not change the investigators' view that the plane's course was deliberately changed by someone on board.

firstpost.com

The transcript presents a different account of the words used by the pilot or co-pilot, than was previously stated. Until now Malaysian officials have claimed the final sign off was "all right, goodnight" issued by the flight's 27-year-old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid. Hishammuddin said police had yet to confirm whether it was Fariq speaking. Hishammuddin is in Hawaii today where he will lobby the US to provide more technical help in searching for the missing plane.

theguardian.com

They were words heard around the world as investigators searched for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. Weeks ago, Malaysian authorities said the last message from the airplane cockpit was, "All right, good night."

The sign-off to air traffic controllers, which investigators said was spoken by the plane's copilot, was among the few concrete details officials released in a mystery that's baffled investigators and drawn global attention since MH370 disappeared with 239 people aboard mid-flight on March 8. There's only one problem. It turns out, it wasn't true.

bbc.com

On Monday, Malaysia's Transport Ministry said the final voice transmission from the cockpit of Flight 370 was actually "Good night Malaysian three seven zero."

freemalaysiatoday.com

Malaysian authorities gave no explanation for the discrepancy between the two quotes. And authorities are still trying to determine whether it was the plane's pilot or copilot who said them. The new language is routine and is not a sign that anything untoward occurred aboard the flight, said CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo.

But the change in wording weeks into the search for the missing plane raises questions about how Malaysian officials have handled the investigation. "It speaks to credibility issues, unfortunately," Schiavo said. "We haven't had a straight, clear word that we can have a lot of fidelity in," said Michael Goldfarb, former chief of staff at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. "We have the tragedy of the crash, we have the tragedy of an investigation gone awry and then we have questions about where we go from here."

theguardian.com

No matter what the pilots' last words were, it's hard to understand what they mean without more details from authorities about what they said and how they said it, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien told "The Lead with Jake Tapper" on Monday. "Without the preceding information ... either the transcript or the recordings themselves, it's difficult to know what any of that really means," he said. "And that's the problem with this investigation, which has been so opaque."

bbc.com

Malaysian authorities have defended their handling of the situation. Will search return data recorder? Acting Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Monday that authorities were not hiding anything by declining to release some details of the missing flight. Some details are part of ongoing investigations into what happened to the plane, he said. "We are not hiding anything," he said. "We are just following the procedure that is being set."

The international co-operation underway in the search for MH370 is nothing short of tremendous. The militaries of Malaysia, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, China, Japan and Korea are all working to find the missing plane. I should also like to point out that Indonesia has given clearance for 94 sorties - by aircraft from nine different countries - to fly in their airspace, as part of this search.

facebook.com

This morning, the Prime Minister spoke with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot. Prime Minister Abbot gave a full update on the status of the search operations, headed out of Perth. Our Prime Minister has decided to travel to Perth on Wednesday for a working visit to Pearce Air force base, to see the operations first hand and also to thank the personnel involved in the multinational search effort, including the Malaysian personnel.

theguardian.com

On Saturday, five objects were retrieved by HMAS Success and the Haixun. However, it was found that none of these objects were related to MH370. On Sunday, an Australian P3 Orion made visual sightings of seven potential objects. A Korean P3 Orion also made visuals of three potential objects. The Chinese ship, the Haixun, was tasked on Monday to retrieve these potential objects.

theguardian.com

In my capacity as Malaysian Defence Minister, I will leave tonight for the United States Pacific Command in Hawaii. I will attend the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ meeting, which will be held from 1st to the 3rd of April. On behalf of the Malaysian Government, I will share with my ASEAN counterparts, and the Government of the United States, the latest developments regarding the search for MH370.

theguardian.com

I will also use this opportunity to discuss the possibility of deploying more specific military assets, in the event that we need to embark on a more complex phase of the operation. I shall be discussing with the United States, and our other friends and allies, how best we can acquire the assets needed for possible deep sea search and recovery.

facebook.com

Yesterday a group of families, whose loved ones were on board MH370, arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Beijing. The Government is due to hold a high-level briefing soon for these families, to update them on the latest developments regarding the search for MH370. The briefing will include international experts who were not available during the briefings in Beijing, including experts from China. It will also be broadcasted live to other families in Beijing.

theguardian.com

Hishammuddin denied that Malaysian police had leaked transcripts to the Daily Mail of police interviews with family members of the pilot and co-pilot of the missing plane. Hishammuddin stressed that Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak never said that MH370 crashed into the Indian ocean with no survivors. A week ago Malaysia Airlines said it was assumed that the plane's journey ended over the Ocean with no survivors. Najib did not use the the phrase "no survivors".

facebook.com

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has risen to Malaysian counterpart Najib Abdul Razak's defence over the conclusion that Malaysia Airlines Fight MH370 "ended" in the Indian Ocean.

"The accumulation of evidence is that the aircraft has been lost and it has been lost somewhere in the south of the Indian Ocean," he told reporters at the Perth military base coordinating the search, on Monday reported news agency, AFP.

bernama.com.my

"That's the absolutely overwhelming wave of evidence and I think that Prime Minister (Datuk Seri) Najib (Tun) Razak was perfectly entitled to come to that conclusion, and I think once that conclusion had been arrived at, it was his duty to make that conclusion public," Abbott was quoted by the news agency.

bernama.com.my

“This is an extraordinarly difficult exercise. We are searching a vast area of ocean and we are working on quite limited information,” Abbott said. “Nevertheless, the best brains in the world are applying themselves to this task, all of the technological mastery that we have is being applied and brought to bear here. If this mystery is solvable, we will solve it. But I don't want to underestimate just how difficult it is.”

themalaymailonline.com

"We owe it to the families, we owe it to everyone that travels by air, we owe it to the governments of the countries who had citizens on that aircraft, we owe it to the wider world which has been transfixed by this mystery for three weeks now," he said. "We owe it to everyone to do everything we reasonably can."

channelnewsasia.com

An Australian military aircraft has spotted four orange objects at sea, once again raising hopes that they might be linked to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

themalaysianinsider.com

Ideal weather conditions gave one Australian aircraft crew the opportunity to detect many objects in the water west of Perth. It spotted four orange items of interest, took photos and sent the coordinates, but Flight Lt. Russell Adams said the crew couldn't determine whether the objects were from the airliner, which officials believe went down in the southern Indian Ocean. The items were more than 2 meters (6.5 feet) long, he said.

The three objects spotted by the Chinese plane on Saturday were white, red and orange in colour, the Xinhua report said. The missing Boeing 777's exterior was red, white, blue and gray.

theguardian.com

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) says yesterday's weather in the area was "reasonable" with reported visibility greater than 10 kilometres, and Flight Lieutenant Russell Adams says he is hopeful of finding more objects if favourable conditions continue. "For my crew and from our perspective, this was the most visibility we [have] had in the water of any objects ... and gave us the most promising leads," he said.

Flight Lieutenant Adams says the objects will now be assessed to determine whether they are related to the missing airliner. "I must stress that we can't confirm the origin of these objects ... the details of these, in association with a GPS buoy have been passed on to our rescue coordination centre," he said.

Relatives of Chinese passengers from the missing Malaysian plane have vented their anger at government officials, after arriving in Kuala Lumpur. Chanting "Tell us the truth", they said they wanted the Malaysian prime minister to apologise for what they regard as misleading statements.

bbc.com

Some relatives of the 153 Chinese passengers on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have refused to accept the Malaysian account of events and accused the authorities. On Sunday several dozen family members travelled from Beijing.

themalaysianinsider.com

After landing in Kuala Lumpur they held a news conference at a hotel holding up banners that read "We want evidence, truth, dignity" in Chinese, and "Hand us the murderer. Give us our relatives," in English. Their designated representative, Jiang Hui, said they wanted the Malaysian government to apologise over the initial handling of the disaster, as well as for Prime Minister Najib Razak's earlier statement that indicated the plane had crashed with no survivors.

bbc.com

He said the conclusion had been announced without "without direct evidence or a sense of responsibility". He said the group wanted to meet airline and government officials face to face - although he stopped short of saying that these concluded Mr Najib, as some relatives had earlier suggested. The relatives have previously expressed anger at officials during regular briefings by Malaysian officials at a hotel in Beijing.

bbc.com

29 Chinese family members, seeking answers from Malaysia's government as to what happened to their loved ones, arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, said Malaysia Airlines commercial director Hugh Dunleavy. Two-thirds of the 227 passengers aboard Flight 370 were Chinese, and their relatives have expressed deep frustration with Malaysian authorities since the plane went missing.

bbc.com

The family members say they have not been given enough information, and want to meet Malaysia's prime minister and transport minister face to face. Some relatives of the flight's 153 Chinese passengers have refused to accept the Malaysian account of events and have accused the authorities of withholding information.

bbc.com

They have vented their anger at officials during regular briefings by Malaysian officials at a hotel in Beijing. "We have demanded that we meet with the prime minister and the transportation minister," said Wang Chunjiang, whose younger brother was on Flight 370. We have questions that we would like to ask them in person."

Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Saturday that the search for survivors would continue. "The hardest part of my job is to see the families," he said. "I've always said we are hoping against hope that we will find survivors," he said.

bbc.com

Malaysian officials have concluded that, based on satellite data, the missing plane flew into the sea somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. So far no trace of it has been found.

malaysiasun.com

As the multinational hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 enters a fourth week, aircraft and ships scouring a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean have yet to make a breakthrough despite spotting several bits of debris in the water.

A warship with an aircraft black box detector was set to depart Australia to search for the missing Malaysian jetliner, a day after ships plucked objects from the Indian Ocean to determine whether they were related to the missing plane.

nst.com.my

None were confirmed to be from the plane, leaving searchers with no sign of the jet three weeks after it disappeared. It could take days for the Australian warship, the navy support ADV Ocean Shield, to reach the search zone, which shifted northeast Friday to an area roughly the size of Poland.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which oversees the search, said the ship will depart Perth on Sunday for the zone, about 1,850 kilometres (1,150 miles) to the west. The ship will be fitted with a black box detector — the U.S. Navy’s Towed Pinger Locator — and an unmanned underwater vehicle, as well as other acoustic detection equipment.

indiatimes.com

Scrutiny on the data of a self-built flight simulator belonging to MH370 pilot-in-command Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) showed no incriminating evidence related to the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER.

asiaone.com

"There was nothing sinister found in the flight simulator, according to the FBI, but this needs to be confirmed by IGP (Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar). We have been working with the FBI on this case from day one," said acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein today at the Everly Hotel, Putrajaya after a meeting with the families of more than a dozen passengers of the ill-fated flight.

astroawani.com

The flight simulator, seized by police just days after the MH370 went missing on March 8, was initially examined by investigators from Bukit Aman who cleared Zaharie of any suspicion when they found no data related to the case. However, the investigators later found out that the flight simulator's data log of four different software versions had been erased on Feb 3. It was then handed over to the FBI for further investigations.

astroawani.com

Introductory statement

Today, the search for MH370 has been further refined. The international investigation team continue working to narrow the search area, and shed further light on MH370’s flight path.
We are, as always, grateful for the continuing co-operation of our partners in this difficult and intensive search. Whilst search operations are on-going, we continue to focus our efforts on caring for the families. In Cabinet this morning, we discussed the importance of continuing to support the relatives of the passengers and crew.

nst.com.my

Refined search area

On Monday, the Prime Minister announced that based on new data analysis, Inmarsat and the AAIB had concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth. On Tuesday, I confirmed that further study of this data would be undertaken to attempt to determine the final position of the aircraft. The Malaysian investigation team set up an international working group, comprising agencies with expertise in satellite communications and aircraft performance, to take this work forward. The international working group included representatives from the UK, namely Inmarsat, AAIB, and Rolls Royce; from China, namely the CAAC and AAID; from the US, namely the NTSB, FAA, and Boeing; as well as the relevant Malaysian authorities.

india.com

The group has been working to refine the Inmarsat data, and to analyse it – together with other information, including radar data and aircraft performance assumptions – to narrow the search area. Information which had already been examined by the investigation was re-examined in light of new evidence drawn from the Inmarsat data analysis. In addition, international partners – who continue to process data in their home countries, as well as in the international working group – have further refined existing data. They have also come up with new technical information, for example on aircraft performance. Yesterday, this process yielded new results, which indicated that MH370 flew at a higher speed than previously thought, which in turn means it used more fuel and could not travel as far. This information was passed to RCC Australia by the NTSB, to help further refine and narrow the search area.

themalaysiantimes.com.my

The Australian authorities have indicated that they have shifted the search area approximately 1,100 kilometres to the north east. Because of ocean drift, this new search area could still be consistent with the potential objects identified by various satellite images over the past week. This work is on-going, and we can expect further refinements. As the Australian authorities indicated this morning, this is standard practice in a search operation. It is a process of continually refining data which in turn further narrows the search area. With each step, we get closer to understanding MH370’s flight path. Searches must be conducted on the best information available at the time. In the search for MH370, we have consistently followed the evidence, and acted on credible leads. Our search and rescue efforts have been directed by verified and corroborated information. This latest refinement of the search area is no different.

nst.com.my

Satellite images

Last night, Japanese authorities announced they had satellite images which showed a number of floating objects approximately 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth. Early this morning we received separate satellite imagery from the Thai authorities which also showed potential objects. These new satellite images join those released by Australia, China, France, and Malaysia, all of which are with RCC Australia. The range of potential objects, and the difficulty in re-identifying them shows just how complex this investigation is. We remain grateful to all our partners for continuing to assist in the search operations.

themalaysiantimes.com.my

Concluding remarks

The new search area, approximately 1,680 kilometres west of Perth, remains in the Australian area of responsibility. Australia continues to lead the search efforts in this new area, and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority gave a comprehensive operational update earlier today. As more information emerges, they will be issuing frequent operational updates, including on assets deployed. I would like to echo their statements that the new search area, although more focused than before, remains considerable; and that the search conditions, although easier than before, remain challenging. For the families of those on board, we pray that further processing of data, and further progress in the search itself, brings us closer to finding MH370.

nst.com.my

The search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will shift to a location 1,100 kilometres to the north-east based on updated advice provided by the international investigation team in Malaysia.

bernama.com.my

An analysis of radar data led investigators to move the search to an area 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the northeast, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said, calling the new information "the most credible lead to where debris may be located."

The revised search area comes as the weather cleared enough Friday to allow planes to hunt for fresh clues to the fate of the plane carrying 239 people that went missing March 8.

nypost.com

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), Australia's investigation agency, has examined this advice and determined that this is the most credible lead to where the debris may be located. "The new search area is approximately 319,000 square kilometres and around 1,850 kilometres west of Perth. "The new information is based on continuing analysis of radar data between the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca before radar contact was lost," it said in a statement today.

bernama.com.my

"It indicated that the aircraft was traveling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel usage and reducing the possible distance the aircraft traveled south into the Indian Ocean," the authority said in a statement.

"ATSB advises the potential flight path may be the subject of further refinement as the international investigative team supporting the search continues their analysis," it said.

bernama.com.my

As the Australian Maritime Safety Authority prepares to resume the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane off Perth, Japanese media are reporting that the country's satellite has picked up floating objects in the same area.

sbs.com.au

Japanese satellite images have shown around 10 floating objects off Australia, possibly from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, media reports quoted the government as saying Friday.

nst.com.my

The objects were spotted in waters roughly 2,500km southwest of Perth, Kyodo and Jiji news agencies said. Japan's Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center's study showed objects up to eight metres in length and four metres wide in images captured by a satellite between 9am and 3pm (0000GMT and 0600GMT) Wednesday, Kyodo said.

A government source said they could be wreckage of the missing plane since they were found in an area overlapping the sites where debris had previously been spotted, according to the agency. Jiji quoted a government official as saying the floating objects were "highly likely" to be part of the plane. Japan had handed the information to Malaysia, the reports said.

The search for the wreckage of Flight 370 has shifted to a new area based on a new credible lead, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said Friday. The search will move to an area 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the northeast.

New satellite images have revealed more than 100 objects that could be debris from the Boeing 777, which is thought to have crashed on March 8 with the loss of all 239 people aboard after flying thousands of miles off course. “We have now had four separate satellite leads, from Australia, China and France, showing possible debris,” Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur late yesterday. “It is now imperative that we link the debris to MH370.”

themalaymailonline.com

"Planned area of search today was 16,298 sqnm in the West sector, and 6,506 sqnm in the East sector. Area identified by the MRSA yesterday, where the 122 potential objects were sighted was also due to be searched today. Today, 9 planes travelled to the search area – five in the East sector and four in the West sector." - Hishammuddin Hussein @H2Ocomm

twitter.com

Today the weather deteriorated in the search area and search operations were suspended at 11:40am. Msia is in the process of sending a team comprised of DCA, MAS, Royal Malaysian Navy and Royal Malaysian Air Force to Perth.This team will work closely with the Australian Rescue Co-ordination Centre to assist with the search operation. - Hishammuddin Hussein @H2Ocomm

twitter.com

The Chinese government’s Special Envoy Zhang Yesui was at the Equatorial Hotel in Bangi today to meet with Chinese relatives of those on board MH370.

therakyatpost.com

Thai satellite images have shown 300 floating objects in the southern Indian Ocean during a search for the missing Malaysian airliner, an official said Thursday. The objects, ranging from two to 15 metres in size, were scattered over an area about 2,700 kilometres southwest of Perth, according to the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency.

scmp.com

“But we cannot – dare not – confirm they are debris from the plane,” the agency’s executive director, Anond Snidvongs, told reporters.

scmp.com

The site was about 2,700 kilometres from Perth of Australia and about 200 kilometres from the international search area where the ill-fated flight is thought to have come down. Some objects were more than two metres long, Anond said. The detection is resulted from Thailand’s cooperation with Malaysia in finding the missing jetliner.

Anond says the objects were about 200 kilometres from the area where a French satellite on Sunday spotted 122 objects. It remains uncertain whether the objects are from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared March 8 with 239 people aboard.

cbc.ca

He said images of the findings had already been submitted to the caretaker premier and that caretaker Foreign Minister Surapong Tohvichakchaikul will forward the images to his Malaysian counterpart to examine if they were of the debris of MH 370. Thaichote or Thailand Earth Observation Satellite is a remote sensing satellite for natural resources observation.

Math wizards who pinpointed the final resting place of a doomed Air France jet deep beneath the Atlantic stand ready to do so again for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

msn.com

"We're trying to get our hands on all the publicly available data so we can start doing an independent assessment," Van Gurley, head of Metron's advanced mathematics applications division, told AFP on Wednesday. As that assessment evolves, "we'll provide it to anyone who's interested," added Gurley at Metron's head office in Reston, Virginia, a suburb of Washington.

channelnewsasia.com

Founded in 1982, with a staff of 170 that includes experts in applied mathematicians, Metron conducts highly specialized mathematical analysis for US national security applications, such as sonar systems. But it has also developed a much-used search and rescue protocol for the US Coast Guard based on a theorem developed by early 18th century English statistician, philosopher and Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes.

"It's a structured method that forces you to look at all the available information about a problem and then apply a confidence factor -- how confident you are in any piece of information," Gurley said. No single bit of data is ever thrown away, but as information is confirmed over time -- say, when a speck in a satellite image turns out to be genuine debris -- the probability that the target item is in a given spot evolves.

channelnewsasia.com

In the case of Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic in 2009 with 228 on board, the target was its flight data recorder lying at the bottom of the ocean. The French air accident investigation agency BEA turned to Metron to figure out the most likely spot where the so-called black box might be -- successfully, it turned out when undersea drones recovered it in May 2011. In that case, however, floating debris from the Airbus A330 had been located within a week and the search area was limited to a circle about 80 miles (130 kilometres) in diameter, Gurley said.

channelnewsasia.com

That's practically a flyspeck compared to the vastness of the remote section of the Indian Ocean where the Malaysian authorities said Wednesday that "122 potential objects" had been spotted by satellite in recent days -- with not a single piece of confirmed debris since the jet went missing on March 8.

msn.com

Introductory statement
The search for MH370 continues. Our efforts are now focused in the southern Indian Ocean, where a multi-national team, led by Australia, is combing the waters trying to find debris from the flight. Our determination to find MH370 remains steadfast. As we have said all along, we will never give up trying to find the plane - in order to bring closure for the families, and to establish exactly what happened to MH370.

straitstimes.com

New satellite images
Australia, China and France have already released satellite images, showing objects that may be related to MH370. Yesterday, on 25 March, the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency (MRSA) received new satellite images from Airbus Defence and Space, which is based in France. The images were taken on 23 March. MRSA analysed the images and - in one area of the ocean measuring some 400 square kilometres - were able to identify 122 potential objects. Some objects were a metre in length; others were as much as 23 metres in length. Some of the objects appeared to be bright, possibly indicating solid materials.

firstpost.com

The objects were located approximately 2,557 kilometres from Perth. We will issue handouts relating to this new information, after this press conference. MRSA's findings were immediately forwarded to the Australian Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Perth yesterday. It must be emphasized that we cannot tell whether the potential objects are from MH370. Nevertheless, this is another new lead that will help direct the search operation. We have now had four separate satellite leads, from Australia, China and France, showing possible debris. It is now imperative that we link the debris to MH370. This will enable us to further reduce the search area, and locate more debris from the plane.

cbs12.com

Operational update
Australia is leading the search effort in the southern Indian Ocean, based out of Perth. Malaysia continues to play a co-ordinating role. All countries involved are displaying unprecedented levels of co-operation; that has not changed. Australia has divided the search area into two sectors, East and West. Today the weather has improved, and twelve planes will travel to the search area - six in the East sector and six in the West.

straitstimes.com

Yesterday 'HMAS Success' was redeployed to the south of the search area due to bad weather. Today the ship has returned and will support the search operation in the West sector. Meanwhile, the Chinese ship 'Xue Long' has today been deployed to the East sector. A Japanese Coast Guard gulfstream aircraft left Subang this morning for Perth, to join the search operation. As I mentioned yesterday, the search operations in the northern corridor, and in the northern part of the southern corridor, have been called off. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent diplomatic notes to all relevant countries to formally inform them of this change. Before I continue, I would like to convey our appreciation to the Australian authorities, and in particular to Prime Minister Tony Abbot, for making such an extraordinary contribution to the search operation.

Chinese Special Envoy
Today, the Prime Minister met with His Excellency Zhang Yesui, the Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Special Envoy of the Government of China. I also met with His Excellency this afternoon. During our conversation His Excellency conveyed China's commitment to continue and intensify the search operation in any way possible, and to deploy any assets that may be required. Malaysia has provided his His Excellency and his delegation with a full update on the latest information from Inmarsat. His Excellency and his delegation also received a comprehensive briefing from the international technical team.

smh.com.au

International Working Group
As I mentioned yesterday, based on the new information provided by Inmarsat, we have established an international working group. The agencies involved in this working group include: Inmarsat, AAIB, the Chinese CAAC and AAID, NTSB, FAA, Boeing and Rolls Royce, as well as the relevant Malaysian authorities. The role of the working group is to help try and refine the Inmarsat data and, if possible, more accurately determine the final position of MH370.

straitstimes.com

Further information
I should like to note that the CEO of Malindo Airlines, Chandran Rama Murthy, has joined me on stage today, and will be able to answer any questions that you might have. As I announced yesterday, MAS is now taking a lead in communicating with the families and is conducting their own press conferences. MAS will hold another press conference tomorrow.

firstpost.com

Concluding remarks
New satellite images continue to provide clues in the search for MH370. And with improved weather conditions, aircraft are now able to investigate objects of interest. I would like to thank once again our international partners for their continued support and assistance. The search for MH370, and the investigation into what happened on board the flight, is now a truly international effort.

straitstimes.com

U.S. equipment designed to detect black box signals arrived in Australia on Wednesday, as searchers stepped up efforts to find some trace of a Malaysian airliner thought to have crashed 18 days ago thousands of miles off course in the Indian Ocean.

ndtv.com

"A considerable amount of debris has been sighted in the area where the flight was last recorded. Bad weather and inaccessibility has so far prevented any of it from being recovered. But we are confident that it will be."

ndtv.com

Mark Binskin, vice chief of Australia's Defence Force, underscored the daunting size of the area under scrutiny by air crews flying exhausting sorties out of Perth. "We're not trying to find a needle in a haystack, we're still trying to define where the haystack is," he told reporters yesterday.

themalaysianinsider.com

PERTH: The search for wreckage of crashed Flight MH370 resumed Wednesday after the weather improved, with Chinese ships and Korean planes joining the hunt over a vast stretch of the Indian Ocean.

channelnewsasia.com

Gale force winds, rain and big waves prevented any sorties being flown on Tuesday but 12 aircraft will be in the air Wednesday while Australia's HMAS Success plans to conduct a surface sweep of an area where two objects were spotted this week.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the search would continue until there was no hope of finding anything. "We are just going to keep on looking because we owe it to people to do everything we can to resolve this riddle," he told the Nine Network. "It is not absolutely open-ended but it is not something we will lightly abandon."

themalaysianinsider.com

"Today's search is split into three areas within the same proximity covering a cumulative 80,000 square kilometres," said the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the search. "AMSA has tasked a total of 12 aircraft today to search for possible objects in the search area." Seven of them are military planes and five civilian.

Six countries are now assisting in the operation - Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Japan, China and South Korea - to help bring some closure to relatives with definitive physical proof of the plane's destruction.

The US Navy has also sent a specialised device to help find the "black box" of flight and cockpit voice data, along with a robotic underwater vehicle that can scan the ocean's depths.

themalaysianinsider.com

Still no real information about why the plane went down, Malaysian officials refusing to speculate. The Malaysian Air Force will set up an inquiry into what happened to MH370. Malaysia will also set up a royal commision into what happened.

With regards to the satellite data analysed by Inmarsat and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), Hishammuddin said the analysis showed poor correlation with the flight having gone to northern corridor, but showed good correlation with the southern corridor. He added that in analysing the data, Inmarsat checked with six other B777 aircraft flying the same day in different directions. “This led them to conclude that MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”

therakyatpost.com

He says that the exact location of the plane is still being determined. Six Chinese ships are currently in the search area and will arrive at the point of MH370's last known position tomorrow morning. This includes the icebreaker Xuelong.

The search for the missing aircraft in the northern corridor has been called off. The search in the northern part of the southern corridor is also called off, he confirmed. The search and rescue effort for MH370 is now focused on the southern part of the southern corridor, covering 2.24 million square nautical miles. “We are working to further narrow down the search area,” he told reporters.

therakyatpost.com

Saying that cooperation received from many countries in the effort has eliminated the diplomatic challenge in looking for MH370, Hishammuddin said the challenge is primarily logistical and technical.

therakyatpost.com

According to China's Xinhua news agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered to send a special envoy to Kuala Lumpur to consult with Malaysia and deal with the matter of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

Australia will waive visa fees for the families of the passengers of a lost Malaysian airliner if they wish to visit the country, Prime Minister Tony Abbott (pic) told the Federal Parliament Tuesday.

He said the fees would be waived for the families of passengers on the flight that went down in the southern Indian Ocean off Western Australia.

Abbott again offered his condolences to the relatives and families of those on the flight and said a formal condolence motion would be moved on Wednesday. "It's highly likely ... that in the coming days and weeks, many of the relatives of passengers on the ill-fated flight 370 will wish to come to Australia," he said.

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) will fly the families of those on board flight MH370 to observe recovery efforts in Australia once the plane's location is “established”. Speaking during a press conference today, MAS chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the airline must wait until then as Australia has said it will not issue entry visas before there is evidence that the missing plane was in its waters. “Arrangements will be made to bring families to the recovery areas, if they so wish,” Ahmad Jauhari said today.

themalaymailonline.com

Tan Sri Md Nor Md Yusof, Chairman of Malaysia Airlines
Based on this evidence, the Prime Minister’s message was that we must accept the painful reality that the aircraft is now lost and that none of the passengers or crew on board survived. This is a sad and tragic day for all of us at Malaysia Airlines. While not entirely unexpected after an intensive multi-national search across a 2.24 million square mile area, this news is clearly devastating for the families of those on board. But we will continue to support the families – as we have done throughout. And to support the authorities as the search for definitive answers continues.

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Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, Group Chief Executive Officer, Malaysia Airlines
There are no words which can ease that pain. Everyone in the Malaysia Airlines family is praying for the 239 souls on MH370 and for their loved ones on this dark day. We extend our prayers and sincere condolences. We all feel enormous sorrow and pain. Sorrow that all those who boarded Flight MH370 on Saturday 8th March, will not see their families again. And that those families will now have to live on without those they love. It must be remembered too that 13 of our own colleagues and fellow Malaysians were also on board.

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Our sole and only motivation last night was to ensure that in the incredibly short amount of time available to us, the families heard the tragic news before the world did. Wherever humanly possible, we did so in person with the families or by telephone, using SMS only as an additional means of ensuring fully that the nearly 1,000 family members heard the news from us and not from the media.

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In the meantime, Malaysia Airlines’ overwhelming focus will be the same as it has been from the outset – to provide the families with a comprehensive support programme.
Through a network of over 700 dedicated caregivers, the loved ones of those on board have been provided with two dedicated caregivers for each family, providing care, support and counsel.

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In addition, hotel accommodation for up to five family members per passenger, transportation, meals and others expenses have been provided since 8th March and that will continue.
Malaysia Airlines has already provided initial financial assistance of USD 5,000 per passenger to the next of kin. We recognize that financial support is not the only consideration. But the prolonged search is naturally placing financial strain on the relatives. We are therefore preparing to offer additional payments as the search continues.

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This unprecedented event in aviation history has made the past 18 days the greatest challenge to face our entire team at Malaysia Airlines. I have been humbled by the hard work, dedication, heartfelt messages of concern and offers of support from our remarkable team. We do not know why, and we do not know how this terrible tragedy happened. But as the Malaysia Airlines family, we are all praying for the passengers and crew of Flight MH370.

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Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said Tuesday that he would decide later whether to resign, with the search continuing for one of the airline's planes which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.