News and theories about the missing Malaysian plane

[ancient kayaker]

I don't think it's a viable option to quit searching until several years of fruitless searching have gone by and a few more millions have been spent. Stop now and the media will roast everyone concerned, there'll be accusations of incompetence, wasting of valuable time, being cheap and insensitive to the feelings of the families. There'll be unfavorable comparisons with the investigation of Air France 447 which took 3 years to resolve and Asian sensitivities will be a factor.

Politicians can't handle that sort of thing - it can terminate their careers. It could even bring down the Malaysian government who will not come out of this smelling sweetly whatever happens. The Chinese have been fairly quiet on this matter but they are trying aggressively to expand their territories and this could be parleyed into another excuse to intervene in a "protective" manner, as we recently saw from the Russians in the Crimea.

 

[Mr Efficiency]

Anyone who wants to keep looking, can do so, but I cannot see why Australian taxpayers should foot the bill for this.

 

[pdwiley]

Anyone who wants to keep looking, can do so, but I cannot see why Australian taxpayers should foot the bill for this.

I don't have a problem with it. It's never a bad thing to get more knowledge and a side effect - I sincerely hope - of this caper is some good swathe mapping of the Indian Ocean bottom in those areas. Might be all sorts of interesting stuff that comes out of it.

PDW

 

[milezone]

Just google New Carlisle group, and a patent 2 of the passengers on this plane had with this New Carlisle group. Of course the plane will never be found, and when it does, that story will long be covered and the billions of dollars already made.

Sad that they did this for the passengers all in the name of $$$. :-(

 

[Sailor Alan]

Anyone who wants to keep looking, can do so, but I cannot see why Australian taxpayers should foot the bill for this.

Gaining a 'presence' legally and officially, in this part of the ocean may be in Australia's best interests in the long term, who knows what further mineral wealth may be found by this survey.

i think it was tactless of your PM to announce this in the away he did, but i suspect he had little choice. In fact, he will actually ‘spend’ little or nothing of this actual money, but he has announced publicly that he ‘would’ so contractors will be a bit more confident bidding, even though they know it will be a long tome before they are paid. Equally, it sends notice to China, and India, and probably others too, that Australia claims ‘ownership’ or responsibility’ for this region of ocean, and does not welcome people outside of their permission into it for survey, search, or anything else. Good move i think.

Fairly excessive way of avoiding patent payments i would have thought, the method they use with me is excuses about ‘profit’ after development costs, and the ‘work’ needed to bring the item to market. I think the days of ‘rich’ inventors, who didn't develop and sell their invention directly (like App’s etc) might be gone, sadly.

 

[TeddyDiver]

Saucy from CF saw something..
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f108/i-think-i-saw-mh370-127132.html

 

[joz]

Anyone who wants to keep looking, can do so, but I cannot see why Australian taxpayers should foot the bill for this.

@ 150 Million dollars to be spent on searching for this aircraft since its registered to Malaysia, the Malaysian Government or Airline should pay for this since its their aircraft that has crashed and has gone missing.

 

[Mr Efficiency]

They are waiting to see if Lord Bountiful (Tony) will pay !

 

[ancient kayaker]

You can always let the Chinese pay, they have the cash, and I'm sure they'd love the excuse to expand their influence in the area. If that's what Australians really want . . .

 

[Mr Efficiency]

Given that China is Australia's #1 trading partner, it would be a bit late to worry about Chinese influence.

 

[ImaginaryNumber]

Flight 370 "will be found" near "7th arc" | CBS NEWS

...The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, working in conjunction with a team of international investigators, said further analysis of the satellite data available on the flight's path "confirms that MH370 will be found in close proximity" to a specific corridor identified as the "7th arc".

In a statement released Thursday, the ATSB said at the time Flight 370 reached this specific arc, "the aircraft is considered to have exhausted its fuel and to have been descending."

It was not immediately clear where the 7th arc, shown below on a map provided by the ATSB, lays in relation to the area already searched already by a U.S. Navy robotic submarine…

 

[ImaginaryNumber]

Contractor will have 300 days to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 | CNN

… The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the search at the request of the Malaysian government, said Wednesday that it is accepting proposals for the task until the end of June. The new search is expected to start in August, at the earliest…

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau says the new search area will be around 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles). The winning bidder will have to cover 5,000 square kilometers of the area every 25 days or risk payment being withheld. The contractor will also have to provide daily progress reports and submit its plans for the following 24 hours, the documents say…

An Australian university on Wednesday released an audio recording and other information about an underwater sound that they say could be related to the final moments of the plane.

And independent experts are studying the satellite data that have played a key role in guiding the search to see whether they agree with the official analysis that the plane ended up in the southern Indian Ocean...

 

[ImaginaryNumber]

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Families to Get $50,000 Each | WALL STREET JOURNAL

Families of the people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are being paid US$50,000 a person as interim compensation, a Malaysian minister said on Thursday...

The final payment hasn't been decided and could be the subject of a legal battle between the families, the airline and even Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, according to experts...

Under international rules, the airline and its insurers are liable to pay about US$174,000 a person, but the amount could change depending on the outcome of the inquiry or if the families go to court.

 

[ImaginaryNumber]

Australia Hires Survey Firm in Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane Search | WALL STREET JOURNAL

Australia on Tuesday hired a private company to map a vast swath of ocean floor ahead of the expected resumption in August of the underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau signed the contract with Dutch company Fugro NV, which will use a ship equipped with sophisticated sonar technology to map a 60,000 square kilometer (23,000 square mile) search zone in the southern Indian Ocean...

 

[ImaginaryNumber]

Flight 370 "hotspot" yet to be searched | CBS NEWS

The British satellite company Inmarsat, which has provided investigators the only satellite data available on the final hours of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, has told the BBC that it located a "hotspot" where the jet likely crashed more than 100 days ago, but the area has not yet been searched.

Inmarsat's team of engineers determined through analysis of the final communications between the Boeing 777 and their satellite that the jet likely came down in an area to the southwest of a zone scanned carefully by Australia using a U.S. Navy robotic submarine.

The Australian ship sent to investigate the region never made it to Inmarsat's "hotspot" because other vessels detected auditory "pings" which investigators believed could have come from Flight 370's black boxes. The search focused on the area where the pings were detected for two months, but nothing was found...

"We can identify a path that matches exactly with all those frequency measurements and with the timing measurements and lands on the final arc at a particular location, which then gives us a sort of a hotspot area on the final arc where we believe the most likely area is," Ashton told the BBC...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A [possibly] good explanation of how the Inmarsat data is interpreted to estimate MH370's final location.

Where the Missing Plane Went | SLATE