MH370’S ENGINES DID NOT SEND MESSAGES – BUT SEARCH EXTENDED TO INDIAN OCEAN ANYWAY
Andrew Drummond
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Mar 14, 2014
MH370’S ENGINES DID NOT TALK
Malaysia’s defence and acting transport minister Hishammuddin said this afternoon that Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 did not send out signals from its engines. This was confirmed by Rolls Royce.
Nevertheless the search had now been extended to the Indian Ocean (average depth 13,000 – deepest at Java Trench 26000) in the belief it may have been an unindentified aircraft which crossed the Malay Peninsular at the time of the flight’s disappearance. Malaysian authorities do not know because the search is alsob being extended into the South China Sea.
Rolls Royce official and members of the US National Transportation Safety Board were now in Kuala Lumpur to assist.
(Link to Pilot and Co-Pilot going through security at KLIA)
Said Hishammuddin:
“The aircraft is still missing, and the search area is expanding. Two days ago, the search area was widened to include the Andaman Sea.
Together with our international partners, we are now pushing further east into the South China Sea, and further into the Indian Ocean.
We want nothing more than to find the plane as quickly as possible. But the circumstances have forced us to widen our search.
A normal investigation becomes narrower with time, as new information focuses the search. But this is not a normal investigation. In this case, the information we have forces us to look further and further afield.
Yesterday, we rejected a media report in which unnamed officials said that engine data showed the plane had kept flying for hours after last contact. We checked with Boeing and Rolls Royce, who said the reports were not true.”
Malaysian officials are seeking frutherdata from Thailand and India.
Earlier Reuters news agency put out a report which stated:
“Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints – indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training – when it was last plotted on military radar off the country’s north-west coast.
“The last plot on the military radar’s tracking suggested the plane was flying towards India’s Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal
the first two sources said the last confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 90 miles (144km) off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a navigational waypoint called Igari. The time was 1.21am.”….
“The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading towards a waypoint called Vampi, north-east of Indonesia’s Aceh province and a navigational point used for planes following route N571 to the Middle East.
“From there, the plot indicates the plane flew towards a waypoint called Gival, south of the Thai island of Phuket, and was last plotted heading north-west towards another waypoint called Igrex, on route P628 that would take it over the Andaman Islands and which carriers use to fly towards Europe.”
With US Navy ships and aircraft heading into the Indian Ocean the theory being followed now is that MH730 must have either have been hijacked or at least one of the pilots took some unexplained unilateral action.
Officials are understood to tried to visit the families of the flight deck crew. Nothing has been discovered which could warrant such action.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah has his own flight simulator at home. He told a friend Peter Chong that is was much more dangerous flying the simulator because he was able to create emergency situations.
Foonote: PPRUNE has run a comment saying transmission cannot be picked up at a depth of more than 6000 ft – checking. If one wanted to take a 777 where it would not be noticed the Indean Ocean is high on the list – and the Java Trench near the top.
Officials unable to locate their backsides
About the Author
Andrew Drummond
Andrew Drummond is a British independent journalist and occasional television documentary maker. He is a former Fleet Street, London, journalist having worked at the Evening Standard, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, News of the World, Observer and The Times.
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