Missing Malaysian jet most likely in southern Indian Ocean: source

Wed, Mar 19 03:35 AM EDT 1 of 12 By Anshuman Daga and Tim Hepher KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Investigators probing the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner with 239 people on board believe it most likely flew into the southern Indian Ocean, a source close to the investigation said on Wednesday. An unprecedented search for the Boeing 777-200ER is under way involving 26 nations in two vast search "corridors", one arcing north overland from Laos towards the Caspian Sea, the other curving south across the Indian Ocean from west of Indonesia to west of Australia. "The working assumption is that it went south, and furthermore that it went to the southern end of that corridor," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The view is based on the lack of any evidence from countries along the northern corridor that the plane crossed their airspace, and the failure to find any trace of wreckage in searches in the upper part of the southern corridor. China said on Wednesday it had not yet found any sign of the aircraft crossing into its territory. Malaysian and U.S. officials believe the aircraft was deliberately diverted perhaps thousands of miles off course, but an exhaustive background search of the passengers and crew aboard has not yielded anything that might explain why. Flight MH370 vanished from civilian air traffic control screens off Malaysia's east coast at 1:21 a.m. local time on March 8 (1721 GMT March 7), less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. Investigators piecing together patchy data from military radar and satellites believe that someone turned off vital datalinks and turned west, re-crossing the Malay Peninsula and following a commercial route towards India. After that, ephemeral pings picked up by one commercial satellite suggest the aircraft flew on for at least six hours, but it is not known for sure if it went north or south. The data from the satellite placed the plane somewhere in one of the two corridors when the final signal was sent at 8:11 a.m. Last week, a source familiar with official U.S. assessments said it was thought most likely the plane flew south, where it presumably would have run out of fuel and crashed into the sea. (Additional reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi, Siva Govindasamy, Michael Martina and Niluksi Koswanage in Kuala Lumpur, Andrea Shalal-Esa and Mark Hosenball in Washington, Jane Wardell in Sydney, Peter Apps in London, Daniel Bosley in Male and Shihar Aneez in Colombo; Editing by Alex Richardson and Nick Macfie) =================== Australia PM says possible MH370 flight debris spotted Published time: March 20, 2014 03:32 Get short URL TweetShare on tumblrTags Accident, Asia, Australia, Transport Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says satellite imagery has found objects possibly related to the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Two objects have been spotted in the Indian Ocean, Abbott told the Australian parliament. "New and credible information has come to light in relation to the search...in the south Indian Ocean," Abbott said, according to Reuters. "The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search." “The task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult...and it may be they do not relate to the aircraft,” he added. Abbott said a reconnaissance team is on the way to retrieve the suspected debris. An Australian P-3 Orion aircraft is due to arrive at the scene around 14:00 local time (03:00 GMT). Abbott said he has notified Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Thursday marks the 13th day in the search for MH370, as five merchant ships in the southern Indian Ocean are working in conjunction with surveillance aircraft from Australia, the United States, and New Zealand. ======================= Search for MH370: Live Report By Justin Dear and (AFP) – 3 minutes ago Sydney — 03:52 GMT - Security - My colleague Julia Zappei in Kuala Lumpur tells me that authorities have tightened security at a hotel next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport after several relatives of Chinese aboard the missing plane stormed the media conference room Wednesday, accusing authorities of withholding information and doing too little to find the plane, just before Malaysian officials started their daily briefing. An AFP reporter says several policemen and armed military personnel are standing guard near the cordoned off room. 03:51 GMT - "southern sector" - Australia has been responsible since Monday for searching the "southern sector" of the massive operation to locate the Boeing 777, which disappeared on March 8 en route to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board, at the request of Kuala Lumpur. The Malaysian government believes the jet was deliberately diverted and flew for several hours after leaving its scheduled flight path -- either north towards Central Asia, or towards the southern Indian Ocean. 03:47 GMT - The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA)is due to hold a news conference with more details at 0430 GMT 03:45 GMT - Premature conclusions - Abbott is, however, warning against drawing premature conclusions. "We must keep in mind the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight MH370." 03:42 GMT - Satellite images - "The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has received information based on satellite information of objects possibly related to the search." "Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified." Abbott says he has informed Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. 03:35 GMT - WELCOME TO AFP'S LIVE REPORT on the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says two objects possibly related to the search have been sighted. Abbott told parliament "new and credible information" had come to light nearly two weeks after the plane vanished. He said an Australian air force Orion had been diverted to look into the objects. He did not specify where they were but Australia has taken charge of the search in the southern Indian Ocean. ============ Mar 19, 11:58 PM EDT Australia checking 2 objects in search for plane By SCOTT MCDONALD and KRISTEN GELINEAU Associated Press AP Photo/Vincent Thian World Video Buy AP Photo Reprints KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Australia's prime minister said Thursday two objects possibly related to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight have been spotted on satellite imagery in the Indian Ocean and an air force aircraft was diverted to the area to try to locate them. The Orion aircraft was expected to arrive in the area Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament in Canberra. Three additional aircraft are expected to follow for a more intensive search, he said. But Abbott cautioned that the task of locating the objects will be extremely difficult and "it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight MH370." He did not say where the objects were. Military planes from Australia, the U.S. and New Zealand were covering a search region over the southern Indian Ocean that was narrowed down on Wednesday from 600,000 square kilometers (232,000 square miles) to 305,000 square kilometers (117,000 square miles). The hunt for the Boeing 777 has been punctuated by several false leads since it disappeared March 8 above the Gulf of Thailand. Oil slicks that were spotted did not contain jet fuel. A yellow object thought to be from the plane turned out to be a piece of sea trash. Chinese satellite images showed possible plane debris, but nothing was found. But this is the first time that possible objects have been spotted since the search area was massively expanded into two corridors, one stretching from northern Thailand into Central Asia and the other from the Strait of Malacca down to southern reaches of the Indian Ocean. Abbott said he spoke to the prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, about the latest developments. Australia's high commissioner to Malaysia, Rod Smith, joined a meeting of senior Malaysia search officials at a Kuala Lumpur hotel after Abbott's announcement. Smith did not respond to reporters' questions. Nearly two weeks after the plane went missing, the FBI has joined forces with Malaysian authorities in analyzing deleted data on a flight simulator belonging to the pilot of the missing jet. Files containing records of flight simulations were deleted Feb. 3 from the device found in the home of the pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu said. It was not clear whether investigators thought that deleting the files was unusual. They might hold hints of unusual flight paths that could help explain where the missing plane went, or the files could have been deleted simply to clear memory for other material. Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference Wednesday that Zaharie is considered innocent until proven guilty. He said members of the pilot's family are cooperating in the investigation. Zaharie was known to some within the online world of flight simulation enthusiasts. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation by name, said the FBI has been asked to analyze the deleted simulator files. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in Washington that the FBI was working with Malaysian authorities. "At this point, I don't think we have any theories," he said. Flight 370 disappeared March 8 on a night flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian authorities have not ruled out any possible explanation, but have said the evidence so far suggests the flight was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next. Investigators have identified two giant arcs of territory spanning the possible positions of the plane about 7 1/2 hours after takeoff, based on its last faint signal to a satellite - an hourly "handshake" signal that continues even when communications are switched off. The arcs stretch up as far as Kazakhstan in central Asia and down deep into the southern Indian Ocean. Police are considering the possibility of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or anyone else on board, and have asked for background checks from abroad on all foreign passengers. -- Gelineau reported from Sydney, Australia. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, Rod McGuirk, Satish Cheney in Kuala Lumpur, Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Australia, contributed to this report. ===================== Loss of Malaysia plane spurs calls to upload black box data to the 'cloud' Wed, Mar 19 21:11 PM EDT By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) - The disappearance of a Malaysian plane has prompted calls for in-flight streaming of black box data over remote areas, but industry executives say implementing changes may be complex and costly. Mark Rosenker, former chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said this incident and the 2009 loss of an Air France flight in the Atlantic should spur reforms in what he described an outdated accident investigation process. Rosenker, a retired U.S. Air Force general, said finding a way to transmit limited information from flight data and cockpit voice recorders to a virtual "cloud" database would help authorities launch accident investigations sooner and locate a plane if it got into trouble while out of reach of ground-based radars. "This is the second accident in five years where we've had to wait to get the black boxes back," Rosenker said. "We need to bring the concept of operations for accident investigations and the technology of what is available up to the 21st century." Twenty-six nations have been searching for the missing Boeing Co 777 airliner over an area roughly the size of Australia for 12 days, but the massive hunt has found no trace of any wreckage thus far. Mary Kirby, editor of the aviation industry website Runway Girl Network, said airlines could use the growing number of broadband connections that allow passengers to access the Internet and download movies to provide real-time GPS data for just such emergencies. "Airlines realize that this is the cost of doing business," she said. "It is inexplicable to be bringing these big fat connectivity pipes to aircraft and yet to be in a situation in 2014 where you can lose a plane." COSTLY, CHALLENGING CHANGE Aviation experts and industry executives say it should be technically possible to stream flight recorder data to a database or a virtual "cloud," but warned about broadband constraints and the high cost of equipping older airliners with new electronic equipment. They say new satellite-based air traffic management systems being implemented in the United States, Asia and Europe in coming years will make it easier to track airplanes and monitor aircraft systems in flight, but note it will take a decade or more before the systems are commonplace worldwide. Streaming the huge amounts of data now collected by flight data recorders may also pose technical challenges, while transmission of cockpit voice recordings could raise privacy concerns, said analyst Richard Aboulafia with the Teal Group. Rosenker, the former NTSB chief, said investigators could agree on a much smaller subset of key data to transmit, which would save bandwidth and cost. The data could even be sent at intervals instead of continuously streamed, he said. Most airplanes already have systems known as Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) that periodically report, either via VHF radio or satellite, on the performance of the aircraft and its engines, which could provide another possibility for getting data to investigators. One industry executive said he fully expected reforms after this incident, but said airlines were more likely to increase the amount of data they were receiving from the existing ACARS system rather than opting to stream flight data. "It would just be too costly. There are 93,000 flights a day, and we've had two incidents like this in four or five years," said the executive, who was not authorized to speak publicly since the search for the plane continues. Bob Benzon, a former Air Force pilot and NTSB investigator, said it could potentially cost billions of dollars to allow every plane in the world to stream flight data, but mounting frustration over the failure to find any trace of Flight MH370 could well galvanize the aviation community into some action. He said other potentially cheaper proposals included outfitting planes with floating locator or data recorder beacons that would automatically deploy if an airplane crashed. "There's a tombstone mentality at times. You actually have to have a very tragic event to get things done," Benzon said. "I predict that this is one of those events unfortunately." Some U.S. military airplanes, including the Air Force's massive C-5 cargo planes, already have floating data recorders since they often fly over large spans of ocean. The NTSB has recommended mandatory video recordings in the cockpit of commercial airliners, but has never recommended live-streaming or regular transmission of flight data. Discussion about mandating regular transmissions from airliner black boxes increased after Air France Flight AF447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, its location and black boxes remaining a mystery until 22 months later. MOVING BLACK BOX TO "CLOUD" This time, investigators are beginning to think the plane may never be found, given the dearth of clues thus far. Oliver McGee, a professor of mechanical engineering at Howard University and former senior U.S. Transportation Department official, said advances in technology made this an ideal time to change current procedures. "It's time to move the black box to 'the cloud' at least for essential limited flight recorder data for long flights over (areas) like the Indian Ocean, or other remote areas across large land masses like across the Brazilian Amazon," he said. Victoria Day, spokeswoman for Airlines for America, which represents major U.S. carriers, said it was "premature for us to speculate about potential changes to safety and security procedures." Officials at Delta Air Lines, United and American Airlines also declined comment on the Malaysia Airlines case, and any consequences for the industry. In the past, airlines have argued that such accidents are too rare to justify the added expense of streaming flight recorder data, but Rosenker said the cost needed to be weighed against the cost of the current search. "Look at what's happening now. We've lost a 777 and over 200 people. Navies and airplanes from around the world are searching for this plane. That's not cheap either," he said. (Additional reporting by Victoria Bryan in Frankfurt, Karen Jacobs in Atlanta and Jon Herskovitz in Austin; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) ================= COLUMN-The jumbo coverage of Malaysia flight MH370 Tue, Mar 18 10:16 AM EDT (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.) By Jack Shafer March 18 (Reuters) - When a big story breaks, my news digestion knows no satiety. Earthquake, assassination, invasion, bank run, political campaign, celebrity court case, sport scandal or a drunk stubs his toe on the Lower East Side - I can handle anything the press swarm sends at me. So unlike Fox News press reporter Howard Kurtz ("It's too much with too few facts," he said last week of the saturation reporting by his former network, CNN, about Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370), I can handle any "over"-coverage the news machine chooses to throw my way. By handle, I usually mean avoid, but on a story like MH370, I desire the sort of coverage that could fill the Indian Ocean, which I did not know until last week had an average depth of 2.5 miles. That fact was only one of the scores of news nuggets I've chewed and swallowed since the airliner was reported missing on March 8. While I'm aware that the flight's fate, its back story, and repercussions will have no impact on my life, and that there aren't enough degrees of Kevin Bacon to connect me to 95 percent of the missing passengers, I have clawed my way through stories and even stayed up at night to learn about transponders, the different kinds of radars, the stolen passport business, the number of air strips within MH370's flight range that could have accommodated a landing, general Malaysian political incompetence, Southeast Asian geography, satellite telemetry, international relations, black boxes, the workings of the Malaysian criminal justice system, the Andaman Islands, life raft locator radios, search technologies, air navigation and more. One measure of my devotion to this story is that I even watched an oceanographer talk on Charlie Rose about the missing aircraft. None of my newly acquired knowledge will serve me in any tangible way. It won't improve democracy or raise productivity. I doubt that it will even make me a better journalist, although it might make me a better conversationalist. But the story has wedged its way into my consciousness and will persist until somebody locates the Boeing 777 and solves the mystery. Much has been made about how provisional some of the findings of journalists have been in their coverage of MH370 - inaccuracies about the origin of the flight data and what time the flight disappeared, the provenance of the debris spotted by a satellite and the number of no-shows for the flight. As my colleague Erik Wemple of the Washington Post explained last week, fast-moving stories routinely produce conflicting reports; as was the case with the Boston Marathon bombing, the Washington Navy Yard shootings and the Newtown slaughter. Dozens of conflicting reports emerged from the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008, the 9/11 attacks, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and even Watergate reporting. I'm not making excuses for anybody, but those who expect perfect reporting from the scene of breaking news haven't been paying close attention to what they have been consuming over the years. The human fascination with disaster has probably always been with us, preserved as it is in folk tales, religious parables and literature. In his new and excellent book, "The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself," historian Andrew Pettegree writes about the craving the original readers of newspapers in the late 1500s had for earthquakes, floods, other stupendous weather disasters and strange occurrences. The appetite for deadly crime stories - even deadly crime stories taking place far away or years ago - would suffice. In 1586, a London printer named Thomas Purfoot horrified readers with an account of a triple-slaying in northwest France by a Frenchman. The better a story conveyed the dangers of life, the more readily it was consumed. Sensationalistic accounts of celestial visits by comets, meteors, and the Northern lights, stories about monstrous births and strange animals, and documentary reports about appearances by the Devil - anything potentially dangerous or out of the ordinary - were more than fit to print in these early newspapers. The taste for news of the weird or unusual has never abated. Now I won't try to advance a theory out of evolutionary psychology to explain our hunger for peculiar news other than to say that it seems unstoppable. Such news makes some of us more fearful of the world. For others, it brings calm or a sense of normalcy, like the Londoners who lived through the blitz. Combine news of the weird with a mystery, such as an unaccountably missing airliner on the other side of the world, and you have the makings of an itch that no scratching can relieve. I speak as a reader, but also as a journalist, as I observe my colleagues pursue the MH370 story. Reduced to two dimensions, journalism is a game of chase, with reporters dashing like bloodhounds through the undergrowth of evidence until cornering the story. The longer it takes for reporters to corner the quarry, the more suspenseful the story becomes - is there any more suspenseful story than "Alive or Dead"? The greater the suspense, the greater the reader interest, and the greater the reader interest the greater journalistic enthusiasm to attack the tale from the oblique angles - to plumb the history books for stories of other missing aircraft, address the human interest elements, advance competing theories about the flight's fate and puncture the evidence offered by authorities ("A lot of stock cannot be put in the altitude data" sent from the engines, one official told the New York Times. "A lot of this doesn't make sense.") If, after analyzing the Nexis dump and TiVo hoard, you still believe the MH370 coverage extravagant and wasteful, I give you permission to avert your eyes from this story. For those of us who remain enthralled by it, who have used the story as an entry point into Malaysian politics or flight safety or satellite surveillance, you have nothing to apologize for. Readers have been giving themselves over to grand, mysterious stories that don't directly affect them for five centuries. The news menu remains immense and varied. If you don't like the MH370 story, do us a favor and pick something else. (Jack Shafer) ==================== Australian security expert says MH370 couldn't have reached search zone WITHOUT deliberate human intervention Two objects spotted by satellite of the coast of Perth, Australia If confirmed as belonging to MH370, it rules out possibility of technical error Four aircraft have been dispatched to the new search area By Daily Mail Reporter PUBLISHED: 05:08 GMT, 20 March 2014 | UPDATED: 05:12 GMT, 20 March 2014 Australian security expert Neil Fergus says if objects spotted by satellite off the coast of Perth are confirmed as belonging to MH370 then its location would rule out any possibility of a technical error. Four aircraft were dispatched to an area within the southern search zone for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane on Thursday, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced. Mr Fergus, who was Director of Intelligence for Sydney’s 2000 Olympics, told that a catastrophic malfunction on MH370 would mean the plane couldn’t have flown all the way to where the debris has been spotted. A handout picture made available by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) on 20 March 2014 shows a map of the search area for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 currently conducted by AMSA An enlarged handout picture made available by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) on 20 March 2014 shows a map of the search area for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 currently conducted by AMSA The Bangkok-based specialist said that only human involvement – either by passengers or crew – could have gotten the plane to Australian waters. More...'It's scary and eerie': Young blonde who spent an entire flight in the cockpit with MH370 co-pilot in 2011 says she's now shaken knowing her life was in his hands Two potential bits of missing flight MH370 wreckage found: Australian PM announces discovery after new satellite data calculations narrowed hunt to remote stretch of Indian Ocean FBI analyse Malaysian Airlines pilot's home flight simulator as it's revealed he deleted data one month prior to taking control of missing MH370 plane ‘If this debris does turn out to be the missing MH370 then, given its location, we can definitely rule out technical malfunction,’ he said. ‘There is no way with (some) sort of technical calamity or fire that it could have travelled to where it appears to be. It would in the first instance confirm human intervention.’ The aircraft is to join the Australian Maritime Safety Authority-led search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean after two objects are found in the Indian Ocean Royal Australian Air Force pilot Flight Lieutenant Russell Adams from 10 Squadron, flying his AP-3C Orion over the Southern Indian Ocean during the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 Mr Fergus said the Australian government would now focus on finding the plane’s black box, which would finally reveal what fate befell the Malaysian Airways flight. ‘The Orion will do a low-vis check that will be much clearer of course than the resolution from the satellite,’ he said. ‘And then they will drop sonar buoys, which have a particular relevance because black box recorders have a battery life of around 30 days…and it should pick up an emission coming from there. ‘(It will confirm the location of the black box which is the key to unravelling this horrible mystery.’ Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott during his speech stated that Australia will take control over the 'southern vector' carrying its duty in the search and rescue operations (SAR) for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 Enlarge Mystery: Australian security expert Neil Fergus says if objects spotted by satellite off the coast of Perth are confirmed as belonging to MH370 then its location would rule out any possibility of a technical error. Anxious wait: Chinese relatives of the passengers onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 wait for the latest information at Lido Hotel in Beijing, China. Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott said that authorities have spotted two objects in the Indian Ocean that may be related to flight MH370 Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2584977/Australian-security-expert-says-MH370-reached-search-zone-without-deliberate-human-intervention.html#ixzz2wTe47Lup Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook ======================= Why didn't missing jet passengers use their cellphones? By Daniel Rook | AFP News – 23 hours ago....Email0Share21 ...SEPANG, March 20 — Malaysia confirmed receiving information this morning of the debris sighting by Australian maritime officials and said the new lead, like all other leads, offers “hope” that... … ... .Missing MH370 no obstacle to compensation, lawyers say ...KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 — Twelve days without sign of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is raising the possibility the plane with 239 on board may never be found. But lawyers said the... … ... ....More....In the age of smartphones and social media, one question surrounding the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner is why none of the passengers tried to contact relatives, as they did during the 9/11 attacks. Even the absence of phone calls or emails from those on board the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 could provide clues for investigators struggling to solve one of the greatest mysteries of modern aviation. It may indicate that the plane was flying too high or was over water, or that the passengers were unconscious, possibly due to a change in cabin pressure. Experts say the chances of the 239 people on board Flight 370 being able to use their mobile devices would have been better the closer they were to a mobile network on the ground. Many are sceptical that the passengers or crew would have been able to establish and maintain a call using cellphones while travelling at speed, particularly at cruising altitude. For mobile phones to be used, there must be a contact between the handset and the network -- known as a "handshake". This requires a strong enough signal from both a transmission tower and the phone. "Theoretically, 23,000 feet (7,000 metres) and 45,000 feet are a cell range that terrestrial mobile network could work with," said Singapore-based telecommunications consultant Koh Chee Koon, referring to unconfirmed reports of changes in the plane's altitude after it lost radar contact. But given the limited transmission power of a commercial mobile phone, as well as the barrier presented by the plane body, "for the mobile phone to connect to the mobile network with acceptable strength and quality would require some luck", added Koh. Experts note that in the case of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the planes were flying at relatively low altitude over areas with cellphone coverage. In any case most of the calls are believed to have been made from seatback phones and not mobile devices. Recently some airlines have introduced technology to enable passengers to use their phones in the air using a small cellular base station on board, but Malaysia Airlines said this service was not available on Flight 370. Without this, a cellphone cannot be used at an altitude of more than roughly 0.5 kilometres in the case of a commercial airliner, and must not be too far from a cell tower, according to A.K. Dewdney, professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. "No cellphone could possibly succeed from an airliner in mid-ocean, even if flying low over the water," he said. "At normal cruising altitude no cellphone could possibly succeed in making ground contact as it is completely out of reach of the network of towers, in any case," added Dewdney, who conducted experiments after the 9/11 attacks to test the capability of mobile telephones to make calls from the air. - Phone records under investigation - Malaysia Airline chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said on Monday there was no evidence of any attempt by the people on board to make calls, but he added that "millions of records" needed to be processed. "It's being done as part of the investigation," he said, without elaborating on the type of records being checked. Deepening the mystery, Chinese media have reported that relatives heard ringing tones when trying to call passengers' mobile phones. But experts believe this does not necessarily mean the phones were still functioning. Even if nobody on board the plane tried to make a call, logs of the "handshakes" might provide some clues about the route taken by the jet after it disappeared. While many phones would have been switched off in line with airline rules, some people may have forgotten to deactivate their devices. But to trace any "handshakes" investigators face the challenge of collecting the unique identity numbers for the passengers' mobile devices, as well as signal data from network operators in countries along the possible flight paths, such as Myanmar which still has limited network coverage. As the flight turned back and crossed over Malaysia after disappearing from radar en route to Beijing, it probably passed over a network area. After that, the chances of any "handshakes" depend on how low and close to mobile towers the plane flew. "Police track cellphones all the time by the last phone call they made," said Ken Dulaney, a US-based analyst with technology research firm Gartner. But he added that this was only possible if the devices were in reach of a network. "If they are not in coverage then no one can do anything," he said. .. ================= Australian ship homes in on possible debris from Malaysia plane Mon, Mar 24 10:27 AM EDT 1 of 16 By Jane Wardell and Matt Siegel SYDNEY/PERTH (Reuters) - An Australian navy ship was close to finding possible debris from a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner on Monday as a mounting number of sightings of floating objects raised hopes wreckage of the plane may soon be found. The HMAS Success should reach two objects spotted by Australian military aircraft by Tuesday morning at the latest, Malaysia's government said, offering the first chance of picking up suspected debris from the plane. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was due to give a press conference on latest developments at 1400 GMT, a government official told Reuters, suggesting a possible breakthrough. So far, ships in the international search effort have been unable to locate several "suspicious" objects spotted by satellites in grainy images or by fast-flying aircraft over a vast search area in the remote southern Indian Ocean. "HMAS Success is on scene and is attempting to locate and recover these objects," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who called his Malaysia counterpart Najib Razak to inform him of the sighting, said in a statement to parliament. The objects, described as a "grey or green circular object" and an "orange rectangular object", were spotted about 2,500 km west of Perth on Monday afternoon, said Abbott, adding that three planes were also en route to the area. Neither Malaysia nor Australia gave details on the objects' size. "We're not sure if Success will be able to find them tonight," John Young, general manager of the emergency response division of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, said in a video statement. "She may need the assistance of another serch aircraft on the scene tomorrow to do that." Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8. No confirmed sighting of the plane has been made since and there is no clue what went wrong. Attention and resources in the search for the Boeing 777 have shifted from an initial focus north of the Equator to an increasingly narrowed stretch of rough sea in the southern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from the original flight path. Earlier on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency said a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft spotted two "relatively big" floating objects and several smaller white ones dispersed over several kilometres. Beijing responded cautiously to the find. "At present, we cannot yet confirm that the floating objects are connected with the missing plane," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a news briefing in Beijing. Australia said that a U.S. Navy plane searching the area on Monday had been unable to locate the objects. China has diverted its icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, toward the location where the debris was spotted. A flotilla of other Chinese ships are also steadily making their way south. The ships will start to arrive in the area on Tuesday. Over 150 of the passengers on board the missing plane were Chinese. The latest sighting followed reports by an Australian crew over the weekend of a floating wooden pallet and strapping belts in an area of the icy southern Indian Ocean that was identified after satellites recorded images of potential debris. In a further sign the search may be bearing fruit, the U.S. Navy is flying in its high-tech black box detector to the area. The so-called black boxes - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - record what happens on board planes in flight. At crash sites, finding the black boxes soon is crucial because the locator beacons they carry fade out after 30 days. "If debris is found we will be able to respond as quickly as possible since the battery life of the black box's pinger is limited," Commander Chris Budde, U.S. Seventh Fleet Operations Officer, said in an emailed statement. Budde stressed that bringing in the black box detector, which is towed behind a vessel at slow speeds and can pick up "pings" from a black box to a maximum depth of 20,000 feet, was a precautionary measure. The Chinese aircraft that spotted the objects was one of two IL-76s searching on Monday. Another eight aircraft, from Australia, the United States and Japan, were scheduled to make flights throughout the day to the search site, some 2,500 km (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth. "EVERYONE IS QUITE HYPED" "The flight has been successful in terms of what we were looking for today. We were looking for debris in the water and we sighted a number of objects on the surface and beneath the surface visually as we flew over the top if it," said Flight Lieutenant Josh Williams, on board a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion. "The first object was rectangular in shape and slightly below the ocean. The second object was circular, also slightly below the ocean. We came across a long cylindrical object that was possibly two meters long, 20 cm across. "Everyone is quite hyped." Australia was also analysing French radar images showing potential floating debris that were taken some 850 km (530 miles) north of the current search area. Australia has used a U.S. satellite image of two floating objects to frame its search area. A Chinese satellite has also spotted an object floating in the ocean there, estimated at 22 metres long (74ft) and 13 metres (43ft) wide. It could not be determined easily from the blurred images whether the objects were the same as those detected by the Australian and Chinese search planes, but the Chinese photograph could depict a cluster of smaller objects, said a military officer from one of the 26 nations involved in the search. The wing of a Boeing 777-200ER is approximately 27 metres long and 14 metres wide at its base, according to estimates derived from publicly available scale drawings. Its fuselage is 63.7 metres long by 6.2 metres wide. NASA said it would use high-resolution cameras aboard satellites and the International Space Station to look for possible crash sites in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. space agency is also examining archived images collected by instruments on its Terra and Aqua environmental satellites. Investigators believe someone on the flight shut off the plane's communications systems. Partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and re-crossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot. That has led them to focus on hijacking or sabotage, but investigators have not ruled out technical problems. Faint electronic "pings" detected by a commercial satellite suggested it flew for another six hours or so, but could do no better than place its final signal on one of two vast arcs north and south. While the southern arc is now the main focus of the search, Malaysia says efforts will continue in both corridors until confirmed debris is found. (Additional reporting by Irene Klotz in New York, Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing, Michael Martina, A.Ananthalakshmi and Siva Govindasamy in Kuala Lumpur; and Lincoln Feast in Sydney; Writing by Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Nick Macfie) ================= Mar. 27, 2014 11:21 PM ET Australia: 'Credible lead' shifts jet search area By ROB GRIFFITH and EILEEN NG, Associated Press THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES A woman wipes her tears as she joins a ceremony in memory of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Thursday, March 27, 2014. Australian officials say search operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane have been suspended for the day due to bad weather. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) Floating objects seen in Flight 370 search area Mar. 26, 2014 7:21 PM ET Hunt for Flight 370 resumes in calmer seas Mar. 26, 2014 1:30 AM ET Hunt for Flight 370 resumes in calmer seas Mar. 25, 2014 8:44 PM ET Time, uncertainty make plane hunt uniquely hard Mar. 25, 2014 8:15 AM ET Race is on to find Malaysia airliner's black boxes Mar. 25, 2014 12:40 AM ET Buy AP Photo Reprints PERTH, Australia (AP) — The search zone for the Malaysian airliner that crashed in the Indian Ocean nearly three weeks ago has shifted 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the northeast after new analysis of radar data suggested the plane flew faster than thought and used more fuel, which may have reduced the distance it traveled, Australia said Friday. 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. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the change was based on new analysis provided by the international investigative team in Malaysia. "This is a credible new lead and will be thoroughly investigated today," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday. "This is an extraordinarily difficult search, and an agonizing wait for family and friends of the passengers and crew," he said. "We owe it to them to follow every credible lead and to keep the public informed of significant new developments. That is what we are doing." According to continuing analysis of radar data between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca before contact was lost with the Boeing 777, the aircraft was traveling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel use and reducing the possible distance the aircraft could have flown into the Indian Ocean. The new area is 319,000 square kilometers (123,000 square miles) and about 1,850 kilometers (1,250 miles) west of Perth, Australia, the launching area for the search. The pervious search area was more southwest and about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) from Perth. The shift in search areas comes after searchers in planes and ships had scoured parts of the southern Indian Ocean for objects spotted bobbing in sea. But strong winds and fast currents have made it difficult to pinpoint them, and the search for the plane has yet to produce a single piece of debris — not to mention its so-called black boxes, which could solve the mystery of why the jet, en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, flew so far off-course. For relatives of the 239 people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the various clues and failed searches so far have just added to their agonizing waits. Wang Zhen, whose parents were aboard the missing plane, said in a telephone interview in Beijing that he was becoming exasperated. "There is nothing I can do but to wait, and wait," he said. "I'm also furious, but what is the use of getting furious?" In the last week, Japan, Thailand and France have all said their satellites had picked up images of objects that could be debris from the plane. Most of the objects have measured from about 1 meter (3 feet) to about 20 meters (65 feet). Those sightings were in an area southwest of the new zone, and none have been found yet. Japan's Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office said the objects its satellite spotted were located about 2,500 kilometers (1,560 miles) southwest of Perth, which would place them in the same general area as the 122 objects spotted by a French satellite on Sunday. A Thai satellite revealed about 300 objects about 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the southwest of the items seen by the Japanese and French satellites. The photos were taken Monday, one day after the French and two days before the Japanese. A Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said the U.S. has also been "sharing imagery as appropriate" with investigators, but he declined to say what it entailed. It's unknown whether any of the objects detected by the various satellites were the same. Currents in the ocean can run a meter per second (about 2.2 mph) and wind also could move material. If and when any bit of wreckage from Flight 370 is recovered and identified, searchers will be able to narrow their hunt for the rest of the Boeing 777 and its flight data and cockpit voice recorders. The plane was supposed to fly from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing but turned away from its route soon after takeoff and flew for several hours before crashing. Malaysian officials said earlier this week that satellite data confirmed the plane crashed into the southern Indian Ocean. On Thursday, Malaysia Airlines ran a full-page condolence advertisement with a black background in a major Malaysian newspaper. "Our sincerest condolences go out to the loved ones of the 239 passengers, friends and colleagues. Words alone cannot express our enormous sorrow and pain," read the advertisement in the New Straits Times. Officials still don't know why Flight 370 disappeared. Investigators have ruled out nothing — including mechanical or electrical failure, hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or someone else on board. Some speculation has focused on the pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, but his son, in an interview published Thursday in the New Straits Times, rejected the idea that his father might be to blame. "I've read everything online, but I've ignored all the speculation," Ahmad Seth said. "I know my father better." ___ Ng reported from Kuala Lumpur. Associated Press writers Scott McDonald and Gillian Wong in Kuala Lumpur, Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report. Associated Press Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ===============