The Science Behind the Search for MH370

On 8 March 2014 a Boeing 777 operating Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared en-route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Radar showed that the aircraft turned around, flew back over Malaysia and then south beyond radar range. After that the main clues to MH370’s route were “handshake” signals every hour between a satellite ground station and aircraft systems. The Science Behind the Search for MH370 On 8 March 2014 a Boeing 777 operating Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared en-route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Radar showed that the aircraft turned around, flew back over Malaysia and then south beyond radar range. After that the main clues to MH370’s route were “handshake” signals every hour between a satellite ground station and aircraft systems. A final “handshake” is consistent with fuel exhaustion and an initial air and sea search found nothing. The ATSB was given charge of a sea-bed search using high-tech equipment with the search area covering more than 120,000 sq. km., in difficult conditions and thousands of kilometres from port. Despite intensive efforts, no trace of MH370 was found and the search was suspended on 17 January 2017. Hear the details of the ground breaking science that was involved and was progressively evolved during the search and the ongoing analysis with refinements to drift modelling and signals analysis." About the speakers Peter Foley is responsible for all of ATSB’s search activities for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. He joined the ATSB in 1999 after a career at sea as a marine engineer. Since then he has held a number of roles most recently as General Manager Surface Safety Investigations; responsible for marine and rail safety investigations, ATSB’s work on the reforms to the National Transport Regulatory framework, and ATSB’s international programs. Mr Foley holds professional qualifications in marine engineering and transport safety investigation, degrees in both marine and mechanical engineering and a Graduate Diploma in Business Management. Alex Talberg was a member of the Search Strategy Working Group that examined all the available information from the MH370 flight to determine the most likely location of the aircraft. Alex joined the ATSB in 2006 as an engineering graduate. He has worked as a technical investigator at the ATSB since then, specialising in the recovery and analysis of electronic data from damaged electronic devices.

Home flight simulator in MH370 captain's home plotted Indian Ocean course: JACC

Business | Thu Jul 28, 2016 4:12am EDT Related: World, Aerospace & Defense Home flight simulator in MH370 captain's home plotted Indian Ocean course: JACC SYDNEY | By Matt Siegel Member of staff at satellite communications company Inmarsat point to a section of the screen showing the southern Indian Ocean to the west of Australia, at their headquarters in London, Britain, March 25, 2014. REUTERS/FILE/Andrew Winning/File Photo Member of staff at satellite communications company Inmarsat point to a section of the screen showing the southern Indian Ocean to the west of Australia, at their headquarters in London, Britain, March 25, 2014. Reuters/FILE/Andrew Winning/File Photo A home flight simulator owned by the pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was used to plot a course to the southern Indian Ocean where the aircraft is believed to have gone missing, the Australian agency in charge of the search said on Thursday. But the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) said the presence of the simulator data did not prove that the pilot had intentionally crashed the Boeing Co. (BA.N) 777> plane. "The MH370 captain’s flight simulator showed someone had plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean," JACC said in an email to Reuters on Thursday. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads "The simulator information shows only the possibility of planning. It does not reveal what happened on the night of the aircraft’s disappearance, nor where the aircraft is located," it said in an earlier statement. The jetliner, with 239 aboard, disappeared in March 2014 while on a flight from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It has long been believed that the plane crashed into the ocean in the remote region plotted on the simulator. Almost A$180 million ($135.70 million) has been spent since then on an underwater search spanning 120,000 square kilometres (46,332 square miles) in the southern Indian Ocean. Several pieces of aircraft wreckage have washed up on beaches in Africa and been positively identified as coming from MH370 but they shed little light on the mystery. Since the crash there have been competing theories over whether one, both or no pilot was in control of the aircraft when it disappeared or whether it was hijacked. Adding to the mystery, investigators believe someone may have deliberately switched off the plane's transponder before diverting it thousands of kilometres (miles). Malaysian investigators said in 2015 there was nothing suspicious in the financial, medical or personal histories of pilots or crew. ($1 = 1.3264 Australian dollars) (Editing by Michael Perry)

MISSING MALAYSIAN PLANE: DEBRIS IN PHOTO BELONGS TO BOEING 777

WASHINGTON -- Air safety investigators have a "high degree of confidence" that a photo of aircraft debris found in the Indian Ocean is of a wing component unique to the Boeing 777, the same model as the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared last year, a U.S. official said Wednesday. Air safety investigators - one of them a Boeing investigator - have identified the component as a "flaperon" from the trailing edge of a 777 wing, the U.S. official said. A French official close to an investigation of the debris confirmed Wednesday that French law enforcement is on site to examine a piece of airplane wing found on the French island of Reunion, in the western Indian Ocean. A French television network was airing video from its Reunion affiliate of the debris. The U.S. and French officials spoke on condition that they not be named because they aren't authorized to speak publicly. At the United Nations, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters that he has sent a team to verify the identity of the plane wreckage. "Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can ever confirm that it is belonged to MH370," he said. If the debris turns out to be from Malaysia Airlines flight 370, it will be the first major break in the effort to discover what happened to the plane after it vanished on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board while traveling from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing. A massive multinational search effort of the South Indian Ocean, the China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand came up dry. A comprehensive report earlier this year into the plane's disappearance revealed that the battery of the locator beacon for the plane's flight data recorder had expired more than a year before the jet vanished. However, the report said the battery in the locator beacon of the cockpit voice recorder was working. Investigators hope that if they can locate the two recorders they can get to the bottom of what has become one of aviation's biggest mysteries. The unsuccessful search for Flight 370 has raised concern worldwide about whether airliners should be required to transmit their locations continually via satellite, especially when flying long distances over the ocean. Apart from the anomaly of the expired battery, the detailed report devoted page after page to describing a flight that started off completely normal. The 584-page report by a 19-member independent investigation group went into minute details about the crew's lives, including their medical and financial records and training. It also detailed the aircraft's service record, as well as the weather, communications systems and other aspects of the flight. Nothing unusual was revealed. The 777, first introduced into service in 1995, had had an enviable safety record up until Flight 370. The only prior fatal crash was of an Asiana Airlines flight while landing in San Francisco in 2013 that was later attributed by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to mistakes by the flight's pilots. Two passengers were killed in the crash and a third was run over by a truck. Four months after the disappearance of Flight 370, another Malaysia Airlines 777 was shot down over rebel-held portion of Eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 aboard.

Bad weather hampers search for AirAsia wreckage after debris, bodies found

Weather frustrates divers as more AirAsia wreckage found Sun, Jan 04 05:53 AM EST image 1 of 20 By Fergus Jensen and Fransiska Nangoy PANGKALAN BUN/SURABAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Divers tried to reach sunken wreckage from a crashed AirAsia passenger jet on Sunday but were forced to return to their ship by bad weather, as Indonesian officials said they had detected a fifth large underwater object believed to be part of the plane. Indonesia's meteorological agency has said seasonal tropical storms probably contributed to the crash, and the weather has persistently hampered efforts to recover bodies and find the black box flight recorders that may explain why the Airbus (AIR.PA) A320-200 plunged into the sea a week ago. "The weather is bad. There's a storm. It's windy," said a Reuters photographer on board a search and rescue ship in the search area off Borneo island. "Earlier, four divers were transferred to (Indonesian navy ship) KRI Banda Aceh but they canceled the diving because the sea currents were too strong." Flight QZ8501 crashed into the Java Sea last Sunday, about 40 minutes after taking off from Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya en route for Singapore. There were no survivors. Indonesian officials were hopeful of a breakthrough in the operation when they announced on Saturday that ships using sonar had pinpointed four large pieces of debris on the sea bed. The head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, told a news conference in Jakarta on Sunday that a fifth object almost 10 meters long had been found. But although nine ships from four countries have converged on the area, with teams of divers including seven Russian experts standing ready, winds and high waves have meant progress has been agonizingly slow. WEATHER LIKELY A FACTOR Air Force Lt Col Johnson Supriadi, speaking at a briefing for pilots in Pangkalan Bun, the southern Borneo town where the search operation is based, said efforts on Sunday would be divided between recovering bodies and locating wreckage and the all-important cockpit voice and flight data recorders. Until investigators can examine the recorders the cause of the crash remains unknown, but the area is known for intense seasonal storms. BMKG, Indonesia's meteorological agency, has said bad weather was likely a factor. "The flight document provided by the BMKG office shows fairly worrying weather conditions for the aircraft at cruising level on the chosen route," the agency said in a report. A source close to the investigation told Reuters that radar data appeared to show the aircraft made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the A320's limits. The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours on the A320 and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, according to Indonesia AirAsia, 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based AirAsia (AIRA.KL). SHALLOW WATER The objects that are the main focus of the search were located by ships about 90 nautical miles off the coast. The largest object is around 18 meters long. The suspected wreckage is lying in water around 30 meters (100 ft) deep, which experts say should make it relatively straightforward to recover if the rough weather abates. Efforts to capture images with remote operated vehicles (ROVs) were frustrated on Saturday by poor visibility. Thirty-one bodies of the mostly Indonesian passengers and crew have so far been recovered, including some still strapped in their seats. Many more may be still trapped in the fuselage of the aircraft. Nine Indonesian victims have been identified. The crash was the first fatal accident suffered by the AirAsia budget group, whose Indonesian affiliate flies from at least 15 destinations across the sprawling archipelago. The airline has come under pressure from Indonesian authorities, who have suspended its Surabaya to Singapore operations saying the carrier only had a license to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Indonesia AirAsia said it would co-operate with the transport ministry whilst it investigates the license. A joint statement from Singapore's civil aviation authority (CAAS) and Changi Airport Group said that AirAsia had the necessary approvals to operate a daily flight between Surabaya and Singapore. (Additional reporting by Beawiharta ABOARD KN PURWOREJO, Nilufar Rizki, Adriana Nina Kusuma, Chris Nusatya, Cindy Silviana, Kanupriya Kapoor, Michael Taylor, Charlotte Greenfield and Nicholas Owen in JAKARTA, and Anshuman Daga in SINGAPORE; Writing by Alex Richardson; Editing by Michael Perry & Kim Coghill) ================= Bodies, debris from missing AirAsia plane pulled from sea off Indonesia Tue, Dec 30 16:21 PM EST image 7 of 12 By Gayatri Suroyo and Adriana Nina Kusuma SURABAYA, Indonesia/JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo on Tuesday, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears. Indonesia AirAsia's Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic control early on Sunday during bad weather on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. The navy initially said 40 bodies had been recovered, although other media later quoted the head of the search and rescue agency, Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, as saying only three bodies had been retrieved. The plane has yet to be found. "My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501," airline boss Tony Fernandes tweeted. "On behalf of AirAsia, my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am." The airline said in a statement that it was inviting family members to Surabaya, "where a dedicated team of care providers will be assigned to each family to ensure that all of their needs are met". Pictures of floating bodies were broadcast on television and relatives of the missing already gathered at a crisis center in Surabaya wept with heads in their hands. Several people collapsed in grief and were helped away. Yohannes and his wife were at the center awaiting news of her brother, Herumanto Tanus, and two of his children who were on board the doomed flight. The Tanus family had been on their way to visit Herumanto's son, who studies in Singapore and who traveled to Surabaya on Monday after the plane went missing. "He cries every time he watches the news," Yohannes said. The mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, comforted relatives and urged them to be strong. "They are not ours, they belong to God," she said. SEARCHING THROUGH THE NIGHT A navy spokesman said a plane door, oxygen tanks and one body had been recovered and taken away by helicopter for tests. "The challenge is waves up to three metres high," Soelistyo told reporters, adding that the search operation would go on all night. He declined to answer questions on whether any survivors had been found. About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search. The plane, which did not issue a distress signal, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic, officials said. It was traveling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet, officials said earlier. Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area. The Indonesian pilot was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, the airline said. Online discussion among pilots has centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled. Investigators are focusing initially on whether the crew took too long to request permission to climb, or could have ascended on their own initiative earlier, said a source close to the probe, adding that poor weather could have played a part as well. He cautioned that the investigation was at an early stage and the black box flight recorders had yet to be recovered. CLUES WHEN THINGS GO WRONG The plane, whose engines were made by CFM International, co-owned by General Electric and Safran of France, lacked real-time engine diagnostics or monitoring, a GE spokesman said. Such systems are mainly used on long-haul flights and can provide clues to airlines and investigators when things go wrong. Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travelers across the region. Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. Bizarrely, an AirAsia plane from Manila skidded off and overshot the runway on landing at Kalibo in the central Philippines on Tuesday. No one was hurt. On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French. U.S. law enforcement and security officials said passenger and crew lists were being examined but nothing significant had turned up and the incident was regarded as an unexplained accident. Indonesia AirAsia is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia. The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002. (Additional reporting by Fergus Jensen, Wilda Asmarini, Charlotte Greenfield, Fransiska Nangoy, Cindy Silviana, Kanupriya Kapoor, Michael Taylor, Nilufar Rizki and Siva Govindasamy in JAKARTA/SURABAYA, Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah and Praveen Menon in KUALA LUMPUR, Saeed Azhar, Rujun Shen and Anshuman Daga in SINGAPORE, Jane Wardell in SYDNEY, Tim Hepher in PARIS and Mark Hosenball, David Brunnstrom and Lesley Wroughton in WASHINGTON; Writing by Dean Yates and Robert Birsel; Editing by Nick Macfie and Mike Collett-White)

Cost rows overshadow safety response to Malaysia jet disappearance

Sun, May 11 13:09 PM EDT image By Tim Hepher PARIS (Reuters) - The United Nations is leading a high-level effort this week to improve the way aircraft are tracked to address public concerns over the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet. But the official response to missing Flight MH370 and a similar event in 2009 has already been clouded by rows between planemakers, airlines and pilots about costs and surveillance, new documents show, raising questions about how fast regulators can act. Papers issued as a European agency toughened guidelines for black-box flight recorders last week show disputes about the economic and safety benefits, as manufacturers urged delay and pilots resisted pressure for more cockpit monitoring. The European consultation process on black-box design is the latest case study of the conflicting interests that can arise whenever aviation safety is discussed internationally. Experts say some of the same issues will be on regulators' minds when the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization meets this week to discuss flight tracking - an issue which has seen limited progress since the loss of Air France Flight 447 in 2009. Tracking and black-box recovery are inter-dependent because poor tracking can increase the time and costs for recovery. "Safety is not something you can argue against, but airlines have a healthy distrust of regulators and if they don't see the cost/benefit arguments that are put forward making sense, they will say so," said aviation safety consultant Paul Hayes. "On the other hand, the people who build equipment want to be certain there is market for it and they usually want a common standard to ... reduce their costs," said Hayes, director of safety at UK-based consultancy Flightglobal Ascend. A case in point is the European Aviation Safety Agency's proposal last week to increase the maximum amount of recording time on cockpit voice recorders to 20 hours from two hours. Flight MH370 is suspected of crashing in the Indian Ocean up to seven hours after it went missing on March 8, meaning it may never be possible to hear what happened at a crucial point. According to the documents, Airbus questioned why Europe should go out on a limb after the United States reaffirmed the two-hour rule four years earlier. It urged EASA to postpone until regulators could agree a common plan, expected in 2015/16. Rival Boeing raised concerns that disjointed regulations could impose "significant cost" for manufacturers and airlines. EASA responded its job was to uphold safety in Europe, not necessarily to fit in with decisions taken elsewhere. Asked about this, an Airbus spokesman said: "Our first priority is always safety. We continually make proposals to certification authorities to improve safety at a global level." A Boeing spokesman said: "Safety is always our number one priority and requires an industry-wide approach". PILOTS WORRIED The increased voice recording time, set at 15 hours and later raised to 20 hours, drew most criticism from the pilots. Some pilots have expressed concerns about recordings, saying they could be misused by employers, released without their permission or used in court without their permission. The European Cockpit Association (ECA), representing 38,000 pilots, told EASA the longer tapes would only worsen that risk. "We are the only occupation that allows its private conversations to be recorded. A surgeon in an operating theatre can make mistakes but will never allow conversations to be taped there," ECA association president Nico Voorbach told Reuters. "We want to help with investigations because it makes our passengers' and our own lives safer, but in the absence of stronger protections we question why we should have more of our privacy taken away." EASA said such misuse was rare in Europe. To the chagrin of pilots, the EU papers show the first signs that authorities and the industry are paying closer attention to the risk of misuse of systems by pilots. Malaysian investigators suspect someone shut off data links before taking the Boeing 777 off course with 239 people on board. Pilot advocacy groups say there is no evidence for this. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Australia's Qantas Airways both urged EASA to ensure a possible new system to locate planes in distress would be hard to turn off. EASA said MH370 had "highlighted that it was easy to de-activate the aircraft transponder" and disappear from radar. Airlines generally backed the longer cockpit recordings but queried other changes, while Danish regulators asked EASA to consider the cost to airlines. The International Air Transport Association said its airlines always work to prevent accidents. (Editing by Sophie Hares)

Passengers, crew on board missing Malaysia plane

By The Associated Press— Mar. 18, 2014 7:54 AM EDT You are hereHome » Mao Zedong » Passengers, crew on board missing Malaysia plane Read moreWhy Malaysia Airlines jet might have disappeared Vietnam says it may have found missing jet's door Share Tweet 0 inShare.Tumblr .... In this handout photo taken March 4, 2014 and provided March 18, 2014 by Daniel Liau, Chinese artist Wang Linshi, poses for a picture in front of pieces of his work on display at an exhibition of Chinese art in Kuala Lumpur, just days before he boarded Malaysia Airlines flight 370 to Beijing that has since gone missing. Wang, 69, worked for the Chinese government in the eastern city of Nanjing until he retired, but his passion was painting, according to son Wang Zhen. (AP Photo) In this photo taken March 4, 2014 and provided March 18, 2014 by Daniel Liau, Maimaitijiang Abula, an artist, poses for a picture in front of pieces of his work on display at an exhibition of Chinese art in Kuala Lumpur, just days before he boarded Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to Beijing that has since gone missing. Abula, a 34-year-old art teacher from China’s far west Xinjiang region, home to China’s Turkic-speaking Uighur ethnic minority, was abroad for the first time and part of the group of painters and calligraphers in Malaysia for an exhibition. (AP Photo) In this handout photo taken March 4, 2014 and provided March 18, 2014 by Daniel Liau, Chinese artist Meng Gaosheng poses in front of pieces of his work on display at an exhibition of Chinese art in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, just days before he boarded Malaysia Airlines flight 370 to Beijing that has since gone missing. Prize-winning calligrapher Meng Gaosheng, 64, was leading a delegation of two dozen artists to Malaysia for a three-day exhibition in Kuala Lumpur titled “The China Dream, An Ode to Colors.” (AP Photo) ..Prev1 of 3Next.By: The Associated Press (AP)Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. There were 12 crew and 227 passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that disappeared about 40 minutes into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8. They were from far-flung parts of the world: 14 nationalities that included New Zealanders, Iranians, Americans and Indonesians. Two thirds of the passengers were from China. These are the stories of some of those on board. — EXPERIENCED CAPTAIN The flight's pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and had more than 18,000 hours of flight experience. People who knew Zaharie from his involvement in opposition political circles in Malaysia and other areas of his life described him as sociable, humble, caring and dedicated to his job. His Facebook page showed an aviation enthusiast who built his own flight simulator at home and flew remote-controlled aircraft, posting pictures of his collection, which included a lightweight twin-engine helicopter and an amphibious aircraft. Born in northern Penang state, the captain and grandfather was an enthusiastic handyman and proud home cook. As part of what he called "community service," he had posted several YouTube videos including how to make air conditioners more efficient to cut electricity bills, how to waterproof window panes, and how to repair a refrigerator icemaker. "Likes" and other activity on Zaharie's YouTube account showed approval of atheist views, an unusual admission in predominantly Muslim Malaysia. — COCKPIT CONTROVERSY Described by the imam of his local mosque as a "good boy" and by neighbors as pious, co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid was dubbed a playboy by foreign media after the revelation he and another pilot invited two women boarding their aircraft to sit in the cockpit for an international flight in 2011. During the journey, the pilots smoked and flirted, one of the women, South African Jonti Roos, said in an interview broadcast by Australia's Nine Network. Fariq, 27, was filmed recently by a crew from "CNN Business Traveler," and reporter Richard Quest described the experience as a perfect landing of a Boeing 777-200, the same model as the plane that vanished. An online tribute page to the pilots shows a photo of Fariq in the cockpit with Quest, both smiling. Fariq, however, was new to the 777 and had 2,763 flight hours overall. Neighbor Ayop Jantan said he had heard that Fariq was engaged and planning his wedding. The eldest of five children, Fariq's professional achievements were a source of pride for his father, Ayop said. — DESTINATION NORTH KOREA Chemistry lecturer Kranti Shirsath was on her way to North Korea via Beijing to visit her husband Prahlad, who was close to completing a three-year contract with nonprofit group Concern Worldwide. She was planning to help him pack for the move home to India, where she lived with the couple's two sons in the western city of Pune. Over the past 17 years, the couple lived in many countries, including Afghanistan and Tajikistan, as Prahlad took assignments with different NGOs. But she stayed behind with the children when he took up the post in North Korea's capital Pyongyang. Prahlad was among family members who traveled to Kuala Lumpur after hearing that the plane had gone missing. After spending four fruitless days in Kuala Lumpur, Prahlad has returned to Pune to be with his sons. "Apart from no news of the aircraft, what is even more painful are the conspiracy theories," Prahlad Shirsath told reporters in Pune. — FETED CALLIGRAPHER Prize-winning calligrapher Meng Gaosheng, 64, was leading a delegation of two dozen artists to Malaysia for a three-day exhibition titled "The China Dream, An Ode to Colors." Meng's works are among the collections on display in major tourist spots in Beijing such as Mao Zedong's memorial hall and mausoleum and the Great Hall of the People. In Kuala Lumpur, Meng spent most of his time with the artists at the exhibition. On the day before their departure, however, the artists toured well-known sites in the city that included the royal palace and the Petronas Twin Towers, which are Malaysia's tallest buildings. According to Xu Lipu, an artist who was on the trip but took another flight back to China, Meng was a knowledgeable artist and was happy to share his thoughts on artistic theory with the others. Meng was always encouraging the other artists by praising them and their work, Xu said. — RETIRED CIVIL SERVANT, PASSIONATE ARTIST Wang Linshi, 69, worked for the Chinese government in the eastern city of Nanjing until he retired, but his passion was painting, in particular chickens and roosters, according to son Wang Zhen. The elder Wang was traveling with Meng Gaosheng's group. "I remember that when I was a child, my father raised chickens to watch how they behave in order to draw them," Wang Zhen said. Wang Linshi's wife Xiong Deming, 63, also traveled with the group. Wang Zhen described his mother as sweet and thoughtful, someone who was always looking out for him and was also kind to his new wife. Wang Zhen, an engineer, said that since he got married a year ago, his parents have made it their mission to encourage him and his wife to have a child. "They have wanted us to bear them a grandchild. They didn't care if the child was a boy or a girl, as long as they had a grandchild," said Wang. The last time he heard from his father was when they exchanged mobile text messages when his father was at Kuala Lumpur's international airport. Wang had messaged his father to ask him how things were going. "The trip was quite successful. We'll be back tomorrow evening. A bit too busy to talk now," was Wang's reply. — LAST WORK TRIP TO CHINA Philip Wood's family saw him in Texas before what was meant to be his last work trip to China as an executive for IBM. The 50-year-old Wood had recently earned his certification for scuba diving, one of the ways in which he satisfied his craving for adventure. Wood's family continues to track the twists and turns of the investigation at home in Keller, Texas, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth. His youngest brother, James, said on Monday that the family continues to pray, though they are realistic about Philip's chances. "Our faith isn't that he's going to come back home safe, even though that's what we're hoping for," James Wood said. "Our faith is everything is going to be OK." Wood had been working in Beijing for the past two years and was making his last work trip to China, via Kuala Lumpur. James Wood said his brother was an adventurous person who loved to travel and see new places, one of the things he loved about his job. He was divorced and has two grown children, one of whom attends Texas A&M University. "I can honestly say he's one person who's lived his life to the fullest," said James Wood. — FIRST TRIP ABROAD Maimaitijiang Abula, a 34-year-old art teacher from China's far west Xinjiang region, home to China's Turkic-speaking Uighur ethnic minority, was abroad for the first time and part of the group of painters and calligraphers in Malaysia for an exhibition. His close friend, Yimamu'aishanjiang, told the Chinese magazine Nanfang People Weekly that the artist had confided in him that he aspired to be a master at painting in the style of realism. Maimaitijiang was overjoyed by the accolades he received in Malaysia: he won an award, was interviewed by a Malaysian TV station and had one of his paintings curated by a gallery, the friend told the magazine. Another friend Aiyin Abudu told the magazine that Maimaitijiang began drawing at age 6 and wishes that "the whole world can know about Xinjiang through his works." Moments before he boarded flight 370, Maimaitijiang called his friend Yimamu'aishanjiang. "How are you guys?" Maimaitijiang asked. "We are all at the school, waiting for your return," the friend said. — NEW JOB IN MONGOLIA Paul Weeks, a 39-year-old mechanical engineer and New Zealand national was on his way to a new job in Mongolia. He planned to return as often as possible to his home in the Western Australia city of Perth, where he left his wife and two young sons. Before he left, he handed his wedding ring and watch to his wife, Danica, for safekeeping, and told her to pass it down to his two sons, 3-year-old Lincoln and 11-month-old Jack, should anything happen to him. Danica Weeks said Tuesday that she was "surviving," but was too upset to say anything further. In a Facebook post the day after the plane vanished, she wrote: "in a place I never wanted to be, trying to gather strength for my two beautiful boys, miss my darling with all my heart." Paul Weeks was interviewed by New Zealand's The Press newspaper in 2012 about his decision to move his family to Australia from the southern New Zealand city of Christchurch, which was devastated by an earthquake the previous year. "I consider our move to Australia to be one of necessity, rather than by choice, as we were content starting a family in Christchurch," Weeks told The Press. — AVIATION ENGINEER Mohamad Khairul Amri Selamat, 29, an aviation engineer with a private jet charter company and father of a 15-month-old daughter, was traveling to Beijing for work. His presence on the flight has drawn scrutiny after Malaysian authorities said they believed the plane's course change and the severing of automated communications were deliberate. Mohamed Khairul had recently moved into a new house in a suburb outside Kuala Lumpur and his family was planning to visit him this month when he returned from Beijing, said his father Selamat Omar. Khairul called his father on the evening of March 6 to let him know about the trip and ask about his health as Selamat said he is diabetic. "People can talk but I know my son. It is impossible for him to be involved in something like this," Selamat said. "I am praying hard that the plane didn't crash and he will be back soon." — ALWAYS CALLED TWICE Chandrika Sharma always called her mother twice before traveling. The first call is to tell her about the trip and to ask if she needed anything. The second call is to say she was at the airport and getting ready to fly. "This time too, Chandrika called me before leaving to remind me to take my medicines," said 88-year-old Shakuntala Sharma, recalling her last conversation with her daughter late on Mar. 7 before the flight took off. An NGO worker who was director of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, Chandrika was en route to Mongolia for a conference. Chandrika had always been concerned with the "poor and the powerless in society," her mother said She is married with a daughter, a university student studying in the Indian capital. Chandrika's husband, K.S. Narendran, a management consultant in Chennai, puzzled over how the plane could have simply vanished. "One is left with a creeping suspicion that there is more to it than what is being shared. And if that is the case, whose interests are being served?" ___ Associated Press researchers Fu Ting in Shanghai and Zhao Liang in Beijing and AP writers Gillian Wong and Didi Tang in Beijing, Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Nirmala George in New Delhi, Nomaan Merchant in Dallas, Stephen Wright in Bangkok and Jim Gomez and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia contributed.

Malaysian plane sent out engine data before vanishing: Lost Malaysian airliner may have run out of fuel over Indian Ocean: source

17:23 11 March 2014 by Paul Marks For similar stories, visit the Aviation Topic Guide The missing Malaysia Airlines jet sent at least two bursts of technical data back to the airline before it disappeared, New Scientist has learned. The data may help investigators understand what went wrong with the aircraft, no trace of which has yet been found. To aid maintenance, most airlines use the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which automatically collates and files four technical reports during every flight so that engineers can spot problems. These reports are sent via VHF radio or satellite at take-off, during the climb, at some point while cruising, and on landing. Malaysia Airlines has not revealed if it has learned anything from ACARS data, or if it has any. Its eleventh media statement since the plane disappeared said: "All Malaysia Airlines aircraft are equipped with… ACARS which transmits data automatically. Nevertheless, there were no distress calls and no information was relayed." This would suggest no concrete data is to hand. But New Scientist understands that the maker of the missing Boeing 777's Trent 800 engines, Rolls Royce, received two data reports from flight MH370 at its global engine health monitoring centre in Derby, UK, where it keeps real-time tabs on its engines in use. One was broadcast as MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the other during the 777's climb out towards Beijing. As the engine data is filtered from a larger ACARS report covering all the plane's critical flight systems and avionics, it could mean the airline has some useful clues about the condition of the aircraft prior to its disappearance. The plane does not appear to have been cruising long enough to issue any more ACARS reports. It disappeared from radar at 1.30 AM local time, halfway between Malaysia and Vietnam over the Gulf of Thailand. Under International Civil Aviation Organisation rules, such reports are normally kept secret until air investigators need them. Satellites deployed Meanwhile, the search for the airliner and the 239 people on board continues, with satellite technology being deployed. China has repurposed 10 satellites, some thought to have high-resolution imaging capabilities, to help the search effort, while other satellites are providing precision weather information to Chinese ships and aircraft involved in the search. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation, which watches out for nuclear weapons tests worldwide, looked at its data for the last few days to see if its infrasound – below the range of human hearing – recordings, normally used to seek out the muffled crump of underground tests, contained any signature of an aircraft explosion. But it found nothing. And an ambitious attempt to crowdsource the search has also taken off. Satellite imaging firm Digital Globe has divided up high-resolution images of the region of interest so that web users can scan them for signs of the plane. A similar crowdsourcing effort was organised by Amazon when pioneer aviator Steve Fossett disappeared in 2007. ====================================== REVEALED: Engine data indicates Malaysian plane flew four hours after disappearing By Tony Ortega Thursday, March 13, 2014 2:03 EDT Topics: Andy Pasztor ♦ Malaysia Airlines ♦ wall street journal Stunning new information is being reported by Andy Pasztor at the Wall Street Journal: the Boeing engines on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which went missing on Saturday automatically downloaded information several hours after the plane was last seen on radar, indicating that it flew on to an unknown location. After flying northeast on its scheduled path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the aircraft’s transponders stopped emitting signals about an hour into the flight, at 1:30 am, when the plane was still south of Vietnam. According to a Malaysian air force official, the plane then made a turn to the west and headed back over the Malaysian peninsula and over the Strait of Malacca. At that point, Malaysian radar lost sight of the plane at around 2:40 am. But now, American investigators and national security officials are saying that several hours after that last radar contact, the airplane’s Boeing engines automatically downloaded information as part of their normal operation, and that signal was picked up. Writes Pasztor: The engines’ onboard monitoring system is provided by their manufacturer, Rolls-Royce, and it periodically sends bursts of data about engine health, operations and aircraft movements to facilities on the ground. Rolls-Royce couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. As part of its maintenance agreements, Malaysia Airlines transmits its engine data live to Rolls-Royce for analysis. The system compiles data from inside the 777′s two Trent 800 engines and transmits snapshots of performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet. The engines communicate with the ground every half hour, and now U.S. investigators believe the engines indicated the plane may have been flying up to five hours after taking off from Malaysia. A total flight time of five hours after departing Kuala Lumpur means the Boeing 777 could have continued for an additional distance of about 2,200 nautical miles, reaching points as far as the Indian Ocean, the border of Pakistan or even the Arabian Sea, based on the jet’s cruising speed. If the plane flew that far without transponder signals or communication from the pilots, it suggests that MH370 may have been commandeered. “The latest revelations come as local media reported that Malaysian police visited the home of at least one of the two pilots,” Pasztor writes. Watch video about the transponder being shut off… ========================================== Mar 13, 2:07 AM EDT Malaysia: No debris at spot shown on China images By CHRIS BRUMMITT and JIM GOMEZ Associated Press AP Photo Buy AP Photo Reprints KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Planes sent Thursday to check the spot where Chinese satellite images showed possible debris from the missing Malaysian jetliner found nothing, Malaysia's civil aviation chief said, deflating the latest tantalizing lead in the six-day hunt. "There is nothing. We went there, there is nothing," Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters in Kuala Lumpur. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, reported that U.S. investigators suspect the plane flew on for four hours once it lost contact with air traffic controllers, based on data from the plane's engines that are automatically downloaded and transmitted to the ground as part of routine maintenance programs. The report raises questions as to why the Boeing 777 would have been flying without contact, and if anyone would have been in control during that time. U.S. counterterrorism officials are considering whether a pilot or someone else on board intentionally disabled the jetliner's transponders to avoid detection and divert it, the report said. The hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has been punctuated by false leads since it disappeared with 239 people aboard about an hour after leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early Saturday. The plane was heading northeast over the South China Sea when it disappeared, but authorities believe it may have turned back and headed into the upper reaches of the Strait of Malacca or beyond. Chinese satellite imagery showed possible debris is not far from where the last confirmed position of the plane was between Malaysia and Vietnam. The images and coordinates were posted on the website of China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. China's state Xinhua News Agency said the images from around 11 a.m. on Sunday appear to show "three suspected floating objects" of varying sizes in a 20-kilometer (12-mile) radius, the largest about 24-by-22 meters (79-by-72 feet) off the southern tip of Vietnam. Li Jiaxiang, chief of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said later China had yet to confirm any link between the suspected floating objects and the plane. Pham Quy Tieu, deputy transport minister, told The Associated Press that the area had been "searched thoroughly" by forces from other countries over the past few days. Doan Huu Gia, chief of air search and rescue coordination center, said Malaysian and Singaporean aircraft were scheduled to visit the area again Thursday. Malaysia has come under some criticism for its handling of the search, which currently covers 35,800 square miles (92,600 square kilometers) and involves 12 nations. Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources By Niluksi Koswanage and Siva Govindasamy KUALA LUMPUR Fri Mar 14, 2014 6:01am EDT The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Kidd and USS Pinckney are seen en transit in the Pacific Ocean in this U.S. Navy picture taken May 18, 2011. Kidd and Pinkney have been searching for the missing Malaysian airliner and are being re-deployed to the Strait of Malacca of Malaysia's west coast as new search areas are opened in the Indian Ocean, according to officials on March 13, 2014. Credit: Reuters/US Navy/Seaman Apprentice Carla Ocampo/Handout The search for Flight MH370 KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday. Analysis of the Malaysia data suggests the plane, with 239 people on board, diverted from its intended northeast route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and flew west instead, using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe, said sources familiar with investigations into the Boeing 777's disappearance. Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast. This indicates that it was either being flown by the pilots or someone with knowledge of those waypoints, the sources said. The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said. Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors. A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight. POSSIBLE SABOTAGE OR HIJACK "What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards," said that source, a senior Malaysian police official. All three sources declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media and due to the sensitivity of the investigation. Officials at Malaysia's Ministry of Transport, the official point of contact for information on the investigation, did not return calls seeking comment. Malaysian police have previously said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew had personal or psychological problems that might shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or mechanical failure. As a result of the new evidence, the sources said, multinational search efforts were being stepped up in the Andaman Sea and also the Indian Ocean. LAST SIGHTING In one of the most baffling mysteries in modern aviation, no trace of the plane nor any sign of wreckage has been found despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries. The last sighting of the aircraft on civilian radar screens came shortly before 1:30 a.m. Malaysian time last Saturday (1730 GMT Friday), less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur, as the plane flew northeast across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand. That put the plane on Malaysia's east coast. Malaysia's air force chief said on Wednesday an aircraft that could have been the missing plane was plotted on military radar at 2:15 a.m., 200 miles northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia's west coast. This position marks the limit of Malaysia's military radar in that part of the country, a fourth source familiar with the investigation told Reuters. When asked about the range of military radar at a news conference on Thursday, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said it was "a sensitive issue" that he was not going to reveal. "Even if it doesn't extend beyond that, we can get the co-operation of the neighboring countries," he said. The fact that the aircraft - if it was MH370 - had lost contact with air traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone on board had turned off its communication systems, the first two sources said. They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified aircraft was heading - following aviation corridors identified on maps used by pilots as N571 and P628. These routes are taken by commercial planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe and can be found in public documents issued by regional aviation authorities. In a far more detailed description of the military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, the first two sources said the last confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 90 miles off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a navigational waypoint called "Igari". The time was 1:21 a.m.. The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading towards a waypoint called "Vampi", northeast 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 northwest towards another waypoint called "Igrex", on route P628 that would take it over the Andaman Islands and which carriers use to fly towards Europe. The time was then 2:15 a.m. That is the same time given by the air force chief on Wednesday, who gave no information on that plane's possible direction. The sources said Malaysia was requesting raw radar data from neighbours Thailand, Indonesia and India, which has a naval base in the Andaman Islands. (Additional reporting by Christine Chan in Singapore. Writing by Alex Richardson: Editing by Dean Yates) Lost Malaysian airliner may have run out of fuel over Indian Ocean: source Reuters KUALA LUMPUR/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faint electronic signals sent to satellites from a missing Malaysian jetliner show it may have been flown thousands of miles off course before running out of fuel over Lost Malaysian airliner may have run out of fuel over Indian Ocean: source By Niluksi Koswanage and Mark Hosenball KUALA LUMPUR/WASHINGTON Fri Mar 14, 2014 10:54pm EDT 1 Comments inShare.3Share thisEmailPrint 2 of 10. Military officers Phung Truong Son (L), Vu Duc Long (C) and Pham Minh Tuan discuss a map of a search area before their departure to find the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, at a military More... Credit: REUTERS/Kham Related VideoMalaysia jet mystery – the clues Fri, Mar 14 2014Related NewsIndia scours jungle islands for lost Malaysian jetliner Fri, Mar 14 2014 Satellites scour earth for clues as Malaysia jet mystery deepens Fri, Mar 14 2014 Satellite data shows missing Malaysia plane may have flown thousands of miles: source Fri, Mar 14 2014Related TopicsWorld » Aerospace & Defense » KUALA LUMPUR/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faint electronic signals sent to satellites from a missing Malaysian jetliner show it may have been flown thousands of miles off course before running out of fuel over the Indian Ocean, a source familiar with official U.S. assessments said. Analysis in Malaysia and the United States of military radar tracking and pulses detected by satellites are starting to piece together an extraordinary picture of what may have happened to the plane after it lost contact with civilian air traffic. The fate of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, and the 239 passengers and crew aboard, has been shrouded in mystery since it vanished off Malaysia's east coast less than an hour into a March 8 scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Investigators are focusing increasingly on foul play, as evidence suggests the plane turned sharply west after its disappearance and - with its communications systems deliberately switched off - continued to fly for perhaps several hours. "What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards," said the source, a senior Malaysian police official. A U.S. source familiar with the investigation said there was also discussion within the U.S. government that the plane's disappearance might have involved an act of piracy. SATELLITE PULSES A source familiar with data the U.S. government is receiving from the investigation said the pulses sent to satellites were ambiguous and had been interpreted to provide two different analyses. The electronic signals were believed to have been transmitted for several hours after the plane flew out of radar range, said the source familiar with the data. The most likely possibility is that, after travelling northwest, the Boeing 777-200ER made a sharp turn to the south, over the Indian Ocean where officials think, based on the available data, it flew until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea, added the source. The other interpretation is that Flight MH370 continued to fly to the northwest and headed over Indian territory. The source added that it was believed unlikely the plane flew for any length of time over India because that country has strong air defense and radar coverage and that should have allowed authorities there to see the plane and intercept it. Either way, the analysis of satellite data appears to support the radar evidence outlined by sources familiar with the investigation in Malaysia. Two sources told Reuters that military radar data showed an unidentified aircraft that investigators suspect was Flight MH370 following a commonly used commercial, navigational route towards the Middle East and Europe. That course - headed into the Andaman Sea and towards the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean - could only have been set deliberately, either by flying the Boeing 777-200ER jet manually or by programming the auto-pilot. "NOT A NORMAL INVESTIGATION" The disappearance of the Boeing 777 - one of the safest commercial jets in service - is shaping into one of the most baffling mysteries in aviation history. It is extremely rare for a modern passenger aircraft to disappear once it has reached cruising altitude, as MH370 had. When that does happen, the debris from a crash is usually found close to its last known position relatively quickly. In this case, there has been no trace of the plane, nor any sign of wreckage, as the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries scour the seas on both sides of peninsular Malaysia. "A normal investigation becomes narrower with time ... as new information focuses the search, but this is not a normal investigation," Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference on Friday. "In this case, the information has forced us to look further and further afield." India has deployed ships, planes and helicopters from the remote, forested and mostly uninhabited Andaman and Nicobar Islands, at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. "This operation is like finding a needle in a haystack," said Harmeet Singh, spokesman for the armed forces in the islands. VAST INDIAN OCEAN Britain's Inmarsat said "routine, automated signals" from MH370 were seen on its satellite network during the plane's flight from Kuala Lumpur and had been shared with authorities, but gave no other details. If the jetliner did fly into the Indian Ocean, a vast expanse with depths of more than 7,000 meters (23,000 feet), the task faced by searchers would become dramatically more difficult. Winds and currents could shift any surface debris tens of nautical miles within hours. "Ships alone are not going to get you that coverage, helicopters are barely going to make a dent in it and only a few countries fly P-3s (long-range search aircraft)," William Marks, spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet, told Reuters. The U.S. Navy was sending an advanced P-8A Poseidon plane to help search the Strait of Malacca, a busy sealane separating the Malay peninsula from the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It had already deployed a Navy P-3 Orion aircraft to those waters. The last sighting of the aircraft on civilian radar screens came shortly before 1:30 a.m. last Saturday, less than an hour after take-off. It was flying across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand on the eastern side of Malaysia towards Vietnam. Malaysia's air force chief said on Wednesday that an aircraft that could have been the missing plane was plotted on military radar at 2:15 a.m., 200 miles northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia's west coast. This position marks the limit of Malaysia's military radar in that part of the country, another source familiar with the investigation told Reuters. (Additional reporting by Siva Govindasamy, Anshuman Daga, Yantoultra Ngui, Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah and Stuart Grudgings in Kuala Lumpur, Greg Torode in Hong Kong, Tim Hepher in Paris, Paul Sandle in London, Mark Hosenball, Andrea Shalal, Will Dunham, Phil Stewart and Roberta Rampton in Washington and Sanjib Kumar Roy in Port Blair, India; Writing by Alex Richardson and Dean Yates; Editing by Mark Bendeich) ========================== Indian Ocean poses daunting challenge in search for missing Malaysia plane Sat, Mar 15 23:07 PM EDT By Jane Wardell SYDNEY, March 16 (Reuters) - The southern Indian Ocean, where investigators suspect missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may have come down, is one place where a commercial airliner can crash without a ship spotting it, a radar plotting it or even a satellite picking it up. The empty expanse of water is one of the most remote places in the world and also one of the deepest, posing potentially enormous challenges for the international search effort now refocusing on the area, one of several possible crash sites. Even Australia, which has island territories in the Indian Ocean and sends rescue planes to pluck stricken yachtsmen from the cold, mountainous seas in the south from time to time, has no radar coverage much beyond its Indian Ocean coast. "In most of Western Australia and almost all of the Indian Ocean, there is almost no radar coverage," an Australian civil aviation authority source said, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the record. "If anything is more than 100 kilometres offshore, you don't see it." The Indian Ocean, the world's third largest, has an average depth of more than 12,000 feet, or two miles. That's deeper than the Atlantic where it took two years to find wreckage on the seabed from an Air France plane that vanished in 2009 even though floating debris quickly pointed to the crash site. So far, search operations by navies and aircraft from more than a dozen nations have failed to find even a trace of Flight MH370, which went missing a week ago after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing and diverting from its intended flight path. The search effort has focused mainly on the South China Sea but is now switching to the Indian Ocean after investigators, having pieced together radar and satellite tracking data, began to suspect the Boeing 777-200ER had been deliberately flown hundreds or possibly thousands of miles off course. Searchers still face a daunting array of possible last locations for the plane, including the northern end of the Indian Ocean as well as central Asia, though investigators say it is more likely to have flown to the south than through busier airspace to the north where it would likely have been detected. With an estimated four hours fuel left when last spotted by radar off Malaysia's northwest coast, the plane could have flown a further 2,200 miles (3,500 km) or so, assuming normal cruising speed and altitude. Officials think, based on the available data, the aircraft flew south until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea, according to a source familiar with data the U.S. government is receiving from the investigation. In the south, any debris from MH370 would have been widely dispersed by Indian Ocean currents in the week since it disappeared. SCATTERING OF ISLANDS The southern Indian Ocean, between Indonesia and Australia, is broken up only by the Australian territories of Christmas Island, home to asylum seeker detention facilities, and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands some 2,000 km (1,240 miles) northwest of Perth. The Cocos Islands have a small airport to serve the islands' combined population of just 3,000 people. Further south, the only habitation is the handful of research stations on the scattering of tiny French-run islands including Kerguelen - a group of volcanic outcrops between Africa, Australia and Antarctica. While home to several powerful astronomical scanners and radar, there is no airport and it is seen extremely unlikely the aircraft could have made it that far. The shipping route from Western Australia north to Asia and Europe is considered relatively quiet in global shipping terms, despite the large amount of iron ore and other resources that are shipped from Australia's northwest ports. Ships track north staying close in to the West Australian coastline and then head north through Indonesian waters into the South China Sea or northwest toward the Red Sea. Australia's civil aviation radar extends a maximum of just 200 nautical miles (410 km) off the coast, the civil aviation authority source said, and was used only for monitoring scheduled aircraft on approach into the country and subsequent landings. There are just two primary radars on the west Australian coast, one in Perth and one further north in Paraburdoo, which has even less range and is used to monitor mining traffic heading to the nearby Pilbara region. Australia's Civil Aviation Authority relies on aircraft ADSB (automatic dependent surveillance broadcast) to ping information to commercial satellites, such as telecoms firm Optus' four telecommunications satellites, and back to ground control. The source said that this was the case with flights by Emirates Airlines, which all fly over the Indian Ocean to Australia, but it did not provide a specific radar plot. Australia does not have any government satellites. The Australian military has an over-the-horizon radar network that allows it to observe all air and sea activity north of Australia for up to 3,000 km (1,860 miles). This encompasses all of Java, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. While the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) extends part-way across the northern Indian Ocean, government papers online describe it as a "tripwire" in Australia's northern surveillance system, helping underpin the defense of the country from any attack originating from the north. Local media have said its main use recently has been to track illegal immigrants approaching Australia by boat through the region's largely unguarded northern waters. The Australian Defence Force was not available for comment on Sunday. A potential crash site around 1,600 km (1,000 miles) northwest or west of the Australian coast would be well within the search and rescue area of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), one of the largest in the world. An AMSA spokesman said no request for assistance had been received from Malaysia as of Sunday. (Additional reporting by Morag Mackinnon in Perth and Peter Apps in London; Editing by Mark Bendeich, Lincoln Feast and Dean Yates) ============== 'Good night': Haunting final contact from missing Malaysian jet Sun, Mar 16 20:33 PM EDT 1 of 22 By Anshuman Daga, Niluksi Koswanage and Tim Hepher KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The last words from the cockpit of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 - "all right, good night" - were uttered after someone on board had already begun disabling one of the plane's automatic tracking systems, a senior Malaysian official said. Both the timing and informal nature of the phrase, spoken to air traffic controllers as the plane with 239 people aboard was leaving Malaysian-run airspace on a March 8 flight to Beijing, could further heighten suspicions of hijacking or sabotage. The sign-off came after one of the plane's data communication systems, which would have enabled it to be tracked beyond radar coverage, had been deliberately switched off, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Sunday. "The answer to your question is yes, it was disabled before," he told reporters when asked if the ACARS system - a maintenance computer that sends back data on the plane's status - had been deactivated before the voice sign-off. The pilot's informal hand-off went against standard radio procedures, which would have called for him to read back instructions for contacting the next control center and include the aircraft's call sign, said Hugh Dibley, a former British Airways pilot and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Investigators are likely to examine the recording for any signs of psychological stress and to determine his identity to confirm whether the flight deck had been taken over by hijackers or the pilot himself was involved, he said. Malaysian investigators are trawling through the backgrounds of the pilots, crew and ground staff who worked on the missing Boeing 777-200ER for clues as to why someone on board flew it perhaps thousands of miles off course. Background checks of passengers have drawn a blank but not every country whose nationals were on board has responded to requests for information, police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said. No trace of the plane has been found more than a week after it vanished but investigators believe it was diverted by someone with deep knowledge of the plane and commercial navigation. Malaysia briefed envoys from nearly two dozen nations and appealed for international help in the search for the plane along two arcs stretching from the shores of the Caspian Sea to the far south of the Indian Ocean. "The search area has been significantly expanded," Hishammuddin said. "From focusing mainly on shallow seas, we are now looking at large tracts of land, crossing 11 countries, as well as deep and remote oceans." The plane's disappearance has baffled investigators and aviation experts. It disappeared from civilian air traffic control screens off Malaysia's east coast less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. Malaysian authorities believe that, as the plane crossed the country's northeast coast and flew across the Gulf of Thailand, someone on board shut off its communications systems and turned sharply to the west. Electronic signals it continued to exchange periodically with satellites suggest it could have continued flying for nearly seven hours after flying out of range of Malaysian military radar off the northwest coast, heading towards India. The plane had enough fuel to fly for about seven-and-a-half to eight hours, Malaysia Airlines' Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said. Malaysian officials briefed ambassadors from 22 countries on the progress of the investigation and appealed for international cooperation, diplomats said on Sunday. PILOTS' HOMES SEARCHED On Saturday, police special branch officers searched the homes of the captain, 53-year-old Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and first officer, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid, in middle-class suburbs of Kuala Lumpur close to the international airport. An experienced pilot, Zaharie has been described by current and former co-workers as a flying enthusiast who spent his days off operating a life-sized flight simulator he had set up at home. Police chief Khalid said investigators had taken the flight simulator for examination by experts. Earlier, a senior police official said the flight simulator programs were closely examined, adding they appeared to be normal ones that allow players to practice flying and landing in different conditions. Police sources said they were looking at the personal, political and religious backgrounds of both pilots and the other crew members. Khalid said ground support staff who might have worked on the plane were also being investigated. A second senior police official told Reuters investigators had found no links between Zaharie, a father of three grown-up children and a grandfather, and any militant group. Postings on his Facebook page suggest the pilot was a politically active opponent of the coalition that has ruled Malaysia for the 57 years since independence. A day before the plane vanished, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to five years in prison, in a ruling his supporters and international human rights groups say was politically influenced. Asked if Zaharie's background as an opposition supporter was being examined, the first senior police officer would say only: "We need to cover all our bases." Malaysia Airlines has said it did not believe Zaharie would have sabotaged the plane and colleagues were incredulous. "Please, let them find the aircraft first. Zaharie is not suicidal, not a political fanatic as some foreign media are saying," a Malaysia Airlines pilot who is close to Zaharie told Reuters. "Is it wrong for anyone to have an opinion about politics?" Co-pilot Fariq was religious and serious about his career, family and friends said. The two pilots had not made any request to fly together. (Additional reporting by Anshuman Daga, Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah, Stuart Grudgings and Anuradha Raghu in Kuala Lumpur, Michael Martina in Beijing, Paul Sandle in London, Mark Hosenball in Washington, Sanjib Kumar Roy and Nita Bhalla in Port Blair, India, Sruthi Gottipati in Visakhapatnam, India, Frank Jack Daniel and Douglas Busvine in New Delhi, Jane Wardell in Sydney, John Irish in Paris, Jim Loney and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Writing by Alex Richardson and Frances Kerry; Editing by Rosalind Russell and Paul Tait)