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The four acoustic pings at the center of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 for the past seven weeks are no longer believed to have come from the plane's black boxes, a U.S. Navy official told CNN. The acknowledgment came Wednesday as searchers wrapped up the first phase of their effort, having scanned 329 square miles of southern Indian Ocean floor without finding any wreckage from the Boeing 777-200. Authorities now almost universally believe the pings did not come from the onboard data or cockpit voice recorders, but instead came from some other man-made source unrelated to the jetliner...

Audio recordings of the 'ping' signals believed to have come from the black box of Flight MH370 will now not be released as doubt grows over whether they are connected with the missing plane. The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) headed by Angus Houston told the Herald Sun that the search group's original confidence the four accoustic 'ping' signals were from the plane had waned and the recordings would not be made public. The decision is a blow to the families of some of the MH370 passengers who issued a plea earlier this month to make the recordings public. A...

Searchers Focus on April 5 Signals as Confidence Fades Over April 8 Detections Searchers preparing to resume the underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 increasingly suspect that some of the electronic signals detected last month didn't come from the jetliner's black-box flight recorders, a senior Australian naval officer said. The doubts—based on further acoustic analysis of the transmissions by Australian authorities over recent weeks—represent another potential setback in the two-month-old operation. An initial underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean has already failed to find any sign of the missing plane, while a costly air-and-ship search of the ocean's...

Apparent airplane debris found off the coast of Reunion island, a French department in the western Indian Ocean, is being examined to see if it is connected to the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a member of the French Air Force in Reunion said Wednesday. The debris was found off the coast of St. Andre, a community on the island, according to Adjutant Christian Retournat. “It is way too soon to say whether or not it is MH370. We just found the debris this morning,” Retournat said. He said the debris — what appears to be a wing...

A French aviation expert believes he may have found the wreckage of MH370 – the Malaysia Airlines flight which disappeared off the coast of Malaysia in March 2014. Xavier Tytelman, a former military pilot who now specialises in aviation security, was contacted on Wednesday morning by a man living on the island of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean. The man sent Mr Tytelman a series of photos showing wreckage of a plane, which the Frenchman said could possibly be the missing jet. "I've been studying hundreds of photos and speaking to colleagues," Mr Tytelman told The Telegraph. "And we all...

France's air crash investigation agency is studying a piece of plane debris found on Reunion Island off the east coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean for possible links to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, a spokesman said on Wednesday. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the part was almost certainly from a Boeing 777 but that it had not yet been established if it came from MH370. A U.S. official said air safety investigators had a "high degree of confidence" the debris was from the same model as MH370, the Associated Press reported. No trace has been...

MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT MH370 MISSING 36m Editor's note: Numerous tweets are noting the discovery of airline debris off the coast of La Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean and speculating about a possible link to the missing Malaysia jet MH370. Jon Ostrower, the Wall Street Journal’s aerospace reporter, says the debris appears to be an airline flap. - Tom The airline debris found on Reunion Island was discovered on the coast of St. Andrew by trail maintenance workers - @clicanoore read more on clicanoo.re MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT MH370 MISSING 9m Local report: Investigators say the debris found on Réunion Island...

Air safety investigators have a "high degree of confidence" that 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. Related Stories US official: Debris in photo belongs to Boeing 777 Associated Press Searcher says wing find won't change MH370 seabed search Associated Press Australia Official: Too Early to Say If Plane Debris from MH370 The Wall Street Journal Authorities study plane debris found off Madagascar for links to missing MH370 Reuters Investigators believe debris found...

Runway could be used for military purposes, US think tank says Johnson South Reef features a small port and two helipads. China has nearly finished building an airstrip that could be used for military purposes on one of its biggest artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea, according to satellite images released by a US think tank yesterday. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said images taken on June 28 by DigitalGlobe showed China had almost completed the construction of a 3,000-metre airstrip at Fiery Cross Reef, which China calls Yongshu Reef. The defence ministry refused to...

China has vowed to never back down from its aggressive territorial expansion into the South China Sea because it would shame their ancestors. What their ancestors would say about angering all their neighbors by building fake islands in the middle of the ocean is still unknown. China is locked in territorial conflicts with the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia over what amounts to $5 trillion dollars a year in shipping lanes. And sharing does not seem to be an option.

Washington’s failure in recent years to keep careful watch over what goods are made where — especially when it comes to such vital items as electronics and drugs — means the United States now depends far more on China than vice versa. Back in the 1990s, advocates of liberalizing U.S. trade with China said economic interdependence would inevitably lead to peaceful coexistence. But one-sided dependencies invite adventurism, as China’s growing belligerence today proves. Washington must now address the fundamental flaws in the international trade system that gave China such a big advantage. The White House claims the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership...

Last April, Chinese airplane manufacturer Shenyang Aircraft Corporation surprised military observers by test flying its new J-11D fighter jet, an upgraded version of the J-11, China’s indigenous copy of the Russian Su-27. The D-model J-11 is believed to include such advanced features as an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, a relocated infrared search and track (IRST) system, and the expanded use of composite materials to reduce the plane’s weight and radar signature. This first flight indicates that the J-11D is further along in its development cycle than many experts predicted and is poised to provide a new and deadly...

A Chinese admiral said on Sunday that Beijing could set up an air defense zone above disputed areas of the South China Sea if it felt it was facing a large enough threat, according to Chinese news media. Adm. Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, told a regional security forum in Singapore that China had not said it would defintely create a so-called air defense identification zone, but that any decision would be based on an aerial threat assessment and the general security situation. He also said other nations should not overemphasize the issue.

China’s ambassador to the U.S. warned Washington against “anti-China” alliances and a “Cold War mentality” as Beijing continued to ramp up its objections to U.S. military activity in the South China Sea in advance of a weekend meeting of defense chiefs from the U.S. and Asia.

US Republican Senator John McCain has called for the gradual removal of the country's lethal arms embargo on Vietnam "as soon as possible". Senator McCain made the remarks on Saturday (May 30) on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, arguing that Vietnam needs to be given the means to further deter "assertive behaviour" by Beijing in the South China Sea. "We'd like to see them have great capability, particularly with weapons that are defensive in nature, that could be used in the case of a crisis situation between Vietnam and China," he said.

Diplomatic tensions surrounding disputed territories in the South China Sea could escalate dramatically following reports China is now putting weapons on its artificial islands in the area. Australia’s defence force is considering joining the U.S. in flying and sailing “freedom of navigation” missions over the disputed territory, where China has been building islands by dragging sand from a reef and piling it up to create structures now being monitored by satellites. Fairfax Media reports the Australian fly-over expeditions may occur as a result of heightened concerns that China is enhancing its military capabilities and reach across the maritime expanse.

The power vacuum created by the Obama administration’s withdrawal from world leadership and resistance to tyranny is not only being filled by the Islamic State and its terrorist affiliates like Boko Haram and state sponsors of terror like soon-to-be nuclear Iran but also by an increasingly belligerent and resurgent China. China’s State Council, the Communist giant’s version of our cabinet, has issued a policy paper declaring that Beijing is facing “a grave and complex array of security threats” that forces it to switch its strategy from defense to offense and that as a result China will increase its “open seas...

After Chinese state media warned that war with the United States may be “inevitable,” Beijing has published a policy paper detailing how the military will shift its focus from land and coastlines to the open seas. China’s State Council released a white paper today that criticizes “external countries…busy meddling in South China Sea affairs” and sets out an “active defense” military strategy for the country. The paper comes a day after an editorial (link in Chinese) in the state-run Chinese tabloid Global Times said conflict between China and the US will be unavoidable if the Washington doesn’t lay off Beijing...

A Chinese state owned newspaper warns of a conflict with the US, unless Washington stops demanding that China halts land reclamation and construction projects in the South China Sea. The Global Times says ‘War is inevitable’ unless the US backs down on Chinese land reclamation and the consequent rights to territorial boundaries of such man made islands. The islands that are man-made are in disputed waters of several regional nations. Some of these nations have close ties with the United States. The US maintains that it is also maintaining the free passage of the waters of the South China Sea for all...

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told his Philippine counterpart on Wednesday that Washington's pledge to defend the Pacific nation remains "ironclad" and called for an end to land reclamation in the South China Sea, officials said. In talks in Hawaii with Voltaire Gazmin, Philippine secretary of national defense, the Pentagon chief "reaffirmed" the strong ties between the two countries and discussed territorial disputes in the contested waters of the South China Sea, where Beijing has been at loggerheads with the Philippines and other states in the region. Citing Washington's mutual defense treaty with Manila, Carter "stressed that the US commitment...