Search for lost Malaysian jet shifts significantly after new lead

Reuters ^ | March 28, 2014 3:53am EDT | JANE WARDELL AND MICHAEL MARTINA

[blueplum]

(Additional reporting by Suilee Wee in Beijing, Niluksi Koswanage in Kuala Lumpur, Stanley White in Tokyo, Amy Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok and Lincoln Feast in Sydney; Editing by Dean Yates and Alex Richardson)

Sydney/Perth (Reuters) - An international air and sea taskforce hunting for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was re-directed on Friday to an area 1,100 km (685 miles) north of where they have been searching for more than a week, after Australian authorities received new radar information from Malaysia.

The new search area is larger, but closer to the Australian west coast city of Perth, allowing aircraft to spend longer on site by shortening travel times. It is also vastly more favorable in terms of the weather ... :snip:

Ten aircraft searching on Friday were immediately re-directed to the new area of 319,000 sq km (123,000 sq miles), roughly the size of Poland, around 1,850 km (1,150 miles) west of Perth. The Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation was also redirecting satellites there, AMSA said.

[Uncle Chip]

Airlines Flight MH370 was re-directed on Friday to an area 1,100 km (685 miles) north of where they have been searching for more than a week, after Australian authorities received new radar information from Malaysia.

Unbelievable that Malaysia has held onto this information for 3 weeks while they had it only hours after the crash and deceitfully led 14 nations on a wild goose chase in the South China Sea for a week.

[WildHighlander57]

Aurorales,
Good points.

All y’all, ping to this topic and post!

[Uncle Chip]

estimated route at faster airspeed

Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't that new search area be from an estimated route at SLOWER airspeed????

[FAA]

Works well for fiction and entertainment purposes but not for reality.

And that’s a big part of the deal here. Too many are ascribing fiction and movie plots to a scenario where glaring reality rule the day. We need it to be spectacular when it is not. We fill in the dark spots with our imagination. Whether or not it is realistic or plausible or likely it sates us.

[bert]

like i said, you haven’t read the book

[Uncle Chip]

The new flight route brings the flight route closer to Indonesia, Australia, and the Cocos where a bailout would have been more likely and more survivable.

[McGruff]

Aw Jeez. Not a new search site.

[FAA]

“like i said, you haven’t read the book”

Good Lord.

No I haven’t and I don’t need to to understand cold, hard reality. Reality may not be what we want it to be but it doesn’t require conspiracies or wild theories to get us to that point. Strange things happen. Things we can’t understand or rationalize personally. It doesn’t make them supernatural or without explanation or necessary of international intrigue.

[spodefly]

The new search area is larger, but closer to the Australian west coast city of Perth, allowing aircraft to spend longer on site by shortening travel times.

This makes it sound like the old joke about the lost keys ... "If you lost your keys over there, why are you searching here?" "Because the light is better here ... "

[SunkenCiv]

> was re-directed on Friday to an area 1,100 km (685 miles) north of where they have been searching for more than a week

Okay, consider what this means — the current developed narrative is that the pilot singlehandedly (or with the help of the copilot) disabled two different systems, *doing so at two different times, with no apparent reason for the delay*, then turned the plane west, then south, and flew it into the ocean after running it out of fuel, and without any interference from the rest of the flight crew, including flight attendants, and without any reaction from over 200 passengers.

The rest of the narrative is, the four passengers flying with stolen identities were just on the plane by coincidence. And the destruction of the plane wasn’t claimed as a terrorist act by anyone.

If the four were hijackers, they could have taken over the plane, but clearly they were able to successfully fly it — apart from flying in the wrong direction.

Until the carcass of the plane is found, the narrative is a steaming pile of offal.

Thanks blueplum.

[hoosiermama]

Is there a door from he cockpit?

[hoosiermama]

Or they are delaying any rescue till all have died. Remember the orange rectangle sighted by one of the first. The reported GPS and flare dropped. Nothing said about it again

[Uncle Chip]

He would use one toward the rear of the plane or cargo hole if bailing or coast the plane down in a controlled crash and swim away —

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yep. Here, there and everywhere. Meanwhile on a airstrip in Pakistan/Iran. :-)

[hoosiermama]

Would need to meet up with boat or be over land when he crossed back over the country

[null and void]

I don’t know how any terror organization benefits from stealing an airplane and then waiting weeks, months, years to use it for nefarious purposes while the international world searches for it in earnest. That’s not in their best interest. You hijack an airplane and use it immediately for your purposes before anyone has time to react. The more time you add the better the world is at preparing to defend itself against your intentions.

I don't either, BUT there is a valley of death, a time between too prompt to react, and long enough for your opponent to drop their guard.

On 9/11 God blessed the USA with a prompt response, both by the federal government who promptly, wisely and totally unexpectedly grounded everything and by the passengers on flight 93 who took their plane out of play.

There were reports (since vanished down the memory hole!) of several groups of swarthy young men simply walking away from their abruptly grounded flights and and luggage and melting away.

In the post 9/11 world, the immediate action window is minutes to hours.

What about the other wall? With hundreds of 777s flying every day, threat fatigue will set in in a matter of months.

If the nefarious ones dump bodies, luggage and seat cushions in the south India Ocean, the alert level drops precipitously.

Eliminating an existing flight and substituting the "vanished" airframe loaded with whatever evil (explosives, nerve gas, whatever) becomes a possibility.

We have a patient and determined foe. One who is capable of attempting to blow up the WTC and failing (in 1993, remember?) and continuing over nearly a decade to achieve that goal.

My bet is that we won't be the target, as obama is already actively working to support the most radical islamist side in any conflict.

My bet is the 777 will be modified as a dam buster and used on the Three Gorges Dam, as China is not showing proper obeisance to the uighurs...

[GOPJ]

I don’t know how any terror organization benefits from stealing an airplane and then waiting weeks, months, years to use it for nefarious purposes while the international world searches for it in earnest.

The 'wait' part could have to do with dry run stuff. I've watched some of this on TV and so far they've let out the codes for hijacking right on TV... and they've established the 'mistakes' the pilots made that called attention to them... Why do you think radical Muslims did dry runs before and after 9/11. These folks are NOT in a hurry...

[discostu]

Most plots that work in fiction don’t work in reality. Too many moving parts, too many complications, all of which make for wonderful suspense, but they don’t tend to make for plans that actually accomplish goals. Really if you’re a terrorist organization that wants a plane it’s quite simple: go to one of your rich benefactors, have them buy a plane from one of the many boneyards in the world preferably a non-American one with less paperwork, have them give you the plane, now do with it as you please quickly rendering it untraceable. Simple, straightforward, guaranteed successful, and horribly uninteresting as a plot for a book or movie.