What really happened to MH370? All the theories about doomed plane’s final flight – World News – Mirror Online

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Almost five years ago today Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpa carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members.

Just 38 minutes after taking to the skies on its way to Beijing in China, the Boeing 777 lost contact with air traffic control as it flew over the South China Sea.

Minutes later the aircraft disappeared from air traffic control radar screens.

Military radar managed to track the flight, which had deviated massively from its flight path, for another hour.

But 200 miles into the journey, the plane copletely disappeared with all 239 people – including mothers, fathers and children – on onboard presumed dead.

The search for flight MH370 has been one of the most expensive in aviation history.

In the five years since the devastating tragedy just a few pieces of debris have washed up with the mystery of what happened to the plane still to be solved.

But what really happened on the doomed flight and where is the plane now?

Crashed in the Cambodian jungle

Independent aviation expert Daniel Boyer claims the plane came down in the middle of the Cambodian jungle.

Daniel came to his conclusion using Google maps and insists the blue marks on the images are MH370’s jet outer fuselage.

He was so confident that he had found thee xact crash site, he sent an expedition to where he believes the plane is about 60 miles west of Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh.

Daniel says the unit were unable to reach the crash sit because team members were at risk of dehdration or even death.

But he insists the mission wasn’t a waste as he claims the team chatted to locals who saw the jet and its “dragon-like emblem” as it fell from the sky.

Daniel told The Star: “I have been able to identify several parts from what could be the plane. The debris definitely needs to be investigated.”

Plane was shot down

Private investigator Noel O’Gara believes the plane was shot out of the sky by accident on the orders of the Malaysian government.

Noel, from Ireland, has spent the last four years looking into what happened on March 8, 2014.

He believes the plane is still lying at the bottom of the ocean but has not ruled out it being secretly removed by the Malaysian government.

The investigator says he has spoken to several eyewitnesses who saw the plane cash out of the sky.

Oil worker, Mike McKay, from New Zealand, says MH370 was travelling eastbound when it “sppeared as if on fire when it was hit by the sunlight from the east and then it fell away as it descended again.”

Latife Dalelah told Noel she thinks she saw the plane as she was flying home from a Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

She told the investigator she saw the plane on the sea.

A burning plane was also seen by Katherine Tee who was heading to Phuket in Thailand.

And Malaysian fisherman are also said to have told Noel they saw the wreckage of a burning plane hit the sea off Kota Bharu.

Noel now believes MH370 was shot down by fighter pilots, convicted it had been hijacked by terrorists.

Nowhere near official search site

A satellite engineer claims to have found the flight – and it’s nowhere near the official search site.

Yao Ming, who is studying satellite engineering at Stanford University in the US, believes the plane crshed just off the eastern coast of Vietnam,

He told the Daily Express : “One very possible outcome which has been instantly disregarded are the coordinates off the Vietnamese coast where MH370 was apparently tracked.”

Yao has said he used algebra to determine where the plane is most likely to have gone down.

But his theory goes against the report from the official investigation, which said the plane didn’t make it as far as that location.

Murder/suicide theory

Canadian aviation expert, Larry Vance, isists the plane was crashed deliberately.

Larry claims he is “certain” that either Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah or co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid stole the plane in what he termed a “criminal event”.

Vance, formerly of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, told CBC News: “It’s not an accident. This was planned and conducted, carried out by one individual who had control of the aeroplane via his job to have control of the plane.”

He claimed that the pilot or co-pilot made the decision “to take it to a remote part of the ocean and make it disappear forever”.

But his theory has been dismissed by those linked to the case.

Sound waves show where plane is

British mathematician, Dr Usama Kadri, a professor at Cardiff University, believes the plane either crahsed a few hundre miles off the coast of Madagascar, or further north in the India Ocean.

Neither places are areas where searches have been carried out.

Using data from the hydrocaustic microphones aboard the aircraft, Kadri believes he’s managed to pick up sound waves made by the plane’s impact from beneath the water.

The results could also indicate MH370 deviated from its designated flight path, but the professor said that 25 minutes of recordings from the microphones have mysteriously disappeared.

The waves, Kadri says, carry “vital information on the source of impact, before dissipating.”

When MH370 crashed into the Indian Ocean, three underwater ‘hydrophones’ were active onboard.

One of the microphones, called HA08s, is currently being held at Diego Gracia, a US bomber base in Chagos Archipelago.

It’s this missing data from this microphone that Kadri believes holds the key to solving the mystery.

MH370 is in key ‘unsearched’ location

It has been widely accepted that the plane is somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

But one author, who has written about the disaster, says he believes the jet could be in Kazakhstan, an area that has not been searched.

Jeff Wise, who wrote The Plane That Wasn’t There, said: “f the plane went north, hijackers might have landed in some remote location and the passengers could still be alive.

“If the plane went south, the only destination was a watery grave.

“But of yet there was no clear way to distinguish between the two options.”

It can be seen underwater

One conspiracy theorist believes he has found an image of the plane underwater off the coast of Padang, Indonesia.

The location is around an hour’s flight from where MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in March 2014.

The post’s unnamed author, publishing on worldpronews.com , said the plane could be underwater and, therefore, could be MH370.

However, he could not rule out the possibility of it simply being another plane coming in to land above the water.

The conspiracy theorist wrote: “Just putting this out there, what if this was the MH370 after all this time?

“Some will say it’s just an aircraft coming in for landing caught on satellite, some may say this is just a bogus post.

“But just imagine the aircraft came in for a slow soft water landing, in calm waters which is below the radar and they knew it was there for a rescue job.

“If you do a calculation of its size via google tools, its about 12 to 15m long on top of the water.

“I am not too sure for the formula to calculate its size say at 15-20m depth of water. Someone may know it.”

Huge cargo of lithium batteries on board

The official report confirmed that there was a huge haul of lithium batteries being carried below deck on the doomed flight.

It had long been speculated the consignment of lithium batteries below deck could have been responsible for a fatal fire on board.

The lithium ion batteries had been manufactured and packed in Penang, north-west Malaysia – and they were too big to fit through X-ray machines installed at Kuala Lumpar at the time.

Investigators eventually concluded it was “highly improbable” the batteries brought down the plane, but the report reveals crucial new detail about the unusual cargo.

The batteries did NOT undergo security screening at the factory, although they were inspected by customs officials.

And the 7.4-volt batteries were loaded onto flight MH370 without going through any screening because Kuala Lumpar airport did not have X-ray scanners big enough.

Larger scanners were installed in the months after the tragedy.

Plane turned round and could have been hijacked

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Instead of going straight to Bejing the plane “made a right turn then a left turn and went in a south-westerly direction”, according to the official report.

Investigators confirmed the turn-back was because of “manual control” and not down to the mechanical systems.

Lead investigator Kok Soo Chon said: “”We cannot establish if the aircraft was flown by anyone other than the pilot, but we cannot exclude the possibility of unlawful interference by a third party.”

He stressed there was no evidence it had been hijacked.

The CIA know where MH370 is

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad believes the CIA know the location of the missing plane.

In a blog he claimed that: “Clearly Boeing and certain agencies have the capacity to take over uninterruptible control of commercial airliners of which MH370 B777 is one.

“Someone is hiding something. It is not fair that MAS and Malaysia should take the blame.”

The 88-year-old claimed in the post, back in 2015, that if the plane had been hijacked control could have been taken back remotely.

Did it land on a US military base?

There have been persistent rumours that MH370 landed on the remote US air base in Diego Garcia.

America has repeatedly denied this is the case.

Alien abduction

Social media conspiracy theorists were soon claiming the plane and all on board were the victims of an alien abduction.

It was hijacked remotely

Historian Norman Davies believes tech developed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks could have been used to hijack the plane.

Developed to prevent another atrocity, he claims the technology could have been used to cyber hijack the plane.

Norman told The Sunday Times that MH370 could have been carrying sensitive Chinese information.

He added: “There are reports that the cargo detailed in the manifest didn’t add up. I don’t know what it might have been carrying but it may have been carrying something somebody didn’t want to get to China.”

Russia knows where the plane is

One of the volunteer investigators probing what happened to MH370 claims Russian President Vladimir Putin knows eactly what happened to the aircraft.

Andre Milne says Putin knew then plane had landed in the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean and that the wreckage had been seen by Russian satallites.

He told the Daily Star: “The reason President Putin did not raise his hand and march in and say we found it is because technically he would have been admitting committing espionage.”

Extra passenger

Could a mystery passenger have taken control of MH370 and downed it into the sea?

It has been claimed there were officially 226 passengers on board and 12 crew, and yet 239 people are presumed dead.

Andre said: “The extra passenger likely acted in conjunction with larger external operational support to take full command and control of the cockpit of MH370.”

But the official investigation insists there was simply an error with the number of passengers and there were actually 227 on board.

Fault with the plane

The US aviation watchdog had flagged problems with Boeing 777 six months before MH370 went missing.

They claimed the faults could cause a catastrophic drop in pressure or even break up mid-air.

Just two days before MH370 vanished the Fedral Aviation Administration issued a final warning when a 15-inch crack was found in the fuselage of one of the jets.

Another ‘Bermuda Triangle’

Conspiracy theorists have raised the point that the area MH370 is believed to have vanished from is on the exact opposite side of the world to the Bermuda Triangle

However, this isn’t quite right.

The exact opposite would be much closer to the Caribbean rather than Bermuda.

‘Word’s greatest mystery’ theory

Ex Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, claimed on the third anniversary of the tragedy that that pilot had simply wanted to create “the world’s grestest mystery”.

He said: “”I have always said the most plausible scenario was murder-suicide and if this guy wanted to create the world’s greatest mystery why wouldn’t he have piloted the thing to the very end and gone further south?

“Then there was the analysis that suggested there might be a prospective plac

A murder/suicide had been ruled out early in the investigation but investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas does not agree with this.

He claims part of a wing found on Reunion Island could only have been in the position it was if the pilot had been operating the plane when it went down.

North Korea is to blame

A few people have claimed North Korea is the “missing link” in what happened to MH370.

The country is one of the most secretive in the world.

There have been claims that just three days before MH370 vnished a Chinese plane was reportedly passing through the trajectory of a North Korean missile just seven minutes after it was fired.

Murdered diplomat

The Honorary Malaysian Consul in Madagascar Zahid Raza, who had spent years investigating what happened to MH370, was shot dead in Madagascar in 2017.

People working with him on the investigation claimed he had received death threats and seemed to have been deliberately taregted.

Official report

The team has been unable to say categorically what happened to flight MH370.

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Despite the full wreckage never being found, damage examination indicates the plane was “not configured to land”, suggesting no-one was in control of the jet during its final moments.

Three pieces of wreckage believed to be from MH370 have been found from as far north as Tanzania and as far south as South Africa.

Painfully for the families, the report offers little closure, concluding: “In conclusion, the team is unable to determine the real cause for the disappearance of MH370.”

The tragic reality is without finding the complete wreckage of the plane, investigators say it is impossible ever to know exactly what became of it.

MoviePass competitor Sinemia is asking for tips of $1, $2, or $5, even as it faces criticism for a spree of account terminations

MoviePass competitor Sinemia is asking some subscribers to tip it, suggesting $1, $2, or $5.
The function is still in the “testing phase,” Sinemia told Business Insider in a statement.
More than 50 users who had their accounts recently terminated have contacted Business Insider in the past week, claiming their accounts were unfairly canceled.
Two subscribers said they were asked to tip Sinemia but declined, then saw their accounts canceled shortly after.

MoviePass competitor Sinemia is now asking some subscribers to tip the service even as it faces criticism from people who say their accounts were unfairly terminated in the last few days.

Over the past week, the movie-ticket subscription service has been on an account cancellation spree. In a statement to Business Insider on Monday, Sinemia claimed that the users it terminated had engaged in “fraudulent activity.” According to emails viewed by Business Insider, Sinemia offered some of those subscribers partial refunds “based on the difference between your payments to Sinemia and the cost of your ticket purchases.”

But many subscribers expressed bewilderment by Sinemia’s actions and contend they did nothing to warrant getting booted from the service. More than 50 former Sinemia subscribers who had their accounts recently canceled contacted Business Insider in the past week, many of them claiming they had not violated the app’s terms of service.

Even as this purge is happening, Sinemia has started to ask some users for tips, suggesting $1, $2, or $5.

“The ‘tip’ function is still in the testing phase for a limited number of users,” Sinemia said in a statement to Business Insider. “This feature may help us to cover the cost of processing fees without passing it to the users. While our users have voluntarily been very generous, we’re still evaluating the results before moving forward.”

Here’s a screenshot of what the tip function looks like:

Two subscribers told Business Insider they’d had a particularly bizarre experience with the tipping function. Both said the app had asked them if they wanted to tip Sinemia. They declined. Shortly after, they found their accounts terminated. Both claimed they hadn’t violated the app’s terms of service.

MH370: Final 12 minutes of doomed flight that killed 239 people ‘revealed’ – World News – Mirror Online

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The MH370 plane crash disaster was caused by a rapid on-board fire which decimated the aircraft, according to a new book on the tragedy.

Journalist Ean Higgins has spent years investigating the mystery of MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014 – with all 239 on board presumed dead.

He believes that an on-board fire in the cockpit of the Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing meant it lost cabin pressure and became uncontrollable.

In ‘The Hunt for MH370’, Ean supposes that 40 minutes into the flight the left, pilot-side windshield heater caught fire, burning out some circuits – including that of the secondary radar transponder and ACARS system.

The pilots, reacting to the incident, turned off the left electrical AC bus to cut power to the short-circuiting heater, an extract from the new book says on news.com.au.

But they then inadvertently turned off the satellite data unit that makes the electronic handshakes with Inmarsat.

With 27-year-old First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid controlling the aircraft, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, fought the fire with an extinguisher – both waiting until the crisis was under control before making a radio distress call.

Pilots, writes Ean, are trained that radio communication is the third priority in such an in-flight emergency, after flying the aircraft and setting a heading to the nearest suitable airport.

The drill is ‘aviate, navigate, communicate’, and Fariq made sure he had control of the aircraft by making a short initial turn right, then quickly turning back towards Malaysia and setting the autopilot on course for Kota Bharu.

Ean believes that Zaharie then accidentally pulled the tube from his oxygen mask out of its socket and the flammable gas was dumped into the cockpit, creating a violent fire impossible to control.

Zaharie managed to make it out of the cockpit alive, but badly burnt. Fariq, strapped in, died.

But the emergency soon escalated, Ean believes, with the fire weakening the bottom of the windshield and dislodging it.

Air rushes out of the cockpit and the fire is put out – but the aircraft has suffered major decompression.

Oxygen masks drop for passengers, which provide about 12 minutes of breathable air – not quite enough time for the aircraft to get over Kota Bharu and enable them to make a mobile phone call.

Once the fire was out Zaharie returned to the cockpit, but the blaze had partly, but not completely, gutted the flight deck, the book supposes.

Some elements, including the radio, satellite phone and ACARS system, had melted, cutting off all forms of communication.

A badly-injured Zaharie – returning for brief periods to the freezing cockpit – tries to regain control of the aircraft, with the aid of the flight attendant.

Ge turned the left electrical AC bus back on, re-powering the satellite data unit and the flight management system was intact enough to set new headings, although the fire had knocked out the auto-throttle so could not descend.

A Chinese relative of a missing passenger on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 weeps outside the main gate of the Lama Temple in Beijing

As MH370 flew over Penang it turned northwest up the Straits of Malacca, away from built-up areas.

But soon, with his own and his assistant’s portable oxygen tanks running out, and all the passengers and the rest of the cabin crew either comatose or dead, Zaharie accepted the plane could not be saved.

Zaharie turned the autopilot to a southerly heading, pointing the aircraft to nowhere in the southern Indian Ocean and soon MH370 became a ghost flight, exactly as the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said.

It crashed into the ocean, all on board killed.

Ean says the theory was put to him by a former RAAF supply officer, retired logistics manager with Ansett, and a private pilot and amateur aviation sleuth, Mick Gilbert.

And ‘The Hunt for MH370’ deals with the mystery of why the satellite data unit was turned off for a time, then came back on.

There are plenty of precedents for on-board fires.

Swissair Flight 111 came down in 1998 off the coast of Nova Scotia as a result of a rapidly-spreading fire started by an electrical short circuit, killing 229 people.

The one which Gilbert focused on was EgyptAir Flight 667, an accident involving a Boeing 777 in Cairo in 2011.

The aircraft was still on the ground at the time, rather than in the air on the way to its scheduled destination of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

As the crew were waiting for a late passenger, an oxygen fire, the result of a suspected electrical fault, broke out and spread quickly from a rupture in the tube to the first officer’s oxygen mask.

The blaze melted many, but not all, control features in the cockpit.

The captain ordered the first officer to leave the cockpit and evacuate the passengers while he fought the fire with an extinguisher, but the damage was extensive.

Photos of the EgyptAir Flight 667 cockpit, showing the blackened features from the oxygen fire with some communications and navigation equipment melted, but others not.

The Hunt for M370 by Ean Higgins (Pan Macmillan Australia $32.99) was published on February 26.

Five years on, Malaysia open to proposals to resume hunt for missing flight MH370

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March 3, 2019, 10:29 AM GMT

By Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s transport minister said Sunday that the government is open to new proposals from U.S. technology firm Ocean Infinity or any other companies to resume the hunt for Flight 370, as families of passengers marked the fifth anniversary of the jet’s mysterious disappearance.

Ocean Infinity mounted a “no cure, no fee” search for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean in January 2018 that ended in May without any clue on where it could have crashed.

But the company’s CEO, Oliver Plunkett, said in a video shown at the public remembrance event at a mall near Kuala Lumpur that the company hopes to resume the hunt with better technology it obtained in the past year.

MH370 mystery: Investigators can’t rule out ‘unlawful interference by a third party’

The Ocean Infinity mission came a year after an official search by Malaysia, Australia and China ended in futility.

Plunkett said his company has better technology now after successfully locating an Argentinian submarine in November, a year after it went missing. He said the firm is still reviewing all possible data on Flight 370 and thinking about how it can revive its failed mission.

“We haven’t given up hope. … We hope we can continue the search in due course,” Plunkett said.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke said it’s been frustrating that the two searches failed to produce any clues and that he “welcomes credible leads and also concrete proposals to resume the search.”

He told reporters later Sunday that the government is “waiting for specific proposals, in particular from Ocean Infinity.” He brushed off suggestions of offering rewards to find the plane, but said the government is willing to discuss proposals from any companies prepared to resume the search.

“There must be a proposal from a specific company … we cannot just be out there without credible leads. That’s the most practical thing to do,” Loke said.

The plane vanished with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Confirmed debris that washed ashore in the western Indian Ocean helped narrow the search area where Ocean Infinity focused, but it failed to uncover any evidence.

A Malaysian-led independent investigation report released last July showed lapses in the government’s response and raised the possibility of “intervention by a third party.”

Investigators, however, said the cause of the disappearance cannot be determined until the wreckage and the plane’s black boxes are found. The report reiterated Malaysia’s assertion that the plane was deliberately diverted and flown for over seven hours after severing communications.

But it said there was no evidence of abnormal behavior or stress in the two pilots that could lead them to hijack the plane. All the other passengers were also cleared by police and had no pilot training.

Voice 370, a support group for next-of-kin, expressed hope that the new government that won a general election in May last year will do more to encourage search missions and seek new clues.

The group’s spokeswoman, Grace Nathan, urged the government to set aside up to $70 million — the amount it agreed to pay Ocean Infinity had it found the plane — to encourage exploration companies to take on “no cure, no fee” missions so that Flight 370’s passengers will not have died in vain.

“It is a wound that cannot heal” if there is no closure, Nathan said.

During the remembrance event, family members lit candles and sang songs in tribute to their loved ones.

Relatives and supporters wore light blue T-shirts that read, “It’s not history, it’s the future. Fly safely,” as they reminded the government that the mystery must be solved to ensure aviation safety.

Associated Press

Bizarre theories behind MH370’s disappearance cause grief for victims’ families | PerthNow

Five years since MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew, relatives and loved ones of those lost are bombarded almost daily with farcical claims, stupid theories, and rumours that are tearing at their hearts.

Fuelling many of the ridiculous claims are the 105 books published on the loss of the Boeing 777 on March 8, 2014, and the publicity surrounding the “latest book” launch.

It seems incredible that there so many written about a plane we haven’t found.

Titles include Someone is Hiding Something, MH370 the Secret Files, Goodnight MH370, MH370 Lost in the Dark, Into Oblivion MH370, Life After MH370, The Crash of MH370, MH370 We Know Where You Are, The Plane That Never Was, MH370 The Truth, Putin and MH370/MH17, Into Thin Air, Flight 370, Flight MH370 Mystery Plane. And the list goes on and on.

Many of the books make claims such as “Mystery Solved”, or “The Truth” and even “Eye Witness”. Others go further: “Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 – Why it disappeared – and why it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.”

One of the most bizarre claims surfaced late last year that “MH370 is in the jungle in Cambodia.”

That bizarre story for some inexplicable reason gained traction around the globe on reputable websites which gave it “some credibility”.

It revolved around “aviation expert” Ian Wilson who claimed he located the Boeing 777-200 on Google Maps and was going to conduct a ground search of the mountainous area west of Phnom Penh.

He was going to reach the location by end of October but later couldn’t get there because local workers cutting down forest would kill him.

The fact that there is no tree felling anywhere near the alleged crash site was lost on most media.

But regardless anyone in aviation would know that the image shown was a fake. No plane crashes into a mountainous region like that suggested and remains that intact. If the land was swampy and flat it may remain somewhat intact – but the location is neither.

All this coverage did was to traumatize the loved ones left behind. Incredibly, the Chinese took this seriously and had one of their satellites investigate the claim – but found nothing.

Space View said in a tweet: “Stakeholders and bystanders plead Space View to shoot at the site. So, we found out three images, shot in 2015, 2016 and 2018 from our archive. Sorry, no plane found there.”

The relatives and loved ones of the passengers of MH370 are traumatized by the endless speculation fuelled mainly by UK tabloids and their associated websites.

There seems to be no end to what they will publish to gain views and every week a new theory pops up from yet another aviation expert.

Adding to the grief many current affairs programs make outlandish claims of new evidence which turn out to be four-year-old theories that were disproved at the time.

The conspiracy theories, of course, have their roots in the incredible bungling by some Malaysian authorities when MH370 was lost.

Instead of one spokesperson, there were dozens of ill-informed politicians, bureaucrats and military people giving an hourly commentary – some times on Twitter.

Most of what was uttered was wrong and the fact that not all information has been released has added to the confusion and claims of a cover-up.

The loss of MH370 is a terrible tragedy – a tragedy that continues to play out every day for those left behind. Malaysia’s apparent indifference to finding the B777 and thus the truth just fuels the pain.

Five years on: relatives gathered for MH370 remembrance say the search must continue

Next of kin of passengers and crew who were on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 gathered in Kuala Lumpur yesterday (Sunday) for a remembrance event to mark the upcoming five-year anniversary of the disappearance of the plane with 239 people on board. They called for the search to go on.

“It’s not history, it’s the future,” was the message conveyed by the organisers, the family support group Voice370.

“It is an occasion to recall and pay tribute to those passengers who are still missing, to thank those who have persevered in supporting the search efforts, and to remind the public that finding the missing plane is a critical step to enhance further civil aviation safety.”

MH370 vanished on March 8, 2014. It was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Grace Subathirai Nathan, whose mother Anne Daisy was on board the missing plane, said the next of kin were imploring the Malaysian government to set funds aside to encourage “no cure, no fee” searches for the plane.

They could, the next of kin suggest, set aside the US$70 million pledged last year as a possible payment to the American private seabed exploration company Ocean Infinity for finding MH370.

Ocean Infinity, Nathan said, want to search again for MH370 on a “no cure, no fee” basis.

Last year, Ocean Infinity searched, and collected data, from an area spanning some 125,000 square kilometres of the southern Indian Ocean, but failed to find MH370.

“If companies like Ocean Infinity want to propose to search for the plane at no cost to the government, we believe this is an offer that the government should take up,” Nathan said.

The CEO of Ocean Infinity, Oliver Plunkett, communicating via a video from the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, spoke about the sense of expectation, excitement and optimism felt at Ocean Infinity when it was out in the southern Indian Ocean searching for MH370.

“I also remember very clearly the massive sense of disappointment at the end in June when we finished, not having found it.

“We haven’t given up hope. We haven’t stopped thinking about it. It is absolutely our intention, if we can, to return to the search.”

Over time, Ocean Infinity had really proven its technology, Plunkett said. “Our operation is far, far stronger than it was 12 months ago.”

The disappearance of MH370 was a mystery that the entire world wanted to know the answer to.

Malaysia’s transport minister, Anthony Loke Siew Fook, told reporters yesterday that if Ocean Infinity came back with a fresh proposal the Malaysian government was ready to enter discussions with them.

Loke said the Malaysian government had not yet received a new proposal from Ocean Infinity.

He said that funds could not be set aside if a proposal had not yet been made.

“Once we have the proposal then we can talk about that. Right now we cannot be setting aside a fund. There’s no specific proposal.”

He added: “As the Ocean Infinity CEO has mentioned just now in the video, there might be some new technology over the last 12 months so we are prepared to look at that and we are willing to discuss with them.

“If they can convince us that the new technology can be more efficient in terms of the search then we are more than willing to restart the search.

“We cannot be just going out there without any credible leads.”

Anthony Loke (right) with representative of the Chinese next of kin Jiang Hui.

Loke said that whatever information the Malaysian government had was shared in the report published last July. Asked about allegations that important information had been withheld from the report, he said that this was not the case, that there had been no such withholding of any information. “The report was published in full,” he said.

He said as far as that report was concerned, it was final. He said the government would leave it to its technical team to explore what might be a credible lead. “We are waiting for a specific proposal, and particularly from Ocean Infinity.”

Loke told those attending the remembrance event that he had come to the event “with a very heavy heart”.

He said he wished to reiterate that the operations to locate MH370 had not been abandoned. “We remain ever hopeful that we will be able to find the answers we seek.”

Two pieces of debris were on display yesterday. One was a wing flap found on Pemba Island, Tanzania, by fishermen in June 2016 and the other was the trailing edge section of an outboard flap found by two tourists on Ilôt Bernache in Mauritius, also in 2016.

American amateur investigator Blaine Alan Gibson, who has found numerous pieces of plane debris, said that the flap found in Tanzania was the most important piece of MH370 debris found to date.

Blaine Gibson in front of the wing flap found in Tanzania.

“The reason it is so significant is that it is absolutely confirmed to be from 9M-MRO, which is the aircraft of Malaysia 370. It’s confirmed by matching serial numbers and by the manufacture date.”

The second reason the piece is so significant, Gibson says, is that experts have determined that it was in the retracted position. “It was not deployed as it would be for a landing.”

This, Gibson says, goes against the theory that is still being promoted by numerous media outlets that there was a controlled intact ditching, a “pilot murder–suicide”.

It is astounding, Gibson says, that the controlled ditching theory is still being espoused, and that it is still being argued that the plane was intact under water.

“This piece proves that that did not happen. The other debris found by me and other private citizens include many shattered pieces of the interior cabin, so people who claim that the interior cabin, or the plane, or the fuselage are intact under water, that is also false.”

The smaller piece of debris on display yesterday is one of three pieces that have been confirmed to be from MH370 because of matching serial numbers.

Gibson says all of the debris that has been found is consistent with a high-speed impact that shattered the plane.

K.S. Narendran, whose wife Chandrika was on board MH370, and who has written a book entitled Life After MH370,said that, unlike in previous years, he was ambivalent about making the trip from Chennai in India to KL for this year’s remembrance event.

“It has been a long haul dealing with loss and rebuilding a life, a task that remains incomplete. What became clear is that lately the cloud of sorrow and despair, the listlessness with life in general, and the restlessness with the MH370 search and investigation has become less intense.

“What remains is the solidarity with the MH370 families, their loss and struggles to cope, to envision a future, and reconstruct their lives.

“This only grows as each nuance in a shared language of loss, grief, and reconstruction becomes more widely shared and understood.”

Narendran said that some of the next of kin, whose will to live was broken by irreconcilable loss, believed they have nothing left to live for.

Among the young, some next of kin had moved on to pursue studies, take up jobs, move home, find partners, and have babies, but many continued to struggle.

“For all of us, knowing what happened to MH370 remains the key to unlock a part of our lives, our energies.

“Our prayers have remained unchanged: find the plane, find the passengers, give us answers to what, why, and how, and if it comes to it, who. Give us the truth.”

There isn’t, in the case of MH370, a Malaysian, Australian, British or American truth, or an Indian or Chinese one.

“There were 239 passengers from 14 countries. An international mix of nationalities. A Boeing 777, an American company’s product. The incident is believed to have occurred in the Indian Ocean, in international waters …”

“It is an event that concerns every airline, every passenger, and perhaps almost every family across the world exposed to civil aviation.”

Narendran continued: “The best tribute we can offer to those we have lost is through demonstrating the will to find credible answers, fix the issues, and assure the world that more lives will not be lost in future to similar incidents.”

Narendran, pictured with Jacquita Gonzales and her granddaughter, Alessandra Faith.

Speaking on behalf of Chinese next of kin, Jiang Hui, whose mother was on board MH370, also called for a new “no cure, no fee” search.

Jiang Hui yesterday launched a new website that has been set up by Chinese next of kin. It will, Jiang Hui says, serve to promote the search for MH370 and the investigation into its disappearance, and bring together information, and it will be a platform on which next of kin can communicate with the outside world.

Jiang Hui will today have a meeting with the chief inspector of the Malaysian Ministry of Transport’s Air Accident Investigation Bureau, Yahaya B. Abdul Rahman.

Jacquita Gonzales, whose husband Patrick Gomes was an in-flight supervisor on MH370, said that it was hard for her to see the pieces of debris, but at least they were items that had washed up and could be studied.

How, Gonzales asks, does anybody move on without an answer. “We need to know what happened to the plane. We need to know why our loved ones are not at home with us anymore.

“This year Patrick would have been sixty years old. He should be around to see his grandson, who has recited a poem for him, and also to see his granddaughter grow up.”

The next of kin yesterday planted a Chengal hardwood sapling to symbolise hope and life, with a view to it being transplanted later in a park in KL.

They also lit 240 candles, 239 for the passengers and crew on board and one for MH370 itself.

Yesterday’s event also included a technical video presentation by the Independent Group of Experts about ongoing efforts to localise the MH370 debris field.

There were also presentations by a representative from the National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation in the United States and a member of the Malaysian Bar, who talked about the complexities of aviation law.

There was also a dance performance by the Middle East Dance Academy, and the search-on song was sung by Patrick Leong.

Before the event began, a group of local bikers came into the square at Publika to pay tribute to the next of kin and the loved ones they have lost.

Grace Subathirai Nathan paid a tribute to her mother. “She is the reason that I am still doing this five years on. Her strength and her courage and everything that she did for me and all the values that she has instilled in me have made me the person that I am today,” Nathan said.

Nathan said that she did not want the lives of the 239 people who were on board MH370 to have been lost in vain. “I don’t want a similar incident to ever occur, for anyone to ever be in our shoes ever again because for us this is a wound that cannot heal … we don’t want this pain visited on anyone else.

“Of course we miss our loved ones, but, as time goes on, it has become so much less about us and so much more about all of you because every day more and more people take to the skies.”

It is not an acceptable conclusion in this day and age that a Boeing 777 has vanished into thin air, Nathan says.

Malaysia ready to back firms in finding missing flight MH370 – Channel NewsAsia

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will consider resuming the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 if companies interested in the hunt come forward with viable proposals or credible leads, its transport minister said on Sunday (Mar 3).

Flight MH370, carrying 239 people, became the world’s greatest aviation mystery when it vanished on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on Mar 8, 2014.

Malaysia and China as well as Australia called off a two-year, A$200 million (US$141.60 million) underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean in January 2017 after finding no trace of the aircraft.

A second three-month search, led by US exploration firm Ocean Infinity, ended similarly in May last year.

A woman attends the fifth annual remembrance event for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Mar 3, 2019. (Photo: Reuters/Lai Seng Sin)

Malaysia was prepared to reward firms searching for MH370 under a “no-cure, no fee” agreement, meaning payment would be made only if they located the aircraft, minister Anthony Loke said.

The government had offered Ocean Infinity up to US$70 million under such an agreement for its 2018 search.

“If there are any credible leads or specific proposals … we are more than willing to look at them and we are prepared to discuss with them the new proposals,” Loke told reporters at a Kuala Lumpur event marking the fifth year of MH370’s disappearance.

A boy gets his face painted during the fifth annual remembrance event for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Mar 3, 2019. (Photo: Reuters/Lai Seng Sin)

Ocean Infinity had expressed interest in another search, citing new technology developed in the past year, but had not yet put forward a fresh proposal, according to Loke.

“If they can convince us that the new technology can be more efficient in terms of the search, then we are more than willing to restart,” Loke said.

A spokesman for Ocean Infinity did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

DEBRIS DISPLAYED

More than 30 pieces of debris, believed to be part of the MH370 plane, have washed up along the Indian Ocean coastline, but only three were confirmed to be from the aircraft.

Two of those fragments went on display at Sunday’s event, the first time such pieces have been open for public view.

A member of Malaysian Volunteer Corps Department (RELA), stands guard in front of debris of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 during its fifth annual remembrance event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Mar 3, 2019. (Photo: Reuters/Lai Seng Sin)

The parts, currently in the custody of the Malaysian government, include a wing fragment found in Tanzania measuring about 4.27m, the largest piece of debris found so far.

Families of those aboard the plane hoped displaying the debris would help the public understand their loss and spur efforts to continue searching for the aircraft, according to Grace Nathan, a lawyer whose mother Anne Daisy was an MH370 passenger.

Messages written on paper planes are seen during the fifth annual remembrance event for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Mar 3, 2019. (Photo: Reuters/Lai Seng Sin)

“Because this piece, which is only a small part of the wing, is very large, it puts into perspective how large the entire plane was,” she told Reuters ahead of the event.

“To think of it, I can’t believe this little piece of the plane travelled thousands and thousands of kilometres through the ocean to Africa over the span of two years. And I can’t help but wonder, where is my mother?”

Malaysia open to resuming MH370 hunt | The West Australian

Malaysia’s transport minister says the government is open to new proposals from US technology firm Ocean Infinity or any other companies to resume the hunt for Flight 370, as families of passengers marked the fifth anniversary of the jet’s mysterious disappearance.

Ocean Infinity mounted a “no cure, no fee” search for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean in January 2018 that ended in May without any clue on where it could have crashed. But the company’s CEO, Oliver Plunkett, said in a video shown at the public remembrance event at a mall near Kuala Lumpur that the company hopes to resume the hunt with better technology it obtained in the past year.

The Ocean Infinity mission came a year after an official search by Malaysia, Australia and China ended in futility.

“We haven’t given up hope. … We hope we can continue the search in due course,” Plunkett said.

“There must be a proposal from a specific company … we cannot just be out there without credible leads. That’s the most practical thing to do,” Loke said.

A Malaysian-led independent investigation report released last July showed lapses in the government’s response and raised the possibility of “intervention by a third party.”

But it said there was no evidence of abnormal behaviour or stress in the two pilots that could lead them to hijack the plane. All the other passengers were also cleared by police and had no pilot training.

Voice 370, a support group for next-of-kin, expressed hope that the new government that won a general election in May last year will do more to encourage search missions and seek new clues.

MH370 search will continue, Malaysian PM says – CNN

Ocean Infinity said it had covered 112,000 square kilometers of the ocean floor, but ultimately found nothing.

This is the first time Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad has met with a relative of a MH370 victim, listening to the desperate plea of Danica Weeks to continue the search for the missing plane. #60Mins pic.twitter.com/pkQIIj0OWG

— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins)

In July last year, Malaysian authorities said they had failed to determine the cause of the plane’s disappearance, though they did rule out several possibilities.

Speaking at a press conference near the capital Kuala Lumpur, lead investigator Kok Soo Chon said MH370 turned back toward Malaysia under manual control, but it could not be determined whether the plane was being flown by the pilot or if there had been any unlawful interference.

Chon went on to rule out other factors that had been questioned in the demise of the flight, including the pilot’s mental state, aircraft malfunction, or remote control of operation systems.

“The disappearance of MH370 and the search effort are unprecedented in commercial aviation history,” the Malaysian report said.

“Improvements must be undertaken to ensure that this type of event is identified as soon as possible, and mechanisms are in place to track an aircraft that is not following its filed flight plan for any reason.”

In the interview with Australia’s “60 Minutes,” Mahathir said, “One of the things that I heard from the beginning was that the plane was hijacked.”

“But a plane of this size going down into the sea or land must leave signs. It’s as if the plane just vanished,” he said.

So far, the only sign of the aircraft has been debris that washed up in eastern Africa and nearby islands, far from where experts believed the flight disappeared. A wing fragment and part of the plane’s flaperon, which is on the wing, are among the remnants that have turned up.

“Please don’t give up on us.” MH370 widow Danica Weeks has one last emotional plea for Malaysian PM Mahathir. #60Mins pic.twitter.com/ZH9aU0OJ3P

— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins)

Mahathir dismissed speculation over the role of the plane’s pilot in the disappearance, pointing to the man’s long career and lack of a clear motivation.

“I cannot think that a person who has been flying for so long, a very senior pilot, would do that,” he said.

Speaking at an event on Sunday, Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said, “If there is a proposal and credible leads, then we are prepared to look at it. It’s not as if we are sitting here and doing nothing.”

“If (Ocean Infinity) can convince us that the new technology can be more efficient for the search, then we are more than willing to restart it,” he said, according to local media. “And if there is a ‘no find, no fee’ proposal, then we are prepared to look at it.”

At the end of her meeting with Mahathir, Weeks, the MH370 families advocate, told him, “Please don’t give up on us.”

MoviePass closes up its Los Angeles office after firing its business development team

MoviePass’ Los Angeles office closed down last week.
The space housed the business development department of the movie-ticket subscription company, which was laid off in February, and the staff of Moviefone.
The space wasn’t ideal for staff.
One source who worked there said the only available power sources were a few extension cords and “repeated requests for pens, post-its, or bottled water were rejected.”

Last week, MoviePass’ Los Angeles office at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood closed down, multiple sources told Business Insider, and the building’s staff confirmed.

According to several sources familiar with the decision, MoviePass was subleasing the space from talent agency Abrams Artists Agency. The agency notified the movie-ticket subscription company that it was looking to expand and wanted to use the space MoviePass was occupying. MoviePass agreed to move out.

MoviePass did not respond to a request for comment.

The MoviePass staff of around nine who used the space consisted of the three-person business development department, who were laid off in February, and the staff of the movie-ticket site Moviefone, which MoviePass’ parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY) acquired in 2018.

The Moviefone staff, which is predominantly made up of freelancers, will now have office space at MoviePass Films’ office (the movie production arm of the company), a source familiar with future plans told Business Insider.

Sources told Business Insider they wouldn’t miss the office tucked away within the Abrams Artists Agency’s space at the PDC (MoviePass’ company name wasn’t even located in the building directory).

Though it had beautiful views, the work space was less than desired.

One source said a few extension cords around the office were the best way for staff to plug in their computer power cords. And office supplies were scarce.

“Repeated requests for pens, post-its, or bottled water were rejected; especially the water because it’s too expensive,” the source said.

The source also said that internet access in the office was down for part of a week in July.

The space was large enough to comfortably staff 20-30 people, a source said, so there was hope that one day Moviefone could do regular in-house video pieces there, but it began to seem like a pipe dream as MoviePass’ troubles continued to pile up. When Abrams Artists recently made it known it was planning to expand, MoviePass was happy to pack up and leave, according to a source familiar with the sublease deal.

MoviePass’ New York City staff work at a WeWork in Manhattan.

The office closing comes after Helios and Matheson was kicked off the Nasdaq in February. It had failed to meet the Nasdaq’s listing standards by trading at less than $1 per share since July.

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