Any word on missing plane

On 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. Despite a massive international search effort over almost three years, the only traces of the plane that have turned up are fragments of wreckage washed up on the western shores of the Indian Ocean.

A communique from the transport ministers of Malaysia, Australia and China said: “Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft.”

The move confirms a decision six months ago by the three countries to call off the search “in the absence of credible new evidence leading to the identification of a specific location of the aircraft”.

The last contact with the plane took place at 1.19am on 8 March 2014, when Captain Zaharie Shah acknowledged air-traffic control with the words “Goodnight Malaysian three-seven-zero”.

It took the airline a further six hours to tell the world that one of its planes was missing. No distress messages were sent.

An air-sea rescue operation was launched in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. But a week after the disappearance, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, revealed that a British company, Inmarsat, had shown the jet remained aloft for at least seven hours after the last words were spoken from the flight deck.

Equipment aboard the plane responded automatically to a series of satellite “handshakes”: signals the length of brief text messages. These “pings” were analysed and allowed investigators to deduce the aircraft was flying north-west across southern China towards the Caspian Sea, or south across the Indian Ocean to an area west of Australia, before it was presumed to have run out of fuel and crashed.

The search area was soon narrowed down to the “southern corridor,” and specifically a patch of sea west of Perth in Western Australia.

In September 2014, an Australian-led operation began a comprehensive search of the sea bed to identify anomalies that could be larger elements of the 777, such as engines and landing gear.

At the time, Martin Dolan, the bureau’s Chief Commissioner, told me that he expected to find the aircraft within a year, but added “There is no complete guarantee of success.”

Since then, tens of millions of pounds have been spent on an underwater search covering an area almost as big as England: a 120,000 square km patch of the southern Indian Ocean.

After a flaperon – a wing component – from the lost plane was washed ashore on the island of Reunion, hopes were raised that the mystery could be solved. Malaysia Airlines called it “a major breakthrough for us in resolving the disappearance of MH370”.

But today’s communique said: “The decision to suspend the underwater search has not been taken lightly, nor without sadness.

“We remain hopeful that new information will come to light and that at some point in the future the aircraft will be located.”

Speculation on the fate of the plane has proliferated since the disappearance. Shortly after MH370 was lost, the home of the captain was searched by police investigating the theory that he was responsible for diverting the plane.

An American science writer, Jeff Wise, theorised that the jet had been hijacked on the orders of the Kremlin and flown to Kazakhstan. Later, the French deputy public prosecutor, Serge Mackowiak, said that terrorism was being actively investigated. And the CNN presenter, Richard Quest, said: “I think we’re looking at something more akin to some sort explosive decompression at the front of the plane,” which disabled the controls and prevented the pilots from avoiding a tragedy.

Meanwhile the agony of the relatives of the passengers and crew continues. The communique said: “We again take this opportunity to honour the memory of those who have lost their lives and acknowledge the enormous loss felt by their loved ones.”

Jeraldine Rubin, a retired teacher in St. Peterburg, Fla., said the March 8 disappearance of the Boeing 777 jet about an hour after it departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport with 239 passengers “just took [her] back” to 1957, when a plane carrying 37 Air Force personnel, including her 19-year-old brother, John E. Bryant, vanished on its way from California to Japan, WTSP.com reports. (Courtesy: WTSP.com)

As the probe into Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 enters its tenth day, one Florida woman who has been awaiting word on another missing aircraft for nearly 60 years can relate to the paralyzing uncertainty.

Jeraldine Rubin, a retired teacher living in St. Peterburg, said the March 8 disappearance of the Boeing 777 jet about an hour after it departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport with 239 passengers “just took [her] back” to 1957, when a plane carrying 37 Air Force personnel, including her 19-year-old brother, John E. Bryant, vanished on its way from California to Japan, WTSP.com reports.

«All these bells started ringing again,” Rubin said. “It just took me back.»

Rubin, 71, said her brother’s plane has never been found. Hope is what has gotten her through the years, she said.

«Constantly hope, hope, hope, hope,» she said. «That was what really kept everything together. I know it kept everything together for me.”

Relatives now awaiting word on the fate of Flight 370 should consider that mindset moving forward, she said.

«We should continue to hope and expect things to work out as the Lord intended them to be,” Rubin told WTSP.com.

Meanwhile, authorities who spent the weekend investigating if the pilots of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane had a role in its disappearance are reportedly looking at another person on board the flight, while examining the possibility that the jetliner flew low to avoid radar.

A senior police official told Reuters Monday that authorities are investigating Mohd Khairul Amri Selamat, a 29-year-old Malaysian flight engineer. Selamat reportedly said on social media that he had worked for a private jet charter company.

«Yes, we are looking into Mohd Khairul, as well as the other passengers and crew,” said the police official, who has knowledge of ongoing investigations. “The focus is on anyone else who might have had aviation skills on that plane.»

Authorities are also examining the possibility that the plane flew at an altitude of less than 5,000 feet to avoid radar coverage after it turned back from its planned route to Beijing, the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times reports.

As the world focuses on the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, Jeraldine Rubin knows the angst felt by family members of the 239 passengers and crew onboard.  In 1957, a plane carrying her brother, airman John E. Bryant, disappeared while flying from California to Japan.  It’s never been found.  When she heard about MH370, “all these bells started ringing again.  It just took me back.”

How has the retired school teacher handled the pain of not knowing her brother’s fate?  “Constantly hope, hope, hope, hope.  That was what really kept everything together,” she says.  What would she suggest to families of the missing MH370 passengers?  “We should continue to hope and expect things to work out as the Lord intended them to be.”

Hope is a powerful phenomenon.  A mouse dropped in a pot of water will swim for a few minutes before it gives up and drowns.  But if it is rescued, it will tread water for more than 20 hours the next time.  Children rescued from Nazi concentration camps were clothed and fed, but they still could not sleep.  A child psychologist hit on the solution: each child was given a slice of bread to take to bed.  Not to eat, just to hold.  With assurance that there would be food for the next day, they could sleep.

I have experienced the power of hope personally in recent days.  In Texas, we are caught in one of the worst droughts in history.  However, an El Niño may be coming.  This weather phenomenon would likely lead to increased rain on the West Coast and in Texas.  Now I can watch cloudless days with greater hope.  A friend who works as a financial analyst predicted a 10 percent market correction this year.  Now when I watch stocks decline, I don’t worry as much, because I have hope they will rebound.

What is your greatest fear for the future?  Would you choose right now to surrender it to your Father, placing your hope in his omniscient, omnipotent love for you?

Here’s what will result: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31).  Now you can “be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” (Romans 12:12).  No matter what happens, you will experience an “endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:3).  So “let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).

Jeraldine Rubin proves that in a hopeless world filled with despair, hope is a powerful witness.  The late Presbyterian lay minister Fred Rogers (“Mr. Rogers” of television fame) once quoted an anonymous scrawling on the bulletin board of the great Notre Dame cathedral in Paris: “The world tomorrow will belong to those who brought it the greatest hope.”

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 6 – Families of those on board the aircraft that went missing on Tuesday evening are camping at the Weston Hotel, but are accusing airline and government officials of keeping them in the dark.

The families were called in for counseling but said there was no forthcoming information even as the search and rescue continued, mainly concentrated in the Kinangop area of the Aberdares.

Mohamed Abdi, a cousin to one of the passengers he identified as Abdi Ali said: “We hear that they are looking for the aircraft and we are waiting here at the Weston Hotel. The aircraft company is not giving us enough information on the matter. We are just requesting that they give us the full information so that we can collect the bodies of our loved ones and bury them,” he stated.

The plane belonging to FlySax and operated by East African Safari Air Express was destined for the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi from Kitale when it went missing. It was carrying eight passengers and two crew members.

“We only heard that there was heavy rainfall within the Naivasha and Limuru areas so we cannot even go there. We even went to the Wilson Airport where there was no information on the incident. Others who have helicopters went to look for their people but we are just waiting here,” he said.

Aviation officials say it went off the radar shortly after 5pm Tuesday and the public is being urged to volunteer any information they may have on sighting of the aircraft.

Bad weather was hampering the search and rescue operation and according to the National Disaster Management Unit (NDMU), a National Police Service helicopter was scouring the area around the Aberdares Forest or Ndakaini where the search is concentrated, but there was poor visibility.

“Weather is a challenge to the ongoing search & rescue operation, a National Police chopper is already up in the sky but weather condition is the problem. Following the missing aircraft, National Disaster Management Unit (NDMU) appeals to Members of the public to volunteer information which may lead to quick rescue and recovery,” the organisation’s Deputy Director Pius Masai stated.

A statement from the airline indicated that they were in the process of contacting relatives of those who were on board, with counseling centres already set up.

The agencies involved in the search and rescue include the National Police Service, Kenya Wildlife, National Disaster Management Unit, Kenya Red Cross, Kenya Forest Service, Aviation Accidents Investigation among others.

Search and rescue teams from AAID, KCAA, KWS and other agencies were activated immediately but by Tuesday evening, they had yielded no results.

By Matt Siegel and Niluksi Koswanage KUALA LUMPUR/PERTH (Reuters) — The last words from the cockpit of a missing Malaysian jet were a standard «Good night Malaysian three seven zero», Malaysian authorities said, changing their account of the critical last communication from a more casual «All right, good night». Malaysia on Tuesday released the full transcript of communications between the Boeing 777 and local air traffic control before it dropped from civilian radar in the early hours of March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The correction comes as Malaysian authorities face heavy criticism, particularly from China, for mismanaging the search, now in its fourth fruitless week, and holding back information. Most of the 239 people on board the flight were Chinese. «There is no indication of anything abnormal in the transcript,» Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in the statement, without giving explanation for the changes in the reported last communication. «The transcript was initially held as part of the police investigation,» he added. Minutes after the final radio transmission was received the plane’s communications were cut off and it turned back across Peninsular Malaysia and headed towards the Indian Ocean, according to military radar and limited satellite data. The search is now focused on a vast, inhospitable swathe of the southern Indian Ocean west of the Australian city of Perth, but an international team of planes and ships have so far failed to spot any sign of the jetliner. «In this case, the last known position was a long, long way from where the aircraft appears to have gone,» retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the head of the Australian agency coordinating the operation, told reporters in Perth. «It’s very complex, it’s very demanding and we don’t have hard information like we might normally have,» he said. Malaysia says the plane was likely diverted deliberately, probably by a skilled aviator, leading to speculation of involvement by one or more of the pilots. Investigators, however, have determined no apparent motive or other red flags among the 227 passengers and 12 crew. The transcript, issued on Tuesday and shared with families of the passengers and crew, covers about 55 minutes of apparently routine conversation, beginning about quarter of an hour before take-off. The last exchange took place at 1:19 a.m. Nothing appeared to be wrong, as Malaysian air traffic controllers told the pilots they were entering Vietnamese air space, and received a fairly standard sign-off with call sign in reply. Air Traffic Control: «Malaysian Three Seven Zero contact Ho Chi Minh 120 decimal 9, good night.» MH370: «Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero.» «Previously, Malaysia Airlines had stated initial investigations indicated that the voice which signed off was that of the co-pilot,» Transport Minister Hishammuddin said in the statement. «The police are working to confirm this belief, and forensic examination of the actual recording is on-going.» Malaysia’s ambassador to China had told Chinese families in Beijing as early as March 12 that the last words from the cockpit had been «All right, good night», which experts said was more informal than called for by standard radio procedures. SEARCH GOES ON Nine ships and 10 aircraft resumed the hunt for wreckage from MH370 on Tuesday, hoping to recover more than the fishing gear and other flotsam found since Australian authorities moved the search 1,100 km (685 miles) north after new analysis of radar and satellite data. Houston said the challenging search, in an area the size of Ireland, would continue based on the imperfect information with which they had to work. «But, inevitably, if we don’t find any wreckage on the surface, we are eventually going to have to, probably in consultation with everybody who has a stake in this, review what to do next,» he said. Using faint, hourly satellite signals gathered by British firm Inmarsat PLC and radar data from early in its flight, investigators have only estimates of the speed the aircraft was travelling and no certainty of its altitude, Houston said. Satellite imagery of the new search area had not given «anything better than low confidence of finding anything», said Mick Kinley, another search official in Perth. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will travel to Perth late on Wednesday to see the operation first hand. He was expected to meet Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday. Among the vessels due to join the search in the coming days is an Australian defense force ship, the Ocean Shield, that has been fitted with a sophisticated U.S. black box locator and an underwater drone. Time is running out because the signal transmitted by the missing aircraft’s black box will die about 30 days after a crash due to limited battery life, leaving investigators with a vastly more difficult task. (Additional reporting by Michael Martina in PERTH and Jane Wardell in SYDNEY; Rujun Shen and Stuart Grudgings in KUALA LUMPUR; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Paul Tait and Alex Richardson)