Malaysia Says Missing Plane Crashed In Indian Ocean

Malaysia Airlines airplanes at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in front a Boeing 777-200 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared over two weeks ago en route to Beijing, crashed thousands of miles away in the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Monday, citing new satellite data.

All 239 people on board were presumed dead, airline officials said.

Analysis of satellite information from British company Inmarsat had shown that the Boeing 777’s last position was in the Indian Ocean west of Perth, Australia, Najib said in a statement.

“This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,” he said. “It is therefore, with deep sadness and regret, that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”

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Malaysian Airplane Investigators Look At Suicide As Possible Motive

Boeing 777-2H6/ER der Malaysia Airlines am Kuala Lumpur International Airport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The co-pilot of a missing Malaysian jetliner spoke the last words heard from the cockpit, the airline’s chief executive said on Monday, as investigators consider suicide by the captain or first officer as one possible explanation for the disappearance.

No trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has been found since it vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard. Investigators are increasingly convinced it was diverted perhaps thousands of miles off course by someone with deep knowledge of the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial navigation.

A search unprecedented in its scale is now under way for the plane, covering an area stretching from the shores of the Caspian Sea in the north to deep in the southern Indian Ocean.

Airline chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya also told a news conference that it was unclear exactly when one of the plane’s automatic tracking systems had been disabled, appearing to contradict the weekend comments of government ministers.

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Satellite Firm Says Its Data From Jet Could Offer Location

English: Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 (9M-MRD) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

SEPANG, Malaysia — As the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet expanded into the daunting vastness of the Indian Ocean, a satellite communications company confirmed on Friday that it had recorded electronic “keep alive” ping signals from the plane after it disappeared, and said those signals could be analyzed to help estimate its location.

The information from the company, Inmarsat, could prove to be the first big break in helping narrow the frustrating search for the plane with 239 people aboard that mysteriously disappeared from radar screens a week ago, now hunted by a multinational array of ships and planes that have fanned out for thousands of square miles.

Inmarsat, a Britain-based satellite communications provider of systems to ships and airplanes, had equipment aboard the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 jetliner, said David Coiley, the vice president of the company in charge of the aviation business. The equipment automatically communicates with satellites, much as a mobile phone would automatically connect to a network after passing through a mountain tunnel, he said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-370.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=0

Air Force Chief: Malaysia Jet May Have Turned Back

Boeing 777-2H6/ER der Malaysia Airlines am Kuala Lumpur International Airport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – Military radar indicates that the missing Boeing 777 jet may have turned back before vanishing, Malaysia’s air force chief said Sunday as authorities were investigating up to four passengers with suspicious identifications.

The revelations add to the uncertainties surrounding the final minutes of flight MH370, which was carrying 239 people when it lost contact with ground controllers somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam after leaving Kuala Lumpur early Saturday morning for Beijing.

A massive international sea search has so far turned up no trace of the plane, which lost contact with the ground when the weather was fine, the plane was already cruising and the pilots didn’t send a distress signal – unusual circumstance for a modern jetliner operated by a professional airline to crash.

Vietnamese air force jets spotted two large oil slicks Saturday, but it was unclear if they were linked to the missing plane, and no debris was found nearby.

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Oil Slicks Found In Hunt For Missing Malaysia Jet

English: Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flight MH138 docked at Adelaide Airport awaiting departure (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – Vietnamese air force planes on Saturday spotted two large oil slicks close to where a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 went missing earlier in the day, the first sign that the aircraft carrying 239 people had crashed.

The air force planes were part of a multinational search operation launched after Flight MH370 fell off radar screens less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early Saturday morning.

The oil slicks were spotted late Saturday off the southern tip of Vietnam and were each between 10 kilometers (6 miles) and 15 kilometers (9 miles) long, the Vietnamese government said in a statement. There was no confirmation that the slicks were related to the missing plane, but the statement said they were consistent with the kinds that would be produced by the two fuel tanks of a crashed jetliner.

Two-thirds of the missing plane’s passengers were from China, while others were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

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San Francisco Plane Crash: Crew Tried To Abort Landing

The doomed Asiana Airlines jetliner had its throttles set to idle and was moving so slowly that it nearly stalled before it smashed into a seawall bordering a San Francisco International Airport runway, federal investigators said Sunday.

The crew tried to abort the landing and avert the disaster, which killed two teenage passengers and injured dozens of others, but it was too late, according to a preliminary review of flight data and cockpit communications by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The crew sought to accelerate 7 1/2 seconds before impact, investigators said.  Three seconds later, a vibrating “shaker stick” in the cockpit signaled an impending stall – a condition in which the wings lose lift and a plane can’t be controlled.

And with 1 1/2 seconds left, someone on board alerted an air traffic controller that the Boeing 777 jetliner would try to pull up and circle around.  It could not, and at 11:27 a.m. Saturday it bounced and skidded across the ground, losing its tail before it came to rest on the side of Runway 28L.

Read more:  http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-plane-crash-Crew-tried-to-abort-landing-4650990.php

2 Killed, 49 Badly Hurt In San Francisco International Airport Plane Crash

Map of California (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

SAN FRANCISCO — Two people were killed and 49 people were seriously injured Saturday when a Boeing 777 passenger jetliner arriving from Seoul crashed and caught fire while landing at San Francisco International Airport, officials said.

The plane, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 with 307 people onboard, slammed to earth at 11:27 a.m. and came to rest on the side of Runway 28L, one of four runways at SFO, said Lynn Lunsford, a spokeswoman with the Federal Aviation Administration.  The plane appeared to make impact short of the runway and then spin as it careened across the ground – losing its tail and leaving a trail of debris.

There were 291 passengers and 16 crew members aboard.  Two people were killed, 49 were seriously hurt, another 132 suffered lesser injuries and went to area hospitals, and one person was unaccounted for, SFO spokesman Doug Yakel said at an evening press conference at the airport.  The other 123 people onboard were not injured.

The injuries “are consistent with the types of injuries you would see in a plane crash or fire,” said Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman at San Francisco General Hospital, where five people were in critical condition. “Many burns, fractures and internal injuries.”

Read more:  http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2-killed-49-badly-hurt-in-SFO-plane-crash-4650259.php