Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Inmarsat The Satelite

MH370 crash: Inmarsat data indicated where plane went down




PETALING JAYA: Where the MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean was based on new analysis by UK investigators and the British satellite firm Inmarsat.

As stated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Inmarsat used new techniques to detect the plane's course.

The UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, which probes serious civil aircraft incidents, was also involved.

According to BBC, Inmarsat gave the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) the new data on Sunday - adding it needed to be checked before it was made public.

The firm said its latest calculation involved a large amount of data analysis, focusing on a number of factors including the movements of other aircraft.

It involved an entirely new way of modelling which is why the analysis took some time, the firm added.

A spokeswoman for the AAIB said as set out by Najib,  “we have been working with the UK company Inmarsat, using satellite data to determine the area on which to focus the search.

"We are not able to comment further on this investigation, which is being led by the Malaysian authorities."

Oceanographer Dr Simon Boxall, from the University of Southampton, also told the BBC it was significant that Inmarsat had been tracking data, rather than locations.

"The algorithms and the techniques they've applied to try and locate to within a certain area where the last transmission was made is really quite phenomenal - but also quite tragic because it does show this plane was heading to an open area of ocean."

"They [Inmarsat] started from scratch. They've probably crammed almost a year's worth of research into maybe a couple of weeks so it's not a routine calculation they would ever, ever make.

"So they've been looking at all the signals they have, all the recordings they have, and processing that many times over to try and pinpoint where the plane's signal came from. Technologically it's really quite astounding," said Dr Boxall.

He said that Inmarsat must have run through its calculation a number of times and "wouldn't have released this sort of information without being 100% certain".

Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International Magazine, stressed that the mystery of flight MH370's disappearance had not been solved yet.

"We still believe there was a deliberate act that took place on board the flight deck inside the cockpit that resulted in the aircraft turning and heading south," he said.

"Indeed, south of the next landmass would have been Antarctica. So until we find the black box we're really not going to know anything more."

Airline pilot Peter Benn said finding some of the wreckage could help explain what happened to the plane.


"I don't think anyone should underestimate the magnitude of that task. It is a vast undertaking, suffice to say if some debris can be recovered it would provide an awful lot of clues," he said.

Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Fear To Be Dead

MH370 crash: Plane goes down in Indian Ocean, all 239 on board feared dead



PETALING JAYA: All 239 passengers and crew on board MH370 are feared dead after it was determined that the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 went down in the Indian Ocean.


While Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced live over TV that the flight ended in the Indian Ocean based on confirmation from investigators, Malaysia Airlines sent a text message to families expressing deep regret.

The text message read:

"Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived. As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia's Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean."

Families in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur were seen wailing when they heard the news that the plane had crashed and there was no hope of any survivor.

Some of the family members in Beijing were seen knocking their head. First teams rushed in to help several of the collapsed family members and sent them on to ambulance to hospital. 

Source: The Star

Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - All Lost

MH370 crash: MAS says all 239 on board lost



PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Airlines has issued a text message to the families deeply regretting that MH370 has been lost and none of of the 239 passengers and crew on board survived.


The text message to the families read:


"Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived. As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia's Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean."

Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Family Will Be Sent To Australia

MH370 Crash: Families of passengers to be flown from Beijing to Australia




PERALING JAYA: Families of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight will be taken from Beijing to Australia after more objects were spotted in the search area in the southern Indian Ocean, Britain's Sky News reported on its website, quoting sources.

The report said that relatives have been called to an emergency meeting with the company.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein informed lawmakers in Parliament that Prime Minister Najib Razak was scheduled to hold a news conference at 10pm.

Hishammudin, who appeared before lawmakers in the Dewan for the first time since the plane went missing on March 8, did not reveal details of the scheduled press conference.

"There is some development. Whatever it is, the focus is to reduce the search area, so anything that PM announces is in relation to the reduction," he said.


Source: The Star

Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Political Ties Denied

PKR rubbishes Daily Mail's claim of Zaharie-Anwar link


PETALING JAYA: PKR leaders have swiftly dismissed a British tabloid report which claimed MH370 flight captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah is a "political fanatic."

PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil said the Daily Mail report was "wild allegations" and the paper "is a sensationalist tabloid known for cooking up stories."

"These allegations are wild speculation for the moment.

"If there is any concrete data backing up an allegation we will respond to it. If anyone aboard (the flight) chose to attend the Anwar trial that is their right as it was in open court.


"We do not want this to be used by unscrupulous parties as an avenue to attack PKR or Pakatan Rakyat component parties," he told The Star Online.


Fahmi hoped that the federal government would not use the opportunity to “label” Pakatan Rakyat leaders.

Asked if Zaharie was often seen at functions organised by PKR or Pakatan Rakyat, he said he does not know Zaharie personally.

“I was in court during the two days but I can’t remember seeing him. After all, it was a public hearing and anyone could attend.

“I did not know who he was until the news broke out about the plane last Saturday,” said Fahmi.

The tabloid claimed that Zaharie commanded the doomed flight about several hours after he had attended the sodomy trial of Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on Friday.

Anwar was jailed for five years by the Court of Appeal last Friday but was released on bail. Flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew on board took off from KLIA at 12.40am on Saturday.

PKR vice-president N. Surendran said there "is not a drop of evidence to support such speculation. It is just a speculation. Let us be fair to the missing captain as well - he cannot answer for himself."

Surendran, who is Padang Serai MP, said that he had no problems with the authorities conducting a thorough probe into the missing MAS flight.

"Every angle, no matter how remote and improbable should be considered.

"But there is not one drop of evidence to support the allegation at this point. It remains pure speculation. Let the authorities investigate this link fairly and professionally," he said.

Asked whether PKR would take legal action against the tabloid, Surendran said he did not think his party should do so.


"I do not think that PKR should take any action for defamation against The Mail. Over the past one week there have been so many theories - and this is the latest in a long string of theories," he said.

Source: The Star

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - 600 Potential Runway To Land

600 potential runways for plane to land


SINGAPORE: As authorities now look into the possibility that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have been hijacked, reports have emerged about the potential runways where the missing aircraft could have landed.


The Mirror in Britain reported that with enough fuel to fly anywhere from Pakistan to Western Australia, the missing plane could have landed in 634 runways after the suspected hijacking.

This is based on a map from WNYC,  website of non-profit, non-commercial, public radio stations located in New York City.

According to WNYC, the missing plane could have landed in 634 runways in 26 different countries.

"Data from X-Plane provides coordinates for runways around the world. A Boeing 777 pilot is quoted in Slate as estimating a runway length requirement of 5,000 feet. A recent Wall Street Journal article quoted sources stating the flight could have continued for 2,200 nautical miles from its last known position," WNYC said.

It added: "The WNYC Data News team found 634 runways that meet these criteria, spread across 26 different countries, including such far-flung places as: Gan Airport (Maldives), Dalanzadgad Airport (Mongolia), Yap Airport (Micronesia), Miyazaki Airport (Japan)." – The Straits Times/ANN

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Your Help Is Needed

You can help search for Flight MH370 with Tomnod’s crowdsourced satellite image platform, link as below:

http://www.tomnod.com

Tomnod has roughly 25,000 people signed up to help out on the platform. The influx of helpers with this latest initiative has crashed the site at times since it was announced yesterday.

DigitalGlobe analysts will check areas of interest that users identify during the campaign. The company will then inform authorities of any possible findings.

Your help may make a difference! Support Tomnod campaign, Search MH370!


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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Plane Dispatched

Aircraft dispatched to site of Chinese satellite images, confirms Hisham


KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia said Thursday it had dispatched an aircraft to investigate the site where Chinese satellites photographed three “suspected floating objects”, near an area where several nations have been hunting for wreckage from a missing passenger plane.


“Bombardier has already been dispatched to investigate alleged claims of debris being found by Chinese satellite imagery,” Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on his Twitter feed, on the sixth day of the search for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 and the 239 people on board. – AFP


Source: The Star

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Mysterious

 The mysterious, baffling disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370


The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is the kind of mystery that’s not supposed to be possible anymore. The Information Age is also the age of surveillance, of interconnectedness, of cloud computing, of GPS satellites, of intelligence agencies that can monitor terrorists from space or call in a drone strike from a control console on the other side of the world.


But so far, all the technological eyes and ears of the world have failed to find the missing plane. The Boeing 777 jetliner, with 239 people aboard, silently vanished early Saturday morning on its way to China, disappearing from radar so suddenly and inexplicably that it might as well have flown into another dimension.

The civilian and military assets of multiple nations, including the United States, are being devoted to the search for wreckage on both sides of the Malay Peninsula, in the Gulf of Thailand and the Strait of Malacca. A Colorado commercial satellite firm, DigitalGlobe, is crowdsourcing the hunt by asking volunteers to scan images for signs of the plane.

But the satellite coverage of the planet isn’t as complete as some people might assume.

“Despite the impression that people get when they use Bing and Google Earth and Google Maps, those high-resolution images are still few and far between,” said John Amos, president of SkyTruth, a nonprofit organization that uses such images to engage the public on environmental issues.

The pilots of Flight MH370 never communicated distress. No one activated an SOS signal. No debris or fuel slick has been found. The plane’s flight recorders may be on the seafloor, buried in sand.

Scenarios abound. Did the plane disintegrate at 35,000 feet from a mechanical failure and sudden decompression? Did the pilot commit suicide by flying it straight down into the sea? Did terrorists blow it up? Did a passenger plant a bomb so that his family would collect life insurance? Was the plane shot down by a jumpy military? Could it have crash-landed in a jungle somewhere, where the passengers are now fighting to survive?

From a long list of possibilities that range from the unlikely to the extremely far-fetched, the truth about what happened to Flight MH370 will probably emerge eventually. For now, it’s the mystery of the year — and a source of immense anguish for the families of the missing passengers and crew.

There were media reports Tuesday, quoting Malaysia’s air force chief, Gen. Rodzali Daud, saying that military radar picked up the plane Saturday flying far off-course, to the west, hundreds of miles from its scheduled flight path. That would suggest foul play — for example, a cockpit intrusion and forced diversion — if the reports hold up. But these reports still do not reveal where the plane is, whether it crashed on land or at sea, or is intact somewhere.

“As we enter into Day 4, the aircraft is yet to be found,” Malaysia Airlines said Tuesday in the company’s 11th media update.

The airline noted reports that the plane may have changed direction. “All angles are being looked at,” the airline said. “We are not ruling out any possibilities.”

“I can’t think of an airplane getting lost for a long period of time — not a modern, regular airliner with all the communications equipment,” said San Diego-based aviation consultant Hans Weber. “Sometimes a small plane disappears and it’s not found for a small time, but this is a completely different matter.”

One possibility, he said, is that an engine malfunction sent a turbine disk through the plane’s fuselage and caused an instant, catastrophic decompression. But that is very rare during the cruising portion of a flight and would not explain the lack of debris on the sea surface.

The plane had a transponder to signal where it was flying, but the signal vanished over the Gulf of Thailand. Someone could have turned it off intentionally and then diverted the plane to the west, Weber said. He said there was enough fuel aboard to fly at least 1,800 miles. “That airplane could have landed somewhere,” he said. But he acknowledged that this is extremely unlikely, because word of the secret landing would surely have gotten out by now.

“This whole thing is a series of puzzles and, frankly, red herrings,” said Washington-based aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of Teal Group.

Aboulafia expects the wreckage to be found relatively soon.

“This is a big jet. This is a wide-body,” he said. “That means a lot of structure, a lot of components, a lot of luggage, a lot of fuel. You can’t make it all go away, even if you hit perpendicularly. It doesn’t all go straight, sucked into the seabed. It’s going to be found.”

The case has similarities to that of Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic after leaving Rio de Janeiro, killing all 228 people aboard, in 2009. But in that case, when airspeed measurements failed and led pilots to put the plane into a stall, the computers on the plane sent error messages to computers on land before the plane disappeared. Wreckage on the sea surface was spotted five days after the crash, and most of the bodies were eventually recovered, though it took two years for the black-box flight recorder to be retrieved from the seafloor.

The lack of a solid explanation for the Malaysia Airlines disappearance has spawned rampant speculation. Two Iranian passengers traveling on the plane with stolen passports do not appear to have any connection to terrorist groups, intelligence officials have told reporters.

Weber, the aviation consultant, said a case such as this captures our attention in part because we like to think such things can’t happen. “We like to think that we’re in control. That’s our culture,” Weber said. “Not knowing means you’re not in control. That’s hard for us to take.”

The missing plane may be a mystery, but the search for answers is likely to produce some sooner rather than later. Space aliens don’t abduct Boeing jetliners. Anyone wondering whether there’s the equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle off the coast of Southeast Asia should remember that the Bermuda Triangle is a myth.

The plane is out there somewhere.


Simon Denyer in Beijing and Ashley Halsey III in Washington contributed to this report.


Source: Joel Achenbach, Washington Post

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - MH370 Retired

Thursday, March 13, 11:10 AM MYT +0800 Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident - 17th Media Statement

As a mark of respect to the passengers and crew of MH370 on 8 March 2014, the MH370 and MH371 flight codes will be retired from the Malaysia Airlines’ Kuala Lumpur- Beijing-Kuala Lumpur route.

With effect from 14 March 2014, the new flight number to replace MH370 and MH371 will be:-

MH 318 – Kuala Lumpur - Beijing

MH 319 – Beijing - Kuala Lumpur

There are no changes to the frequency of our services and we will continue to operate double daily services to Beijing.

Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families of our colleagues and passengers of MH 370.


Source: MAS

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - New Clue?

Blip on radar off Penang could be missing MH370


KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's military radar had detected a "blip" that could have been the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner in an area northwest of Penang, about 45 minutes after the plane lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday.

The Royal Malaysian Air Force chief Tan Sri Rodzali Daud said Wednesday, however, that this was still to be confirmed by experts from the United States, and corroborated with radars of neighbouring countries.

He said the 'plot' was detected at 215am Saturday at 200 miles northwest of the island of Penang at the northern end of the Straits of Malacca.

However, they could not be sure that it was the missing jetliner MH370 as that sort of data is not recorded by the military radar.

This would be 45 minutes after the Boeing 777-200 lost contact with air traffic control about 100 miles from Kota Baru at 1.31am Saturday. It had taken off for Beijing at 12.41am Saturday from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Rodzali said this 'plot' was detected on a review of the military data recording on Saturday itself. The search operations were then immediately widened to the Straits of Malacca from the original search site in the South China Sea.

The search was still continuing in both areas, with 42 ships and 39 aircraft from 12 countries taking part.

Asked if the military radar had tracked the 'plot' on Saturday in real time, he said it had not. He said the air force did not try to intercept that unidentified aircraft because it was classified as a civilian aircraft and not a hostile one. - The Straits Times/ANN


Source: The Straits Times


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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - MAS 15th Media Statement

Thursday, March 13, 12:45 AM MYT +0800 Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident - 16th Media Statement

Malaysia Airlines wishes to clarify the claims that some families of the passengers were flown to India instead of Malaysia. This is not true.

Malaysia Airlines flies directly from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur without a transit. There is also no Malaysia Airlines direct flights from Hong Kong to Mumbai or any part of India.

The welfare of both the crew and passenger’s families remain our focus. At the same time, the security and safety of our passengers is of the utmost importance to us.



Source: MAS

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - MAS 15th Media Statement

Wednesday, March 12, 11:30 PM MYT +0800 Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident - 15th Media Statement

Similar to the situation in Kuala Lumpur, the focus of Malaysia Airlines team in Beijing is to provide care for the families of passengers.

Malaysia Airlines has to-date deployed a team of 112 caregivers to provide assistance to the family members during this trying time.

Once the news of the incident became known, a total of 94 caregivers including the Senior Management members of Malaysia Airlines were deployed to Beijing immediately. In the days that followed, an additional 18 caregivers were deployed.

The caregiver’s primary role is to provide family members with emotional support and ensure their basic needs are met to try and make this difficult time relatively bearable.

Malaysia Airlines also provided equal amount of initial financial assistance to all families of passengers, over and above meeting their basic needs. All travel arrangements, accommodation, meals, and medical support are also absorbed by the Airline.

Regular briefings are conducted to update the families on current progress. During these briefings, the team also takes questions from the families to clear any doubt that they may have. We have arranged a team of translators to convey our messages in Mandarin. We also continue to keep the Chinese media informed and updated via regular press conferences.

Malaysia Airlines also received support from the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia (DCAM), who deployed two of their officers to join the team in Beijing. This was to facilitate questions and provide information on the search and rescue mission which is coordinated by the DCAM.

The Airline continues to work closely with the authorities and we appreciate the help we are receiving from all local and international agencies during this critical period.

Our top priority remains to provide any and all assistance to the families of the passengers and crew.

Malaysia Airlines reiterates that it continues to be transparent in communicating with the general public via the media on all matters affecting MH370.


Source: MAS


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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - MAS 14th Media Statement

Wednesday, March 12, 01:00 PM MYT +0800 Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident - 14th Media Statement

Malaysia Airlines' primary focus at this point in time is to care for the families of the passengers and crew of MH370. This means providing them with timely information, travel facilities, accommodation, meals, medical and emotional support. All these costs are borne by Malaysia Airlines.

We have deployed teams of caregivers consisting of trained MAS staff and volunteers from Mercy Malaysia and Tzu Chi Foundation. These caregivers are stationed at five different locations at Beijing and four different locations in Kuala Lumpur.

As of now, we have 115 family members in Kuala Lumpur and they are taken care of by 72 different caregivers. At least one caregiver is assigned to each family together with a Mandarin translator for the families from China.

The caregivers have been keeping the families updated on the search and rescue efforts as well as provide emotional support.

Equal amount of initial financial assistance are being given out to all families of passengers and crew over and above their basic needs. This amount is extended to families of all crew and passengers in Malaysia as well those from other nations.

We regret and empathise with the families and we will do whatever we can to ease their burden. We are as anxious as the families to know the status of their loved ones.


Source: MAS

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - MAS 13th Media Statement

Tuesday, March 11, 11:30 PM MYT +0800 Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident - 13th Media Statement

Malaysia Airlines has become aware of the allegations being made against First Officer, Fariq Ab Hamid which we take very seriously. We are shocked by these allegations.

We have not been able to confirm the validity of the pictures and videos of the alleged incident. As you are aware, we are in the midst of a crisis, and we do not want our attention to be diverted.

We also urge the media and general public to respect the privacy of the families of our colleagues and passengers. It has been a difficult time for them.

The welfare of both the crew and passenger’s families remain our focus. At the same time, the security and safety of our passengers is of the utmost importance to us.




Source: MAS


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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - MAS 12th Media Statement

Tuesday, March 11, 05:29 PM MYT +0800 Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident - 12th Media Statement

This statement is in reference to the many queries on the alleged five (5) passengers who checked-in but did not board MH370 on 8 March 2014 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing despite having valid tickets to travel.

Malaysia Airlines wishes to clarify that there were four (4) passengers who had valid booking to travel on flight MH370, 8 March 2014, but did not show up to check-in for the flight.

As such, the issue of off-loading unaccompanied baggage did not arise, as the said four passengers did not check in for the flight. Hence, the above claim is untrue.


Source: MAS

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Impostor Identified

One of the impostors identified as an Iranian teen



SEPANG: One of the impostors who boarded the MH370 flight has been identified as an Iranian, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said on Tuesday.



He said the 19-year-old man was Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad.



"We believe his intended destination was Frankfurt, Germany.



"So far, we believe he is not likely to be a terrorist," Khalid said at a press conference at the Sama Sama Hotel near KLIA.



He added that Mehrdad used the passport of Austrian Christian Kozel who had reported it missing in Phuket, Thailand.






Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad (left) and the second suspect who has yet to be identified.

Khalid said the man was believed to be migrating to Germany.



"When he did not arrive there, his mother contacted the authorities. She was aware he was using a stolen passport," he said.



He added that police were still investigating the identity of the second suspect.



Immigration Department director-general Datuk Aloyah Mamat said that both the impostors had come into Malaysia on Feb 28 and were issued social visit passes for 90 days.



She said in both cases, the passport bearer matched the image on the biodata page.



She added that the standard operating procedure was followed by the respective officers in conducting the immigration clearance.


Source: The Star



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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Help Of Fishermen

Fishermen using sonar in search mission in Straits of Malacca


ALOR SETAR: Kuala Kedah fishermen were using sonar devices available on their boats on Tuesday to help detect the MAS aircraft, which was reported missing four days ago.

Kuala Kedah Fishermen Association deputy general manager Mohd Sam Mohd Zuki said sonar technology used to detect fish, could be used to detect objects in the sea.

More than 30 fishing boats operating in zones C and C2 of the Straits of Malacca in Kedah and Perlis have been asked to help detect the MAS aircraft.

"These devices (sonar), which can detect until the seabed can also detect heat or thermal reaction of the aircraft. We also use Global Positioning System (GPS)," he told reporters at a fish landing jetty, here.

The Fire and Rescue Department will dispatch 100 officers and members to Kuantan and Langkawi to find the missing aircraft.

The Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, disappeared about an hour after taking off from the KL International Airport at 12.41 am on Saturday.


It was scheduled to have landed in Beijing at 6.30 am on the same day. - Bernama

Source  : The Star, Bernama

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Don't Rely Google Map

Don’t rely on Google Maps to search for plane, says Google


PETALING JAYA: Concerned people should not rely on Google Maps to search the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 as it is not live satellite feed.

With the search entering its fourth day on Tuesday, several concerned citizens called The Star, believing that they have discovered the missing airplane after scrolling through the Google Maps satellite images.

Pointing out various airplane images in Google Maps, which clearly shows images of an airplane, most members of the public believed that it was the lost airplane.

A concerned reader who called in, pointed out a location at the Vietnamese island of Cầu Ma Thiên Lãnh, located south west of Ho Chi Minh City as the location of the airplane while another individual emailed the location coordinates of the missing airplane close to the Kenyir Dam in Terengganu.

A spokesperson from Google Malaysia said while various pictures of airplanes will be there at various locations throughout, these are not live images.

"Yes, the images may be there, but it is not real time satellite images as the images may have provided to us several weeks or months ago," he said when contacted.

He said that Google Maps or Google Earth images are usually contributed by third party sources, who provide images several weeks or months earlier.


"These images which are captured would sometimes contain images of airplanes usually on its flight path and cannot be presumed as a possible crash site," he added.

Misleading images of a plane on Google Maps

Source: The Star

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Malaysia Airlines MH370 Flight Incident Updates - Chinese Speaking Help Needed

More Mandarin-speaking volunteers needed


PETALING JAYA: The MCA is looking for more Mandarin-speaking volunteers to help as translators for the 130 families of China nationals who were passengers on Flight MH370.

Its vice-president Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun said the party’s Crisis Relief Squad (CRSM) had received overwhelming response and 80 volunteers had been recruited so far.

She said more volunteers were needed to help the families with translation and counselling.

“The volunteers should be multilingual in Mandarin, English and Malay.

“They have to be ready to provide crisis relief, thus they must have their passports ready to depart with MAS whenever the need arises,” she said in a statement yesterday.

“Volunteers aged below 21 years must first obtain consent from their parents or guardian,” she said.


For more information, contact Xilas Ngang at 019-664-4300.


Source : The Star

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