Kapal pertahanan Australia (ADV) Ocean Shield mengesan satu isyarat ketika menyertai operasi mencari penerbangan MH370 di selatan Lautan Hindi pada Ahad.
Perkembangan terbaharu ini menyusuli dua denyut pendek yang juga dikenali sebagai isyarat akustik yang dikesan 36 jam lalu dan pada petang Sabtu oleh kapal China, Haixun 01.
Ketua Penyelaras Pusat Penyelarasan Agensi Bersama (JACC) Angus Houston berkata setakat ini belum dapat diputuskan sama ada untuk mengesahkan atau menolak petunjuk itu memandangkan siasatan masih berjalan.
"Kapal HMS Echo dalam perjalanan ke lokasi Haixun 01 manakala Ocean Shield sedang menyiasat isyarat itu menggunakan peralatan bawah permukaan air," katanya dalam sidang media di Perth hari ini.
Katanya jarak antara Haixun 01 dan Ocean Shield ialah kira-kira 300 batu nautika.
Houston menyifatkan Ocean Shield sebagai kapal terbaik untuk tugas itu memandangkan aset tersebut dilengkapi 'towed pinger' (alat pengesan isyarat yang ditunda) dan kenderaan bawah permukaan air kawalan jauh.
Beliau bagaimanapun menjelaskan pengesahan isyarat itu boleh mengambil masa beberapa hari selain pencarian yang sukar kerana kedalaman di kawasan berkenaan ialah kira-kira 4.5 km di samping pelbagai cabaran lain.
Penerbangan MH370 ke Beijing itu yang membawa 239 orang hilang tanpa jejak ketika di ruang udara Laut China Selatan, kira-kira sejam setelah berlepas dari Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur pada 12.41 tengah malam, 8 Mac lalu.
Analisis data satelit kemudian menunjukkan pesawat mengubah haluan jauh daripada laluan asal dan penerbangan berakhir di selatan Lautan Hindi.- Bernama
Two ships and airplane to probe promising signal...
Two ships and an aircraft will be tasked to
investigate the signal that the Chinese patrol vessel Haixun 01 detected
yesterday, said the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC).
They are the British hydrographic survey vessel HMS Echo, Australian vessel ADV Ocean Shield, and a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft.
However, Ocean Shield has also detected an ‘acoustic event’ at a separate part of the ocean and will investigate this first before continuing. No details are available regarding the sounds detected.
“This has only happened in the last 90 minutes, we heard a report back from the Ocean Shield - the towed pinger locator (TPL) operators aboard there - they have picked up a detection,” Joint Task Force 658 commander Peter Leavy told a press conference in Perth at 11.30am.
HMS Echo will arrive in the area in 14 hours, he says, while Ocean Shield will take at least until mid-afternoon to decide whether to remain in the area or join HMS Echo.
It will then take Ocean Shield a full day to make the journey, plus the two to three hours to retrieve and then redeploy its TPL, which is tethered at the end of a six kilometre long cable.
Acoustic detections
Meanwhile, JACC chief Angus Houston said the signal detected by Haixun 01 yesterday is ‘promising’ because it had detected the same signal on Friday, just two kilometres away from yesterday’s detection was made.
However, he warned that these acoustic detections, as well as many more that would come in the future, should be treated as ‘unverified’ until told otherwise, just like the visual search at the beginning of the operation.
“We will go through a similar process (of verification) underwater. Underwater, the environment is quite difficult.
“There are lots of occasions when noises will be transmitted over long distances depending on the temperatures layers in the water and so on. There is a complexity about working underwater,” he said, adding that the sea is some 4.5 kilometres deep at Haixun 01’s location.
He adds that the signals detected thus far have been fleeting, whereas the search ships should have been able to hear it longer if they were close to the black box.
Houston also announced that new satellite analysis have slightly revised MH370’s likely flight path, suggesting that it had flown a little further before hitting the water.
“The whole of the existing search area remains the most likely area that the aircraft entered the water, but based on the new advice the southern area now has a higher priority,” he says.
To a question, he replied that the southern area is also where Haixun 01 had been searching.- mk
They are the British hydrographic survey vessel HMS Echo, Australian vessel ADV Ocean Shield, and a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft.
However, Ocean Shield has also detected an ‘acoustic event’ at a separate part of the ocean and will investigate this first before continuing. No details are available regarding the sounds detected.
“This has only happened in the last 90 minutes, we heard a report back from the Ocean Shield - the towed pinger locator (TPL) operators aboard there - they have picked up a detection,” Joint Task Force 658 commander Peter Leavy told a press conference in Perth at 11.30am.
HMS Echo will arrive in the area in 14 hours, he says, while Ocean Shield will take at least until mid-afternoon to decide whether to remain in the area or join HMS Echo.
It will then take Ocean Shield a full day to make the journey, plus the two to three hours to retrieve and then redeploy its TPL, which is tethered at the end of a six kilometre long cable.
Acoustic detections
Meanwhile, JACC chief Angus Houston said the signal detected by Haixun 01 yesterday is ‘promising’ because it had detected the same signal on Friday, just two kilometres away from yesterday’s detection was made.
However, he warned that these acoustic detections, as well as many more that would come in the future, should be treated as ‘unverified’ until told otherwise, just like the visual search at the beginning of the operation.
“We will go through a similar process (of verification) underwater. Underwater, the environment is quite difficult.
“There are lots of occasions when noises will be transmitted over long distances depending on the temperatures layers in the water and so on. There is a complexity about working underwater,” he said, adding that the sea is some 4.5 kilometres deep at Haixun 01’s location.
He adds that the signals detected thus far have been fleeting, whereas the search ships should have been able to hear it longer if they were close to the black box.
Houston also announced that new satellite analysis have slightly revised MH370’s likely flight path, suggesting that it had flown a little further before hitting the water.
“The whole of the existing search area remains the most likely area that the aircraft entered the water, but based on the new advice the southern area now has a higher priority,” he says.
To a question, he replied that the southern area is also where Haixun 01 had been searching.- mk
Kapal China kesan bunyi ping, belum disah berkaitan MH370...
Xinhua dan CCTV melaporkan bahawa kapal China Haixun 01 telah mengesan isyarat sekali sesaat pada frekuensi 37.5 kilohertz, yang konsisten dengan 'pinger' kotak hitam.
Ia dikesan pada 25 darjah latitud selatan dan 101 darjah longitud timur - kawasan di Lautan Hindi di luar Australia.
Bagaimanapun, laporan itu mengingatkan bahawa kaitan antara isyarat itu dengan dan MH370 masih belum disahkan.
Sementara itu, Bernama melaporkan Operasi mencari pesawat Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH370 memasuki hari ke-29 membabitkan 10 pesawat tentera, tiga jet awam dan 11 kapal dikerah menjejaki pesawat yang hilang itu.
Pusat Penyelarasan Agensi Bersama (JACC) dalam kenyataan hari ini berkata operasi itu turut membabitkan kapal pertahanan Australia ADV Ocean Shield dan kapal hidrografi Tentera Laut Diraja British HMS Echo yang meneruskan pencarian di bawah permukaan air.
"Operasi pencarian hari ini meliputi kawasan seluas 217,000 kilometer persegi, yang terletak kira-kira 1,700km di barat laut Perth, Australia," katanya.
Menurut kenyataan itu, pencarian hari ini memberi tumpuan kepada tiga kawasan dalam sekitar yang sama dan keadaan cuaca hari ini cerah dan hujan diramal berlaku di kawasan pencarian.
Menurutnya, Biro Keselamatan Pengangkutan Australia akan terus memberi tumpuan di kawasan tempat pesawat itu berakhir mengikut analisis teknikal membabitkan pelbagai aspek yang pertama kali dilakukan berdasarkan komunikasi satelit dan prestasi pesawat, yang disalurkan pasukan penyiasat nahas udara antarabangsa terdiri daripada penganalisis dari Malaysia, Amerika Syarikat, United Kingdom, China dan Australia.
JACC dilancarkan pada 1 April lepas di Perth, Australia bagi menyelaraskan pencarian pesawat MAS MH370 di selatan Lautan Hindi.
Penerbangan MH370, yang membawa 227 penumpang dan 12 anak kapal, hilang daripada imbasan radar semasa berada di kawasan Laut China Selatan kira-kira sejam setelah berlepas dari Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa KL pada 12.41 tengah malam 8 Mac.
Pesawat itu sepatutnya mendarat di Beijing 6.30 pagi hari sama.
Pasukan pelbagai negara pada mulanya mencari pesawat itu di kawasan Laut China Selatan dan kemudiannya, selepas pesawat itu dikesan melencong daripada laluan, di sepanjang dua koridor iaitu koridor utara dari sempadan Kazakhstan dan Turkmenistan hingga utara Thailand dan koridor selatan dari Indonesia sehingga selatan Lautan Hindi.
Susulan hasil analisis terhadap data satelit, syarikat telekomunikasi satelit United Kingdom Inmarsat dan Cawangan Penyiasatan Kemalangan Udara UK (AAIB) merumuskan Penerbangan MH370 terbang di sepanjang koridor selatan dan kedudukan terakhirnya di tengah Lautan Hindi, barat Perth.
Pada 24 Mac, iaitu 17 hari selepas kehilangan pesawat Boeing 777-200ER itu, Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak mengumumkan Penerbangan MH370 "berakhir di selatan Lautan Hindi".- mk
MH370 - Chinese ship picks up pulse signal...
A Chinese patrol ship looking for signs of Malaysia Airlines MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean has recorded a pulse signal with a frequency of 37.5 kHz on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua reported.
A black box detector deployed from the ship Haixun 01 picked up the signal but it hasn’t been established whether it is related to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the agency said.
The Chinese patrol ship has been searching to the north of the search area after it arrived at the site with black box locator equipment on Friday, according to a Xinhua reporter aboard the Chinese search vessel.
The Haixun 01 was not one of the ships widely reported to have been tasked with the underwater black box search mission: the Australian Defence vessel Ocean Shield towing a US "pinger locator" and the UK HMS Echo.
The ship's crew notified Australian authorities of the discovery about midday WST on Saturday, according to unconfirmed reports.
Anish Patel, president of pinger manufacturer Dukane Seacom, said that was the standard beacon frequency for both black boxes: the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder.
‘‘They’re identical,’’ he said.
The signal, which experts say has the same frequency as flight recorders, was reportedly detected at 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude.
A separate report carried on the website of Chinese newspaper Liberation Daily said the signal was first picked up by equipment on the Haixun 01 patrol ship on Friday afternoon, and that three team members on the ship confirmed hearing the signal.
The report said the patrol ship picked up the pulse signal again at about 4.30pm on Saturday and were working to confirm whether it could be related to the missing Boeing jet.
Australian Defence Minister David Johnston urged caution following a number of false leads in what has been an "emotional roller coaster" for those affected by the MH370 tragedy.
"I have not had a chance to get to the bottom of this but can I tell you this is not the first time we've had something that has turned out to be very disappointing," he told ABC24.
"There's a huge chance of false positives here."
Mr Johnston said he would wait to be briefed by Air Chief Marshal Houston, head of the new Joint Agency Coordination Centre.
While the Defence Minister called for cool heads to prevail, Western Australian oceanographer Charitha Pattiaratchi said the frequency of the signal could ‘‘only come from a human thing’’,
‘‘If you look at the noise in the ocean and the particular frequencies in there, rain makes a different frequency, whales call at a different frequency. All of the different natural frequencies we know,’’ Professor Pattiaratchi, from the University of Western Australia, said.
‘‘The reason we have the black box at that frequency is so the wave lengths travel pretty fast and it can be picked up. If they've definitely picked up that signal it’s most likely coming from the plane.’’
University of Southampton oceanographer, Simon Boxall, said a "variety of things’’ use the same frequency as the pulse signals reportedly detected.
‘‘We've had a lot of red herrings, hyperbole on this whole search," Mr Boxall told CNN. "I'd really like to see this data confirmed...It could be a false signal."
It has been 30 days since the aircraft vanished and there are fears the beacon on the plane’s black boxes might run out of power and stop sending signals.
Although black box beacons have a battery life of about 30 days, they have been known to continue emitting signals for months longer.
The underwater component of the international search mission has only just begun.
The pinger locator can detect a box’s signals, but only from 1.6 kilometres away. The search for wreckage is in 217,000 square kilometres of ocean north-west of Perth.
A Joint Agency Coordination spokesman said: "We can't verify this information at this point in time".- Sydney Morning Herald
Hisham contradicts IGP, no one on MH370 cleared yet...
Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein
has apparently contradicted the police’s statement that all passengers
of missing MH370 were cleared of suspicion.
“I don’t think anyone has been cleared from any of the investigations,” he said at a press briefing today.
“Like I said the manifest list - this includes the crew as well - the four possibilities that the inspector-general of police has constantly reminded us - which is whether it is terrorism, hijacking, psychological or personal (issues) - that as I know is still ongoing.”
Hishammuddin said this when fielding questions from reporters, where he was asked why there is still no word on whether the crew of MH370 has been cleared since the passengers have reportedly been cleared earlier.
On Wednesday, inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar reportedly said the police have cleared all passengers of hijacking, sabotage as well as psychological and personal problems, which are the focus of the investigation into ill-fated plane.
Hishammuddin also told reporters today that the recordings of MH370’s communication with air traffic control cannot be released for the time being.
“On the audio (recording), I am told that they are still investigating the audio evidence that exists.
“It is still pending, it cannot be released at the moment,” he said, when asked if the recording can be released so that relatives can help identify the MH370 pilot who last spoke to air traffic controllers.
The defence minister also denied allegations that Malaysia had been complicit in the incident, saying that allegations on the contrary are unfouded.
“I should like to state, for the record, that these allegations are completely untrue. As I have said before, the search for MH370 should be above politics,” said Hishammuddin, who is fresh from attending the United States-Asean Defence Forum in Honolulu, Hawaii.
He did not explicitly mention which allegation he was referring to, but his statement came just a day after PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim accused the government of a cover-up.
Workshop services all MAS planes
Meanwhile, MAS chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told reporters that the avionics workshop that caught fire on March 27 services all of MAS’ aircraft.
“We do repair and service avionics equipment on board all aircraft. The workshop is certified to do so,” he said, when asked if the workshop had handled MH370’s equipment.
Avionics is a general term that means ‘aviation electronics’ and includes equipment such as airspeed indicators, altimeters, radios, and black boxes.
The minor fire reportedly occurred at a “confined area of the corridor” of the workshop in Subang.
Hishammuddin also said Malaysia will not stop searching for the missing jet and will not put a "dollar-and-cents" value to
the ongoing operations.
"The search goes beyond dollars and cents," he said.
Asked about chances that those on board MH370 were safe, he said that this was what their families were hoping for.
"It may be remote but it is what they believe in. Eventhough if it is a miracle, it is hoping against hope. If that is the wish of the family, I think it is proper if we can respect their wishes."
Asked whether Malaysia was ready to apologise for the MH370 tragedy, he said that was not a solution.- mk
“I don’t think anyone has been cleared from any of the investigations,” he said at a press briefing today.
“Like I said the manifest list - this includes the crew as well - the four possibilities that the inspector-general of police has constantly reminded us - which is whether it is terrorism, hijacking, psychological or personal (issues) - that as I know is still ongoing.”
Hishammuddin said this when fielding questions from reporters, where he was asked why there is still no word on whether the crew of MH370 has been cleared since the passengers have reportedly been cleared earlier.
On Wednesday, inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar reportedly said the police have cleared all passengers of hijacking, sabotage as well as psychological and personal problems, which are the focus of the investigation into ill-fated plane.
Hishammuddin also told reporters today that the recordings of MH370’s communication with air traffic control cannot be released for the time being.
“On the audio (recording), I am told that they are still investigating the audio evidence that exists.
“It is still pending, it cannot be released at the moment,” he said, when asked if the recording can be released so that relatives can help identify the MH370 pilot who last spoke to air traffic controllers.
The defence minister also denied allegations that Malaysia had been complicit in the incident, saying that allegations on the contrary are unfouded.
“I should like to state, for the record, that these allegations are completely untrue. As I have said before, the search for MH370 should be above politics,” said Hishammuddin, who is fresh from attending the United States-Asean Defence Forum in Honolulu, Hawaii.
He did not explicitly mention which allegation he was referring to, but his statement came just a day after PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim accused the government of a cover-up.
Workshop services all MAS planes
Meanwhile, MAS chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told reporters that the avionics workshop that caught fire on March 27 services all of MAS’ aircraft.
“We do repair and service avionics equipment on board all aircraft. The workshop is certified to do so,” he said, when asked if the workshop had handled MH370’s equipment.
Avionics is a general term that means ‘aviation electronics’ and includes equipment such as airspeed indicators, altimeters, radios, and black boxes.
The minor fire reportedly occurred at a “confined area of the corridor” of the workshop in Subang.
Hishammuddin also said Malaysia will not stop searching for the missing jet and will not put a "dollar-and-cents" value to
the ongoing operations.
"The search goes beyond dollars and cents," he said.
Asked about chances that those on board MH370 were safe, he said that this was what their families were hoping for.
"It may be remote but it is what they believe in. Eventhough if it is a miracle, it is hoping against hope. If that is the wish of the family, I think it is proper if we can respect their wishes."
Asked whether Malaysia was ready to apologise for the MH370 tragedy, he said that was not a solution.- mk
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