MH370: Authorities profess ignorance about Indian Ocean focus

As US and India defence forces close in on the new areas of vital interest in the Indian Ocean on Day 7 of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 the country’s acting transport minister and minister of defence Hishammuddin Hussein feigned remarkable ignorance of the pace of events at the daily media update.

The Government of India has already released a statement that at the request of Malaysia it has put a substantial fleet of aircraft into a search effort west of Great Nicobar Island.

This new search imperative is far to the west of the current search area focused on the main Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea, which are on opposite sides of the Gulf of Thailand which is where MH370 vanished very early on the morning of 8 March while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

Instead the minister said “we will wait to confirm information with US officials,” in relation to reports that the US had information indicating a crash in the Indian Ocean and satellite data showing MH370 flew for more than four hours after it disappeared.

Hishammuddin Hussein said “we will not comment on information attributed to anonymous officials until it has been verified.”

In fact it is half a day since the White House spokesman appeared on US and international news networks saying that America had information indicating a crash in a part of the Indian Ocean and was sending naval vessels including the USS Kidd to an area of interest.

The Kuala Lumpur briefing came hours after Reuters published a report indicating that MH370 flew a very controlled and cleverly constructed flight path after it had gone ‘dark’ over the Gulf of Thailand and crossed the Malaysia peninsula westbound toward its flight toward the Andaman Sea and beyond.

Instead of dealing directly with these reports the Malaysia authorities told the end of Day 7 media conference that “US experts have indicated that they studying the possibility of of satellite communications with MH370 and would share what they knew with Malaysia.”

The conference was also told that a team of representatives from Rolls-Royce which made the missing jets engines and the UK accident investigation board had arrived in Kuala Lumpur.

The authorities said they couldn’t confirm that MH370 hadn’t been the victim of a hijacking.

At the start of this somewhat embarrassing briefing Hishammuddin Hussein said the previously extended search areas in the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea had been further expanded today.

The minister repeated the correct statement that the ACARS automated data system on MH370 had not transmitted further data on its engine status and other information after the Malaysia Airlines 777-200 dropped off the air traffic control system radars 42 minutes after take-off.

But that wasn’t the point. The US reports of satellite tracking of the jet for hours after it disappeared were based on passive electronic pinging of the ACARS network by the jet, not active status reports.

It will be one week tomorrow Saturday that MH370 vanished, only to appear as electronic traces on satellite networks used to receive status updates and locational signals that are tonight widely recognised for their tracking capabilities except in Malaysia.