What has the aviation industry learned from Flight MH370?

More than five months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished from radar screens, there is still no trace of the passenger jet. DW examines what is being done to prevent such an incident from happening again.

The fate of Flight MH370 has been shrouded in mystery ever since the Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing in the early morning hours of March 8 with 239 people on board. While satellite data suggest the aircraft crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, international search efforts have so far failed to provide any concrete evidence as to the fate of the plane.

This is why investigators decided to readjust the search south along a narrow arc identified as the most likely resting place of the jet. Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott - whose government is contributing to the international search - said the hunt for the plane would resume off the Western Australian coast in September.

Without any identified wreckage, it has been hard to establish facts, thus prolonging the painful wait for the relatives and friends of those gone missing. But the plane's disappearance has also raised questions as to what the aviation industry is prepared to do to prevent such an incident from happening again, especially given that this is not the first time an airplane has disappeared without a trace for months or even years.

It has been well established that Flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur with no signs of distress and that 26 minutes after departure - while flying somewhere over the South China Sea - the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which transmits key information on the plane's mechanical condition, was switched off for reasons still unknown.

How can a plane simply vanish?

The plane then dropped off civilian air traffic control screens after its transponder, which relays information on the plane's location and altitude, was shut down less than an hour into the flight. After the plane was plotted by military radar 45 minutes later, the only other indication as to where the jet was headed came from the analysis of a series of electronic signals known as "handshakes" between the plane and a satellite. But how is it possible that a passenger jet can simply disappear in mid-air in an age when information is just a few clicks away?

International search efforts have so far failed to provide any concrete evidence as to the fate of the plane

According to aviation expert Chris Yates, one explanation is that the aviation industry is simply not well-equipped in terms of its aircraft tracking capabilities. "The fact of the matter is that the industry has long been behind the times," the UK-based analyst told DW, adding that while there is constantly new technology applicable to the industry, the time it takes to transfer such innovation into the cockpit or airframe can be measured in years if not decades.

"The regulatory framework for airplanes is extremely rigorous because one flawed decision can lead to the loss of aircraft in flight and, as a result, the loss of many lives." Another reason for this is the issue of cost. As Yates explains, airlines universally dislike safety recommendations or requirements that could result in them having to replace systems or parts of an aircraft at potentially huge cost and often fight "tooth and nail" to avoid having to do so.

A 'tracking task force'

Nonetheless, the industry says it is determined to tackle the issue. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) - which represents around 240 airlines - told DW that the aviation sector was committed to making sure that there are no other events where aircraft simply disappear or cannot be located. To this end, IATA's Director General and CEO, Tony Tyler, announced in April that a special task force - the Aircraft Tracking Task Force (ATTF) - would be formed to identify and recommend near-term options for aircraft tracking.

The team's aim is to define a minimum set of performance requirements that any system should meet, thus allowing airlines to make their own decisions about how to best track their aircraft, based on their operations. According to Yates, the ATTF's draft options - set to be presented to the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in September - include a host of short, medium and long term goals aimed at better ensuring that information is provided in a timely fashion to the right people in order to support search and rescue, recovery and accident investigation activities.

Enhancing the equipment

Independent aviation expert Heinrich Grossbongardt also points out that aviation authorities in Europe and the US are working on new regulations for the locator beacons of the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder, commonly known as black box. "This will comprise of significant longer battery life and an improved acoustic signal to make it easier to locate the boxes underwater," he says.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) told DW that the new requirements include the extension of the transmission time of underwater locating devices (ULD), which will be fitted directly to the central part of the aircraft from 30 to 90 days.

The agency also said it proposes to equip large airplanes flying over oceans with a new type of ULD that have a longer locating range than the ULDS installed in currently used flight recorders. Alternatively, aircraft may be equipped with a means to determine the location of an accident within six nautical miles accuracy. In addition, the minimum recording duration of Cockpit Voice Recorders installed on new large aeroplanes should be increased to 20 hours from two hours today, the Cologne-based agency told DW.

There are also ongoing discussions about improving the Emergency Locator Transmitter, a device that automatically sends a signal of distress in case of a crash, which is received through a network of satellites. According to Grossbongardt, improved black boxes with longer battery life and a stronger vibration might take four or five years to be rolled out across the global fleet of long-haul jets.

Oceans and remote areas

Inmarsat, the UK-based satellite company which was able to determine Flight MH370's approximate path after the airliner vanished from radar screens, said that the loss of the plane reinforces the need for all aircraft to be tracked, especially when flying over ocean and other remote airspace, when out of range of ground-based radar systems. "Today, continual tracking of aircraft via satellite communication systems is only mandatory in certain regions of the world and we believe this should immediately be extended to all remote and oceanic routes," Jonathan Sinnatt, Director of Corporate Communications told DW.

The loss of MH370 reinforces the need for all aircraft to be tracked, especially when out of range of ground-based radar systems, says Inmarsat

The technology for real-time aircraft tracking is already available onboard most modern passenger jets. ADS-C allows for two way communication and is available via satellite, providing connectivity over land and the oceans. ADS-B broadcasts an aircraft’s position but is currently only available when in range of a ground station. But as Grossbongardt points out, the technology had until recently been seen mainly as a way of improving the efficiency of flight operations, but not as an important means of safety.

"Some airlines used it, some did not. This view has changed since MH370", said Grossbongardt, who is also the managing director of Expairtise, a communications agency specializing in aviation and aerospace.

Inmarsat has also pointed to other options such as a "black box in the cloud" service, which would stream black box data from an aircraft to the ground only in the event of a critical event, such as an aircraft performance anomaly. "In the event of a catastrophe while searching for the black box will remain vital to the investigation, having key data immediately available would certainly help in both understanding what has happened and also providing answers for families who may have lost loved ones," Sinnat said.

Live streaming full flight data?

But will this be enough to keep communication lines open with the aircraft? Jörg Handwerg, spokesperson of the German Air Line Pilots' Association 'Vereinigung Cockpit,' is of the view that despite such potential improvements, it will be virtually impossible to prevent airplanes from losing communications under any circumstances, especially if problems with the electrical systems on board emerge.

Handwerg and his association also reject the idea of setting up a system designed to live stream full flight data, given that "too many questions regarding the issue remain unanswered". Some of these questions involve the purpose of the data and where it would be stored, the people allowed to access it, and the measures in place to protect employees from any potential manipulation and misuse of the data.

A full flight data live stream to the ground would swamp the currently available broadband bandwidth, say experts

"It would be a complete control of what the pilots do on board, which would not be in accordance with basic principles of labor law in many countries," says Handwerg, who also stresses that setting up such a system would not prevent accidents from happening, but rather lead to increased ticket prices.

Yates points out that there is also a capacity issue that would need to be tackled before a full flight data live stream is even possible: "A significant amount of data is captured and stored on aircraft black boxes and it's widely accepted that a constant live stream to the ground would swamp the available broadband bandwidth."

Tackling the 'blind spot'

The unprecedented tragedy of Flight MH370 has shown that the aviation industry's capabilities of tracking aircraft are limited and should be substantially improved. The sector is only now beginning to address the issue, but as Yates emphasizes, the benefits of implementing effective measures to improve tracking are clear: "This will enhance the ability to fix the location of a downed airliner with a much greater degree of accuracy and thereby significantly enhance the timely search for possible survivors."

According to Grossbongardt, such a move would also help strengthen passengers' trust in the industry: "Everybody is aware that the trust of the flying public in the safety and security of the global air transport system is the basis of the airline industry."

"Improved tracking will enhance the ability to fix the location of a downed airliner with a much greater degree of accuracy," says Yates

Air traffic has reached today's high level of safety because it learns from every accident and uses the information gained to improve technology, flight operations and regulations. Indeed, every day approximately 100,000 flights take to the sky and land without incident. In 2013, more than three billion people flew and there were 210 fatalities, according to IATA.

However, there will always be a certain degree of uncertainty: "Our system today is a very solid system which is already very good, but as in all other areas of life it is not perfect and it will never be, no matter what technology we use," said Handwerg.

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Malaysia Airlines faces fight over its own survival

This "Visit Malaysia Year 2014" was designed to lure even more foreign fliers to the beaches and other attractions of a Southeast Asian nation whose tourism bureau had profitably promoted with the "Malaysia, Truly Asia" slogan.

Then lightning struck twice, as Malaysia Airlines lost two passenger jetliners in under five months, with the likely loss of 537 lives. Tourism should recover as travelers enjoy other choices of airline, but the ill-fated national carrier appears less likely to survive, at least in its current form.

A government-led review of the airline's operations began after Flight 370 disappeared March 8 en route to Beijing. No trace of the plane has yet been found. That ongoing review, focused on the need to restructure, has been lent extra urgency by the second tragedy, the shooting down July 17 over eastern Ukraine of Flight 17 to Kuala Lumpur, although results are only expected in six months to a year's time.

The airline's commercial director said it will "emerge stronger" from the planned overhaul led by its majority shareholder, the government's sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad. "There are several options on the table, but all involve creating an airline fit for purpose in what is a new era for us, and other airlines," Hugh Dunleavy wrote in a United Kingdom newspaper.

Aviation analysts in the region say the airline must make tough decisions to save and rebuild what was already a heavily loss-making business even before the two incidents caused many international customers to return tickets and demand refunds. Hard choices include whether to rebrand the airline with a new name, reduce staff and cut all international routes, they say.

In the absence of hard news from those conducting the review, speculation centers on whether Malaysia Airlines will go bankrupt, go private or sell off profitable parts such as its engineering unit. This month, Khazanah has dismissed news media reports that the airline will be privatized or merge with low-cost carrier AirAsia.

Given the now widespread aversion to boarding any flight whose airline code starts with MH, Malaysia Airlines must consider "cosmetic changes" including a different name and livery, and a switch from MH, said Timothy Ross, an Asian aviation analyst in Singapore for Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank. "More fundamentally, there are issues of cost and capital concentration. It's overstaffed, and its unions have understandably resisted moves to reduce their power and size," he said.

Run by an arm of the Malaysian government, the firm has experienced a "revolving door at the managing director level," with no real resolve to tackle unions or non-union labor costs, Ross said. Competition grows both from low-budget carriers such as AirAsia, and full service players, he said.

"It needs to figure out what it wants to be, rather than being all things to all people," said Ross, but Japan Airlines, bust just four years ago and now very well-run, offers hope "as long as management has a free hand," he said. "It's a test of how Malaysian politicians deal with it, or the airline will limp on as it has for the past decade, relying on government infusions," Ross said.

Chinese tourists, whose fast-swelling numbers excite the travel industry worldwide, have shunned Malaysia's national carrier ever since Flight 370 vanished. "Many Chinese people don't trust them now," said Zhang Qihuai, an aviation law expert in Beijing. "They must investigate the reason for their bad public relations management, and give relatives good compensation, those are the most important issues for their image in China," he said.

Yet Zhang said he expects the firm will survive its "double crisis."

Safety doubts will shrink its market share, costing the airline some good international routes, but the Malaysian government can fund its survival, just as Beijing spent billions to keep Chinese airlines flying during the economic crisis of 2008, he said.

Malaysia Airlines can keep its name, for the pride of millions of loyal passengers at home, but should trim its ambitions and become a domestic-only airline, advised Mohshin Aziz, aviation analyst at the Kuala Lumpur-based Maybank Investment Bank. "They must ask 'where is our business relevant?'" he said. "They only really make money on domestic sectors. The moment they go international, they lose money. Now the laws of probability are that they won't make money on international routes for a long time, if ever."

The firm loses $1.6 million every day, and will run out of capital by the middle of next year, Aziz said. Discounting tickets remains a "losing proposition," and international travelers can choose other airlines, but domestically, Malaysians will support the airline, he said.

"We love it, love the service, the food, what it represents," Aziz said. "If you change the brand name, logo and everything, it's an effort to disassociate yourself from the history."

Public opinion in Malaysia demands the airline be kept alive, and support grows for a domestic-only future, he said.

In the past, authorities "would say 'no way, international is what a carrier is all about', but extraordinary circumstances require an extraordinary solution," Aziz said.

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Can Malaysia Airlines survive latest tragedy?

First a Malaysia Airlines plane goes missing and is never found. And four months later, another one of its passenger jets is shot out of the sky.

The tragic events have taken the lives of 537 people in all, and brought devastation to their families.

It has also left many pondering the future of the airline and its ability to weather the latest storm.

If customers flee, it could really put a dent in its bottom line, said Justin Green, a military trained pilot and aviation attorney.

Malaysia Airlines was already a struggling company before these latest tragedies.

Even before Flight 370 disappeared, a difficult business climate forced the airline into the red for the three years in a row, leading to a loss of about 4.2 billion ringgit ($1.3 billion) over that period.

"But the situation has become much graver," said Daniel Tsang, an aviation analyst at Aspire Aviation. "Bankruptcy is unquestionably a possibility."

According to international law, Malaysia Airlines is responsible for making initial payments of about $150,000 to the families of each deceased passenger in both flights.

There will also be lawsuits to fight. Even thought it appears Flight 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile last week over Ukraine, there's a chance the airline could be found negligible for flying in the disputed airspace where Ukraine rebels are operating, Green said. While the flight's route was approved by Eurocontrol, other carriers were avoiding the airspace.

Those additional payments still wouldn't break the bank, Green said. Many of Malaysia Airlines' expenses will be covered by the maze of insurance policies that cover a plane and its passengers.

Very few airlines went bankrupt immediately after previous tragedies, Green said.

The now defunct Pan Am was in financial trouble long before the terrorist bombing of its Flight 103 over Scotland, but the attack did help push the airline toward its ultimate bankruptcy, the airline's former CEO Tom Plaskett told CNN.

The airline survived for two more years after the attack, until it filed for bankruptcy in 1991.

So far, Malaysia Airlines customers have proved quite loyal.

After Flight 370 went missing on March 8, Malaysia Airlines did not see an immediate decline in passengers, according to its April traffic report. But the number of passengers dropped 4% in May compared to the same month last year.

The airline is also waiving fees and refunding tickets until the end of December for anyone who wants to cancel or postpone their travel plans.

Overall, the company experienced a 13% uptick in the number of passengers for the year to date.

Another factor that will play in its favor is that Malaysia Airlines has state-backing. The government's investment firm owns nearly 70% of the company, which just might help it survive these tough times.

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Malaysia Airlines Is Offering Refunds To All Ticket Holders

After a Malaysia Airlines plane crashed in eastern Ukraine yesterday, killing all 300 people onboard, the airline said it would offer a full refund to any ticket holder who no longer wishes to travel with it, Australia's News.com reports.

The airline's policy change comes in light of yesterday's crash and the disappearance of flight MH370 four months ago.

According to the Australian news organization, the airline will refund any tickets, including non-refundable fares, for the next week until July 24th. Tickets covered in the refund will only be for flights before December 31, 2014. 

Malaysia Airlines released this statement to News.com:

“In light of the recent tragedy of MH17 on 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines will adapt the below policy effective immediately until Thursday, 24 July 2014.

“Passengers who wish to postpone or cancel their travel plans can obtain a refund, including for non refundable tickets.

“Enrich (frequent flyer program) passengers will also receive fee waivers for any changes to their travel itinerary, as well as refunds of miles

“These waivers are only applicable from 18 July 2014 until 24 July 2014, for travel between 18 July 2014 until 31 December 2014.”

Even with this generous refund policy, it may be too late recover the trust of some customers:

Scott Eddy @MrScottEddy

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I just called to cancel my Enrich Frequent Flyer account with #MalaysiaAirlines, will never fly with them again. #MH17 #MH370 #Travel

11:48 AM - 18 Jul 2014 Lisbon, Portugal

Zustin Zimberlake @ZZimberlake

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@MAS i would like to cancel my flight next month. Sorry your company is too dangerous #malaysiaAirlines #mas

6:02 PM - 17 Jul 2014

Ryan Toner @nytoner77

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I think I'm just gonna go ahead and cancel my November flight on Malaysia Airlines.

6:02 PM - 17 Jul 2014

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Crash: Malaysia B772 near Donetsk

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, registration 9M-MRD performing flight MH-17 from Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) with 280 passengers and 15 crew, was enroute at FL330 about 50nm northwest of Donetsk (Ukraine) when the transponder signal was lost at FL330 at position N48.56 E37.21 at 13:43Z. The aircraft came down near the village of Shakhtarsk (Ukraine) about 56nm from the last transponder position.

Interfax reports citing an industry source that a Malaysia Boeing 777 from Amsterdam to Malaysia has crashed near the Ukrainian/Russian border, the burning wreckage has been located. The aircraft has been shot down, the agency subsequently added.

Malaysia Airlines have confirmed an incident, the aircraft did not enter Russian Airspace so far, about two hours after the estimated entry into the airspace. At 15:40Z Malaysia Airlines tweeted: "Malaysia Airlines has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace. More details to follow."

Ukraine's Ministry of Interior have confirmed the Boeing has crashed, there were no survivors.

Smoke rising from supposed crash site (Video: Secretariat for HQ of National Resistance of Ukraine):

Avherald.com

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Hunt for MH370 could take ‘decades’, admits airline chief

The hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 could take “decades”, the company’s British commercial chief has admitted.

Hugh Dunleavy, a former Ministry of Defence employee who became the airline's director of commercial operations in 2012, said he believed something “untoward” had happened to the Boeing 777, which disappeared on March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

“Something untoward happened to that plane. I think it made a turn to come back, then a sequence of events overtook it, and it was unable to return to base,” Mr Dunleavy told the Evening Standard.

“I believe it’s somewhere in the south Indian Ocean. But when [a plane] hits the ocean it’s like hitting concrete. The wreckage could be spread over a big area. And there are mountains and canyons in that ocean. I think it could take a really long time to find. We’re talking decades,” he added.

In the days immediately after the plane went missing, a senior Malaysian minister told The Telegraph he feared the search mission would take weeks or months.

“We are in for the long haul,” Hishammuddin Hussein, the acting transport minister, said.

However, even that prognosis proved wildly optimistic. More than three months have now passed since the plane disappeared and no physical trace of it has been found despite a massive multi-national search effort.

On Sunday it emerged that Zaharie Shah, the plane’s captain, had used a flight simulator at his home to plot a flight path to a remote island deep into the southern Indian Ocean, where much of the recent search operation has been focused.

That discovery has rekindled suspicious that the pilot may have hijacked the plane and deliberately steered it off course.

Hishammuddin Hussein, the minister, rejected suggestions that the pilot was now “prime suspect” on Monday. “We should not entertain conspiracy theories,” he told Malaysia’s The Star newspaper.

Mr Dunleavy, who is originally from Ealing, defended his company’s initial response to MH370’s disappearance.

“People say, ‘Why didn’t you work quicker?’ But you’re calling pilots, explaining the situation, waiting for them to send out pings, doing the same to the next plane, then the next, and it’s four in the morning, you don’t have 50 people in the office, only a couple. An hour goes by frighteningly quickly — you realise that the missing plane is now another 600 miles somewhere else.”

However, the airline’s commercial boss criticised the Malaysian government for taking so long to reveal that the missing plane had turned back over the Malay peninsula towards the Strait of Malacca.

“I only heard about this through the news,” Mr Dunleavy said. “I’m thinking, really? You couldn’t have told us that directly? Malaysia’s air traffic control and military radar are in the same freakin’ building. The military saw an aircraft turn and did nothing.”

“They didn’t know it was MH370, their radar just identifies flying objects, yet a plane had gone down and the information about something in the sky turning around didn’t get released by the authorities until after a week. Why? I don’t know. I really wish I did.”

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How long will the search for MH 370 continue?

Malaysia Airlines’ (Kuala Lumpur) missing flight MH 370 has now been missing for 100 days. So far, no debris from the missing fine has been found. Nothing has been found, despite promising leads and observations. Everything turned out to be floating ocean flotsam.

The previously reported “pings” are now thought to be erroneous. In short, missing flight MH 370 is a true aviation mystery of epic proportions.

Missing Air France flight AF 447 took almost two years to be located so there is some hope MH 370 will be found. However authorities had a better idea where AF 447 was located. For the MH 370 without better data, no one knows for sure where the flight is located. For the families of the missing passengers and crew members, this uncertainty is so hurtful and very hard to accept. They cannot have any closure. The families rely on any hope which they cling to. Today, after 100 days, they have very little to cling to.

CNN has raised the difficult question of how long the search will continue. The search is very costly and without better data it has a low chance of being discovered. If anyone wanted to have this flight “disappear” they have succeeded.

So far Australia has shouldered most of the cost in the search. Australia is leading the search due to assumption the flight crashed into the southern Indian Ocean closest to Australia. Many other countries including the United States, Malaysia and China have contributed costly assets and crews in the search with zero results. The assumption that the flight crashed near Australia is now in question. In short, no one knows where MH 370 has gone.

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MH370 not in Indian Ocean, 634 runways for Malaysia Airlines jet

The missing plane, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, is not in the Indian Ocean, and the Australian search team along with other international search teams ended their mission for Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean stating that the area can now be "discounted as the final resting place of the plane," reported The Mirror on May 29.

According to a senior US Navy official, the four acoustic underwater pings that were picked up last month and that had searchers believe that the missing plane was in the Indian Ocean turned out to be a false lead and not coming from the plane’s black boxes after all. Michael Dean, the US Navy’s deputy director for salvage and diving commented that “the best theory is that the pings were actually sounds from the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield or from the pinger locator being towed behind the ship,” reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

As all countries in the search for Flight MH370 have come to the same conclusion, that the missing plane is not in the Indian Ocean, investigators are back to square one and returning to initial reports by Malaysian officials that the airplane had been hijacked either by terrorists or as a result of “deliberate action” by someone on the plane.

As such, investigators are now looking into all possible runways that the plane could have approached after its March 8 disappearance while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Satellite evidence shows that he aircraft's transponder was turned off and that the plane changed direction shortly before it vanished with its 239 passengers and crew members on board. The plane had sufficient fuel to have flown for about another 2,200 miles. It is estimated that the requirement for the runway would have been about 5,000 feet.

The WNYC Data News team found that based on the plane’s size and fuel availability, there are 634 runways on which the plane could have possibly landed. Those 634 runways include locations as far away as Pakistan to the north, the Australian coast to the west, and Japan to the east. Some of the unusual places include the Gan Airport in the Maldives, the Dalanzadgad Airport in Mongolia, and the Yap Airport in Micronesia.

Could the missing plane, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, really have landed on one of those 634 runways and is it possible that anyone is still alive? Would anyone keep 239 souls alive for any reason? What distinguishes MH370 from other flights that have disappeared for a period of time before having been found is the information that has been provided by Malaysian officials. Based on the consistently misleading information provided by Malaysia, it is more likely that Malaysia does not want the missing plane to be found. As to why and what really happened – that is another question.

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Conversation between MH370 and Kuala Lumpur air traffic control AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

The Malaysian government has released a recording of the last conversation between the crew of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 and air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur before the plane went off radar on March 8. The flight, heading for Beijing, was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members when it disappeared, and is believed to have crashed into the ocean. Repeated searches over a wide area failed to turn up anything.

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Audio clip of last words from pilots aboard missing plane MH370 was 'clearly edited'

It is believed the original footage may have been tampered with by Malaysian Authorities or other sources. The recordings, which were published for the first time by the Malaysian government on Thursday, revealed the last contact that air controllers had with flight MH370 before it went missing on March 8.

Almost two months on and the world still calls for answers as investigators still remain baffled by its disappearance. But now audio experts have agreed that the last words heard from the pilots of the flight may have been tampered with in what could be breakthrough for rescuers. Kent Gibson, a forensic audio examiner with Forensic Audio in Los Angeles told NBC News: "You can hear, at 4:07, pages turning or a person breathing, which is unusual.

"It's not unusual that there would be clicks when they push the button on the microphone, but it's very unusual to have a disturbance.

"Normally you wouldn't have any background."

Mr Gibson admitted that the tape could have been recorded by different sources.

He added: "You can assume that the recording while they're still on the ground came from the tower and then you could assume that the communication with air controllers was while they're in the air.

"Unfortunately, there are no smoking guns, except there are edits. And there are clear edits."

He even pointed the finger at Malaysian Authorities editing the footage saying they may have done it, "if the pilot dropped a hint that they didn't want to get out" or "he said something that doesn't fit with the Malaysian government's party line".

But he added: "It's more likely to be an inadvertent thing. But it's not the way to handle evidence."

Other experts say that it sounds like a digital recorder was held up to the speak with background noises heard in the clip. Ed Primeau of Primeau Forensics, who has listened to thousands of hours of footage, said the recording was very strange and parts did not sound like a flight recording.

He said: "At approximately 1:14, the tone of the recording changes, where to me, it sounds like someone is holding a digital recorder up to a speaker, so it's a microphone-to-speaker transfer of that information.

"That's a pretty big deal because it raises the first red flag about there possibly being some editing."

And at two minutes six seconds in, he said: "I can hear a file door being closed, I can hear some papers being shuffled. so I'm further convinced that, beginning at 1:14 continuing through 2:06 to 2:15, it's a digital recorder being held up to a speaker.

"But yet, at 6:17, there's a huge edit because the conversation is cut off. All of a sudden, we go back to the same quality and extremely low noise floor that we had at the beginning of the recording."

Despite the analysis, they seemed to agree that it is still impossible to determine the motives of the crew on board. Over the past eight weeks, searchers from Malaysia, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Britain , the US and Australia have taken part in the most expensive search in aviation history. Last week, Australian and US authorities confirmed the start of a new search that could take months to complete.

There previous efforts to scale selected areas across the base of the Indian Ocean failed to find any clues.  Families of the 239 missing passengers, who were on board the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, still remain in the Malaysian capital awaiting answers.

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Will Boeing be sued over Malaysia Airlines flight 370?

When Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 dropped off the radar over a month ago, it seemed impossible that it would stay missing for long. Six weeks on, and the families of the jet’s passengers have had to accept the uncertain conclusion that the Boeing 777 jetliner “ended” in the Indian Ocean. Now, some families of Flight 370 victims are considering suing, but Boeing — a powerhouse of the aircraft industry, sued by pretty much everyone in the universe — is really, really unlikely to be affected.

The company truly has a terrifying history. Back in 1994, the Seattle Times found that 2,700 Boeing 737s that were being used were actually flying with a defective part that could move the plane in the opposite direction being steered. The report was based on 20 

years of reports given to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Just last year, in January 2013, all of Boeing’s U.S.- based Dreamliners were grounded by the FAA, after several of the jets’ lithium-ion batteries actually caught fire. 

The findings were especially terrifying, given that the FAA — the U.S. national aviation authority, which oversees the safety of civil aviation — gave Boeing the power to essentially self-certify its own designs back in 2009. 

Boeing, which produces both commercial and military aircraft, is also no stranger to lawsuits. From discrimination lawsuits to labor lawsuits involving President Obama, the company has pretty much seen it all, and survived.

Way back in 1989, Boeing had to pay over $5 million after pleading guilty to “illegally obtaining” classified Pentagon documents. In 2000, it coughed up roughly 15 times that amount, after two whistleblower lawsuits accused the conglomerate of putting defective gears in helicopters that it then sold to the U.S. army. In 2006, Boeing payed a record amount — $615 million — to settle a lawsuit claiming it had “improperly used competitors’ information to procure contracts for launch services worth billions of dollars from the U.S. Air Force and the NASA.” 

The President got involved in 2011, when National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sued the aircraft maker for “violating federal labor law” by choosing to open an aircraft production plant in South Carolina, a union-unfriendly state — the charges were eventually dropped, but not before Obama was forced to step in and call for a settlement.

And those are just (a handful of) the lawsuits that have nothing to do with crashes and air safety. Over the last nine years, the aircraft maker has been sued for at least five different airplane accidents, including the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed only minutes after taking off from an airport in Lebanon back in 2005, killing 83 passengers and seven crew — almost all of them have already been thrown out of court, ostensibly because the crashes took place in foreign countries, with most of the plaintiffs not being American. Boeing is also currently being sued for the recent Asiana Airlines flight that crashed in San Francisco International airport last July.

Somehow, though, the aircraft maker isn’t actually feeling any deep repercussions, and it’s looking that won’t be changing anytime soon. Though Boeing shares initially went through a little dip when the Malaysia Airlines disappearances first dominated the headlines, the company’s revenue has actually gone up by 8 percent this year. 

“Our outlook for the full year remains positive on the strength of demand for our fuel-efficient new commercial airplanes, our solid position in global defense, space and security markets, and our enterprise focus on meeting customer commitments, improving productivity and profitably delivering the growth in our sizable backlog,” the Boeing CEO said to ABC news. And then Beelzebub rolled up his contract and walked away.

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China considers monitoring civilian pilots after disappearance of flight MH370

China is considering the use of military technology that monitors a pilots' in-flight physical and mental state on civilian airliners to improve air safety, according to scientists involved in the research.

The installation of pilot monitoring systems has been discussed by the international aviation industry for years, but the idea is fiercely opposed by pilots on privacy grounds.

After a long delay in recovering Air France flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, and the recent disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 last month, some air safety experts and passengers are calling for increased in-flight monitoring of cockpit crews.

The People's Liberation Army developed a pilot monitoring system that was being used by its air force, the PLA Daily reported in 2005.

Its core components are contained in a lightweight vest which is worn by the pilot.

The 200-gram vest gathered various data, including the pilot's pulse, respiratory rate, muscle movement, body temperature and seating position, constantly relaying the information back to controllers for detailed, real-time assessments of the pilot's physical and mental status.

Professor Zhuang Damin of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who studies the interaction of humans with computers, said authorities were encouraged by the vest's military performance and were interested in potential civilian applications.

Zhuang was lead researcher in a government-funded study to develop a pilot monitoring system for civilian airlines.

"The ultimate goal is to monitor airline pilots as comprehensively as our astronauts," he said.

Zhuang's team developed a cockpit-mounted system to track the precise movements of a pilot's eyes to detect changes in attention level.

Computer and mathematical models were developed based on data findings, with the goal of detecting abnormalities in a pilot's behaviour or voice patterns. Controllers on the ground would receive warnings in the event a behavioural anomaly persisted.

"Our work was at the research stage," Zhuang said. "There was no concrete timetable for implementation."

But Zhuang said the disappearance of flight MH370 en route to Beijing on March 8 might revive the research project.

Professor Li Huijie, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Psychology, said a cockpit-based pilot monitoring system still faced numerous technological challenges, especially in measuring pilots' mental status.

Reports from such a system were usually based on the assumption that certain behavioural patterns would reflect certain mental states, but the machine could not detect nuances or complex psychological scenarios.

"If a pilot is aware of the installation of such a system on board, he may very likely change his or her behaviour," he said.

An aviation safety expert with the Civil Aviation University of China said that after the crash of Air France flight 447 there were calls to install cameras to monitor flight crews, but pilot opposition had kept cockpits camera-free. "Airline pilots are one of the most respected professions in the world" and felt the introduction of cameras insulted their professionalism, the expert said.

"On long-haul flights pilots will discuss a range of personal and professional topics they don't want to share with controllers," the expert said.

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Why Are Americans Obsessed With Missing Malaysia Plane?

From the disappearances of aviator Amelia Earhart to labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa, there's just something about a good mystery that Americans find too tantalizing to resist. Perhaps that's why the saga of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has continued to rivet the country long after people elsewhere have moved on.

From the beginning, the story has bubbled with enough drama to rival a good Hollywood whodunit. And even though it unfolded on the other side of the world with only three Americans on board, many were sucked in anyway.

"This story has many ingredients of compelling drama, particularly early on: lives at stake, mystery unsolved, a race against time, human emotion," Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute, said in an email.

Many found it impossible to believe that a modern Boeing 777 carrying 239 people could just vanish without a trace in an age where an iPhone can be tracked just about anywhere.

And so they tuned in to watch the latest developments. And when there were no new developments, they stayed glued to their smartphones because the suspense of not knowing — or possibly missing something new — somehow spiked when nothing was going on. From oil slicks to pings from dying black boxes, each new lead provided a salacious morsel that drove viewers to wonder: Will this be it?

"I find myself drawn into watching or reading about it because it has taken on seemingly mythic worldwide importance," Paul Mones, an attorney from Portland, Oregon wrote in an email. "In this modern world we simply refuse to accept that something so concrete can get so out of our physical reach and understanding. ... People just refuse to concede that the cause of the disaster will likely forever remain unknown."

After six weeks of breathless reporting, not one shred of hard evidence has been found from the jetliner. An unmanned underwater submarine is now using sonar to comb the ocean floor at a depth exceeding 4 1/2 kilometers (2.8 miles) off the west coast of Australia. It is desperately trying to spot something — anything — that resembles wreckage in an area where signals believed to be coming from the plane's dying black boxes were heard.

According to the latest survey by the Pew Research Center conducted April 3-6, the missing plane remained the top news story in the U.S., with 33 percent of people saying they followed it over a deadly shooting at Fort Hood Army base, developments related to Ukraine and President Obama's health care overhaul. That's down from 39 percent in the previous March questionnaire, when nearly half of those asked said they thought the hunt for MH370 was being given the right amount of coverage.

CNN covered the drama ad nauseam for weeks, once breaking into one of its programs to report that objects recovered from the sea could be trash — which is exactly what it proved to be. They featured tons of go-to footage from a flight simulator and a nonstop spool of speculation from talking heads. Everyone had a theory, with some sounding more like a Twilight Zone rerun than a newscast: Could a black hole or even something supernatural be behind the aircraft's March 8 disappearance?

Last week, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr., begged CNN to scale it back.

"Enough, already," he wrote. "Give us a break from the missing plane. ... Put your hands up and step away from the story."

But even though its coverage was mocked by "The Daily Show" and spoofed by "Saturday Night Live," Americans kept watching, and the 24-hour news network's ratings kept soaring. CNN, which declined to comment for this story, reported itself that the all-important 25- to 54-year-old viewer demographic more than doubled after its plane reporting began.

But why did interest remain so high in the U.S. when the story lost steam elsewhere? It dropped from most Australian front pages and web sites weeks ago, despite the search being coordinated off its western coast. CNN International tapered its coverage when other big news broke, such as the crisis in Ukraine and the Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa, even though the missing jetliner was actually an overseas story. Even in China, where two-thirds of the passengers were from, reports never ran nonstop on TV and the clamor on social media also died down.

Still, Americans yearned for more.

A month and a half into the massive search that has involved scores of countries scouring thousands upon thousands of ocean miles, the plane was still among the top three stories Sunday on Google news. The only new development was that a robotic submarine was expected to finish its sweep of the seabed in a week.

Part of the obsession may also revolve around the country's gotta-know-now mentality and its social media addiction that gets fed 24/7 by the latest breaking news, raw footage or photos going viral on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Since the plane disappeared, it has consistently been one of the top five most-read stories on The Associated Press' mobile app.

A combination of popular TV shows and a history peppered with real-life detective dramas, from who shot President John F. Kennedy to the identity of Watergate source "Deep Throat," may have been factors that tempted Americans to latch onto it.

"It's almost like all the seasons of 'Lost' was the promotional period for this story," said Robert Thompson, a pop culture expert at Syracuse University.

"We have always kind of put a lot of our popular national narrative into these mysteries and conspiracies and all of the rest of it," he added. "And this is a pretty powerful one."

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