MH370 search to be most costly ever at $100 mln: analysts
by Staff Writers
Sydney (AFP) April 18, 2014
Malaysia warns of 'huge' cost in MH370 search
Kuala
Lumpur (AFP) April 17, 2014 - Malaysia warned Thursday that the cost of
the search for flight MH370's wreckage in the vast depths of the Indian
Ocean will be "huge", the latest sobering assessment by authorities
involved in the challenging effort."When we look at
salvaging (wreckage) at a depth of 4.5 kilometres (2.8 miles), no
military out there has the capacity to do it," Transport and Defence
Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters in Kuala Lumpur."We have to look at contractors, and the cost of that will be huge."
The
search in a remote stretch of ocean far off western Australia was
enlivened in the past two weeks by the detection of signals believed to
be from the Malaysia Airlines plane's flight data recorders on the
seabed.
But the transmissions have gone silent before they could
be pinpointed, raising the spectre of a costly and extensive search of a
large swathe of ocean floor at extreme depths.
Prime Minister
Tony Abbott of Australia, which is leading the multi-national search,
had earlier warned in an interview published Thursday that an autonomous
US Navy sonar device that began scanning the seabed for wreckage on
Monday would be given one more week.
If nothing is found,
authorities would reassess how next to proceed in the unprecedented
mission to find the plane, Abbott said in the Wall Street Journal.
The Bluefin-21 completed its first full scanning mission early Thursday.
An
initial attempt was aborted when the sub hit its maximum depth at 4.5
kilometres. A second was cut short by unspecified "technical" troubles.
Hishammuddin said he agreed with Abbott, saying "there will come a time when we need to regroup and reconsider".
"But
in any event, the search will always continue. It's just a matter of
approach," said Hishammuddin, who did not specify what any alternative
approach would be.
Australia's search chief Angus Houston said
earlier this week that authorities already were looking at possible
alternative methods, including undersea devices that can go deeper than
the Bluefin-21, but he also gave no specifics.
The Beijing-bound
Malaysia Airlines flight with 239 people aboard inexplicably veered off
its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing course on March 8, and is believed to have
crashed in the Indian Ocean. |
The
search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is set to be the most
expensive in aviation history, analysts say, as efforts to find the
aircraft deep under the Indian Ocean show no signs of slowing.
The
Boeing 777 vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board, after veering
dramatically off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and is
believed to have crashed in the sea off Australia.
Australia,
which is leading the search in a remote patch of water described as
"unknown to man", has not put a figure on spending, but Malaysia has
warned that costs will be "huge".
"When we look at salvaging
(wreckage) at a depth of 4.5 kilometres (2.8 miles), no military out
there has the capacity to do it," Transport and Defence Minister
Hishammuddin Hussein said Thursday.
"We have to look at contractors, and the cost of that will be huge."
Ravikumar
Madavaram, an aviation expert at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific,
said Malaysia, Australia and China, which had the most nationals onboard
the flight, were the biggest spenders and estimated the total cost up
to now at about US$100 million (72 million euros).
"It's difficult
to say how much is the cost of this operation ... but, yes, this is
definitely the biggest operation ever (in aviation history).
"In terms of costs this would be the highest," he told AFP.
- Hopes rest on submersible -
In
the first month of the search -- in which the South China Sea and
Malacca Strait were also scoured by the US, Malaysia, Singapore and
Vietnam -- the Pentagon said the United States military had committed
US$7.3 million to efforts to find the plane.
Meanwhile the Indian
Ocean search, in which assets have also been deployed by Australia,
Britain, China, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand, has failed to find
anything conclusive.
Hopes rest on a torpedo-shaped US Navy
submersible, which is searching the ocean floor at depths of more than
4,500 metres (15,000 feet) in the vicinity of where four signals
believed to have come from black box recorders were detected.
David
Gleave, an aviation safety researcher at Britain's Loughborough
University, said the costs "will be of the order of a hundred million
dollars by the time we're finished, if we have found it (the plane)
now".
But he said the longer it took to find any wreckage, the
more costs would mount because scanning the vast ocean floor "will take a
lot of money because you can only search about 50 square kilometres (19
square miles) a day".
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Sub dives deeper in hunt for missing MH370
by Staff Writers
Perth, Australia (AFP) April 18, 2014
 |
The
mini-sub searching for missing flight MH370 has reached record depths
well beyond its normal operating limits, officials said Friday as it
dived on its fifth seabed mission.
With no results to show since
the Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared on March 8, Australia's
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has set a one-week deadline to locate the
plane which is believed to have crashed in a remote area of the Indian
Ocean west of Perth.
Searchers have extended the hunt beyond the
normal 4,500 metre (15,000 feet) depth range of the US Navy's Autonomous
Underwater Vehicle (AUV) called Bluefin-21.
"The AUV reached a
record depth of 4,695 meters during mission four," the US Navy said.
"This is the first time the Bluefin-21 has descended to this depth.
"Diving
to such depths does carry with it some residual risk to the equipment
and this is being carefully monitored," a statement said.
Australia's
Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) announced that the mini-sub had
been deployed on a new mission as operations run round the clock.
"Data analysis from the fourth mission did not provide any contacts of interest," it added.
The
unmanned Bluefin-21 which maps the seafloor by sonar, has searched 110
square kilometres (43 square miles) to date, JACC said.
The UAV,
which hit a technical snag on Tuesday had also re-surfaced Monday after
breaching a pre-programmed maximum depth of 4.5 kilometres (2.8 miles).
JACC said Thursday night that the US manufacturer of the UAV, Phoenix International, had advised the risk was "acceptable".
"This
expansion of the operating parameters allows the Bluefin-21 to search
the sea floor within the predicted limits of the current search area,"
it said.
The Malaysia Airlines jet is believed to have crashed in
the ocean after mysteriously vanishing while en route between Kuala
Lumpur and Beijing.
Hopes for finding the plane have focused on
the Bluefin-21 after signals believed to be from the plane's flight data
recorders on the seabed fell silent in recent days.
The
submersible is being deployed from an Australian vessel to scan an
uncharted seafloor at extreme depths, but Abbott said the Bluefin-21
would be given about a week as questions are asked about the massive
costs.
Read More Here
.....
The
Malaysian government prepares to issue death certificates for
passengers of missing flight MH370 but some families cling to the hope
their loved ones are alive. Mana Rabiee reports.
Shock ... relatives of the missing MH370 passengers at the Metro Park Hotel in Beijing on April 21, 2014. Picture: Wang Zhao Source: AFP
<>
FAMILY members of passengers lost on missing Malaysia Airlines 370 have
criticised the Malaysian government for an investigation they say has
been mismanaged.
Appearing on US morning television, Sarah Bajc, the girlfriend of Flight 370 American passenger Philip Wood,
told Today host Matt Lauer passengers’ loved ones all just “wanted to go back to square one”.
“We
just don’t believe they’re using proper evaluative techniques to check
the data,” she said. “It’s day 45 and we’re basically on the same
position we were on on the first day.”
We don’t know anything for
sure,” she said. “We want to go back and start over again, but with new
people looking at the information.”
Ms Bajc sent an email to the media, on behalf of “the united families of MH370”, detailing their complaints and concerns.
Despair ... Sarah Bajc with her boyfriend Philip Wood, who was a passenger on missing Malaysian flight MH370. Picture: Facebook Source: Supplied
Among
their grievances is the suggestion by the government it issues death
certificates or pay compensation before the plane is found.
“Until
they have proof, they have an obligation to make regular prepayments to
the families in need, and they have an obligation to exert themselves
beyond dozing and snickering in resolving this case,” the email says.
The
families say they are gaining strength and prepared to get noisier in
their criticisms. The letter signs of “WE ARE IN UTTER OUTRAGE, DESPAIR
AND SHOCK!”
The Acting Minister of Transport in Malaysia has
posted a comment to Twitter that he hopes to discuss with Angus Houston
the status of the remaining third of the search area being combed by the
Bluefin-21 unmanned submersible.
DETAILS OF TODAY’S SEARCH
Bluefin-21 is still scouring the ocean depths on its ninth mission trying to locate wreckage from MH370.
So far it has searched about two thirds of the underwater area, with no contacts of interest found to date.
Up to 10 military aircraft and 10 ships will be part of today’s visual search approximately 1500 kilometres north west of Perth.
Scattered showers are predicted to continue with south easterly winds and sea swells of up to three metres.
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officers huddle for safety under their riot shields after pro-Russian
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