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No passengers checks yet from Russia, Ukraine
Published:  Mar 19, 2014 9:31 AM
Updated: Mar 20, 2014 7:11 AM

DAY 12 MH370 SEARCH MAS flight MH370 went missing, en route to Beijing, not long after taking off from KL International Airport in the early hours of March 8, with 12 crew members and 227 passengers.

Its whereabout remains a mystery as 26 countries race to locate the missing plane, believed to be either in the nothern corridor, anywhere between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, or in the southern corridor covering Indonesia and to the south of the India Ocean.

This comes after the authorities determined that the plane intentionally made a turn-back and altered its course.

Below are updates and the latest coverage from various sources and news agencies, as we enter Day 12 of the search and rescue operations:

5.55pm: The press briefing by Hishammuddin Hussein ends. Among the highlights are:

  • Over the claim by family members of Chinese nationals that they are given little information on the case, the acting transport minister says announces a "high-level" team is being sent to Beijing. It will be led by Royal Malaysian Air Force's (RMAF) Lieutenant General DS Ackbal Haji Abdul Samad and will include a senior Boeing 777 pilot.

 

  • He reminds the press that all those onboard the missing aircraft are innocent until proven otherwise. [Read story here ]
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  • They have received passenger background checks from all countries, with the exception of Ukraine (two passengers) and Russia (one passenger), both of which have citizens onboard the missing plane.
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  • Confirms earlier report that some data had been deleted from pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's home-assembled flight simulator, and that forensic work to retrieve the wiped out data is ongoing.
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  • When asked if it was for the Malaysian government to apologise over the plane going missing, Hishammuddin responds: "Now is the time to search for the plane".
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  • He says he met with a delegation from France who have had experience in handling the Air France 2009 crash.
  • 5.50pm: DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang the opposition does not want to waste the time of the MH370 investigation team for a briefing that will provide information that is already shared openly.

    Lim said he is suspicious as to why the BN parliamentarians were given a special briefing at an expensive hotel last night by MH370 spokespersons and acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.

    On principle, he added, he will reject Hishammuddin's offer to hold the same event for Pakatan MPs.

    This comes despite earlier protest by Pakatan Rakyat MPs over being left out of a MH370 briefing by Hishammuddin yesterday.

    5.47pm: Hishammuddin says investigators have dismissed the possible missing plane sighting by Kudahuvadhoo islanders in the Maldives.

    He says the report was investigated by the Maldivian police and found to be untrue, Reuters reports.

    5.40pm: Fresh chaos breaks out over the family of the Chinese nationals onboard as several journalists fells after being shoved aside by police escorting the family members to another room.

    A BBC journalist finds himself pushed up against a wall when he tried to approach IGP Khalid Abu Bakar, who says nothing to waiting pressmen as he enters the room the family members are in.

    A police line is even formed to keep the media out, however, no explanation is given as to the reason for barring the press from speaking with the Chinese nationals.

    The story can also be read here in full.

    5.30pm In his briefing to the press, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein says the main technical team organising the search and rescue operation has been broken into three groups.

    These three are: a diplomatic team led by Foreign Affairs Ministry; an assets deployment and logistics team led by the Armed Forces; and a technical group retaining overall operational control led by the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA).

    He asserts that Malaysia has written to all 26 countries involved in the search and rescue operation and they have verbally agreed to assist operations.

    5.10pm: About a dozen family members of Chinese nationals onboard flight MH370 barge into the auditorium where press had assembled for the daily 5.30pm briefing, at a hotel near KLIA.

    They wished to air their frustration to the media, as to the scare information being given to them on the whereabouts of the plane of the fate of their loved ones, despite them coming all the way from China.

    The group, some shedding tears and others yelling, were removed from the room by security.

    Read the story here .

    4.56pm: China is widening its search by deploying more assets to search new areas for the missing MAS plane.

    This, according to the BBC , come after Thailand’s recent claim its radars may have tracked the plane shortly after it lost contact on March 8.

    “China has sent nine ships to waters south-east of the Bay of Bengal and west of Indonesia,” it states in its report.

    3.50pm: Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi reveals that several recent files have been deleted from the home-made flight simulator owned by missing MH370 pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, which police seized upon searching his home.

    Zahid tells the New Straits Times that computer forensics experts are working to retrieve the deleted files.

    "The police had invited several Boeing 777 operators and also those who were experts in flight simulators, as well as information technology (IT) professionals to assist in the probe," he says.

    He adds that his ministry will have a meeting with other related government agencies to discuss ways to improve security protocols at all airports.

    3.48pm: PKR's Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin is calling on the authorities to audit the security and safety of the country's aviation sector according to international standards.

    "For security it is the Universal Security Audit Programme (Usap) and for safety, it is Universal Safetly Oversight Audit Programme (Usoap).

    "I have also asked the minister to declassiy the USAP audit report," he says.

    3.45pm: A heartfelt tweet sent out by the daughter of missing MH370 chief steward Andrew Nari, appealing his return so that he can watch a Liverpool match, has touched the hearts of legions of fans of the English football club.

    Maira Elizabeth Nari's tweet, posted when the Manchester United-Liverpool game was under way on Sunday, reads: “Daddy, Liverpool is winning the game. Come home, so you can watch the game! You never miss watching the game. It's your very first time. :')”

    The club, which went on to win the match, even responded to her via Twitter with the message, “Just to let you know that we are thinking of your father & all those still missing from flight #MH370. Be strong. (You will never walk alone) YNWA.”

    It was also shared on the Liverpool Football Club’s website (LFC) yesterday, which reported some of the “hundreds of messages” of encouragement being left for Maira by fans, as well as inviting those keen to leave a message for her on the team’s Facebook page.

    3pm: Politial cartoonist Zunar, under fire for a cartoon pertaining to MH370 in an international daily the Washington Post , defends his work.

    He says the cartoon, which pokes fun at the Malaysian government's handling of the missing MH370, was meant to make the point that the Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak-led adminstration is weak in handling the crisis.

    "I made a conclusion and transformed my opinion through my cartoon, based on news reports and analyses not only by the local media but by dozens of international media outlets as well," he says.

    1.50pm: Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF) says its military radar did not detect any aircraft at the time residents on the nation’s remote Kudahuvadhoo island reportedly sighted a " low-flying jet " some five hours after MH370 went missing.

    12pm: A radar engineering consultant debunks speculation flight MH370 was shadowing a Singapore Airlines flight to evade military radars.

    Christian Wolff tells Malaysiakini it is hard for such a manoeuvre to go unnoticed, as the minimum distance between the two aircrafts must then be less than 150 metres.

    Anything more, he says modern military radar will detect two aircrafts.

    Read the full story here .

    11.40am: The US Navy is repositioning the P-8A Poseidon to Perth, Australia, to conduct searches along the southern corridor, "in coordination with the Malaysian and Australian governments".

    The US Embassy, in a statement, says this is being done at the request of the Malaysian government.

    Other forms of assistance the US government has rendered in the search and rescue operations for MH370, it says, is - support of its FBI and other law enforcement officials, as well as from three National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) and two Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) representatives.

    10.35am: The aircraft’s diversion to a westerly course was programmed into the aircraft at least 12 minutes before its co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid signed off to Malaysian air traffic controllers at 1.19am on the day it went missing, says CNN .

     

    The report quotes an unnamed law enforcement official, who was supposedly briefed on the ongoing investigations, saying the turn was ‘almost certainly’ done by someone in the plane’s cockpit.

     

    However, the news network’s analysts disagree on whether the new direction was programmed in advance as an alternative flight plan for emergencies, or something more malicious.

     

    Thus far, investigations on Fariq ( right ) and the flight’s captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah have yet to turn up anything suspicious, but there is much speculation that at least one of them is responsible for MH370’s disappearance.

    9.40am: CNN reports that Israel’s Aviation Security Operations Centre is on “heightened alert” following suspicions that MH370 could have been hijacked.

    It reported yesterday that the country is taking extra precautions and has increased the monitoring of approaching aircraft, due to the possible threat of a "rogue passenger jet" being used to crash into the country.

    9am: New York-based writer Jeff Wise has debunked the popular theory by a former pilot who claimed missing MH370 has crashed into the south of the Indian Ocean after a fire broke out in the cockpit soon after takeoff.

    Chris Goodfellow, whose theory on the missing plane became popular after he first posted it on Google Plus on March 14, had summarised that the pilot was forced to turn towards Langkawi’s 13,000-foot runway following the fire, while flight crew pulled out circuit breakers in their attempt to put out the blaze.

    The former pilot opined that, however, the smoke rendered the crew unconcious and the plane continued into the south Indian ocean until it ran out of fuel and crashed.

    He also labelled 53-year-old pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah ( left ) a "hero" that just did not have enough time.

    However, according to Wise, in his article published on the Future Tense segment of the American Slate magazine website, evidence shows that the plane continued to be manoeuvered long after overshooting the Langkawi runway, a feat “impossible for unconscious men”.

    "Goodfellow’s theory fails further when one remembers the electronic ping detected by the Inmarsat satellite at 8.11am on the morning of March 8.

    "According to analysis provided by the Malaysian and United States governments, the pings narrowed the location of MH370 at that moment to one of two arcs, one in Central Asia and the other in the southern Indian Ocean.

    "Without human intervention— which would go against Goodfellow’s theory — it simply could not have reached the position we know it attained at 8.11 am," Wise wrote.

    Future Tense is a collaboration between Slate , New America Foundation, and Arizona State University.

    View the original article here .

    6.15am: The span of land and sea, over which 26 countries are hunting for missing MAS flight MH370, is akin to the size of Australia, with the search area totalling 7.68 million square kilometres, Reuters reports.

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