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by 82_28 » Mon Mar 10, 2014 10:14 am
by 82_28 » Mon Mar 10, 2014 10:18 am
by seemslikeadream » Mon Mar 10, 2014 10:49 am
Malaysia Airlines Passenger With Stolen Passport Caught on Video
HO CHI MINH CITY March 10, 2014
By JOOHEE CHO
JOOHEE CHO More From Joohee »
Seoul Bureau Chief
One of the passengers who used a stolen passport to board the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet was a black man, a Malaysian official indicated today.
The investigation into Friday's disappearance of the jetliner with 239 passengers and crew has centered so far around the fact that two passengers used passports stolen from an Austrian and an Italian. The plane which left Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was headed for Beijing. Three of the passengers, one adult and two children, were American.
Today Malaysia's Civil Aviation Chief Azaharuddin Abdul Rahman said officials had reviewed surveillance tape of the plane's boarding "from check-in right to departure."
"I can confirm that all security protocols had been complied with," he said.
When asked about the two men who used the stolen passports, Rahman replied, "We confirmed now they are not Asian looking males."
When pressed to describe them, he said, "Do you know a footballer by the name of Bartoli? Do you know what he looks like?"
Reporters corrected him asking, "Mario Balotelli?" and asked whether the man with the stolen passport was black. Balotelli, who is black, is an Italian soccer player.
"Yes," Rahman replied.
Rahman refused to further describe the two men.
Rahman also indicated that investigators were not any closer to determining what happened to the Boeing 777 jet, a plane with an excellent safety record, or where the plane was. Samples from an oil slick off the southern coast of Vietnam determined it was not from the plane.
And Vietnam’s National Committee for Search and Rescue told ABC New that an orange object spotted floating in the ocean over the weekend originally thought to be a life raft from the plane had nothing to do with the plane wreckage,
During an earlier press briefing today, a reporter asked Malaysia's Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein about reports that a media personality received an open letter from the leader of Chinese Martyr Brigade claiming responsibility for the incident. When asked about the letter, a Malaysian official said, "Yes, there is sound ground to say it is true, but again, we have said from the beginning that we are not taking anything for granted."
But at the later news conference, Rahman said, "We don’t know what happened to the aircraft, so we cannot speculate... We cannot do guess work."
He said the search area was being expanded to include an additional expanse of ocean as well as land at the northern tip of Malaysia. The search grid was divided into boxes with individual ships assigned to each box. It was now nighttime in Asia, which brought a search by air to a halt. But he said planes would resume crisscrossing the search grid for signs of the plane at daybreak.
Dozens of aircraft and ships have contributed to the search, including crews from Vietnam, China, Singapore, Indonesia, the United States, Thailand, Australia and the Philippines, Rahman said at a press conference today.
The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet is using a P-3C Orion marine surveillance aircraft to search in the northern section of the Strait of Malacca today, according to the group’s Facebook page.
by elfismiles » Mon Mar 10, 2014 12:07 pm
The history of Freescale Semiconductor is intriguing. Freescale was one of the first semiconductor companies in the world, having started as a division of Motorola in Phoenix, Arizona in 1948, according to the company's own historical data. In 1955, a Motorola transistor for car radios was the world’s first commercial high-power transistor. It was also Motorola’s first mass-produced semiconductor device. It was in 2004, a mere decade ago, when it became autonomous by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola.
Motorola? 1948 for this division? In Phoenix? Who came up with the name Motorola? It turns out most credit for the name is given to William "Bill" Lear, in 1930, the investor/inventor who would go on to produce such items as the 8-track music cartridge and the Lear Jet. Perhaps it is only a coincidence that the mystery of UFOs date to such events as Roswell in 1947, in nearby New Mexico.
Some folks take the notion of "Reverse-Engineering Roswell UFO Technology" very seriously. In that paper, computer company chief Jack Shulman argues that the transistor could never have been invented so suddenly at AT&T in late 1947 without input from top secret Government projects, that some have identified to him as being from alien spacecraft.
And then there is Bill Lear's son, John, who is an accomplished pilot, former CIA operative, and Ufologist. He is noted in the latter field for promoting a variety of conspiracy theories which are based, he claims, on information obtained from military contacts.
Lear is a controversial figure in Ufology, to say the least, for many of his statements.Lear believes that any number of flying discs 'fell' into our hands when they crashed in the southwest in the late 1940's and early 50's.
Lear's scenario also includes the suspicion that the government has made secret deals with the 'aliens', actually exchanging humans for advanced technological data. Source.
If all those on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are found to have died, it will rank as the deadliest airline disaster since November 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into a New York neighborhood, killing all 260 people on board and five more on the ground. Many recall that crash with horror, as it followed so closely after the events of 9/11 in New York City.
by seemslikeadream » Mon Mar 10, 2014 3:28 pm
by elfismiles » Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:48 am
Malaysia military tracked missing plane to west coast: source
By Niluksi Koswanage and Eveline Danubrata
KUALA LUMPUR Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:52am EDT
(Reuters) - Malaysia's military believes a jetliner missing for almost four days turned and flew hundreds of kilometers to the west after it last made contact with civilian air traffic control off the country's east coast, a senior officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
In one of the most baffling mysteries in recent aviation history, a massive search operation for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER has so far found no trace of the aircraft or the 239 passengers and crew.
Malaysian authorities have previously said flight MH370 disappeared about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for the Chinese capital Beijing.
"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait," the senior military officer, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.
That would appear to rule out sudden catastrophic mechanical failure, as it would mean the plane flew around 500 km (350 miles) at least after its last contact with air traffic control, although its transponder and other tracking systems were off.
A non-military source familiar with the investigations said the report was one of several theories and was being checked.
LOST CONTACT
At the time it lost contact with civilian air traffic control, the plane was roughly midway between Malaysia's east coast town of Kota Bharu and the southern tip of Vietnam, flying at 35,000 ft.
The Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping channels, runs along Malaysia's west coast.
Malaysia's Berita Harian newspaper quoted air force chief Rodzali Daud as saying the plane was last detected at 2.40 a.m. by military radar near the island of Pulau Perak at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca. It was flying about 1,000 meters lower than its previous altitude, he was quoted as saying.
There was no word on what happened to the plane thereafter.
The effect of turning off the transponder is to make the aircraft inert to secondary radar, so civil controllers cannot identify it. Secondary radar interrogates the transponder and gets information about the plane's identity, speed and height.
It would however still be visible to primary radar, which is used by militaries.
Police had earlier said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that might explain its disappearance, along with the possibility of a hijack, sabotage or mechanical failure.
There was no distress signal or radio contact indicating a problem and, in the absence of any wreckage or flight data, police have been left trawling through passenger and crew lists for potential leads.
"Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities," Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference.
"We are looking very closely at the video footage taken at the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport), we are studying the behavioral pattern of all the passengers."
A huge search operation for the plane has been mostly focused on the shallow waters of the Gulf of Thailand off Malaysia's east coast, although the Strait of Malacca has been included since Sunday.
Navy ships, military aircraft, helicopters, coastguard and civilian vessels from 10 nations have criss-crossed the seas off both coasts of Malaysia without success.
The massive search for the plane has drawn in navies, military aircraft, coastguard and civilian vessels from 10 nations.
STOLEN PASSPORTS
The fact that at least two passengers on board had used stolen passports has raised suspicions of foul play. But Southeast Asia is known as a hub for false documents that are also used by smugglers, illegal migrants and asylum seekers.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble named the two men as Iranians aged 18 and 29, who had entered Malaysia using their real passports before using the stolen European documents to board the Beijing-bound flight.
"The more information we get, the more we are inclined to conclude it is not a terrorist incident," Noble said.
Malaysian police chief Khalid said the younger man, who he said was 19, appeared to be an illegal immigrant. His mother was waiting for him in Frankfurt and had been in contact with authorities, he said.
"We believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group, and we believe he was trying to migrate to Germany," Khalid said.
Asked if that meant he ruled out a hijack, Khalid said: "(We are giving) same weightage to all (possibilities) until we complete our investigations."
Both men entered Malaysia on Feb 28, at least one from Phuket, in Thailand, eight days before boarding the flight to Beijing, Malaysian immigration chief Aloyah Mamat told the news conference. Both held onward reservations to Western Europe.
Police in Thailand, where the Italian and Austrian passports were stolen and the tickets used by the two men were booked, said they did not think they were linked to the disappearance of the plane.
"We haven't ruled it out, but the weight of evidence we're getting swings against the idea that these men are or were involved in terrorism," Supachai Puikaewcome, chief of police in the Thai resort city of Pattaya, told Reuters.
About two-thirds of the 227 passengers and 12 crew now presumed to have died aboard the plane were Chinese. Other nationalities included 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three Americans.
China has deployed 10 satellites using high-resolution earth imaging capabilities, visible light imaging and other technologies to "support and assist in the search and rescue operations", the People's Liberation Army Daily said.
The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any commercial aircraft in service. Its only previous fatal crash came on July 6 last year when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck a seawall on landing in San Francisco, killing three people.
U.S. planemaker Boeing has declined to comment beyond a brief statement saying it was monitoring the situation.
(Additional reporting by Siva Govindasamy, Stuart Grudgings, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Yantoultra Ngui in Kuala Lumpur; Ben Blanchard, Megha Rajagopalan and Adam Rose in Beijing; Nguyen Phuong Linh on Phu Quoc Island, Mai Nguyen and Martin Petty in Hanoi; Robert Birsel and Amy Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok; Alwyn Scott in New York; Tim Hepher in Paris; Brian Leonal in Singapore; Mark Hosenball and Ian Simpson in Washington and Johnny Cotton in Lyon, France; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Alex Richardson)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... 1720140311
by semper occultus » Tue Mar 11, 2014 10:22 am
18.30 The Financial Times has some interesting detail about the tickets used by the two men travelling on stolen passports. Apparently, the tickets were bought from the Grand Horizon travel agency in Thailand and purchased by an Iranian man known to the agency only as "Mr Ali".
He's apparently a regular middleman for flight bookings and it's not clear that he even knew the men were travelling illegally. According to Benjaporn Krutnait, the agency owner, he didn't specify which flights to put the men on and asked only for the cheapest flights to Europe (they were booked to fly from Beijing on to Amsterdam). The tickets were paid for in cash by an associate of Mr Ali's.CrowleyTIME Michael Crowley
Suspect MH370 tix "bought not by the passengers themselves but by an Iranian man known to the police only as Mr. Ali"
http://t.co/y4HBcQzekB
About 20 hours agovia Twitter for Mac Favorite Retweet Reply
The FT was unable to reach Mr Ali on a Tehran mobile number. It doesn't add much to our understanding of what happened but shows how murky and chaotic airline travel can be in southeast Asia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10689060/Malaysia-Airlines-live.html
by seemslikeadream » Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:35 pm
Missing Jet: Woman Says Co-Pilot Once Let Her Sit In Cockpit
BY ALASTAIR JAMIESON
A pilot aboard missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 once allowed passengers to sit in the cockpit during take-off and landing, a woman told an Australian TV show Tuesday.
Jonty Roos said that she and a friend were on vacation in Thailand when they were invited into to the flight deck by two pilots – one of whom she identified as Fariq bin Ab Hamid, the 27-year-old first officer on the missing Boeing 777.
In an exclusive interview with Channel 9’s “A Current Affair,” Roos said photographs show her and her friend posing with Ab Hamid on the ground after the 2011 Malaysia Airlines flight, from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur.
She said that Ab Hamid and the other, unidentified, pilot smoked during the flight and offered to take the women out if they stayed in Kuala Lumpur. Her claims could not immediately be verified by NBC News.
Keir Simmons: Did Missing Jet Make Drastic Maneuver?NBC NEWS WEB EXTRA
Most international airlines strictly prohibit cockpit visits while an aircraft is not parked at a gate. Rules were further tightened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and many airlines prohibit passengers from even being in the forward galley of an aircraft while the cockpit door is open, such as when a pilot uses the bathroom.
“We were standing in line at the boarding gate, just with everybody else and the pilot and co-pilot walked past us and came back and asked us if we would like to sit with them in the cockpit during the flight so obviously we said ‘yes’,” Roos said. “I think anyone would have jumped at the opportunity.”
“Throughout the whole flight they were talking to us, they were actually smoking through the flight which I don’t think they’re allowed to be doing. They were taking photos with us in the cockpit while they were flying. I was just completely shocked.”
Authorities Tweak Investigation for Missing Malaysia Flight 370NIGHTLY NEWS
The airline said it was "shocked" by the allegations, which it said were being taken "very seriously."
"We have not been able to confirm the validity of the pictures and videos of the alleged incident," it said in a statement. "As you are aware, we are in the midst of a crisis, and we do not want our attention to be diverted.
"The welfare of both the crew and passenger's families remain our focus. At the same time, the security and safety of our passengers is of the utmost importance to us."
Roos, who is from Melbourne, Australia, added that the pilots were “possibly a little bit sleazy." She added: “They asked us if we could arrange our trip to stay in Kuala Lumpur for a few nights…they could take us out.”
However, Roos said she felt “safe,” adding: “I felt that they were very competent.”
“I’m really not saying that I think co-pilot was in the wrong on this flight at all but this is just a little bit of information [about MH370] that I have.”
by Nordic » Tue Mar 11, 2014 1:49 pm
by happenstance » Tue Mar 11, 2014 2:58 pm
by elfismiles » Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:40 pm
Special Conditions: Boeing Model 777-200, -300, and -300ER Series Airplanes; Aircraft Electronic System Security Protection From Unauthorized Internal Access
A Rule by the Federal Aviation Administration on 11/18/2013
https://www.federalregister.gov/article ... nic-system
by MacCruiskeen » Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:00 pm
happenstance » Tue Mar 11, 2014 1:58 pm wrote:Why are the missing Malaysian Airlines passengers' phones still ringing?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ctive.html
Earlier today relatives claimed they were able to call the cellphones of their missing loved ones
According to the Washington Post, family of some of the 239 people on board the vanished Boeing 777 said that they were getting ring tones and could see them active online through a Chinese social networking service called QQ.
One man said that the QQ account of his brother-in-law showed him as online, but frustratingly for those waiting desperately for any news, messages sent have gone unanswered and the calls have not been picked up.
This new eerie development comes as the Malaysian authorities said they had identified one of the men on two stolen European passports who were on the flight - and that he was not considered likely to be a terrorist.
Separately, the search for any trace of the missing airliner has now shifted to the Straits of Malacca, at least 100 miles away from where it was last recorded by electronic monitoring devices.
The dramatic shift raises the possibility that it flew undetected, crossing mainland Malaysia, before ditching into the sea.
However the phantom phone calls and online presence set off a whole new level of hysteria for relatives who have spent the past three-days cooped-up in a Beijing hotel waiting for some concrete information on the missing plane.
Repeatedly telling Malaysian Airlines officials about the QQ accounts and ringing telephone calls, they hoped that modern technology could simply triangulate the GPS signal of the phones and locate their relatives.
However, according to Singapore's Strait Times, a Malaysia Airlines official, Hugh Dunleavy has confirmed to families that his company had tried to call the cellphones of crew members and they too had also rang out.
He is reported to have told relatives that those phone numbers have been turned over to Chinese authorities.
One man who had asked police to come to his house and see the active QQ account on his computer was devastated to see that by Monday afternoon it had switched to inactive.
According to China.org.cn, 19 families of those missing have signed a joint statement confirming that their calls connected to their loved ones but that they rang out.
The relatives have asked for a full investigation and some complained that Malaysian Airlines is not telling the whole truth.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2vgWnMc2U
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by Wombaticus Rex » Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:05 pm
by MacCruiskeen » Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:08 pm
Wombaticus Rex » Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:05 pm wrote:FWIW, when I disable my cellphone and call it from my desk I get my voicemail immediately. Verizon.
by 8bitagent » Tue Mar 11, 2014 4:13 pm
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