Why didn’t Malaysian military react to MH370 blip on radar screens, ask investigators Investigators wonder why Malaysian military did not respond to the unidentified blip on their radar screens that is now said to be the missing flight MH370, the New York Times (NYT) reported today. From the report, the plane flew past three military radars and over Penang but nothing was done to identify it, which would have helped to prevent it from disappearing. “The military watch team never noticed the blip,” an investigator reportedly told NYT. The report said that this was not the first nor would it be the last of the many errors the Malaysian government has made, which has complicated the task of finding the missing MH370 with 239 passengers on board. Today is the 8th day since the plane disappeared from the radar and it is getting more difficult to find as the search expands to Kazakhstan to the vast Indian Ocean. While no one knows if the delays have caused disaster for the people on board, mistakes keep increasing at an exceptional rate, NYT said. David Learmount (operations and safety editor of Flightglobal, a news and data service for the aviation sector) pointed out that it is a damning fact that MH370 flew over Malaysia peninsula without the military realizing or identifying it. It was also reported that senior Malaysian military officers became aware of the radar data only after the news spread the disappearance of MH370. Yet the government organized and oversaw an expensive and complex international search and rescue effort in the Gulf of Thailand for a full week. --- Sorry guys, but I have to come in here; “why was the search organized in the Gulf of Thailand when they knew quite well that the plane returned and flew over Malaysia peninsular, particularly Penang?” --- And it was just yesterday that the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak just admitted that the satellite data did show that the plane continued to fly for six more hours after leaving Malaysian airspace. According to the NYT report, a four-person air force crew in Butterworth that specially watch for intrusions into the country’s airspace did not notice or failed to report a blip on their defensive radar and air traffic radar as well; a blip that was moving continuously from east to west, heading towards them. Even the crews at two other radar installations at Kota Baru did not mark the blip on their radar as an unknown intruder, while the plane kept flying across the country without anyone watching or alerting a superior or the national defense command, despite the fact that it did not correspond to any scheduled flight plan. Therefore no combat aircraft struggled to investigate. Instead the radar contact was only discovered when military officials started to go through tapes later on March 8, after the plane failed to land in Beijing. It was only later into the morning that it became clear that something had gone wrong. It was only on Wednesday that Malaysian air force chief Gen Tan Sri Rodzali Daud openly agreed to the existence of the radar signals for the first time, which was already five days after the plane went missing. Still he said that further analysis was required because the location information from the data sent by the plane was likely removed by someone on the plane. With this uncertainty, it is not possible to know yet if action by the Malaysian government or military could have changed the fate of the plane. From the report, Najib took pains when he addressed the media yesterday to say that Malaysia had not held back any information, including military data. – March 16, 2014 my.news.yahoo/why-didn-t-malaysian-military-react-mh370-blip-062053948.html
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 11:48:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015