MH 777 missing - MH370 media statement

[Pushka]

I saw a photo on the yahoo homepage of one of the Brisbane couples courtesy of good old Facebook.

It makes me wonder if the media looked them up on FB & the security settings on who could access the photos were still on the default of 'public' & not set to 'friends'.

IMHO it should be illegal for any media outlet to post photos of the deceased persons from Facebook without permission ftom their immediate family.

Sadly you will find that once you put things on Facebook you are basically allowing full access toanyone.

 

[Quickstatus]

Australian immigration have people stationed at KUL to do secondary checks of credentials prior to boarding for Australia bound flights, it seems fairly easy to get through KUL with docs that are not perfect.

Are these officials based airside?. In Calgary (and maybe other Canadian airports) the US immigration is airside after canadian immigration at Calgary airport for those wishing to travel to/through the US?

 

[markis10]

Are these officials based airside?. In Calgary (and maybe other Canadian airports) the US immigration is airside after canadian immigration at Calgary airport for those wishing to travel to/through the US?

Thats a little different and is preclearance, these officials are at the gates checking passports for authenticity prior to boarding for Australia.

 

[straitman]

A bit odd that the fuel trail does not have any debris,

I think I can answer that one for you.

On 21st October 1991 the RAAF lost a Boeing 707 off off the Gippsland coast. The aircraft descended almost vertically from just over 5000ft was about 80 deg nose down on impact. The water where the a/c crashed was shallow enough that the nose of the a/c would have been hitting the bottom whilst the tail section was still in the air. The only wreckage visible on the surface was a couple of partially and full inflated life rafts and a huge slick. I'm willing to suggest that with the delay in finding the wreckage items such as life rafts could/would be long gone with the assistance of some wind.

I was the first on the scene of the accident and nobody (ourselves included) really believed the lack of wreckage.

 

[prozac]

I think I can answer that one for you.

On 21st October 1991 the RAAF lost a Boeing 707 off off the Gippsland coast. The aircraft descended almost vertically from just over 5000ft was about 80 deg nose down on impact. The water where the a/c crashed was shallow enough that the nose of the a/c would have been hitting the bottom whilst the tail section was still in the air. The only wreckage visible on the surface was a couple of partially and full inflated life rafts and a huge slick.....

Could that be because it was all contained within the ocean floor?

 

[drron]

Now reports of 4 stolen passports with all tickets sold by China Southern-
Two more Europeans with suspect identities onboard missing MH370

The extra 2 not confirmed though.

 

[straitman]

Could that be because it was all contained within the ocean floor?

Possibly, I don't really know. Large items were visible on the sea floor though.

 

[prozac]

Possibly, I don't really know. Large items were visible on the sea floor though.

Somewhere I have read of a crash into a river (shallow) in Indonesia in which there was also no debris. The Sth China Sea can be quite deep.

 

[drron]

Somewhere I have read of a crash into a river (shallow) in Indonesia in which there was also no debris. The Sth China Sea can be quite deep.

That was the suicide pilot.There was wreckage visible but most got embedded in the river floor because of the speed of entry.

 

[boomy]

Now reports of 4 stolen passports with all tickets sold by China Southern-
Two more Europeans with suspect identities onboard missing MH370

The extra 2 not confirmed though.

This is getting ridiculous, I really hope it's not true.

 

[DrA]

Somewhere I have read of a crash into a river (shallow) in Indonesia in which there was also no debris. The Sth China Sea can be quite deep.

I go scuba diving in this region quite regularly, and this is true. You can be at 40-50 meters depth, and then there's sheer drop-off's down to around 2000m. This is why we go diving here, because the combination of the topography and the prevailing current brings the plankton up and the rays and sharks along with it. So when I saw that post referring to a 100m depth in the area where the plane supposedly went down, I was very sceptical. It might be 100m close to an island, but it drops off very, very quickly.

 

[drron]

But it is the Gulf of Thailand where it has gone down not the main South China Sea.said to have a maximum depth of 80 metres-
Gulf of Thailand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[TomVexille]

That was the suicide pilot.There was wreckage visible but most got embedded in the river floor because of the speed of entry.

Ah yes, the Silk Air crash. Two conflicting final reports and MI quickly retired all their Boeing aircraft in the following couple years, although they now have the 737 MAX on order.

 

[markis10]

But it is the Gulf of Thailand where it has gone down not the main South China Sea.said to have a maximum depth of 80 metres-
Gulf of Thailand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Using the flightradar coords, it's 40m via Geoplanner.com at that point.

 

[anat0l]

...these officials are at the gates checking passports for authenticity prior to boarding for Australia.

My mother has just returned from Malaysia, having flown KUL-BNE on MH and she reports there were no such Australian officials checking passports prior to boarding her flight. Is it a random thing?

Anyway, what are they really checking for? If they are checking identities, then that doesn't achieve much more than the standard process, unless the Australian government truly believes that their equivalents in Malaysia are doing a lousy job (gee, what does that say about us and our trust in our Malay counterparts). If they are checking for forged passports, without equipment and more time per passenger than would be practical to do such checks, I doubt they would be doing an effective job; moreover, this would hardly catch the suspects in question using stolen passports unless their details were brought up in some system.


I agree it doesn't make the whole situation less suspect, viz. how can someone on an already-declared stolen passport pass at least two checks (check-in and outbound immigration) of that passport successfully without a single red flag being raised.

Once a passport is reported as stolen in any given jurisdiction, what processes are in place to record any attempted use of such a stolen passport around the globe? Are there global alerts or immediate reports between immigration systems?

 

[markis10]

My mother has just returned from Malaysia, having flown KUL-BNE on MH and she reports there were no such Australian officials checking passports prior to boarding her flight. Is it a random thing?

Anyway, what are they really checking for? If they are checking identities, then that doesn't achieve much more than the standard process, unless the Australian government truly believes that their equivalents in Malaysia are doing a lousy job (gee, what does that say about us and our trust in our Malay counterparts). If they are checking for forged passports, without equipment and more time per passenger than would be practical to do such checks, I doubt they would be doing an effective job; moreover, this would hardly catch the suspects in question using stolen passports unless their details were brought up in some system.

The Malay counterparts know they are doing a bad job, which is why they recently scuppered VOA for Iran etc and are getting DFAT/immigration officials to do checks with them and provide biometrics on passengers who may not be who their passport says they are. Doing it at KLIA saves the airlines a lot of money not to mention Australia.

Minister for Immigration and Border Protection

 

[dajop]

If they are checking identities, then that doesn't achieve much more than the standard process, unless the Australian government truly believes that their equivalents in Malaysia are doing a lousy job (gee, what does that say about us and our trust in our Malay counterparts).

It's not just Malaysian immigration that check passports given transit passengers. Passengers boarding a flight at KL could have had their passports originally checked at one of perhaps 30+ countries, diverse as Nepal, Yemen, Maldives etc.

 

[dk4]

... she reports there were no such Australian officials checking passports prior to boarding her flight. Is it a random thing?

It is probably intelligence based? One would assume that the primary AU concern is illegal migration? (Malaysia is certainly a known stop on the "illegal" route to Australia.)

Perhaps the individuals in question on this flight, particularly as they were on the code-share service, were planning on connecting at PEK to the EU, US maybe even AU or NZ, using their false identities to enable easier access into their potential new homes?

I think that the "taxi mafia" in coughet, is heavily back by Maoist insurgents/propagandists (maybe even with additional ties to Southern Thai Muslim separatists), so using a Chinese airline (+code share) as connecting service to a final destination would not be too surprising, if people smuggling is indicated. (If this scenario is plausible though, from an AU perspective, there should be interest in the Chinese national whose name appears to have been redacted from the original manifest list, supplied by the Chinese?)

 

[drron]

Another report of 4 false passports with the a Malaysian government minister meeting with the FBI-
#PrayForMH370 Live Updates: International counter terrorism units to work with Malaysia

And CNN reporting FBI agents are being sent to Malaysia-
Search for MH370 continues as report says FBI agents on way to offer assistance

 

[ermen]

Doubt it is terrorism because nobody has come out to claim responsibility?!
Only other scenario I could image was X number of passengers tried to hijack the plane and whilst scuffling for the coughpit controls tipped the plane into a downward spiral explaining sudden disappearance and lack of a call. But still nobody has claimed responsibility and what political purpose / msg are they trying to achieve by attacking a MH plane?