Ongoing Updates

CNN Thursday 3 September 2015 'Certainty' that Reunion debris from MH370, French official says French investigators have confirmed that the flaperon found on Reunion Island is from lost Flight MH370—no surprise, since it was the only Boeing 777 missing in that time and place. Question arises: will having U.S. aircraft parts made in the E.U. or otherwhere compromise potential safety? The flaperon was made by a European subcontractor in Seville, Spain (called Airbus Defense and Space, no less). Other question: does Boeing's main rival, (European) Airbus, have subcontractors in the U.S., or is this a one-way street like U.S. job outsourcing to China by U.S. Corporate-Republican Oligarchs? Remember, it was the Corporate-Republican Oligarchs who, under Bush/Cheney, were going to subcontract all U.S. port security to an Arab corporation in Qatar, Emirates, one of the world's major financiers and exporters of neo-Islamic terrorism. Mitt Romney was going to outsource what's left of the U.S. auto industry to Beijing. The only surprise is that this flaperon wasn't manufactured in China, with U.S. oligarchy cartels skimming their profits off the top—oops, this just in: that will be next year; buy them cheap at China*Mart. The C.R. Oligarchs are already licking their chops(tix). "What's the flaperon all about?" they ask with feigned innocence.

CNN Mon August 31, 2015 Definitive answers are scarce in MH370 probe CNN's Martin Savidge and Margot Haddad report on the continuing confusion among officials and authorities, which leaves the disappearance of MH370 as one of the great mysteries in aviation history. Nothing so far has ruled out the Third Lemma: Hijack. The only conceivable reason for hijack in this fashion would be so neo-Muslim terrorists can outfit the plane as a massive bomb and take out a very large, important, painful Western target. Since the flaperon appears to be from a Boeing 777, and since MH370 was the only 777 lost in the Indian Ocean region, it is reasonable to tentatively conclude the flaperon comes from MH370. Looking at the drift patterns in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives sightings and my proposed scenario cannot (yet) be ruled out.

CNN Tues August 11, 2015 MH370: Malaysia to send team to inspect debris found on Maldives CNN now carries a similar story about possible MH370 debris in the Maldives Islands. Several reliable witnesses on Maldives, including a school teacher and a wealthy sports fishing boat captain, claimed to have seen a plane matching the description of MH370 flying overhead in the dawn or predawn hours of 8 March 2014, precisely on the time table I proposed in my novel after a hypothetical refueling on Ramree Island in the Bay of Bengal. The governments of Malaysia and Maldives were quick to dismiss the sightings—all too quick. Notice in the CNN article a much-published drift schema of major Indian Ocean currents. As the article notes,the drift currents (assuming the plane went down off western Australia) are much too far south to deposit debris in the Maldives, or for that matter Reunion, where a wing flaperon has recently been found. My hypothetical scenario (thought experiment, not conspiracy theory) imagines that, plausibly, the aircraft was being flown west over Maldives toward Africa for later use in a horrific terror attack in Europe, Israel, or the Persian Gulf (and the real target becomes clear in my novel). As is now clear, the hijack (if that it was) failed and the plane went down somewhere south or west of Maldives, after the sighting, presumably with the hijackers on board. Witnesses in the Maldives stated it was flying low, and very noisily. My presumption is that the terrorists were unable to repressurize the fuselage and perhaps the cockpit, among other fatal problems they encountered on 8 March 2014. My scenario suggests that the passengers, dead from a purposeful depressurization ove the Gulf of Thailand, were dumped into the crocodile-infested swamps of Ramree during refueling, and that the black boxes were flown south in a separate aircraft to make investigators think it had done down off western Australia. As the 9/11 attacks proved, the terrorists who hate us beyond all reason, and live only to murder us, have the means, the motive, the intelligence, and the indomitable will of total insanity and fanaticism to either accomplish their mission or die trying. Let's never underestimate this enemy, as the Malaysians and others seem to have done in their desperate efforts to stonewall, to save face, and to save their bureaucratic necks at any cost including the truth and human decency to the survivor families. Reminder: some or all of the Maldives debris may be from a sunken barge; however, nothing so far has at all disproven any form of hijack lemma, including that in my novel Vanished: Flight 777.

BBC Mon August 10, 2015 MH370: Malaysia sends experts to examine Maldives 'debris'. Images published in a newspaper in the Maldives show several small objects it said had been found on one atoll. But Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said it was too soon to say if they were connected to flight MH370. Reports indicate the debris may be from a barge that sank near Maldives in February 2015. Investigation has been ongoing since yesterday. Conflicting reports may indicate varied sources of debris, leaving open the MH370 connection. What I find fascinating are two things: (a) the continued interest in Maldives despite long-standing official denials of the credibility of (seemingly reliable) witnesses who claim they say a plane matching MH370 fly past at just the right time on 8 March 2014; and (b) the possibility that debris may have washed westward on the gyre; although Maldives is already a bit far north, lending marginal support to the hijack lemma I have posed, whose most important data point were the Maldives sightings of 8 March 2014. The Hijack Lemma will not go lightly into that dark night of that great runny Egyptian river, Denial. In terms of the gyre, any of my three cited lemmas is still plausible—whether the plane went down off western Australia (Accident or Sabotage) or near Maldives (my Hijack Lemma), all possibilities are still open. Bottom line: the Maldives connection is alive and kicking as of 10 August 2015.

CNN Fri August 7, 2015 ISIS seen building capacity for mass casualty attacks by Jim Sciutto, CNN Chief National Security Correspondent. Since almost all such attacks have involved modes of transportation, especially aircraft, our vigilance must not be relaxed. The hijack lemma for MH370 has not yet been disproven; and if it is, that does not diminish the urgency of my novel Vanished: Flight 777 and the need to guard against further mass casualty attacks of the 9/11 type. The point of this article is that DAESH (ISIL) must be expected to grow its ambitions beyond encouraging lone wolf attacks to emulating the successful Al-Qaeda attacks of the past.

CNN Thu August 6, 2015: Malaysia reckless on MH370 facts (Opinion by Les Abend, a Boeing 777 captain for a major airline with 30 years' flying experience. He is also a CNN aviation analyst and senior contributor to Flying magazine.) Let's be careful how we factor CPT Abend's comments into the thread on this website. He appears to be reacting to how Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been quick to seek closure on the 500+ day ordeal of missing Flight MH370. Mr. Abend calls the Prime Minister's announcement "reckless" and in his article, Mr. Abend says: "For the sake of the families, it is my hope that the governments involved get their act together." He also implies generically that a 'history of misinformation' will tend to create mistrust among grieving survivors." My take away is that perhaps CNN's headline goes further than Mr. Abend's intention in indicting the regional governments, particularly Malaysia. Nevertheless, in the larger picture, I think it is fair to say that the credibility of the Malaysian (and other) government(s)' handling of this situation keeps all three major lemmas of potential causation on the table. Let's be careful, also, how we interpret my website. This is not about MH370, except to see this case as a parable—a thought experiment, as I have called it from the beginning—to learn from the possible causes and avoid another 9/11. My intention is to keep the Hijack Lemma alive to raise consciousness. Everything in recent history tells us the perpetrators of 9/11 will strike again. They have the means, the money, the will, the motive, in short the blind and unreasoning hatred, and they see limitless opportunities in (a) transportation and (b) more recently, in the U.S. proclivity for mass shootings (schools, theaters, military bases, recruiting offices). MH370 is a small subset of the ongoing war by Muslim fanatics against civilization—just as the Vietnam conflict was a small subset of the Cold War. How many more examples do we need? Rattle off a few: 9/11, Madrid, London, the USS Cole, Kobar Towers 2004, the 1972 Munich Olympic terror attacks, the Beirut Massacre of U.S. and French troops 1983, and the list goes on. It may well be that Malaysia, because of its evident organizational weakness and institutional dishonesty (not unique there, to be sure, as we regard China and Russia, not to mention many Middle Eastern governments) was a fitting target for terror mongers who grow ever more resourceful. We must keep all the options on the table. CPT Abend's recommendation for honest, factual reporting in a spirit of total objectivity and rigorous analysis (taking all possibilities into account) is timely and well taken. For once, a talking head has taken an extra step. Thank you, Les Abend. We need more.

CNN Thu August 6, 2015: How Malaysia missteps on MH370 eroded families' trust; To which I strongly add: which makes much of their 'investigation' suspect. They give the impression of bureaucrats trying to stonewall and protect themselves amid obvious indications of incompetence and downright dishonesty. Result: all three lemmas remain on the table. Their dismissal (in cahoots with Maldives authorities) of Maldives sightings cannot be taken at face value; neither can their attempts to paper over how two Iranians (possible terrorists) got on board; and who knows who else got on? We need a trustworthy new international investigation. But most of all, what's done is done; world aviation authorities must work to prevent another 9/11 worse than 9/11. It is going to happen if we don't improve aviation security.

REUTERS Mon Mar 9, 2015: Improper Maintenance; Dismissed by Malaysian Airlines. Malaysia Airlines said on Monday that an expired battery in the underwater locator beacon of the "black box" flight data recorder on missing Flight MH370 would have made no difference in the search for the plane. Lawyers acting for some of the families of those on board said earlier that the fact the battery had not been replaced - revealed in a weekend report on the anniversary of MH370's disappearance - could be key in any legal action against the airline (read more…). MY ADDED NOTE: The truth was not revealed by Malaysian authorities until a year after the disappearance. What else are the bureaucrats hiding to protect themselves? Do they have a clue?

CNN Mon March 2, 2015MH370: Could another plane go missing? Paula Newton reports: sensible improvements needed in tracking aircraft to avoid losing another airliner. I would warn against halfway measures, penny wise pound foolish cost savings, and of course the usual human errors in judgment, especially due to bureaucracies, empire building, politics, corruption, nepotism in contracts, and personal egos.

A Few Earlier Maldives-Related Articles:
Perfect Timing (March 2014)
Frustration (April 2015)
Insist (April 2015)

UNBELIEVABLE—not the 'fisherman' and schoolteacher, but authorities: (quoting Malay Mail Online) According a report by the Weekend Australian, the self-professed eyewitnesses are baffled by investigators’ refusal to acknowledge their claims of spotting a plane with red and blue markings similar to what Malaysia Airlines (MAS) uses.

“I watched this very large plane bank slightly and I saw its colours — the red and blue lines — below the windows, then I heard the loud noise,” Abdu Rasheed Ibrahim, a court official and hobbyist fisherman, told the Australian newspaper."—So (my comment added) it appears that the 'Maldives fisherman' they are dismissing is a court official and (presumably wealthy) hobby fisherman, along with a school teacher and other 'unreliable' witnesses. Hello? Anyone home? Talking heads, since you always have so much to say, where are you?

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