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THE SEARCH FOR flight MH370 has been boosted by the arrival of a British nuclear submarine in the Indian Ocean, but Malaysian police warned the cause of the jet’s mysterious disappearance may never be known.
Despite extensive scouring of the remote waters southwest of Perth where Malaysia believes the jet went down, ships and planes have so far found nothing that would indicate a crash site.
Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said a three-week-old criminal investigation into what caused the flight to veer far from its intended route between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing had so far been inconclusive.
In a sober assessment likely to disappoint anxious family members of the missing passengers, he said police have taken more than 170 statements so far but still need to interview more people.
“Give us more time,” he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, according to Dow Jones Newswires. “We may not even know the real cause of this incident.”
Ten planes and nine ships resumed the hunt today although authorities warned broken cloud, sea fog and isolated thunderstorms would reduce visibility.
But in a boost to the search effort, Britain’s Royal Navy said the first submarine in the operation, HMS Tireless, has arrived in the area and “with her advanced underwater search capability will be able to contribute to the attempts to locate the missing plane”.
Britain’s HMS Echo is also due in the search zone shortly to assist Australia’s Ocean Shield naval vessel, which is fitted with a US-supplied “black box” detector and is expected to arrive on Friday.
Black box deadline looms
Malaysian police are probing the backgrounds of all 239 people on board the Malaysia Airlines jet, including the 12 crew members, as well as ground crew and flight engineers.
Their investigation has focused on the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or psychological problems among passengers or crew.
Other authorities have warned that unless the wreckage and the black box are found it may never be known what caused the plane to lose contact on 8 March.
The battery-powered signal from MH370′s black box, which records flight data and cockpit voice communications that could indicate what happened, usually lasts only about 30 days, with time fast running out to find it.
Australia has warned against expectations of quick success in the difficult task of recovering the black box from the deep and vast seas.
Retired Australian air chief marshal Angus Houston, who is heading a new coordination centre in Perth, reiterated that the odds were stacked against them.
“The reality is it’s the most complex and challenging search and recovery operation I’ve ever seen,” he told national radio.“We have to keep searching and searching with vigour, because what’s really vital here is to find some wreckage, some debris on the surface of the ocean.”
“It’s only through that that we’ll hopefully lead to where the aircraft is on the bottom of the ocean.”
The personal jet of Oscar-winning New Zealand movie director Peter Jackson is also now reportedly being used in the multinational hunt for the plane.
Jackson, the director of the “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” movies, has personally approved the use of his Gulfstream G650 in the search, Radio New Zealand said.
His spokesman reportedly said the company which operates the long-range aircraft had chartered it to Australian authorities.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib is also due in Perth this eveing, where he will tour the air base being used as a staging post and meet with his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott.
Malaysia’s handling of the crisis, marked by piecemeal and occasionally contradictory information, has been widely questioned, especially by distraught relatives of the 153 Chinese nationals aboard.
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GREAT IDEA.
Once they’re aware all these projects in Ireland will come in 100% OVER budget and late
And who is going to do the work?
We don’t have enough builders to build desperately needed houses as it is without syphoning off more of them for retrofitting.
I’m not suggesting climate change isn’t real but unfortunately homelessness is a greater crisis at the moment.
All grants for retrofitting should be paused for at least a decade.
@P.J. Nolan: you are on here every day claiming there isn’t builders. I’ve had to set you straight about 5 times now. Also people who are retrofitting insulation will be completely different to the ones building housing, it’s not done by insulation companies it’s done by the dry lining or carpentry crews and the externals by either the brick layers or cladding crews. And even then it’s usually the labourers or apprentices doing it
@Martin Mongan:
And as I have asked you before, if there is no shortage why do SF say it will at least 10 years to sort out the housing crisis?
They are right, it will, at least.
@P.J. Nolan: because it takes time to build something….? Do you think we just click our fingers and houses pop up? Do you understand the processes you have to go through to even just buy the land, nevermind the design and planning stage. Ground works alone can take more then a year depending on the size
@P.J. Nolan: well Intel’s big job is slowly wrapping up so that’ll free up workers
@Martin Mongan: well we have 100k of Ukrainians and at least 12k/ year of IPAS applicants all on the scratcher. Maybe if we trained them they might build a few.
@Thomas Hayes: they’d have to legally allowed work first
They couldn’t give a flying retrofit about the homeless or those with homes for that matter.Those that rely on fossil fuel will continue to be taxed and penalised.
@Patrick Presley: Who is they?
Trust in the EU machine being eroded fast across eu citizens. Changing times indeed.
@Mike 100: Is it? Source? Or just a warm fuzzy feeling in your pants?
How do you retrofit a tent for homeless people who can’t afford a roof over their heads because rental prices are too high or people who look at an empty fridge for the same reason?
The dynamics of society are volatile as ideologues chase conceptual rainbows of climate change modelling and act out solutions that have nothing to do with planetary climate.
The emergence of the maga crowd in the USA is no accident in reaction to an equally vacuous and pretentious group that dominates an educational, cultural and social-political clique.
26 years is plenty of time for this plan to go nowhere, as happens with a lot of these grandiose, long-term schemes. That means, of course, that large sums of money will inevitably change hands in the meantime, with several fortunes no doubt being made. Most of those involved will have long retired or passed away by 2050. Ciarán Cuffe will be 87. There’ll be no one left around to explain how the plan just sort of petered out with very little to show for it. That’s assuming there’s still an EU in 26 years, and I would have some doubts in that regard. Times and attitudes change, and no treaty lasts forever…
The biggest issue is energy generation. Increase the use of nuclear power and close down coal generation. This is the main cause of emissions. Once our energy generation is carbon neutral then run the transport system of it and over half emmisons will dissappear. But no. It will be taxes and restrictions on individuals instead .
better make it 2 trillion cos once it comes to Ireland everything will be 100%+ over budget
Looking forward to learning more about this at the upcoming ZEB Summit
I’ll send them on my address for the retrofit seeing it’s like a half way house here anyway !!
Green building plan .
Held shares in 6 oil companies.
That does not sound like a green plan to me .
Green party are full of bull.
have your say