Australia dismisses company's claim to have found possible Malaysian plane wreckage

April 29, 2014
Australia_dismisses

Sydney/Australia, Apr 30: The Australian agency heading up the search for the missing Malaysian jet has dismissed a claim by a resource survey company that it found possible plane wreckage in the northern Bay of Bengal.

The location cited by Australia-based GeoResonance Pty Ltd. is thousands of kilometres north of a remote area in the Indian Ocean where the search for Flight 370 has been concentrated for weeks.

“The Australian led search is relying on information from satellite and other data to determine the missing aircraft's location. The location specified by the GeoResonance report is not within the search arc derived from this data,” the Joint Agency Co-ordination Center, which is heading up the search off Australia's west coast, said in a statement on Tuesday. “The joint international team is satisfied that the final resting place of the missing aircraft is in the southerly portion of the search arc.”

GeoResonance stressed that it is not certain it found the Malaysia Airlines plane which vanished on March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, but called for its findings to be investigated.

The company uses imaging, radiation chemistry and other technologies to search for oil, gas or mineral deposits. In hunting for Flight 370, it used the same technology to look on the ocean floor for chemical elements that would be present in a Boeing 777: aluminum, titanium, jet fuel residue and others.

GeoResonance compared multispectral images taken March 5 and March 10 — before and after the plane's disappearance — and found a specific area where the data varied between those dates, it said in a statement. The location is about 190 kilometres (118 miles) south of Bangladesh.

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Tuesday that China and Australia were aware of the announcement. “Malaysia is working with its international partners to assess the credibility of this information,” a statement from his office said.

India, Bangladesh and other countries to the north have said they never detected the plane in their airspace. The jet had contact with a satellite from British company Inmarsat for a few more hours, and investigators have concluded from that data that the flight ended in the southern Indian Ocean.

No wreckage from the plane has been found, and an aerial search for surface debris ended Monday after six weeks of fruitless hunting. An unmanned sub is continuing to search underwater in an area where sounds consistent with a plane's black box were detected earlier this month. Additional equipment is expected to be brought in within the next few weeks to scour an expanded underwater area. That search could drag on for eight months.

Earlier:

Australian company says it may have found MH370 wreckage

MH370_wreckage

Kuala Lumpur, Apr 29: An Australian marine exploration company has claimed that it has found the wreckage of the crashed Malaysian plane in the Bay of Bengal, 5,000 km away from the current search location in the Indian Ocean.

Adelaide-based GeoResonance on Tuesday said it had begun its own search for the missing flight MH370 on March 10 and that it has detected possible wreckage in the Bay of Bengal, 5000 km away from the current search location, the Star newspaper reported.

GeoResonance's search covered 2,000,000 square kilometres of the possible crash zone, using images obtained from satellites and aircraft, with company scientists focusing their efforts north of plane's last known location, using over 20 technologies to analyse the data including a nuclear reactor, company spokesperson David Pope said.

He claimed his company used technology originally designed to find nuclear warheads and submarines.

Mr. Pope said GeoResonance compared their findings with images taken on March 5, three days before MH370 went missing, and did not find what they had detected at the spot.

“The wreckage wasn't there prior to the disappearance of MH370. We're not trying to say it definitely is MH370. However, it is a lead we feel should be followed up,” said Mr. Pope.

Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation Director-General Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told the paper that Malaysia was unaware of the report of the finding.

“We will have to check and verify this report,” he said.

Another GeoResonance spokesperson, Pavel Kursa, said several elements found in commercial airliners were detected at the Bay of Bengal spot identified by GeoResonance.

“We identified chemical elements and materials that make up a Boeing 777...these are aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys and other materials,” said Mr. Kursa in a statement.

The Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370- carrying 239 people, including five Indians, an Indo-Canadian and 154 Chinese nationals - had mysteriously vanished on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

The mystery of the missing plane continued to baffle aviation and security authorities who have so far not succeeded in tracking the aircraft despite deploying hi-tech radar and other gadgets.

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News Network
May 28,2020

May 28: Boeing is cutting more than 12,000 jobs through layoffs and buyouts as the coronavirus pandemic seizes the travel industry, and more cuts are coming.

One of the nation's biggest manufacturers will lay off 6,770 U.S. employees this week, and another 5,520 workers are taking buyout offers to leave voluntarily in the coming wee

Air travel within the U.S. tumbled 96% by mid-April, to fewer than 100,000 people on some days. It has recovered slightly. The Transportation Security Administration said it screened 264,843 people at airports on Tuesday, a drop of 89% compared with the same Tuesday a year ago.

Boeing had said it would cut 10% of a work force that numbered about 160,000. A Boeing spokesperson said Wednesday's actions represent the largest number of job cuts, but several thousand additional jobs will be eliminated in the next few months.

The layoffs are expected to be concentrated in the Seattle area, home to Boeing's commercial-airplanes business. The defense and space division is stable and will help blunt the impact of the decline in air travel and demand for passenger jets, the company said.

Boeing said additional job cuts will be made in international locations, but it did not specify numbers.

"The COVID-19 pandemic's devastating impact on the airline industry means a deep cut in the number of commercial jets and services our customers will need over the next few years, which in turn means fewer jobs on our lines and in our offices," CEO David Calhoun said Wednesday in a memo to employees.

Calhoun said the company faces the challenges of keeping employees safe and working with suppliers and airlines "to assure the traveling public that it can fly safe from infection."

Calhoun warned that Boeing will have to adjust business plans constantly because the pandemic makes it hard to predict the impact on the company's business.

Boeing's crisis began with two crashes of its 737 Max, which led regulators around the world to ground the jetliner last year. The company's problems have deepened with the coronavirus, which has cut global air traffic by up to 90% and caused airlines to postpone or cancel orders and deliveries for new planes.

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News Network
April 26,2020

Seoul, Apr 26: A train presumed to belong to North Korean's Kim Jong-un has been spotted at a station in the state's eastern coastal town of Wonsan amid speculation about the leader's health, a US monitor said on Sunday, citing commercial satellite imagery on the region, Yonhap news agency reported.

According to 38 North-- a website devoted to analysis about North Korea, the imagery showed a train "probably belonging to Kim Jong Un parked at the Leadership Railway Station servicing his Wonsan compound since at least April 21."

"The approximately 250-metre long train, although partially covered by the station's roof, can be seen at a railway station reserved for use by the Kim family. It was not present on April 15 but was present on both April 21 and 23," it said.

"The train's presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean leader or indicate anything about his health, but it does lend weight to reports that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country's eastern coast," it added.

The report came as rumours about his health have spread as Kim apparently skipped an important annual visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun on the occasion of the April 15 birthday of late state founder and his grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

CNN intensified the speculation by reporting earlier last week that the United States is looking into intelligence that Kim is "in grave danger" after surgery.

Seoul officials have disputed recent media reports about Kim, saying there have been no unusual signs from the North. Some said that Kim is presumed to be staying in Wonsan for unspecified reasons.

Washington has also dismissed the reports, with US President Donald Trump calling such reports "incorrect" in a press briefing late last week.

On Saturday, other media reports stated that China has dispatched a team of medical doctors and officials to North Korea "to advise on" Kim, citing multiple unnamed people familiar with the situation.

North Korea's state media, however, has not made any mention of Kim's public activity for two weeks since he was last seen in April 11 presiding over a major party meeting, though it has reported on his handling of routine state affairs, such as sending diplomatic letters.
But not all speculation has proven to be false.

When he was absent from public for about a month in 2014, speculation arose about his health and a political crisis in the secretive state. He later reemerged with a cane and a limp reportedly after having a cyst removed from his ankle.

The 36-year-old leader is known to have various health problems apparently caused by obesity and heavy smoking. He took office as leader of the communist state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died of a heart attack in late 2011.

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Agencies
June 28,2020

Paris, Jun 28: More than 10 million cases of the new coronavirus have been officially declared around the world, half of them in Europe and the United States, according to an AFP tally on Sunday based on official sources.

At least 10,003,942 infections, including 498,779 deaths, have been registered globally.

Europe remains the hardest hit continent with 2,637,546 cases including 195,975 fatalities, while the United States has 2,510,323 infections including 125,539 deaths.

The rate of infections worldwide continues to rise, with one million new cases recorded in just six days.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases and some do not have the capacity to carry out widescale testing.

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