PrairiePundit

Guardian: A Russian military missile was responsible for shooting down flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, an international team of investigators said on Thursday, for the first time pointing the finger directly at Moscow. The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014. All 298 people onboard were killed. In 2016, investigators announced they had evidence that the BUK system involved in the incident had crossed the border into eastern Ukraine from Russia and returned after the plane had been shot down. At a press conference in The Hague on Thursday, the investigators showed photo and video evidence that they said proved they had identified the specific BUK missile system responsible. They said they had “legal and convincing evidence which will stand up in a courtroom” that the BUK system involved came from the 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade based in Kursk, in we...

NY Times: Russia Implicated in Shooting Down Jet Over Ukraine Russian-backed separatists asked for and received a surface-to-air missile that was used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines flight in 2014, killing 298 people, a Dutch-led investigation concluded. Will the Russians be sued by relatives of the ensuing crash?  Lawfare may be the only route for seeking justice against this atrocity.

NY Times: Russia-Made Missile Likely Downed Jet, Inquiry Finds The findings by Dutch investigators support a theory that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by Russian-backed separatists armed with an SA-11, or Buk, surface-to-air missile. The Russians have been trying to deny responsibility for the attack on the civilian plane and have pushed an alternative theory that the plane was shot down by a Ukraine fighter jet.

NY Times: In Malaysia, ‘Allah’ Is Reserved for Muslims Only What a weak religion it must be to restrict the language of those who don't belong to it.

Daily Mail on Sunday: A group of 11 terrorists with links to Al Qaeda were yesterday being interrogated on whether they are behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The suspects were arrested in the capital Kuala Lumpur and in the state of Kedah last week and are members of a violent new terror group said to be planning bomb attacks in Muslim countries. The interrogations come after international investigators, including the FBI and MI6, asked for the militants, whose ages range from 22 to 55 and include students, odd-job workers, a young widow and business professionals, to be questioned intensively about Flight MH370. ... There is more. These guys are probably worthy of questioning, but finding a direct tie to the missing plane seems like a long shot.

This should inspire a new generation of mathematicians.  It was a smart way to trace the plane using the limited evidence they had.

Daily Mail: New MH370 satellite data calculations narrow hunt to remote stretch of ocean off Australia: Search area cut to the size of Arizona That is somewhat more manageable.  The analysis of the data allowed investigators to  get more information than initially expected.  There have been so many stories suggesting different routes that they have been hard to follow.  This route is certainly not one that suggest the plane had a destination in mind. NY Post: Australia checking 2 ‘objects’ in ‘best lead’ yet in jet search Cloud cover is hampering the search of the area as of now, but this looks like a good lead.  A Norwegian  ship is now in the area headed to the site.

That is one of the new items in this rehash of news about the missing plane.  There is no explanation of why it took so long to reveal this information.

NY Times: The first turn to the west that diverted the missing Malaysia Airlines plane from its planned flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane’s cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems, according to senior American officials. Instead of manually operating the plane’s controls, whoever altered Flight 370’s path typed seven or eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between the captain and the first officer, according to officials. The Flight Management System, as the computer is known, directs the plane from point to point specified in the flight plan submitted before each flight. It is not clear whether the plane’s path was reprogrammed before or after it took off. The fact that the turn away from Beijing was programmed into the computer has reinforced the belief of investigators — first voiced by Malaysian officials — that the plane was deliberately dive...

Richard Fernandez: One of the reasons adduced to support the theory that MH370 was purposefully flown is its maneuvering. Here is the supposed track of MH370. Track Now here is the same track overlaid on the civil radar coverage apparently taken from Skyvector . It is suggested that the track shows an aircraft trying to stay out of radar coverage. Evade You don’t have to buy this analysis. First of all, I’m not sure the waypoints are accurate. They are only as reported in the press. Second, it is far from certain the route taken minimizes exposure to primary radar, which the putative bandit would have been trying to avoid at this time. But it give one a sense of the reasoning behind the claim that a malevolent or at least purposeful intelligence was guiding the motions of MH370 that fateful night. ... There is much more. That last little jog seems to have taken them off most radar screens.  I doubt that most terrorist are smart enough to do this, but a tra...

NY Post: Two hijackers needed to seize missing jet: experts They needed someone to pilot the plane while the electronics were being turned off.  I also think the rapid climb and decent  were to disable the rest of the flight crew and passengers who might have tried to stop the air piracy.  Putting the plane into a stall would injure anyone not strapped into their seats and could have triggered teh oxygen system which would have also tied passengers to their seats.

NY Times: Pilot Spoke to Air Controllers After Shutdown of Data System Malaysia’s defense minister said the captain of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane radioed to air traffic control without indicating trouble shortly after a data signaling system was cut off. This maybe why the focus of the investigation has been turned toward the pilot.  It certainly suggest he was at a minimum unconcerned about the loss of data system.  It is dismaying that Malaysia did not make this known a week ago when people were looking in the wrong place for the plane.  That is why you are now seeing stories like this:   Series of Errors by Malaysia Mounts Their dribbling out of information has allowed the trial to grow colder.

Sunday Telegraph: Malaysia Airline MH370: 9/11-style terror allegations resurface in case of lost plane Possible plot investigated after Al-Qaeda supergrass told court that four or five Malaysian men planned a passenger airliner hijack The story sounds credible, but so far there is no indication who the five were and if they were on the plane.  One of the five is alleged to be a pilot. This report in the Daily Mail on Sunday says the pilot was a strong supporter of the opposition in Malaysia and may have taken his own plane hostage.

NY Times: Final Signal Came Seven Hours After Contact Was Lost Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a news conference that data indicated that someone took action to change the course of the plane, which could have traveled as far north as Kazakhstan in Central Asia, or crossed the southern Indian Ocean.  Prime Minister’s Statement Satellite Firm Says Its Data Could Offer Location of Missing Flight   U.S. Navy Strategists Have a Long History of Finding the Lost This report makes the search area even greater.  I get the feeling they have a location in mind and are moving assets in that direction.   It is still curious that Malaysia took so long to reveal what it knew about the plane after it went missing.  It led to a lot of non productive search efforts that could have been much more focused.

NY Times: Sharp Changes in Altitude and Course After Jet Lost Contact American officials said the military radar track of Flight 370, not released by the Malaysian government, showed it climbed to 45,000 feet after disappearing from civilian radar and altered its course more than once as if under the command of a pilot. Why are the Malaysians trying to hide this information?  It is almost as puzzling as what happened to the plane.  The area where the plane could be is vast enough without trying to hide all the facts.

WSJ: Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU +2.13% ' missing jet transmitted its location repeatedly to satellites over the course of five hours after it disappeared from radar, people briefed on the matter said, as searchers zeroed in on new target areas hundreds of miles west of the plane's original course. The satellites also received speed and altitude information about the plane from its intermittent "pings," the people said. The final ping was sent from over water, at what one of these people called a normal cruising altitude. They added that it was unclear why the pings stopped. One of the people, an industry official, said it was possible that the system sending them had been disabled by someone on board. The people, who included a military official, the industry official and others, declined to say what specific path the transmissions revealed. But the U.S. planned to move surveillance planes into an area of the Indian Ocean 1,000 miles or more west of the Malay penin...

WSJ: U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky. Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program. That raises a host of new questions and possibilities about what happened aboard the widebody jet carrying 239 people, which vanished from civilian air-traffic control radar over the weekend, about one hour into a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. ... There is much more. This just adds more mystery to the disappearance.  Finding the wreckage and the black box may uncover the answers t...

ABC Entertainment News | ABC Business News A potential sighting by a worker on an oil rig off the coast of Vietnam is in the vicinity of where the Chinese satellite shows what looks like debris from a plane.  It seems to be taking planes and boats a long time to get to that location.

Fox News: Chinese website says satellite may have found Malaysia jet debris The images are a little blurred, but boats and planes are headed toward the site and we could have confirmation soon.  If the Chinese are right the earlier suggestion that the plane had veered off course was clearly wrong.

USA Today: Malaysian officials are backing away from assertions that the missing Malaysian Airlines flight made it to the Strait of Malacca after turning away from its intended course. The country's air force chief said in a statement issued Wednesday here that the missing Boeing 777 may have attempted to turn back before it vanished from radar, but that there is no evidence it reached the Strait of Malacca off the western coast of Malaysia. Gen. Rodzali Daud denied remarks reported by a Malaysian newspaper that he had asserted otherwise, based on military radar tracking. Meantime, the country's civilian aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said he could neither confirm nor deny the military's earlier reported remarks, that military radar had tracked the plane as it turned directions and flew in a western direction after ending active transponder transmissions. The developments contributed to what appeared to be a state of confusion at the highest levels of that count...