ATSB beyond the pale obfuscating #MH370 families right to know - 
From that man, via the Oz:
Laws shield ATSB while we’re in hell, say MH370 families
![[Image: ab8c567443e9f336b6d1a4fd00ecaeef?width=650]](https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/ab8c567443e9f336b6d1a4fd00ecaeef?width=650)
Jeanette Maguire, who lost her sister Cathy and brother-in-law Rob Lawton on MH370, in Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has employed lawyers from the big end of town to threaten editors of the free press in a failed bid to suppress expert criticism of their actions, and has banned private-sector contractors from speaking to the media.
The ATSB’s denial of the public’s right to know outrages relatives of the disappeared to this day.
Five years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, Australian authorities are still suppressing information desperately sought by bereaved families and refusing to answer claims their search strategy was wrong.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has employed lawyers from the big end of town to threaten editors of the free press in a failed bid to suppress expert criticism of their actions, and has banned private-sector contractors from speaking to the media.
The ATSB’s denial of the public’s right to know outrages relatives of the disappeared to this day.
“To only be told part of a story that has changed our lives, and not for the better, is gut-wrenching and unacceptable,” said Brisbane woman Jeanette Maguire, who lost her sister Cathy and brother-in-law Rob Lawton on MH370.
This week the nation’s media outlets united to launch the Your Right to Know campaign, calling for greater press freedom following a sustained attack on the rights of journalists.
On Monday, The Australian, along with newspapers around the country, blacked out sections of their front pages in a mock demonstration of the constraints restrictive laws place on their ability to publish the truth.
With the Malaysian government having completed its investigation into MH370 more than a year ago, Ms Maguire said it was time for the ATSB to come clean.
“If a mistake was made, then so be it, but to redeem themselves, fix it,” she told The Weekend Australian this week. “We need all of the information so the search can continue — find our families.”
MH370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. Radio contact ended 40 minutes into the flight with a routine transmission. The Boeing 777 disappeared from radar screens soon after as its secondary radar transponder was turned off.
A replay of military primary radar, and automatic satellite “handshakes’’, later showed the aircraft reversed course back over Malaysia, and headed up the Straits of Malacca before turning south on a long track to the southern Indian Ocean.
While under international law Malaysia held responsibility for the overall investigation, at its government’s request Australia led the $200m underwater search for the aircraft, but failed to find any trace of it.
The ATSB had worked on a search strategy based on an assumption that MH370 was a “ghost flight” with “unresponsive” pilots at the end of the flight, and crashed down rapidly after running out of fuel on autopilot.
Many leading aviation experts believe the facts indicate otherwise, particularly the pattern of damage on wing parts of the aircraft that washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean.
Those experts believe Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own aircraft and flew it to the end, ditching it, a scenario that would dictate a different search strategy.
The ATSB has refused repeated Freedom of Information requests to release this evidence, including the advice the ATSB received from French authorities concluding that a flaperon had been lowered, and international expert opinions on the satellite data the bureau claims support its “death dive” theory.
In one FOI refusal, ATSB senior officer Colin McNamara said to release the information could damage international ties; while in another, ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood invoked laws under which bureau officials can be jailed for two years if they provide information to the media.
Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul died on MH370, said she found “the ATSB silence” to be “frustrating and distressing”.
“How can the ATSB continue to use their draconian laws to refuse FOI requests and why does Greg Hood continue to shield the ATSB by using them?” she said this week. “We continue to suffer and those in power, those with the information, continue to keep us in this jailed hell.”
When The Australian published analysis from a team led by senior Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance concluding that the aircraft had been ditched by a pilot, the ATSB hired law firm Minter Ellison to write to the editors in a threatening tone asking that they “refrain” from publishing that style of article.
The ATSB banned the leader of the search conducted by Dutch underwater survey firm Fugro, Paul Kennedy, from speaking, and ATSB spokesman Paul Sadler would not say why.
Mr Sadler has repeatedly refused to answer questions, including this week when he did not respond to an inquiry as to whether the ATSB still believed in its “ghost flight/death dive” theory or now accepted the aircraft was flown to the end by a pilot.
Businessman and former Civil Aviation Safety Authority chairman Dick Smith has said such ATSB actions were “outrageous”, and called on Transport Minister Michael McCormack to demand that Mr Hood run the bureau in a manner consistent with a democracy that believed in freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
MTF...P2
From that man, via the Oz:
Laws shield ATSB while we’re in hell, say MH370 families
Jeanette Maguire, who lost her sister Cathy and brother-in-law Rob Lawton on MH370, in Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen
- EAN HIGGINS
REPORTER
@EanHiggins
- 13 MINUTES AGO OCTOBER 26, 2019
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has employed lawyers from the big end of town to threaten editors of the free press in a failed bid to suppress expert criticism of their actions, and has banned private-sector contractors from speaking to the media.
The ATSB’s denial of the public’s right to know outrages relatives of the disappeared to this day.
Five years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, Australian authorities are still suppressing information desperately sought by bereaved families and refusing to answer claims their search strategy was wrong.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has employed lawyers from the big end of town to threaten editors of the free press in a failed bid to suppress expert criticism of their actions, and has banned private-sector contractors from speaking to the media.
The ATSB’s denial of the public’s right to know outrages relatives of the disappeared to this day.
“To only be told part of a story that has changed our lives, and not for the better, is gut-wrenching and unacceptable,” said Brisbane woman Jeanette Maguire, who lost her sister Cathy and brother-in-law Rob Lawton on MH370.
This week the nation’s media outlets united to launch the Your Right to Know campaign, calling for greater press freedom following a sustained attack on the rights of journalists.
On Monday, The Australian, along with newspapers around the country, blacked out sections of their front pages in a mock demonstration of the constraints restrictive laws place on their ability to publish the truth.
With the Malaysian government having completed its investigation into MH370 more than a year ago, Ms Maguire said it was time for the ATSB to come clean.
“If a mistake was made, then so be it, but to redeem themselves, fix it,” she told The Weekend Australian this week. “We need all of the information so the search can continue — find our families.”
MH370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. Radio contact ended 40 minutes into the flight with a routine transmission. The Boeing 777 disappeared from radar screens soon after as its secondary radar transponder was turned off.
A replay of military primary radar, and automatic satellite “handshakes’’, later showed the aircraft reversed course back over Malaysia, and headed up the Straits of Malacca before turning south on a long track to the southern Indian Ocean.
While under international law Malaysia held responsibility for the overall investigation, at its government’s request Australia led the $200m underwater search for the aircraft, but failed to find any trace of it.
The ATSB had worked on a search strategy based on an assumption that MH370 was a “ghost flight” with “unresponsive” pilots at the end of the flight, and crashed down rapidly after running out of fuel on autopilot.
Many leading aviation experts believe the facts indicate otherwise, particularly the pattern of damage on wing parts of the aircraft that washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean.
Those experts believe Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own aircraft and flew it to the end, ditching it, a scenario that would dictate a different search strategy.
The ATSB has refused repeated Freedom of Information requests to release this evidence, including the advice the ATSB received from French authorities concluding that a flaperon had been lowered, and international expert opinions on the satellite data the bureau claims support its “death dive” theory.
In one FOI refusal, ATSB senior officer Colin McNamara said to release the information could damage international ties; while in another, ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood invoked laws under which bureau officials can be jailed for two years if they provide information to the media.
Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul died on MH370, said she found “the ATSB silence” to be “frustrating and distressing”.
“How can the ATSB continue to use their draconian laws to refuse FOI requests and why does Greg Hood continue to shield the ATSB by using them?” she said this week. “We continue to suffer and those in power, those with the information, continue to keep us in this jailed hell.”
When The Australian published analysis from a team led by senior Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance concluding that the aircraft had been ditched by a pilot, the ATSB hired law firm Minter Ellison to write to the editors in a threatening tone asking that they “refrain” from publishing that style of article.
The ATSB banned the leader of the search conducted by Dutch underwater survey firm Fugro, Paul Kennedy, from speaking, and ATSB spokesman Paul Sadler would not say why.
Mr Sadler has repeatedly refused to answer questions, including this week when he did not respond to an inquiry as to whether the ATSB still believed in its “ghost flight/death dive” theory or now accepted the aircraft was flown to the end by a pilot.
Businessman and former Civil Aviation Safety Authority chairman Dick Smith has said such ATSB actions were “outrageous”, and called on Transport Minister Michael McCormack to demand that Mr Hood run the bureau in a manner consistent with a democracy that believed in freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
MTF...P2