[Peetwo]

Update: More from News Corp, this time from 'that man' again:

Bureau’s backflip on MH 370 rogue pilot idea

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• February 19, 2016 12:00AM
  

The December map showing the indicative priority search area in purple.

Australian air crash investigators will offer a new plan to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, based on the “rogue pilot” theory of the captain hijacking his own aircraft and flying it to the end, rather than their current “ghost flight” scenario of the pilots being unconscious or dead.

The move follows The Australian’s investigation of the search strategy, including a critique by veteran Australian military and commercial pilot Byron Bailey that claims the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s analysis is flawed, resulting in its searching in the wrong area.

It comes a few months ahead of the scheduled completion of the search based on the theory of the pilots being “unresponsive” because of loss of oxygen through decompression or other factors, and coincides with the appointment of the new federal Transport Minister, Darren Chester.

Former deputy prime minister Warren Truss and ATSB chief commissioner Martin Dolan repeatedly have rubbished Captain Bailey’s arguments, with Mr Dolan only weeks ago telling ABC radio the possibility that a pilot was flying the aircraft to the end was “very unlikely” and there was no need to act on it.

However, in an interview with Britain’s The Times overnight, Mr Dolan said if MH370 is not found by the time the search of the 120,000 sq km target area is complete, the ATSB would have to “explain to governments what the alternative is”.

“And the alternative is, frankly, that despite all the evidence, the possibility that someone was at the controls of that aircraft and gliding it … if we eliminate all of the current search area,” Mr Dolan told The Times.

“If we haven’t found it, then we’ll have to be contemplating … that there were control inputs into that aircraft at the end of its flight.”

The Boeing 777 disappeared on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, after radio communication was cut, the aircraft’s radar transponder was turned off, and it flew a course back over the border between Malaysian and Thai airspace, all factors Captain Bailey, British airline pilot Simon Hardy, and US pilot and air crash investigator John Cox say clearly point to pilot hijack.

Captain Bailey has suggested the ATSB has resisted the pilot hijack theory because it does not want to embarrass the Malaysian government.

If it were true pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately took himself and 238 others to their deaths, it could have been an act of political protest related to the prosecution of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, of whom Zaharie was a supporter and relative.
The ATSB says it derived its strategy from satellite data showing the aircraft was on autopilot with no pilot “inputs” on the final leg to the southern Indian Ocean.

But in a new narrative, the ATSB will offer an alternative strategy based on an unspecified pilot gliding the aircraft to the sea, which could also cover the possibility that hijackers who knew how to fly took over the aircraft.

A widened search area would incorporate the possibility that a pilot flew the aircraft in a glide after the engines flamed out.

 
Dolan -“And the alternative is, frankly, that despite all the evidence, the possibility that someone was at the controls of that aircraft and gliding it … if we eliminate all of the current search area,”


“If we haven’t found it, then we’ll have to be contemplating … that there were control inputs into that aircraft at the end of its flight.”

ATSB - But in a new narrative, the ATSB will offer an alternative strategy based on an unspecified pilot gliding the aircraft to the sea, which could also cover the possibility that hijackers who knew how to fly took over the aircraft.

My question is, why wasn't this 'alternative (obviously more expensive) strategy' offered up as an 'alternative' option to the DIPs & associated governments before the RFT process was even begun.

I would also suggest that the RFTP was negligent in not having input from all of the DIPs, including allowing delegated representation or advisers, if they so desired, to the TET (see pg 35 - HERE).



IMO if this international input had of been allowed there would have been a high possibility of there being more options presented & the possibility of other benefactors contributing financially to the tender. This would also have done away with the shadow of concern (potential conflict of interest) brought to the fore for some of the signatories in the TET R11 (above). The added benefit would have been that DIPs would have had an engaged, committed interest in the whole SIO deep sea search process, lessening the need for defending actions & decisions like we see now & in previous ATSB 'correcting the record(s)' -Just saying  .

'That man' in the Weekend Oz:

Newly appointed Transport Minister Darren Chester has sought a “detailed briefing” on the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 following the admission by Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Marti­n Dolan that the “rogue pilot” theory he had rejected could be correct after all.


Aviation experts are divided on whether a new search based on a pilot gliding the aircraft to the water would be worthwhile.

It would have to encompass about twice the area now being covered based on the ATSB’s original “ghost plane” theory of the flight crew being rendered “unresponsive”, possibly through decompression and loss of oxygen leading to unconsciousness.
A spokeswoman told The Weekend Australian the new minister “has sought detailed briefing from officials leading the search for MH370”.

But the spokeswoman cautioned: “The governments of ­Malaysia, China and Australia have agreed that in the absence of credible new information that there will be no further expansion of the search area.”

Whether to instruct Mr Dolan to draw up a new search plan, with a costing, could be one of the earliest decisions facing Mr Chester.

A US aviation expert, former airline pilot John Cox who now runs an aviation safety consult­ancy and has participated in ­numerous major air crash investig­ations, has urged Mr Chester to do so. “He has a unique opportunity to have experts within Australia review all the evidence and to solicit input and help from Malaysia and China,” Mr Cox said. “The only goal can be to solve the questions, the mystery.”

Australian air crash investigation expert Geoff Dell said “it would be very nice to know what happened to that airplane, and take away myth and replace it with fact”. But Mr Dell, now an associ­ate professor in accident invest­igation at Central Queensland University, cautioned that the government would have to assess­ “when does the cost becom­e prohibitive?”.

The Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, after radio communication was cut, its radar transponder was turned off, and it flew back over the border between Malaysian and Thailand before turning south.

Veteran Australian military and airline pilot Byron Bailey, British airline pilot Simon Hardy and Mr Cox have said these facts clearly point to Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacking his own aircraft.

Only weeks ago, Mr Dolan told the ABC the theory pres­ented by the three pilots was “very unlikely” and there was no need to act on it.

But he told Britain’s The Times this week that with the search in the southern Indian Ocean expected to be completed by June, if MH370 is not found he expected he would have to offer an altern­ative to the three governments funding the $180 million search.

“The alternative is, frankly, that despite all the evidence, the possibility that someone was at the controls of that aircraft and gliding it,” he said.

A search covering a “controlled glide” would be much bigger. Under the “ghost flight” theory the Boeing 777 would have quickly crashed after running out of fuel, but a pilot could glide the plane up to 100 nautical miles in any direction.

The ATSB will not specifically say Captain Zaharie hijacked the aircraft, which would embarrass Malaysia, but will instead adopt a new narrative that it will examine a controlled glide scenario by an unspecified pilot, who could also have been a passenger who knew how to fly.

MTF...P2