[Peetwo]

Captain's Log 28.01.17: More embarrassment for Tri-parties...

Via the Oz today:

Search ‘likely’ MH370 zone
12:00amEAN HIGGINS, VICTORIA LAURIE
The leader of the underwater hunt for Flight MH370, Paul Kennedy, believes the aircraft can and will be found.

The leader of the just-ended underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Paul Kennedy, believes the aircraft can and will be found, saying he could quickly assemble a fresh operation to scour a new area deemed “highly likely” to contain the Boeing 777.
The comments come as pressure mounts on the Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments to renew the search, and amid calls on US-based Boeing to shell out from its just-announced record annual profit to fund it.

Mr Kennedy, the project director of the $200 million survey of 120,000sq km of deep seabed in the southern Indian Ocean conducted by the Dutch Fugro marine survey group, said “we all feel sad” about the failure to find the plane.

“We hoped to find the debris on the first day, and just four days ago when we were in the search area we were still anticipating we would still find it,” Mr Kennedy told The Weekend Australian in Perth, where he is based.

The effort had involved 300 rotating staff members on Fugro ships and 1.5 million man hours.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board. Its radar transponder was turned off and radio communications cut about 40 minutes into the flight when, primary radar and automatic satellite tracking shows, it doubled back over Malaysia to the Andaman Sea and then turned south.

While Malaysia has responsibility for the investigation into the lost aircraft because it was registered in that country, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau led the underwater search with the cost shared among the three governments.

On Monday, ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said it was “highly likely” the wreckage of the missing aircraft is in a new 25,000sq km area identified last month by a panel of international experts, but said any decision on whether to search it was “a question for governments”.

 
At the same press conference in Perth, Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said “we need more credible evidence before we move to the next search area”.

Mr Kennedy said should Fugro get a new commission to look for MH370, “it wouldn’t take us long at all” to marshal resources since the company had 350 staff in Perth and equipment stationed there including a $10m torpedo-like autonomous sonar imaging vehicle.

“She’ll be found, for sure,” Mr Kennedy said of MH370.

The ATSB has not costed a new search, but based on the cost per square kilometre of the search just ended, to cover the proposed 25,000sq km area to the north would have a price tag of $42m.

Boeing this week announced its 2016 annual results, reporting revenue of $US96.4 billion ($127bn), and record operating cashflow of $US10.5bn.

Danica Weeks, who lost her husband Paul on MH370 and now lives as a single mum in Queensland, called on Boeing to “come to the plate” to fund a new search, observing “it’s a Boeing plane”.

Last week Malaysian Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said “there’s been no funding from Boeing”.

Boeing has consistently refused to say whether it would consider sponsoring a renewed underwater search, but has observed the company provides expertise to agencies conducting air crash investigations.

Professionals in the aviation industry said it was essential the ­proposed 25,000sq km hunting ground be covered.

MTF...P2