Quote:Malaysian Director General of Civil Aviation Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said tonight that a piece of debris found on a beach near the town of Saint-Denis on Sunday morning had nothing to do with the investigation involving the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
Quote:Rahman said “I’m the one leading the investigation in France for the analysis of the (wing flap) piece brought back.
This Malaysian fellah may be in for a reality fix:-
Quote:Under the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization—the arm of the United Nations that governs traditional airline-accident probes—the normal procedure after finding the part would have been to assemble representatives of the plane’s manufacturer and Malaysian investigators to determine next steps, according to a veteran safety expert familiar with the rules. But instead, “the French are jumping into the middle of this suddenly, with both feet,” this person said.
It now becomes (IMO) a question of “sphere of influence”; it may well be easy for a slippery government to play nice with an equally slippery, cooperative, easily influenced Australian ATSB; but now the French have been dealt a hand at the high stakes table. Unlike Australia, the French and probably the rest of the world are tired, weary to death of the way the investigation and to a lesser extent the search has been carried out. It is time to get serious about finding out exactly what happened to this aircraft. If the French and by extension, the USA have found a way past the Malaysian smoke and mirrors perhaps we will see some progress, particularly in the ‘ground’ investigation.
Quote:Boeing Co. representatives also are expected to be at the lab Wednesday, according to industry officials. The company hasn’t confirmed whether it believes the part in question came from Flight 370. But Boeing officials helped Malaysia in its initial determination, based on photographic evidence, that the part came from a Boeing 777, Malaysian officials said.
It still intrigues me why the Chinese have taken a back seat in the ‘ground’ investigation. That they are reluctant to help defray the costs is understandable and supportable. One theory which has enough merit to warrant discussion is that the Chinese, as pragmatic people with a good intelligence service providing information, perhaps feel unable to waste money on a search effort they believe flawed, from the outset.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the game plays out; the French aren’t quite as accommodating as the antipodean ‘Search Master’. But, it still beats me; a CVR at a known location, under 50 meters of user friendly water, within 10 K of the nearest pub takes six years to even approach recovery and they put the same specimen in charge of what is arguably the worlds most complex search for a missing aircraft. No invitation offered to inspect the part just about says it all.
Aye well; back to my knitting
Toot toot.