[Peetwo]

MH370 and the Human Factor -

Finally some rational expert opinion/ thoughts amongst the plethora of dodgy MH370 hypotheticals...

Via the Borneo Post... :

Expert speaks of ‘human factor’ involved in MH370 disappearance
November 17, 2017, Friday




A man walks past a mural of missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane in a back-alley in Shah Alam, Malaysia (AFP file photo/MANAN VATSYAYANA)
 
NEW YORK: A top US security expert and a former FBI agent believes that the “human factor” may have been behind the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 aircraft in March 2014; the aircraft’s disappearance remains a mystery to this date despite a vigorous hunt for substantive plane’s wreckage pieces and the bodies of the passengers on board that fateful flight.

While speaking on “Cybersecurity trends and the current cyber threat landscape” on Tuesday at the New York Foreign Press Centre, Edward Stroz, the co-president of Stroz Friedberg, a management firm that specialises in security matters, including cybersecurity, highlighted the plethora of security risks in today’s rapidly-changing technology-driven environment.

Stroz, who formerly worked as an FBI agent and supervised a computer-crime fighting squad at the FBI in New York before co-founding Stroz Friedberg, said that although people enjoy the benefits of technology, risks are also replete in the realm of technology.
Citing the problem of driverless cars, he said that hackers can access the computer system of a car remotely and take control of it.  “So they could cause the car to brake, they could cause the car to steer to the right or steer to the left, and that scares a lot of people,” he said.

Though there were “very smart engineers” making such cars, that did not necessarily mean they know everything about how an adversary would compromise it, and “so our firm is often turned to, for example, by other companies when they roll out applications for your phone; they ask us to test it.  And I think we have to decide how much risk do we want to take in this area”.

Stroz recalled that in the case of jet airliners and planes, pilots used to fly by much more pneumatic and sort of mechanical connections, and then decades ago they went to “what we call fly by wire which the pilots did not like, but ultimately, with the testing and the rigour, nobody’s even talking about this anymore”.

Asked if he had a theory to explain the disappearance of the MH 370 flight aircraft, Stroz told Bernama that his example about the jetliner was not about manipulation but that there was a time when people were concerned about manipulation.

“If they did not have a mechanical connection between the control surface and the control.  If it was not just a wire sending an electronic impulse, some pilots were a little concerned about, hey, is this going to work the way it’s supposed to? So my point was about vulnerability,” he said.

The missing aircraft, which was carrying 239 passengers and crew, vanished on March 8, 2014.

Despite experts never having found the body of any of its passengers, the hunt for the MH370 was officially suspended on January 17, 2017 by officials in Australia.

Only 33 pieces of wreckage were found during the hunt, with investigators searching the deep sea areas near the suspected crash site in the Indian Ocean. The plane’s disappearance fuelled a number of conspiracy theories.

“I only know what I read in the newspaper about the example (MH370 flight aircraft) that you gave, so I don’t have a theory associated with that.  I would put one point in here:  Whether we’re talking about driverless cars or airliners – it’s not just the risk from the technology; it’s the risk from the way the technology is being used.

“So the human factor, what we call the insider risk, the person who is authorised to fly the plane – and I’m not making any particular point about the Malaysian episode, but we – since we don’t know, we just don’t know.  And there have been other episodes where we know that the human factor was the one that caused things to go wrong, that we have to be not just so focused on technology, but the human beings who are running the technology,” he explained.

Stroz said that it was also a question of checks and balances, reminding that this was a reason why there are two seats in the cockpit of an airplane.

“And if one is unoccupied, there are certain protocols to follow to get away from a single point of dependency, not just because there could be somebody doing something intentionally, but what if one person is at the controls and they suffer a heart attack or something were to occur?  – and this is how we practice security.

“If there is a single point of dependency, is there something we can do about that? Sometimes there is; but it’s too expensive; and sometimes you just can’t get away from it.  But that type of critical analysis is really what has to occur,” he contended. – Bernama

 
&.. via News Corp:

The lawyers of MH370 victims fear documents critical to the investigation will be destroyed

Paul Toohey, News Corp Australia Network
November 18, 2017 10:00pm


LAWYERS acting for families of passengers on Malaysia Airlines MH370 are still fighting for critical documents, including any psychiatric records of the pilots, but fear Malaysian agencies could conceal or destroy them as time drags on.

Malaysian lawyers say some documents were provided following an earlier court order but are pressing for more, including raw flight data, the cargo manifest and internal reports.

“We’re at the point where discovery of documents, which is of fundamental importance, hasn’t been completed,” said Ganesan Nethi of the Malaysian law firm Tommy Thomas, which will soon launch a new action.

A distraught relative of missing passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that disappeared on March 8, 2014. Lawyers are concerned critical documents may be destroyed. Picture: AFP/Fred Dufour

“We have a couple of documents’ worth of boxes, but we think there are more, for about 25 specific categories — everything from pilot psychiatric records to aircraft maintenance records, which we think we should have. So, we are waiting.”

The firm was instructed to commence proceedings in Kuala Lumpur by Miami-based firm Podhurst Orseck, representing 76 relatives of 27 of the 239 people who disappeared on the March 8, 2014 flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Most families of the six Australians who went missing have settled with Malaysia Airlines but Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul was on the flight as he headed to a new job in Mongolia, is continuing with her own actions against Boeing and Malaysia Airlines.

Danica Weeks with her two children Jack and Lincoln. Danica's husband Paul Weeks disappeared on MH370 nearly three years ago. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

“I’ve always believed it was a technical fault,” Ms Weeks said on Friday, which would have been the 10th anniversary of her marriage to Paul, father to her two sons. “They flew supposedly into the Southern Ocean — and I say ‘supposedly’ because they haven’t found it.

“The documents should just be made available. We shouldn’t be jumping through hoops. Hand them over. What have they got to hide?
“I’m bemused why these simple documents aren’t already available. They’ve got to be pushed to show us everything.”

The Malaysian suit names five entities: Malaysia Airlines; Malaysia Airlines Berhad (the corporately identical successor to Malaysia Airlines); the Department of Civil Aviation; the Royal Malaysian air force and the Malaysian government.

This map shows the indicative priority search area for MH370 in purple. Picture: Supplied

A document being prepared for the new discovery case states: “The Plaintiffs have reason to believe that MAS, DCA, RMAF and GoM may dispose of, conceal or destroy documents which relate to the subject matter of this suit.”

Mr Nethi said documents received from the previous court order had revealed little.

“At this point in time I have not seen any smoking gun,” he said. “But I will caveat that by saying some of these are highly technical. As soon as we get them all, we will hand them over to experts and get them to tell us what they think.”

The Malaysian suit accuses Malaysian air-traffic control of negligence for failing to follow progress of the plane or immediately issue search protocols; the air force for failing under the Chicago Convention to notify civilian authorities of the plane’s unusual tracking; and the Malaysian government as the parent of both entities.

A shot taken from vision provided by 60 Minutes during their interview with Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul was on-board MH370. Picture: 60 Minutes

It further names Malaysia Airlines and its successor.

“It’s quite simple, it’s their airplane,” said Mr Nethi. “The Montreal Convention imposes a duty on Malaysia Airlines to take care of the airline, to operate it properly, and if anything goes wrong, the burden of proof falls on Malaysia Airlines to explain or show that the plane was lost due to the fault of someone else, a third party.

“If they cannot discharge that burden of proof in court, they are liable for all damages suffered.”

The related American action further targets Boeing, the insurer Allianz and Malaysia Airlines. It argues that there is no evidence of terrorism and says the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, had a faultless disciplinary record.
High Court of Malaya document with statement from families fearing the destruction of documents of MH370 evidence. Picture: Supplied

The action is in part for damages against Boeing “based on the malfunction of a defective product, namely a Boeing 777-2H6ER airplane”.


Lawyers acting for Boeing, Allianz and Malaysia Airlines argue that the US proceedings should cease and the case be shifted to Malaysia. The US court is yet to rule on that application.

Texas-based seabed explorer Ocean Infinity is expected to sign a “no win, no fee” contract with the Malaysian government before year’s end, which would allow it to fine-comb areas of interest identified since the original search.
Originally published as The cover-up MH370 families fear

MTF...P2