Aviation
Missing Malaysia plane: Search shifts to New area
SYDNEY — The hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 entered a new phase on Thursday as authorities moved the search area for the third time in as many months, focusing on an area of the southern Indian Ocean buffeted by fierce winds and storms.
Authorities conceded the decision to move to an area as much as 600 miles south from where ships and planes have been deployed since early April is based on educated guesswork, given the limited data about the final movements of Flight 370 after it went missing on March 8 with 239 people on board.
The shift comes as private contractors ready plans to take over what would be the largest undersea search mission in history, with a deadline for bids on Monday. Authorities are offering as much as 60 million Australian dollars (US$56 million) for a company or research organization to carry out a search over 20,000 square miles of remote ocean using sonar equipment that may take as long as 300 days to complete.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau aims to spend about four weeks reviewing the bids before selecting a contractor to lead the rebooted search. That contractor will then have only a month to mobilize crew, equipment and ships from around the world to the new search area ahead of a restart in August.Scientists and aviation experts spent weeks analyzing signals sent from Flight 370 to a telecommunications satellite owned by Inmarsat PLC before concluding the plane likely flew faster than previously thought and turned south out of the Malacca Strait. These experts now think the plane covered a greater distance across the Indian Ocean.
“The only data we have now is the Inmarsat data,” said Charitha Pattiaratchi, head oceanographer at the University of Western Australia in Perth. “There is no physical data, and that’s the issue–you’re in the dark.”
Experts remain confident that the plane crashed within a few miles of a final ping transmission sent to an Inmarsat satellite on the morning of March 8, which they believe represents the moment the plane ran out of fuel. But the plane could have been anywhere along an arc extending thousands of miles of sea when it went down.
Warren Truss, Australia’s deputy prime minister, said it was “highly, highly likely” that Flight 370 was on autopilot when it traveled across the Indian Ocean because of the orderly path it is believed to have taken until it ran out of fuel.Past searches costing tens of millions of dollars have focused on areas along the arc around 700 miles apart, from desolate patches of sea near the French Antarctic territory of Kerguelen, to an area of offshore coral reefs near Exmouth, which is exposed to tropical cyclones. None of these operations, which involved military aircraft and ships from nations including the U.S. and China, found any debris related to the missing plane.
For searchers preparing to renew the hunt for the missing plane, the new area has some advantages. It shifts away from an area that included extremely deep seas such as the Wallaby-Zenith Fracture Zone, a tectonic rip in the Earth’s surface agitated by movements between the Australian and Greater Indian continental plates that descends down to 4.9 miles at its lowest point.
That area would only have been accessible to one device–the Chinese-owned Jiaolong minisub–after another underwater vehicle known as the Nereus imploded off the coast of New Zealand in May, said David Gallo, director of special projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The new search area runs from the South East Indian Ridge in the south – a narrow area of sea that has been mapped by U.S. researchers in the 1990s – through a deep abyssal plain to just west of the Broken Ridge, which is as shallow as 3,250 feet in places.However, this new area also presents several challenges. It covers a desolate patch of sea close to the “Roaring 40s,” an area lashed year round by fierce winds and storms. Previous air-and-sea search efforts in the remote southern Indian Ocean through late March had to be called off a number of times when waves and gale-force winds became too dangerous, requiring even the 516 foot navy vessel HMAS Success to evacuate the search area.
Two ships have been conducting bathymetric surveys of the sea floor as a precursor to a more detailed undersea search. These maps of the seabed are important because they will help expensive underwater sonar equipment navigate possible ocean trenches and ridges, limiting the chances that they could be damaged or lost.
The Chinese ship Zhu Kezhen has most recently been active in the southern part of the old search area, near where the Haixun 01 picked up acoustic signals with hand-held hydrophones in early April, a person close to the investigation said. Dutch oil and gas company Fugro NV’s bathymetric vessel the Equator was deployed to help speed up the bathymetric survey in mid-June, and sent to an area further south that is in an area indicative of the new search zone, a person close to the investigation said.It isn’t clear how much of this bathymetric work overlapped with the refined search area unveiled Thursday.
Searchers in planes and aboard ships initially focused of an area of the Indian Ocean far to the west of Perth from mid-March, based on preliminary calculations and reinforced by a number of satellite sightings of possible debris. However, objects pulled from the ocean turned out to be floating garbage such as discarded fishing equipment.
Authorities then shifted the search area some 700 miles northeast in late March based on radar analysis. A series of electronic signals detected underwater using a pinger locator towed behind the Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield raised hopes of a breakthrough. However, an underwater search using the Bluefin-21 drone failed to find any trace of the missing plane
– WALLSTREET JOURNAL
Emirates Airlines has announced plan to resume flight operations to Nigerian airports on October 1, 2024, after a two-year hiatus.
The news was shared by the airline on its verified X handle on Thursday.
It stated, “We’re back Nigeria! We’ll be resuming services to Lagos from 1 October 2024, and we can’t wait to offer unrivalled connectivity to Dubai and beyond to over 140 cities.”
The development was hinted at earlier by Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Keyamo disclosed that he met with the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Nigeria, Salem Saeed Al-Shamsi, in Abuja on Tuesday.
He stated that during the meeting, Al-Shamsi handed him a correspondence from Emirates Airlines confirming the flight resumption date.
The Minister wrote “Yesterday (On Tuesday), I paid a working visit to the Ambassador of the UAE to Nigeria, His Excellency, Salem Saeed Al-Shamsi at the UAE Embassy in Abuja.
“He handed me a correspondence from the Emirates Airline indicating a definite date of their resumption of flights to Nigeria. That date will be formally announced by Emirates Airlines in a matter of days.”
The announcement signifies another step taken by the Nigerian government to reinstate flight operations between Nigeria and the UAE.
In November 2023, Minister Keyamo had announced that Emirates Airlines would soon disclose the exact date of their return to Nigerian skies.
The flight suspension between the two nations had been amidst a broader diplomatic dispute, primarily concerning the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA).
Visa restrictions further exacerbated the situation, impacting numerous Nigerian migrants and tourists, given the UAE’s popularity as a destination.
Recall that Emirates Airlines suspended its flights to Nigeria in 2022 due to challenges in repatriating funds trapped in the country.
Despite a meeting in September 2023 between Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, where there were rumors that the UAE had lifted its visa ban on Nigerian travelers, the ban still stands.
Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga later clarified that the UAE had not lifted the visa restrictions on Nigerians.
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has taken action by suspending the permits of three private jet operators due to their involvement in commercial flights.
Chris Najomo, the Acting Director General of the NCAA, issued this suspension during a briefing to all airlines on Tuesday.
Additionally, Najomo ordered a re-evaluation of all PNCF permits within a 72-hour timeframe.
The head of the NCAA stated that Festus Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, had instructed the discontinuation of private jets’ commercial use in 2023.
Despite this directive, the operators persisted in their commercial activities.
Najomo said “Subsequently, in March 2024, the NCAA had issued a stern warning to holders of the permit for non commercial flights, PNCF, against engaging in the carriage of passenger cargo or mail for hire and reward.
“The Authority had also deployed its officials to monitor activities of private jets at terminals across the airports in Nigeria.
“As a consequence of this heightened surveillance, no fewer than three private operators have been found to be involved in violation of the annexure provision of their PNCF and Part 9114 of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulations 2023.
“In line with our zero tolerance for violation of regulations, the Authority has suspended the PNCF of these operators.”
Minister Festus Keyamo has urged the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology in Zaria, Kaduna State, to create new solutions that can speed up the training of skilled air traffic controllers.
This call comes as Africa anticipates a need for 4,203 new air traffic controllers by the year 2037.
The minister made this statement on Wednesday during the 34th IFATAC Africa and Middle East Regional meeting in Abuja.
Addressing the gathering, the minister noted that the goal of training 4,203 new air traffic controllers aligns with the projection from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
He further affirmed the ministry’s commitment to offering full support to NCAT, ensuring it not only meets but surpasses its mandated duties and roles.
He said “ICAO projects that by the year 2037, Africa will require 4,203 new air traffic controllers. The onus rests on the Aviation College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) to develop innovative ideas solutions to accelerate the training of new and proficient air traffic controllers.
The minister, represented by acting director Michael Chiko from Air Safety and Administration, highlighted the rapid evolution of the air traffic control profession.
He stated “The profession of air traffic control has evolved rapidly, transitioning from simple flag signalling to sophisticated technologies. This evolution facilitates management of the surging number of aircraft traversing our
skies daily.
“As a vital, indispensable component of air safety, air traffic controllers are responsible for the safe, orderly and expeditious flow of air traffic. Therefore, I am not unaware of the critical role you play and invariably, the heavy burden you bear.
“This burden is compounded by increased air traffic, workforce shortages, technological shifts; necessitating rigorous training regimes.
“More so, with the emergence of unmanned aerial vehicles, reshaping dynamics and challenging the norm, it is thus paramount to prepare for the future and indeed Nigeria like other countries must prepare for the future.” he added
During the event, Mr. Lawrence Pwajok, representing Engr. Mohammed Odunowo, the managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), emphasized the relevance of the 34th IFATCA Africa and Middle East Regional meeting’s theme, titled ‘Shaping the Future: Trends and Insights On ATC Training for Tomorrow’.
Pwajok highlighted the significance of this theme, especially as air traffic control commemorates 100 years since its inception.
He suggested examining the historical perspective of air traffic control, tracing its origins from Croydon airport a century ago to its present form in modern airports like Dubai, Istanbul, JFK, Charles De Gaulle, among others.
This historical comparison aims to provide insights into the potential trajectory of the future air traffic control system over the next century.
He added “It is obvious that the future air traffic management system will be characterised by extensive application of automation, digitization and artificial intelligence.”
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