'Not Again': AirAsia Plane Disappears, Months After MH370 Went Missing

12/27/2014 @ 11:51PM




Another Asian airliner has gone missing: AirAsia flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control at 7:24 a.m. local time on Sunday, AirAsia reported about four hours after the plane disappeared en route to Singapore.

(For context for American readers, flight QZ8501 disappeared at 7:24 p.m. EST on Saturday in the United States.)

AirAsia is a private airline based in Malaysia, and the country already has suffered two major aviation catastrophes this year.

In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic control when it was about several hundred miles north of Singapore. Rescuers still have been unable to find any traces of flight MH370, or its 239 passengers and crew, despite an unprecedented search effort.

In April 2014, or one month after MH370 went missing, AirAsia’s CEO was forced to apologize after the company’s in-flight magazine suggested that AirAsia’s own well-trained pilots would never lose a plane.


AirAsia was forced to apologize for this article in its in-flight magazine, after MH370 went missing.

AirAsia said the magazine was printed before MH370 disappeared, and was not intended as a commentary on its rival airline.

In July 2014, Malaysia Airline flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing nearly 300 passengers and crew.

Details on AirAsia Flight QZ8501
Sunday’s missing AirAsia flight was traveling between Surabaya, in Indonesia, and Singapore. There were 155 passengers and seven crew on board the Airbus A320-200, officials have said.

The plane was operated by Indonesia AirAsia, a joint venture with Air Asia proper. (The company has several affiliates, including AirAsia India and AirAsia X.) Indonesia AirAsia has a fleet of 30 Airbus A320s.

An AirAsia official told the media on Sunday that the plane had requested “an unusual route” before air traffic control lost contact with QZ8501 over the Java Sea. However, an Indonesia Transport Ministry spokesperson later clarified that the pilot’s request was permission to change altitude due to bad weather, Steve Herman reported for the Voice of America.

“At the present time we unfortunately have no further information,” according to AirAsia’s statement. “At this time, search and rescue operations are in progress and AirAsia is cooperating fully and assisting the rescue service.”

After releasing its statement to reporters, AirAsia immediately changed the appearance of its various social media accounts. On AirAsia’s Facebook account, for instance, the company swapped out its usual bright red logo in favor of a muted gray logo, and changed the background of its Facebook from a festive holiday theme to a shrouded, all-black bar.



Malaysians were “shocked” by the news of a third potential lost airliner this year, the Malaysian Insider reported, and tens of thousand of people around the globe took to social media to express their surprise and sorrow.

“Another plane went missing,” one Malaysian tweeted. “Ya Allah not again.”

“Pray for QZ8501.”

Source

.

What President Obama Should Do in Malaysia

by Joshua Kurlantzick
April 21, 2014



U.S. president Barack Obama makes a statement to the media in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on April 17, 2014 (Larry Downing/Courtesy: Reuters).



On April 27, President Obama will become the first sitting American president to visit Malaysia in five decades. This trip, which already had been postponed from the fall, has been complicated by the Malaysian government’s recent crackdown on opposition politicians, and by Kuala Lumpur’s inept handling of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 tragedy. However, Obama still plans to highlight the growing strategic and economic relationship between Malaysia and the United States, the relationship between himself and Prime Minister Najib tun Razak, and Malaysia’s supposed credentials as a moderate, Muslim-majority state and emerging democracy. But on his trip, the president should try to maintain a balanced focus, hitting the following points:

1. Give Malaysia its due. Malaysia has clearly been one of the success stories of human development in the post-World War II era. Perhaps it has been overshadowed by other tigers in Asia like neighboring Singapore, but Malaysia has certainly accomplished a great deal in just fifty-plus years of independence. Its economy is more diversified than many experts give it credit for, it has boosted GDP per capita to over $10,000 (and GDP per capita is much higher in urban areas like Kuala Lumpur), and it has built an efficient and modern physical infrastructure on peninsular Malaysia. The country suffers from challenges with graft, particularly in state-controlled companies, but no more so than neighbors like Thailand and Malaysia. President Obama should rightly celebrate this impressive development.

2. But look into Malaysia’s future. Malaysia’s future is not assured, however. The country has struggled to move into higher value-added industries, and its education system remains much weaker than those in Singapore and other, wealthier Asian countries. Prime Minister Najib, after a strong start, has mostly given up on many proposed economic reforms. Investors still like Malaysia for certain types of manufacturing, and the government offers many incentives for foreign investment, but in the long-term many foreign investors wonder what Malaysia’s competitive advantage will be. President Obama is not going to, by himself, convince Najib to pick up the mantle of reform again, but making the argument for reform would be welcome among American businesses investing in Southeast Asia.

3. Clearly recognize that Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country with many non-Muslims. Since last year’s parliamentary elections, in which the ruling coalition barely squeaked home (or, according to some analyses, stole the election), Prime Minister Najib has increasingly catered to hard-line and more conservative ethnic Malay voices in his coalition. The dismal showing of the coalition’s ethnic Chinese party further reduced the voice of non-Muslims and non-Malays in government. The past year has seen increasingly vitriolic rhetoric from government leaders and supporters against ethnic Chinese and non-Muslims in general, and many ethnic Chinese and Indians continue to take their capital out of Malaysia, or send their children abroad for school and, ultimately, to live. Prime Minister Najib’s plans to further boost economic preferences for Malays adds to this Chinese and Indian fear, and also distorts the economy. President Obama should clearly recognize that Malaysia is a multi-ethnic society, and should meet leaders of the Chinese and Indian communities, including those from opposition parties.

4. Avoid the “big man” problem. American administrations, whether Democratic or Republican, too often tend to associate reform with one supposedly groundbreaking leader in a developing nation, a supposedly democratic “big man.” In rare cases, such a leader exists, but more often than not a supposedly reform-minded “big man” requires many factors to go in his direction to successfully push his or her country toward democracy. In the worst cases, “big man” leaders who initially look like reformers turn out, in power, to be as corrupt or autocratic as the men and women they replaced.

Prime Minister Najib, to many American officials, is the “big man” who has shifted bilateral relations and supposedly is leading reforms. But the reality is more nuanced, to be sure. Prime Minister Najib has skillfully wooed the Obama administration and Washington in general, both through his own diplomacy and through a series of effective ambassadors in the United States. Yet Najib himself is not Malaysia. If the American president focuses only on Najib, he risks alienating an entire generation of young Malaysians, who mostly support the opposition and voted for the opposition last year.

To avoid the “big man” trap, President Obama should meet not only with Najib but also with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was recently sentenced to five years in jail on highly dubious sodomy charges in a highly dubious (at best) trial. The president also could meet with leaders from Malaysia’s tough but embattled civil society.

What’s more, publicly highlighting some of the serious flaws in Malaysia’s system does not mean that the United States and Malaysia cannot continue to build a strategic relationship, as some analysts seem to believe. The United States has achieved such a balance with many other countries in the region, and many Malaysian elites already expect the American president to take a position on human rights.

5. Avoid discussion of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. After a bad start to the search for the plane, Kuala Lumpur has become more cooperative and seems to have given all its resources for the hunt. Enough people (including me) have dumped enough on Malaysia’s government for its inept handling of Flight 370 during the first week of the search. It is a tragedy, and President Obama should stick to other issues during his visit.


Source
.

Hishammuddin: Importance being given to that corridor as it’s a vast open sea

 
Published: Thursday March 20, 2014 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Thursday March 20, 2014 MYT 8:42:02 AM



. . .
SEPANG: Maldive officials have refuted claims that the missing flight MH370 was seen flying low over a nearby atoll but the multinational teams searching for the plane are continuing to give emphasis to the more challenging southern corridor.

There are still many reports that the aircraft could have flown to the area which stretches from Indonesia to the southern edge of the Indian Ocean.

“As regards to the southern corridor, it is a vast open sea, so some degree of importance is being given to that area,” Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein told the daily press conference at Sama Sama Hotel.

While the southern corridor was not more “interesting” compared to the northern corridor which comprises overland territory from north Thailand to Kazakhstan, it was more challenging due to the logistics required, the acting Transport Minister said.

A number of foreign newspapers and international wires have reported that MH370 was likely to have flown to the southern corridor.

Reuters, quoting an unnamed source, said the Boeing 777-200 most likely flew into the southern Indian Ocean. This, it said, was due to a lack of evidence from countries along the northern corridor that the plane had crossed their airspace.

Hishammuddin said that he had spoken to the commander of the United States Pacific Command Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III to identify the equipment needed to locate the aircraft and its data recorder which will provide information on what happened to the missing MH370.

The minister said he had also spoken to experts involved in the search and recovery of Air France Flight 447 – which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris – to determine the kind of equipment needed if indeed MH370 had crashed into the sea.

Hishammuddin said the main technical team organising the search and rescue operation had been organised into three groups: a diplomatic team led by Wisma Putra; an assets deployment and logistics team led by the Malaysian Armed Forces; and a technical group retaining overall operational control, led by the Department of Civil Aviation.

“I can confirm that the Malaysian Chief of the Defence Force has contacted his counterpart in the Maldives, who has confirmed that the reports of the plane’s sighting are not true.”

On reports that additional waypoints had been added to the aircraft’s flight routing computer, Hishammuddin said MH370 flew on a normal routing until the IGARI waypoint located off the coast of Kelantan.

“There is no additional waypoint on MH370’s documented flight plan, which depicts normal routing all the way to Beijing.”

Hishammuddin said investigators have received some radar data from several countries which may help in the search for MH370 but he could not yet reveal details about it.

“This data is sensitive to the nations and I will need their clearance before I can release them,” he said.

Related stories:

Media grasping at straws

Najib holds discussions on search area

Search narrowed after new analysis

Missing MH370: ‘Radar shows no sign of plane’

Missing MH370: Flight simulator’s info erased

Fishermen spot debris in India

It changed course only after ‘all right, good night’

Hisham orders probe into ruckus at hotel

Malaysia Airlines to send out SMS blasts to families

Daughter of missing chief steward receives touching tweet from Liverpool FC

Verses of hope and consolation for those on MH370

Smooth sailing through checkpoints despite tighter security

M’sian govt awaiting feedback on two Ukranians

Nufam: Govt should form MH370 task force with us

High-level team to update next-of-kin in Beijing

Zunar under fire for mocking Najib in the Washington Post

Hectic days as journalists converge at Sama-Sama Hotel

Tighter security at all entry points

Tough for Malaysia if foreign govts slow to react or not forthcoming with info

Source