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Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on March 20th, 2014
Russia “Puzzled” Over Malaysia Airlines “Capture” By US Navy
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
Selection Editor: Maqsood Kayani,
Pakistan Think Tank
A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) states that Aerospace Defence Forces (VKO) experts remain “puzzled” as to why the United States Navy “captured and then diverted” a Malaysia Airlines civilian aircraft from its intended flight-path to their vast and highly-secretive Indian Ocean base located on the Diego Garcia atoll.
According to this report, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (also marketed as China Southern Airlines flight 748 through a codeshare) was a scheduled passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, when on 8 March this Boeing 777-200ER aircraft “disappeared” in flight with 227 passengers on board from 15 countries, most of whom were Chinese, and 12 crew members.
Interesting to note, this report says, was that Flight 370 was already under GRU “surveillance” after it received a “highly suspicious” cargo load that had been traced to the Indian Ocean nation Republic of Seychelles, and where it had previously been aboard the US-flagged container ship MV Maersk Alabama.
What first aroused GRU suspicions regarding the MV Maersk Alabama, this report continues, was that within 24-hours of off-loading this “highly suspicious” cargo load bound for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the two highly-trained US Navy Seals assigned to protect it, Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, were found dead under “suspicious circumstances.”
Both Kennedy and Reynolds, this report says, were employed by the Virginia Beach, Virginia-based maritime security firm The Trident Group which was founded by US Navy Special Operations Personnel (SEAL’s) and Senior US Naval Surface Warfare Officers and has long been known by the GRU to protect vital transfers of both atomic and biological materials throughout the world.
Upon GRU “assests” confirming that this “highly suspicious” cargo was aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on 8 March, this report notes, Moscow notified China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) of their concerns and received “assurances” that “all measures” would be taken as to ascertain what was being kept so hidden when this aircraft entered into their airspace.
However, this report says, and as yet for still unknown reasons, the MSS was preparing to divert Flight 370 from its scheduled destination of Beijing to Haikou Meilan International Airport (HAK) located in Hainan Province (aka Hainan Island).
Prior to entering the People Liberation Army (PLA) protected zones of the South China Sea known as the Spratly Islands, this report continues, Flight 370 “significantly deviated” from its flight course and was tracked by VKO satellites and radar flying into the Indian Ocean region and completing its nearly 3,447 kilometer (2,142 miles) flight to Diego Garcia.
Critical to note about Flight 370’s flight deviation, GRU experts in this report say, was that it occurred during the same time period that all of the Spratly Island mobile phone communications operated by China Mobile were being jammed.
China Mobile, it should be noted, extended phone coverage in the Spratly Islands in 2011 so that PLA soldiers stationed on the islands, fishermen, and merchant vessels within the area would be able to use mobile services, and can also provide assistance during storms and sea rescues.
As to how the US Navy was able to divert Flight 370 to its Diego Garcia base, this report says, appears to have been accomplished remotely as this Boeing 777-200-ER aircraft is equipped with a fly-by-wire (FBW) system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface allowing it to be controlled like any drone-type aircraft.
However, this report notes, though this aircraft can be controlled remotely, the same cannot be said of its communication systems which can only be shut down manually; and in the case of Flight 370, its data reporting system was shut down at 1:07 a.m., followed by its transponder (which transmits location and altitude) which was shut down at 1:21 a.m.
What remains “perplexing” about this incident, GRU analysts in this report say, are why the American mainstream media outlets have yet to demand from the Obama regime the radar plots and satellite images of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea regions as the US military covers this entire area from Diego Garcia like no other seas in the world due to its vital shipping and air lanes.
Most sadly, this report concludes, the US is actually able to conceal the reason(s) for the “disappearance” of Flight 370 as they have already done so after the events of 11 September 2001 when the then Bush regime “disappeared” American Airlines Flight 77 and its 64 passengers and crew after falsely claiming it hit the Pentagon, but which was confirmed by the CNN News Service [see video HERE] not to have happened.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-planes-communications-were-intentionally-disabled-says-prime-minister-razak-as-new-radar-evidence-points-to-hijacking-9194297.html
Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Any terrorist seizure of the plane ‘would have required one hell of a piece of planning’
What does the revelation that the aircraft flew on for seven hours after contact was lost tell us?
ANDREW BUNCOMBE JAMIE MERRILL
Saturday 15 March 2014
Flight MH370 weighs 250 tonnes, spans more than 60 metres and has been hunted by search teams from more than a dozen countries, but after more than a week the search for missing Malaysian Airlines jet is becoming vastly bigger. And vastly more complicated, amid suggestions of a “deliberate act” to take it off course.
The expansion came after leaked reports from US officials, suggestions of terrorism and the revelation from Malaysia’s Prime Minister that investigators believed new satellite data showed “deliberate action by someone on the plane” had flown the aircraft and its 239 passengers and crew of course for up to seven hours.
Speaking at a press conference in the Malaysian capital, Najib Razak said: “Clearly, the search for MH370 has entered a new phase. Over the last seven days, we have followed every lead and looked into every possibility … we hope this new information brings us one step closer to finding the plane.”
He added that, based on the data, investigators were now pursuing the belief that the plane’s last location was along one of two possible corridors or arcs – a northern route stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern one stretching from Indonesia to the vast emptiness of the Indian ocean.
And as police raided homes of the pilot and co-pilot, the Prime Minister said that, while investigators were still exploring “all possibilities”, attention was increasingly being focused on the possible role of the passengers or crew of the plane.
This weekend Malaysian officials, along with experts from the US National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, continue to refine the new data, which originated from signals sent by the plane via the British company Inmarsat’s satellite network over the Indian Ocean.
The Independent on Sunday understands that these signals came from a “failsafe” function of an Inmarsat Swift 64 communications system fitted to the ill-fated aircraft.
The announcement by Mr Najib was the most definitive suggestion that investigators were exploring a possible hijacking or terrorism.
Aviation consultant Chris Yates said: “It’s increasingly clear that the hand of some form of terrorism is at play here, whether from a group or one skilled individual. The levels of specialist aviation knowledge on display here cause me to cast my mind back to 9/11 when hijackers had acquired a level of technical and flight training.”
David Gleave, a former air crash investigator, added that any terrorist seizure of the plane “would have required one hell of a piece of planning”.
Police drove to the residential compound in Kuala Lumpur where the missing plane’s pilot Fariq Abdul Hami lives, according a guard and local reportersPolice drove to the residential compound in Kuala Lumpur where the missing plane’s pilot Fariq Abdul Hami lives, according a guard and local reporters
Police drove to the residential compound in Kuala Lumpur where the missing plane’s pilot Fariq Abdul Hami lives, according a guard and local reporters
Phil Giles, a former air safety investigator who worked on the Lockerbie Bombing, said: “taking over a Boeing 777 without experience or skill is akin to some Somalian bloke in a tiny boat trying to take over a super tanker and captain it. Unless the hijacker has a fair amount of technical and aviation knowledge he would have to rely on putting a gun to the pilot’s head.”
In Malaysia this new information meant an end to the search in the South China Sea and a renewed focus on the Indian Ocean. At the same time officials were continuing to get radar data and other relevant information from the countries whose air space the two routes being examined pass through. The northern corridor would trace a busy route, passing northern Thailand and Burma and entering into China on the way towards central Asia.
The southern route, meanwhile, would pass over Indonesia and then the open waters of the southern Indian Ocean. The New York Times reported that officials believed the southern corridor to be the most likely to have been taken by the plane. “The US Navy would not be heading toward Kazakhstan,” a person briefed on the investigation told the paper.
Other have suggested the complexity of the search and sensitivity of military radar and satellite information may have been a cause of delay, pointing to the fact that American newspapers have been briefed by the Pentagon and that the destroyer USS Kidd and a P-8 Poseidon search plane moved into the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal prior the Malaysian government’s announcement on Saturday.
Tony Cable, an investigator who worked for the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch for 32 years, said: “The sensitivity of some of the military radar and satellite information here is clearly posing a problem for the investigation … I suspect there is an awful lot more information that is known that is not being released.”
The last confirmed location of MH370 on civilian radar off Malaysia was at 1.31am last Saturday, about 40 minutes after it took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. At that point it was heading north-east across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand on what should have been a six-hour flight to Beijing.
After that it seemed the plane disappeared from civilian radar but showed up – as a blip – on radar used by the Malaysian military. The latest revelation shows that the Boeing 777 continued to leave the faintest traces, in a series of “pings” from its Inmarsat Swift 64 system.
This 20-year-old communications device is fitted to 90 per cent of the world’s wide body jet aircraft and in the case of MH370 enhanced the operation of the aircraft’s flight transponder and Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), both of which were deliberately deactivated early in the flight.
The IoS understands that the disabling of the ACARS system enabled a failsafe “ping” mode in the Swift 64 system, which has been compared to an “I’m here” announcement. The last of these messages came at 8.11am local time last Saturday, more than seven-and-a-half hours after it took off.
When fully operational Flight MH370’s ACARS and Swift 64 only offer very basic altitude and location information and The IoS understands the aircraft wasn’t fitted with more sophisticated equipment on sale, which would have allowed investigators to gain a full GPS fix.
Communication between the aircraft and satellites is only possible when the plane is airborne and the final transmission however would have come towards the very end of flight MH370’s endurance – officials in Kuala Lumpur said the plane was carrying sufficient fuel for 8 hours.
However through analysis of the position and view of the receiving geostationary Inmarsat satellite over the Indian Ocean has allowed officials to plot a “rough calculation” of the two “arcs” the plane may have taken, which has led to increased search emphasis on the Indian Ocean and wild speculation the aircraft may have travelled as far as Kazakhstan.
The revelations were reportedly welcomed by relatives of the passengers in China, who believe the development keeps alive the hope they may somehow be reunited with their loved ones. However the government in
Beijing – which has 153 citizens on board the flight – urged Malaysia to continue providing it with “thorough and exact information” on the search, state news agency Xinhua said.
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-planes-communications-were-intentionally-disabled-says-prime-minister-razak-as-new-radar-evidence-points-to-hijacking-9194297.html
Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on March 20th, 2014
Judge Iftikhar Chaudhry is a traitor to Pakistan’s constitution. He must go.
نا انصافی نا منظور
جو آئین کا غدار ہے
اک پی سی او کی مار ہے
جو فوج کا خدمتگار ہے
اور مللاؤں کا یار ہے
جو اک ذہنی بیمار ہے
شہرت کا طلبگار ہے
وہ نفرت کا حقدار ہے
نا منظور نا منظور
نا انصافی نا منظور
نا منظور نا منظور
پی سی او جج نا منظور
An account of Iftikhar Cuaudhry’s Brilliant Career
By A.R. Yusuf
Our memories are short but not that short particularly with respect to Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry:
Oath on PCO 1999
1. In January 2000, Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, then a serving judge on the Balochistan High Court (BHC), was one of the first judges to take the oath on the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) of the military dictator General Musharraf in violation of Pakistan’s constitution. This allowed him to be elevated to the Supreme Court to fill one of the vacancies left by the 11 judges who had resigned in protest at taking this oath.
Validation of the military coup
2. On May 13, 2000, Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was one of the 12 Supreme Court judges who validated the military coup of Gen Pervez Musharraf. They ruled that the removal of the elected government of Nawaz Sharif was legal on the basis of the ‘doctrine of necessity’.
Forced resignation of President Tarar
3. In June 2001, Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was one of two judges who visited the President House to convince the then President Rafiq Tarrar to resign, and make way for Gen Pervez Musharraf to assume that office.
In a wide ranging judgment they declared that the Legal Framework Order (LFO) instituted by General Musharraf after his suspension of the Constitution, the 17th Amendment which gave this constitutional backing, and the two offices bill which allowed Musharraf to retain his military uniform whilst being President were all legal.
Source: Dawn
Further brilliant achievements
Nepotism: Son’s Admission In FIA
Ansar Abbasi brought forth allegations against Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhray for gross misconduct in 2002, accusing him for admitting his Son Dr. Arsalan to FIA undermining all merits. For details, see this post on ATP
Selective judgement on PCO judges
Constitution Petition Regarding PCO Judges:
The decision of the court in CONSTITUTION PETITION NO. 08 and 09 OF 2009 from 14 member bench headed by Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, summarily removed all justices of higher judiciary who were not part of it as on November 2, 2007. There removal was so ordered on ground that advice of de-jure Chief Justice of Supreme Pakistan was not obtained in these cases. In the same decision the court had held the de-jure Chief Justice between the period of November 3, 2007 and March 22, 2009 was Justice Chaudhry.
There were three groups of these removed justices.
This decision have resulted in situation where:
Video report: Iftikhar Chaudhry taking oath under PCO – 30 June 2005
– See more at: http://lubpak.com/archives/
Leading human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir on Monday raised questions about the role of the Supreme Court regarding Dr Arsalan Iftikhar’s case.
Asma, a former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), also suggested inviting a Scotland Yard (metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London) team to probe the case if the country’s institutions were not deemed trustworthy by the judiciary.
Talking to reporters at the Lahore High Court premises, Asma alleged the court was not meeting the requirements of delivering justice in the case against Arsalan in the Bahria Town scandal. She also rejected the appointment of Federal Tax Ombudsman Dr Mohammad Shoaib Suddle, the officer tasked by the apex court to investigate the case, after it barred the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from investigating the matter. She alleged that the apex court wanted to influence the investigations, as Suddle is said to have close links with Arsalan.
“The Supreme Court should ask the Scotland Yard to conduct the investigation into Arsalan Iftikhar’s case, if it has no confidence in the national institutions,” she said. Asma pointed out that Suddle also regularly accompanied Arsalan at various events. Therefore, he could not be expected to conduct a transparent investigation into the case.
Asma said Arsalan should, however, be given the benefit of the doubt. But she also reiterated that everyone should be treated equally under the law.
Criticising the court, she said if there were any questions over the NAB’s investigation team, then it could have been changed instead of forming a new inquiry team.
We mostly watched out for each other especially when it came to mangling the Constitution in favour of the 3-Jeem alliance
First great Pakistani reptilian man Ansar Abbasi most probably is inspired of Bollywood’s super hero film “Shahanshah” released in 1988. Ansar Abbasi Shahanshah of Islamic Umma played the role of Shahnshah in Chief Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar’s court and unveiled a scandal against Chief Justice Dogar by using his daughter Farah Hameed’s “marks issue” after a very conclusive investigation in 2008. Ansar Abbasi challenged the Chief Justice of Pakistan and threatened Farah Hameed by a dialogue “Rishtay mein to hum tumhary uncle lagtay hein magar nam hay hammara Shahanshah Ansar” and by singing a song “Roshan raaton mein abaad raahon par / har zulm mitaane ko ek Mulla nikalta hai jise log shahenshah Ansar kehte hain”.
Personally I really appreciated Ansar Abbasi’s artistic reptilian stature. His hair style, eyes, beard and face make up, all very similar but fiercer than Amitabh Bachan while attached a corrupt and sniveling bank manager Mathur and crime tycoon JK. Though Ansar’s height is about half to Amitabh but he acted well in super hit Shahanshah Ansar 2008 film and unveiled CJ Dogar’s corruption and use of power in getting some marks for his daugther in FSc examination. Our Shahanshah Ansar after that film has acted as hero or side hero in many films but after Chief of Chaudhries CoC Justice Iftkhar Chaudry regained his throne with the assistance of establishment, Ansar was assigned to defend the CoC’s Supreme League of Pakistan (SLOP).
CoC Iftikhar Chaudhry was compelled to open a closed gate aka the Mehran Gate after PML (N) opened a new gate called Memo Gate and then CoC’s legendary son Arsalan Iftakhar Choudhry opened third gate The CJ Gate and we know the heaven had seven gates so there are still four more gates to be opened. CoC acted well even better than Shahanshah Ansar and proved to be Shahanshah Akbar or Dilip Kumar in Mughal-e-Azam by taking suo moto against his son Arslan alias Shahzada Saleem alleged in long drive with Anarkali in London. Here in Lollywood’s Iftakhar-e-Azam Jodha Bai (Mrs CJ Chaudhry) was alleged to be accompanying Shahzada Saleem in shopping and staying in luxurious apartments in London. CoC Iftakhar-e-Azam has barred Shahazda Saleem from seeing her mother. “My father has told me I don’t need to return home nor make any contact with the family members,” Dr. Arsalan said. SLOP is made responsible by CoC to find out Anarkali of Iftakhar-e-Azam film and ordered to entomb her alive in a brick wall.
During this entire episode, many torchbearers of the supremacy and independence of Judiciary are playing their roles but Shahanshah Ansar is playing well and proved that SLOP or CoC (CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry) is not guilty of his son’s crime, that his innocent son was trapped and blackmailed by enemies of independent judiciary.
CoC wanted to decide this case according to verses in the Quran but not legal code of conduct. He saw no conflict of interest to head the bench, perhaps to chastise Arslan that why he did not invite the CoC to bea part of new Lollywood film “The CJ Gate” during shooting time in London.
CJ’s statement on oath that he swears on God that he had no knolwedge regarding shooting of the movie and Arslan’s business trips to London. CoC’s left eye was full of tears while he told in an open court that Arslan never had paid any penny to him or his mother and never had purchased even a few potatoes and beans for kitchen. “Arslan never bought suit for me even on Bakra Eid and he never offered me or his mother to pay for our Hajj expenses. Despite that I never taunted him for his luxurious London trip because he at least provided me with a lonely life in my home for a few months.”
CJ clearly told the open court that he trusts SLOP (Supreme League of Pakistan) and its second tier leader Justice Jawad Khwaja who is likely to solve the “The CJ Family Gate” issue politically by dialogues with elite business friends, journalists and lawyers. And if Arslan is found guilty he will be stoned in front of Anarkali and Anarkali will be cemented alive in a brick wall of the Independent Judicial Complex in Islamabad
In the meanwhile, kudos to great Pakistani Reptilian Ansar Abbasi who had proved Chief Justice Doggar as guilty of his daughter’s “crime” in 2008 and now in 2012 he has proved CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry as innocent of his son’s multi-millions business deals with Malik Riaz.http://www.geo.tv/
Of course, keep in mind that there are at least four more gates are awaiting to be opened!
Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on March 20th, 2014
Chris Goodfellow,
18-Mar-14
Selection Editor: Maqsood Kayani
There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it’s almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi.
We know the story of MH370: A loaded Boeing 777 departs at midnight from Kuala Lampur, headed to Beijing. A hot night. A heavy aircraft. About an hour out, across the gulf toward Vietnam, the plane goes dark, meaning the transponder and secondary radar tracking go off. Two days later we hear reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar, meaning the plane is tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca.
The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah1 was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport.
He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer. Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport.
The loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire.
When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and searched for airports in proximity to the track toward the southwest. For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.
There are two types of fires. An electrical fire might not be as fast and furious, and there may or may not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility, given the timeline, that there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires, it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes, this happens with underinflated tires. Remember: Heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long-run takeoff.
There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. Once going, a tire fire would produce horrific, incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks, but this is a no-no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter, but this will last only a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one in my flight bag, and I still carry one in my briefcase when I fly.)
What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. You will find it along that route–looking elsewhere is pointless. Ongoing speculation of a hijacking and/or murder-suicide and that there was a flight engineer on board does not sway me in favor of foul play until I am presented with evidence of foul play.
We know there was a last voice transmission that, from a pilot’s point of view, was entirely normal. “Good night” is customary on a hand-off to a new air traffic control. The “good night” also strongly indicates to me that all was OK on the flight deck. Remember, there are many ways a pilot can communicate distress. A hijack code or even transponder code off by one digit would alert ATC that something was wrong. Every good pilot knows keying an SOS over the mike always is an option. Even three short clicks would raise an alert. So I conclude that at the point of voice transmission all was perceived as well on the flight deck by the pilots.
But things could have been in the process of going wrong, unknown to the pilots. Evidently the ACARS went inoperative some time before. Disabling the ACARS is not easy, as pointed out. This leads me to believe more in an electrical problem or an electrical fire than a manual shutdown. I suggest the pilots probably were not aware ACARS was not transmitting.
As for the reports of altitude fluctuations, given that this was not transponder-generated data but primary radar at maybe 200 miles, the azimuth readings can be affected by a lot of atmospherics and I would not have high confidence in this being totally reliable. But let’s accept for a minute that the pilot may have ascended to 45,000 feet in a last-ditch effort to quell a fire by seeking the lowest level of oxygen. That is an acceptable scenario. At 45,000 feet, it would be tough to keep this aircraft stable, as the flight envelope is very narrow and loss of control in a stall is entirely possible.
The aircraft is at the top of its operational ceiling. The reported rapid rates of descent could have been generated by a stall, followed by a recovery at 25,000 feet. The pilot may even have been diving to extinguish flames. But going to 45,000 feet in a hijack scenario doesn’t make any good sense to me.
Regarding the additional flying time: On departing Kuala Lampur, Flight 370 would have had fuel for Beijing and an alternate destination, probably Shanghai, plus 45 minutes–say, 8 hours. Maybe more. He burned 20-25 percent in the first hour with takeoff and the climb to cruise. So when the turn was made toward Langkawi, he would have had six hours or more hours worth of fuel. This correlates nicely with the Inmarsat data pings being received until fuel exhaustion.
Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible.
The now known continued flight until time to fuel exhaustion only confirms to me that the crew was incapacitated and the flight continued on deep into the south Indian ocean. There is no point speculating further until more evidence surfaces, but in the meantime it serves no purpose to malign pilots who well may have been in a struggle to save this aircraft from a fire or other serious mechanical issue. Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. There is no doubt in my mind. That’s the reason for the turn and direct route.
A hijacking would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It probably would have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided where they were taking it. Surprisingly, none of the reporters, officials, or other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot’s viewpoint: If something went wrong, where would he go? Thanks to Google Earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times.
Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well-remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed, I believe, in Columbus, Ohio in the 1980s. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn’t instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually, but lost 30-odd souls. The 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots.
They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. They simply ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what? The transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses. Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. Two plus two equals four. For me, that is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction. Smart pilot. He just didn’t have the time.
Chris Goodfellow has 20 years experience as a Canadian Class-1 instrumented-rated pilot for multi-engine planes. His theory on what happened to MH370 first appeared on Google+. We’ve copyedited it with his permission.
1CORRECTION 9:40 a.m. Eastern 03/18/14: An editing error introduced a typo in Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s name.
For more on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370:
How It’s Possible to Lose an Airplane in 2014
Inside the Nearly Impossible Task of Finding an Airplane in the Ocean
How the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet Could Have Been Hijacked
Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on March 20th, 2014
Curious information surfaced in the media [2012] – based on space reconnaissance, the US Department of Defense put together a map of Afghanistan showing in detail the country’s mineral riches which, as it transpired, may be quite impressive.
The fact that Afghanistan sits on lucrative natural resources was recognized indirectly back in 2010 when the Afghan ministry of mines rolled out a $1b (!) estimate of what the country might have, and The New York Times quoted a source in the US Administration as saying that Afghanistan’s list of reserves included copper, gold, cobalt, and even lithium on which the present-day industry is heavily dependent. A Pentagon memo actually described Afghanistan’s potential lithium holdings as big enough to make it the “Saudi Arabia of lithium”. Somehow, the news flew below the radars of most watchers worldwide.
It must be taken into account in the context that the areas used for poppy cropping in Afghanistan expanded by a factor of magnitude since the Western coalition invaded the country with an anti-terrorist mission and brought down the Taliban rule. At the moment, millions of Afghans are involved in poppy farming and processing or in heroin trafficking. A year after the advent of the Western coalition, Afghanistan entered the world stage as a heroin monopoly, outputting over 60% of the global supply. It is an open secret that the farmlands given to poppy in Afghanistan far exceed in proportions the cocaine plantations in Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia combined. The US-British explanation is that farmers in Afghanistan – an underdeveloped country supposedly having no natural resources – have to cultivate drugs for survival.
Citing the above claims, in the 2000ies Washington dropped Afghanistan from the narcotics blacklist and lifted the pertinent sanctions. The US President said the step was in the US national interests, while in no time the Afghan “farmers” confronted the neighboring countries, Russia in particular, with the nightmare of a permanent drug Jihad.
Actually, Soviet scientists discovered decades ago that the soils of Afghanistan contained ample mineral resources. Among those, for example, are precious and semiprecious stones: samples of the Sar-e-Sang District Lazurite, whose quality craftsmen praise as exemplary, were found even in Pharaohs’ tombs and during the Troy excavations. The emerald deposit unsealed back in the 1970ies in the Panjshir Province ranks with the world’s largest, with gems comparable in quality to the acclaimed ones mined in Columbia. Also long ago, the Soviets were aware of the existence of Uranium reserves in Afghanistan – in Gen. A. Lyakhovsky’s account presented in his Tragedy and Honor in Afghanistan, the threat that the Uranium would be grabbed by Pakistan and Iran to build nuclear weapons was cited as an argument in favor of the future Soviet invasion at a pivotal December 8, 1979 meeting personally chaired by L.I. Brezhnev.
The Soviet explorations which went on in Afghanistan till the late 1980ies showed that Afghanistan was extremely rich in various types of ores, with the resources hitherto untapped as the country had never been colonized. The Aynak copper deposit is the biggest in Eurasia, and the Hadjigek iron ore in the proximity of Kabul is believed to be the the top one in South Asia. Pegmatite reserves usable as sources of rubies, Beryl, and seldom-found gems – kunzite and hiddenite – are located east of Kabul. Pegmatite fields can, furthermore, serve to derive Beryllium (estimatedly, the corresponding reserves are the biggest known up to date with a total of over 73,500 tons), Lithium, Tantalum, and Niobium, the substances steady demand for which is pressed by the high tech sector along with the nuclear and aerospace industries.
The Pentagon, therefore, confirmed the old Soviet findings about the reserves of precious metals, ores, sulfur, Lazurite, Baryte, Celestine, etc. in Afghanistan, and actually went further, scrupulously compiling a map of the deposits. The story deserves attention, considering that, contrary to the widespread notion, the war the Afghan mujahiddeen used to wage against the Soviets did not end when the Soviet forces were withdrawn from Afghanistan. In the 2000ies, the war recurred in the form of a drug offensive which cost Russia more lives than the botched Afghan military campaign. In that now fairly distant era, the Soviet death toll reached around 15,000 overall, while these days Afghan drugs kill up to 20,000 people in Russia annually, crippling far more. Most of the victims, it must be noted, are young people. It is absolute cynicism to justify the above with allegations that Afghanistan’s poverty leaves its farmers with no choice but to cultivate drugs.
Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on March 20th, 2014
DAWN
Former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry — File photo
ISLAMABAD: After his retirement last December, former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has comfortably settled into a government house next to his old official residence for six months. However, what is disturbing is that the renovation and maintenance work done at his ‘temporary’ abode has cost over Rs7 million.
According to official details of renovation and maintenance at the residence of the former CJ available with Dawn, the amount has been spent on the purchase of new furniture, bathroom fittings, curtains, wooden floor and rugs.
Just the purchase of new furniture cost Rs1.6m and renovation of bathrooms ran up a bill of Rs1.4m.
The ex-chief justice, who retired on Dec 11, left his former official residence and was given house No 12 in the Judicial Enclave, where a judge of the apex court was residing.
According to official details of renovation work, Rs1.6m was spent on the purchase of new furniture, Rs1.4m utilised on renovation of bathrooms, Rs0.6m on bathroom fittings, Rs0.27m on whitewashing, Rs0.75m on purchase of new curtains, Rs0.15m on supply of new rugs, Rs0.6m on construction of a shed, Rs0.35m on laying of wooden floor, Rs0.35m on purchase of floor tiles, Rs0.25m on roof treatment and Rs0.2m on purchase and fixing of marble slabs.
It has been learnt that some of the work is still in progress and the details of these expenses will be known later.
The opposition has already obtained information about what it termed ‘extravagance’ committed in the name of maintenance and brought the matter to the notice of parliament.
An inside source said the former CJ, asked for renovation and maintenance work in his present official residence soon after he shifted his family there.
The order was conveyed to the Pakistan Public Works Department (Pak PWD), which is responsible for maintenance work in many government buildings, including the Prime Minister House, the Presidency, Supreme Court building, Ministers’ Enclave and Judicial Enclave.
However, a senior official of the Pak PWD, under whose domain the Judicial Enclave fell, refused to carry out heavy maintenance work in the residence. He said he did not have the funds required to meet the expenses of the extraordinary maintenance work.
Later the case was referred to the Pak PWD headquarters and the department’s top brass gave approval for the work.
The DG said whatever amount had been spent on the residence of the former CJ had not been approved by him. “I have neither seen any such estimates nor approved them,” he claimed.
In reply to a query, Mr Akhtar said the former CJ has been provided a house in the Judicial Enclave for six months, for which he was authorised.
Opposition curious
An opposition politician, Senator Farhatullah Babar, said he had sent a question to the Senate Secretariat asking for details of the amount spent on lodging, security and stay of the former CJ in his new house. “We have already invoked parliamentary instruments to find the truth behind reports of extravagance at public expense in massaging the ego of individuals. We will then [raise] the issue in parliament appropriately,” he added.
“One is not surprised given the well-known penchant of the former CJ for protocol, security, pomp and show,” Mr Babar said.
Supreme Court Registrar Dr Faqir Hussain told Dawn he was not aware of the maintenance and renovation work.
The registrar agreed that he would reply to queries on the renovation work if they were e-mailed to him, but was unable to answer them even two weeks after the questions were sent to him.
“I have checked such kind of renovation work at my end but could not find anything. I came to know that all such details would be available with PWD so it is better to contact the PWD people to confirm your report,” the registrar told this reporter.On the other hand, sources said the registrar was fully aware of the work done in the residence of the former CJ because he was coordinating with officials of Pak PWD on the matter.
Information Minister Pervez Rashid, who also holds the portfolio of law, was reluctant to comment on the issue, saying he was not aware of any such renovation and maintenance work.
He, however, said that maybe the condition of the official residence provided to Mr Chaudhry required such a heavy maintenance work. “If such a heavy amount has been spent on that house, even then it would be considered as value addition to an official residence that would be handed over to any other judge after six months’ stay of the former CJ.”
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