El vuelo MH370 de Malaysia Airlines acabó en el sur del Océano Indico

El avión de la compañía Malaysia Airlines desaparecido el pasado día 8 se estrelló en el sur del océano Índico y se cree que sus 239 ocupantes han muerto, informó hoy el primer ministro de Malasia, Najib Razak, en rueda de prensa.

"A partir de nuevos análisis, Inmarsat y AAIB (UK Air Accidents Investigacion Branch) han concluido que (el vuelo) MH370 voló por el corredor sur y que su última posición fue en mitad del océano Índico, al oeste de Perth", dijo el gobernante.

"Se trata de un lugar remoto, lejos de tierra. Es por esto que, con gran pesar y dolor, debo informar de que, según los nuevos datos, el vuelo MH370 acabó en el sur del océano Índico", añadió Najib.

"Malaysia Airlines ha hablado con los familiares de los pasajeros y la tripulación para informales (...) Para ellos, las últimas semanas han sido desgarradoras y sé que esta noticia lo será aún más", agregó el primer ministro malasio, que prometió ofrecer más detalles mañana.

Antes del anuncio, Malaysia Airlines envió a los familiares de las personas que viajaban a bordo del Boeing 777-200 un mensaje de texto en el que informaba de lo ocurrido y lamentaba comunicarles que "ninguno ha sobrevivido".

Los ocupantes del avión eran 153 chinos, 50 malasios (12 conformaban la tripulación), siete indonesios, seis australianos, cinco indios, cuatro franceses, tres estadounidenses, dos neozelandeses, dos ucranianos, dos canadienses, un ruso, un holandés, un taiwanés y dos iraníes que embarcaron con pasaportes robados a un italiano y un austríaco.

Las autoridades malasias no han ofrecido una explicación de lo ocurrido con el avión y habrá que esperar a recuperar las cajas negras del aparato.

El vuelo MH370 despegó de Kuala Lumpur rumbo a Pekín en la madrugada del 8 de marzo y desapareció de los radares civiles de Malasia unos 40 minutos después.

OPERACIONES DE RESCATE

Equipos de 26 naciones han buscado desde entonces restos del avión, primero en el Mar de China Meridional y luego en el Índico.

El examen de los datos de radar y satélite llevó a los investigadores a concluir que el piloto del Boeing dio la vuelta y voló hasta el Estrecho de Malaca.

En ese punto, el aparato pudo dirigirse hacia el norte, en un corredor entre Tailandia y Kazajistán o Turkmenistán, o hacia el sur, entre Indonesia y el Índico.

Las operaciones internacionales de rescate se dividieron para registrar ambas zonas.

Australia se encargó de dirigir la búsqueda en el sur y contó con la ayuda de Malasia (6 barcos, 2 aviones y 3 helicópteros), Japón (4 aviones), China (15 barcos y 2 aviones), Nueva Zelanda (2 aviones), Estados Unidos (2 aviones), Indonesia (8 barcos y 4 aviones), Emiratos Árabes Unidos (2 aviones), el Reino Unido (1 barco), Corea del Sur (2 aviones), la India (2 aviones) y Noruega (1 barco).

INVESTIGACIONES

Policías de numerosos países en colaboración con la Interpol buscaron pistas de un posible acto terrorista, sabotaje, secuestro, suicidio o cualquier otra posibilidad.

Los investigadores policiales han interrogado a más de un centenar de personas, incluidas las familias del piloto y copiloto.

Además, especialistas y personal de Malaysia Airlines han atendido a los familiares de los pasajeros y tripulación, algunos de los cuales fueron transportados a Kuala Lumpur y otros permanecieron en Pekín.

Los familiares chinos son los que más descontentos se han mostrado con la forma en que las autoridades malasias han coordinado la búsqueda del Boeing y las han acusado de ocultar información.

Un equipo ministerial malasio viajó a Pekín y, "después de reunirse con los familiares durante más de doce horas y de responder a cientos de preguntas", regresó a Kuala Lumpur "para tratar los problemas surgidos en las conversaciones. Volverán a Pekín mañana", explicó hoy el ministro de Defensa, Hishamudin Husein.

En 2009, un vuelo de Air France que hacía la ruta entre Río de Janeiro y París desapareció en el Atlántico y hasta 2011 no se encontraron el cuerpo del avión y las cajas negras. END

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Barack Obama afirmó que la búsqueda del Boeing desaparecido de Malaysia Airlines es una "prioridad absoluta" para EEUU

El presidente estadounidense Barack Obama afirmó el miércoles que la búsqueda del Boeing desaparecido de Malaysia Airlines es una "prioridad absoluta" para Estados Unidos, que puso a disposición todos los medios posibles.

"Quiero que (los familiares de los pasajeros) estén seguros de que consideramos esto una prioridad absoluta", declaró el presidente, quien dirigió sus pensamientos y plegarias a las familias y allegados a los pasajeros del vuelo 370 de Malaysia Airlines, en su primera declaración sobre el episodio.

"Hemos puesto todos los medios de los que disponemos a disposición del proceso de búsqueda" del avión, agregó, en una entrevista otorgada desde la Casa Blanca a la cadena de televisión de Dallas (Texas, centro-sur) KDFW.

"La cooperación con el gobierno de Malasia es estrecha", precisó.

La Policía federal (FBI) y el departamento de Transportes colaboran principalmente en la investigación. END

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Interpol is investigating more suspect passports used to board a missing Malaysia Airlines flight

Interpol is investigating more suspect passports used to board a missing Malaysia Airlines flight, in addition to two European ones that were falsely used by unidentified passengers, the global police agency said on Sunday.

An Italian man and an Austrian man were falsely listed as passengers on Beijing-bound flight MH370, which disappeared after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur early on Saturday with 239 people aboard.

'This is a situation we had hoped never to see. For years Interpol has asked why should countries wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates.'- Secretary General Ronald Noble

Authorities later confirmed the two men — Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi — were not on the plane, and their passports had been stolen in Thailand within the last two years.

An Interpol spokeswoman said a check of all documents used to board the plane had revealed more "suspect passports" that were being further investigated.

She was unable to give further information on the number of documents or the country they related to.

Interpol maintains a vast database of more than 40 million lost and stolen travel documents, and has long urged member countries to make greater use of it to stop people crossing borders on false papers. Few countries systematically do so, it said in a statement.

'Clearly of great concern'

The police organization confirmed that Kozel's and Maraldi's passports had both been added to the database after their theft in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

A Malaysian police officer checks passengers' identification documents at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, on Sunday. (Lai Seng Sin/Associated Press)

But it said no country had consulted the database to check either of them since the time they were stolen, so it was unclear how many times they might have been used to board flights or cross borders.

"Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol's databases," Secretary General Ronald Noble said.

The database is currently available to law enforcement authorities but not to airlines, the spokeswoman said.

"This is a situation we had hoped never to see. For years Interpol has asked why should countries wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates," Noble said.

"If Malaysia Airways [sic] and all airlines worldwide were able to check the passport details of prospective passengers against Interpol's database, then we would not have to speculate whether stolen passports were used by terrorists to board MH 370," he added.

There is so far no indication that the plane's disappearance is linked to the two passengers falsely travelling under the European passports. Authorities are currently trying to establish their true identities.

The fate of the plane is not known, but an investigation is narrowing in on the possibility that it disintegrated in mid-flight, according to a senior source.

Despite years of pressure from Interpol, in 2013 passengers were able to board planes a billion times without their passports being screened against the agency's databases, the agency said.

With files from The Associated Press

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Why Malaysia Airlines jet might have disappeared

The most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles above the earth.

So the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight Saturday morning over the South China Sea has led aviation experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to place a distress call.

It could take investigators months, if not years, to determine what happened to the Boeing 777 flying from Malaysia's largest city of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"At this early stage, we're focusing on the facts that we don't know," said Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer with Boeing who worked on its 777 wide-body jets and is now director of the Airsafe.com Foundation.

Military radar indicates that the missing Boeing 777 jet may have turned back before vanishing, Malaysia's air force chief said Sunday as authorities were investigating up to four passengers with suspicious identifications. The revelations add to the mystery surrounding the final minutes of the flight. Air force chief Rodzali Daud didn't say which direction the plane veered when it apparently went off course, or how long it flew in that direction, Some of the information it had was also corroborated by civilian radar, he said.

A helicopter prepares to land on board the China Maritime Safety Administration ship Haixun-31 in southern China's Hainan province Sunday March 9. The ship is expected to join an ongoing search for the missing Malaysian Airlines' passenger plane that vanished on Saturday. (The Associated Press)

If the information about the U-turn is accurate, that lessens the probability that the plane suffered a catastrophic explosion but raises further questions about why the pilots didn't signal for help. If there was a minor mechanical failure — or even something more serious like the shutdown of both of the plane's engines — the pilots likely would have had time to radio for help.

The lack of a call "suggests something very sudden and very violent happened," said William Waldock, who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.

It's possible that there was either an abrupt breakup of the plane or something that led it into a quick, steep dive. Some experts even suggested an act of terrorism or a pilot purposely crashing the jet.

"Either you had a catastrophic event that tore the airplane apart, or you had a criminal act," said Scott Hamilton, managing director of aviation consultancy Leeham Co. "It was so quick and they didn't radio."

Size of debris field

Airplane crashes typically occur during takeoff and the climb away from an airport, or while coming in for a landing, as in last year's fatal crash of an Asiana Airlines jet in San Francisco. Just 9 per cent of fatal accidents happen when a plane is at cruising altitude, according to a statistical summary of commercial jet airplane accidents done by Boeing.

• Capt. John M. Cox, who spent 25 years flying for US Airways and is now CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said that whatever happened to the Malaysia Airlines jet, it occurred quickly. The problem had to be big enough, he said, to stop the plane's transponder from broadcasting its location, although the transponder can be purposely shut off from the cockpit.

One of the first indicators of what happened will be the size of the debris field. If it is large and spread out over tens of miles, then the plane likely broke apart at a high elevation. That could signal a bomb or a massive airframe failure. If it is a smaller field, the plane probably fell from 35,000 feet intact, breaking up upon contact with the water.

"We know the airplane is down. Beyond that, we don't know a whole lot," Cox said.

The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records in aviation history. It first carried passengers in June 1995 and went 18 years without a fatal accident. That streak came to an end with the July 2013 Asiana crash. Three of the 307 people aboard that flight died. Saturday's Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 passengers and crew would only be the second fatal incident for the aircraft type.

"It's one of the most reliable airplanes ever built," said John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

Some of the possible causes for the plane disappearing include:

1. A catastrophic structural failure: Most aircraft are made of aluminum which is susceptible to corrosion over time, especially in areas of high humidity. But given the plane's long history and impressive safety record, experts suggest that a failure of the airframe, or the plane's Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines, is unlikely.

More of a threat to the plane's integrity is the constant pressurization and depressurization of the cabin for takeoff and landing. In April 2011, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from Phoenix after the plane's fuselage ruptured, causing a 1.5-metre tear. The plane, with 118 people on board, landed safely. But such a rupture is less likely in this case. Airlines fly the 777 on longer distances, with many fewer takeoffs and landings, putting less stress on the airframe.

"It's not like this was Southwest Airlines doing 10 flights a day," Hamilton said. "There's nothing to suggest there would be any fatigue issues."

2. Bad weather: Planes are designed to fly through most severe storms. However, in June 2009, an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed during a bad storm over the Atlantic Ocean. Ice built up on the Airbus A330's airspeed indicators, giving false readings. That, and bad decisions by the pilots, led the plane into a stall causing it to plummet into the sea. All 228 passengers and crew aboard died. The pilots never radioed for help.

In the case of Saturday's Malaysia Airlines flight, all indications show that there were clear skies.

3. Pilot disorientation: Curtis said that the pilots could have taken the plane off autopilot and somehow went off course and didn't realize it until it was too late. The plane could have flown for another five or six hours from its point of last contact, putting it up to about 4,800 miles away. This is unlikely given that the plane probably would have been picked up by radar somewhere. But it's too early to eliminate it as a possibility.

4. Failure of both engines: In January 2008, a British Airways 777 crashed about 300 metres short of the runway at London's Heathrow Airport. As the plane was coming in to land, the engines lost thrust because of ice buildup in the fuel system. There were no fatalities.

Loss of both engines is possible in this case, but Hamilton said the plane could glide for up to 20 minutes, giving pilots plenty of time to make an emergency call. When a US Airways A320 lost both of its engines in January 2009 after taking off from LaGuardia Airport in New York it was at a much lower elevation. But Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger still had plenty of communications with air traffic controllers before ending the six-minute flight in the Hudson River.

5. A bomb: Several planes have been brought down including Pan Am Flight 103 between London and New York in December 1988. There was also an Air India flight in June 1985 between Montreal and London and a plane in September 1989 flown by French airline Union des Transports Aériens which blew up over the Sahara.

6. Hijacking: A traditional hijacking seems unlikely given that a plane's captors typically land at an airport and have some type of demand. But a Sept.11 attacks-like hijacking is possible, with terrorists forcing the plane into the ocean.

7. Pilot suicide: There were two large jet crashes in the late 1990s — a SilkAir flight and an EgyptAir flight— that are believed to have been caused by pilots deliberately crashing the planes. Government crash investigators never formally declared the crashes suicides but both are widely acknowledged by crash experts to have been caused by deliberate pilot actions.

8. Accidental shoot-down: There have been incidents when a country's military unintentionally shot down civilian aircraft. In July 1988, the United States Navy missile cruiser USS Vincennes accidently shot down an Iran Air flight, killing all 290 passengers and crew. In September 1983, a Korean Air Lines flight was shot down by a Russian fighter jet. CBC

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Tragedia en Rusia: se estrelló un avión y hay al menos 50 muertos

Credito: @KTNKenya

Un Boeing 737 de las líneas internas rusas se estrelló este domingo al momento de aterrizar en el aeropuerto de Kazán, dejando 50 muertos. 

La portavoz del ministerio ruso de Situaciones de emergencia, Irina Rossious, indicó que"según informaciones preliminares, todas las personas que se encontraban a bordo del avión - 44 pasajeros y seis miembros de la tripulación - murieron". "No había niños entre los pasajeros", precisó. 

El avión que "efectuaba la conexión entre Moscú y Kazán se estrelló en el aeropuerto de Kazán a las 19H25 locales (15H25 GMT)", según el ministerio.

El aparato, que despegó del aeropuerto Domodedovo de Moscú, "cayó sobre la pista de aterrizaje y se incendió", explicó el comité de investigación ruso en un comunicado. Según las agencias de prensa rusas, el avión de la compañía aérea ucraniana Tatarstán intentó aterrizar tres veces, antes de estrellarse.

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