New radar data from Thailand yesterday gave Malaysian investigators more potential clues for how to retrace the course of the missing Malaysian airliner, while a massive multinational search unfolded in an area the size of Australia.
Search crews from 26 countries, including Thailand, are looking for the plane that vanished early on March 8 with 239 people aboard en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Investigators have identified two giant arcs of territory spanning the possible positions of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 about seven-and-a-half hours after take-off, based on its last faint signal to a satellite.
Photo: EPA
Aircraft from Australia, the US and New Zealand yesterday scoured a search area stretching across 305,000km2 of the Indian Ocean, about 2,600km southwest of Perth.
Thai military officials on Tuesday said their own radar showed an unidentified plane, possibly flight 370, flying toward the strait minutes after the Malaysian jet’s transponder signal was lost.
Thai air force spokesman Air Vice Marshal Montol Suchookorn said the Thai military does not know whether the plane it detected was flight 370.
Thailand’s failure to quickly share that information may not substantially change what Malaysian officials now know, but it raises questions about the degree to which some countries are sharing their defense data.
When asked why it took so long to release the information, Montol said it did not raise any alarms at the time because the signal was not of something heading toward Thailand. He said the plane never entered Thai airspace.
Investigators now will be checking previous Malaysian military radar data against the Thai data to see if they can confirm locations for the plane and possibly a direction it was heading, aviation safety experts said.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Defense Minister and Acting Minister of Transport Hishammuddin Hussein yesterday said files were recently deleted from the home flight simulator belonging to the pilot aboard the missing jetliner.
Hishammuddin told a news conference that investigators are trying to retrieve the files. He also said that the pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, is innocent until proven guilty of any wrongdoing.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was