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23 years later, mother charged in death of son, 5
08/08/2014 13:28———
Collapse of Antarctic ice sheet is underway and unstoppable but will take centuries
05/13/2014 16:22———
New last words from cockpit: 'Good night Malaysian three seven zero'
04/01/2014 10:19They were words heard around the globe as investigators looked for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.
Weeks ago, Malaysian authorities said the very last message through the airplane cockpit was, "Alright, night."
The sign-off to air traffic controllers, which investigators said was spoken from the plane's copilot, was one of several few concrete details officials released in a mystery that's baffled investigators and drawn global attention because the Boeing 777 disappeared with 239 people aboard mid-flight on March 8.
There's only one problem. As it happens, it wasn't true.
On Monday, Malaysia's Transport Ministry said the last voice transmission from your cockpit of Flight 370 was actually "Night Malaysian three seven zero."
And authorities are still wanting to decide if it was the plane's pilot or copilot who said them.
The newest language is routine and is not an indicator that anything untoward occurred aboard the flight, said CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo.
Nevertheless the alter in wording weeks in the hunt for the missing plane raises questions on how Malaysian officials have handled the investigation.
"It speaks to credibility issues, unfortunately," Schiavo said.
"We haven't a straight, clear word that any of us may have a large amount of fidelity in," said Michael Goldfarb, former chief of staff with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. "We now have the tragedy in the crash, we've the tragedy associated with an investigation gone awry after which we have now queries about where we range from here."
Whatever the pilots' last words were, it's difficult to know the things they mean without additional information from authorities in what the course notes said and ways in which the trainer told us it, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien told "Charge with Jake Tapper" on Monday.
"Minus the preceding information ... either the transcript or perhaps the recordings themselves, it's difficult to be aware what any one of that in some way means," he was quoted saying. "And that's the problem with this investigation, which has been so opaque."
Malaysian authorities have defended their handling of the situation.
Acting Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Monday that authorities weren't hiding anything by declining to discharge some specifics of the missing flight. Some details are portion of ongoing investigations into so what happened towards the plane, he said.
"We are not hiding anything," he said. "We are just adopting the procedure that may be being set."
Source: Plane's turn considered 'criminal act'
A Malaysian government source told CNN Monday how the airliner's switch off course will be considered a "criminal act," either by among the pilots or somebody else onboard the missing airliner.
Along with a background briefing given to CNN, Malaysian investigators said they believed the plane was "flown by someone with good flying familiarity with the aircraft."
Several friends of Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah said they won't believe he happens to be the "criminal" controlling the plane.
Rallying to his defense, they showed CNN's Nic Robertson pictures of him at flight school.
"I'm sure finally it is going to revive a stage where people remember him being a hero when things come out," friend Jason Lee said. "I do think he's a hero."
A senior Malaysian government official the other day told CNN the police analyst Tom Fuentes that authorities are finding nothing in days of investigating both pilots leading these phones any motive, whether it be political, suicidal or extremist.
And a continuing FBI report on the 2 pilots' hard disks, including one out of a flight ticket simulator Zaharie had built at his home, has not resulted in a "smoking gun," a U.S. official with familiarity with the investigation told CNN a couple weeks ago.
In a very Facebook post, the captain's daughter lashed out with a British tabloid that claimed to quote her criticizing her father.
"You must think of making movies as you are are so good at creating stories and scripts out of nothing," Aishah Zaharie wrote. "May God have mercy in your souls."
Several leads dry up as search ramps up
Potential leads around the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continue to come. Techniques the setbacks and frustrations.
Ten military planes, a civilian jet and nine ships are part of Tuesday's Indian Ocean search, which spans a swath west of Perth that's 120,000 square kilometers (46,300 square miles), the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.
Monday's search ended without finding anything significant, Australian officials said. Four orange objects spotted by search aircraft and earlier referred to as promising proved be just old fishing gear, the trainer told us.
Finding possible leads that come to be trash, fishing gear or jellyfish is quiet difficult for search teams, U.S. Navy Cmdr. William Marks told CNN's "AC360."
"You could have that excitement, and if it's garbage or seaweed or something like that, it is difficult, it's difficult to comprehend you didn't find anything," he explained. "And you just keep going with it therefore you keep at it. And this is the thing that we do. Itrrrs this that we train for."
U.S. Navy officials loaded underwater locating gear aboard an Australian naval ship and hang up seem to sea Monday evening, but will not be able to utilize the equipment until investigators narrow the search zone.
Kit has a pinger locator that's towed behind a ship and scans for the sound with the locator beacon connected to the plane's flight data recorder. Also onboard is an underwater drone which could scan the sea bottom for debris.
It will require the ship, the Ocean Shield, three days only to get through to the search zone, leaving precious short amount of time to get the plane's flight data recorders prior to a batteries on its locator beacon poop out. The batteries are made to last 1 month; the plane continues to be missing for twenty-four days.
Under favorable sea conditions, the pingers is usually heard 2 nautical miles away. But high seas, ground noise, wreckage or silt can all make pingers harder to detect.
In such cases, searchers barely know the best places to consider all.
"Were searching a huge subject of ocean, and now we are working on quite limited information," Australian Chancellor Tony Abbott told reporters Monday. "Nevertheless, the most effective brains on the planet are applying themselves to this particular task. ... If the mystery is solvable, we're going to solve it."
And the man vowed to hold looking.
"Your time and effort is ramping up, not winding down," he told CNN.
Malaysia will ask north america concerning the possibility of deploying more military assets, Hishammuddin said Monday.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Monday that he will consider any extra requests from Hishammuddin.
"I don't know what additional requests he'll make of me," he was quoted saying. "I definitely will listen carefully to whatever those are. ... We're providing precisely what we are able to provide, much like other countries."
Get into gear to speed
Relatives' demands
Close relatives of individuals onboard Flight 370 have accused Malaysian officials of giving them confusing, conflicting information since plane vanished over 3 weeks ago.
On Monday, a multitude of Chinese family visited a Kuala Lumpur temple. They chanted, lit candles and meditated.
"Chinese are kindhearted people," said Jiang Hui, the families' designated representative. "But we can clearly distinguish between the great and evil. I will never forgive for within the truth from us and also the criminal who delayed the rescue mission."
Jiang asked Malaysia to apologize for announcing March 24 which the plane had crashed, in spite of the deficit of any "direct evidence."
For the daily press briefing, Hishammuddin responded, saying Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak hadn't used the phrase "crash" or mentioned too little survivors in the announcement the plane's flight had "ended" inside the southern Indian Ocean.
He described a meeting Saturday between Malaysian authorities and Flight 370 relatives as "by far the most difficult meeting I've ever attended."
"The people are heartbroken. For several, the strain of the past few weeks may be unbearable," he was quoted saying.
He said Malaysia will hold a top-level briefing for families where experts will explain many of the data and methodology accustomed to slowly move the search.
Next he said authorities have discussed with the families what happens if they're unable to find debris in the missing plane. But he declined to go over it with reporters Monday, saying "to get fair to the families, that may be something I'd not need to express using the public at this time."
Beijing in addition has publicly slammed Malaysia's efforts to search for the Boeing 777. Of the 239 people aboard the jetliner, 154 were Chinese. But Malaysia says it's done its best with what they have.
"History will judge us as a country that was very responsible," Hishammuddin said.
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Attorney says FBI visited former Christie campaign manager
03/04/2014 16:24———
More subpoenas in Chris Christie case as helicopter travel is probed
02/11/2014 11:24———
Lawsuit: Cops forced man to undergo enemas, colonoscopy on invalid warrant
11/07/2013 17:31———
Supreme Court wrestling with prayer at NY town's meetings
11/07/2013 17:25———
First blog
11/07/2013 10:23Our new blog has been launched today. Stay focused on it and we will try to keep you informed. You can read new posts on this blog via the RSS feed.
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