The final communication between the Malaysia Airlines flight cockpit and ground control has been revealed, from its taxi on the runway to its final message at 1.19am of 'All right, good night'.
5:55AM GMT 22 Mar 2014
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08.35 As the relatives of the missing grapple with their worst fears, Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokesman John Young has said the operation is still considered one of search and rescue.
"The plan is we want to find these objects because they are the best lead to where we might find people to be rescued," he said.
Messages left for the missing
Messages left for the missing
08.30 Good morning and welcome to today's live coverage of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Here's a quick recap of events yesterday and overnight:
The search is continuing in an area in the southern Indian Ocean, 2,300 km south west of Perth, where attention focused on Thursday after two large objects were spotted floating in the sea on satellite imagery. Six planes from Australia and other countries have been deployed to scour the area, but at four hours' flying time from Perth, the area is so remote that the craft have can only spend two to three hours searching before having to return to base.
Deputy Australian PM Warren Truss has confirmed that so far today no sign of the missing plane has been found. Speaking at a press conference he said he remained hopeful that Australian search crews would be able to locate debris from the plane if it exists. He warned the parts spotted on satellite may have either drifted or sunk by now, "but it's the best lead we have."
"If there's something there to be found I'm confident this search will find it," he said.
"We have a responsibly to do what we can to find this aircraft. The search will continue on until it's futile to continue. That day hasn't come."
AMSA, the Australian body coordinating the search for the plane, has released a map of its planned search area for today. The search zone has been slightly expanded.
The Norwegian cargo vessel Hoegh St. Petersburg, with a Filipino crew of 20, is also in the area and a small flotilla of ships from China is on its way, though not expected to arrive for several days. Two Chinese and two Japanese aircraft are expected to arrive in Perth over the weekend and the US has been asked to send undersea surveillance equipment to help search for the debris amid suggestions that it may have sunk.
This could of course be another of the false leads that have raised hopes so often throughout the search.
The Australian authorities have cautioned that the objects could be debris from a container ship, though one of the objects - at 24 metres long - is too large to be a container.
Meanwhile the investigation into the possible cause of the disappeareance goes on, amid increasing frustration from passengers' relatives. Malaysia Airlines in particular has repeatedly come under fire for what families say is poor handling of the affair.
According to the Daily Mail the CEO of Malaysia Airlines has now said the missing jet was carrying highly flammable lithium batteries, four days after denying it.
The Telegraph has an exclusive story on the transcript of the final communication between the Malaysia Airlines flight cockpit and ground control.
The cockpit communication aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight has been revealed, from its taxi on the runway to its final message at 1.19am of 'all right, good night'. The transcript starts at 00.25 with general instructions from the control tower to the pilots. The detailed conversation begins at 00.36. Here is an excerpt from our story:
A transcript of conversations between the co-pilot and the control tower, and other air traffic controllers, runs from the time the Boeing 777 was taxiing to its last known position thousands of feet above the South China Sea.
Analysts said the sequence of messages appeared “perfectly routine”. However two features, they said, stood out as potentially odd.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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