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| Malaysian flight MH370: the detective work that led to the beginning of the ... - The Independent Posted: 24 Mar 2014 08:29 AM PDT The heartbreaking news was relayed, it appears, by English-language text message: "Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume that MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean." The decision to communicate news of the tragedy by such an inappropriate method is one of the many controversies surrounding the biggest mystery in modern history. The search for the Boeing 777 had begun in the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. It later extended east into the Pacific and west to the Strait of Malacca, the Bay of Bengal and the deserts of central Asia. But the heartbreaking conclusion that the jet had come down west of Australia was drawn in offices in London and Farnborough – headquarters of Inmarsat and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch respectively. The evidence was provided by assiduous analysis of satellite data that was never intended for this purpose. The hourly "pings," or electronic handshakes, between the plane and a relatively elderly Inmarsat satellite over the Indian Ocean, demonstrated that the aircraft was aloft many hours after contact was lost. Inmarsat shared the findings with investigators in Malaysia three days into the search, but it was not shared with the relatives – and the media – until a week after the disappearance. As the search-and-rescue operation switches to the awful task of recovery, there are certain to be recriminations about the apparent delay in acknowledging these vital clues while resources were squandered on futile searches thousands of miles away. Once Malaysia's prime minister revealed the northern and southern arcs that had been derived from the last "ping," scientists in the UK continued working to see what could be deduced from comparing the MH370 data with evidence of other flights in the region at the time. They concluded that the jet could only have taken the southern track. In an investigation in which so much is unknown, at least the fuel load was known – and not enough remained from the final range of possible locations to reach land. We are still nowhere near the end of the mystery, but evidence accumulated 22,250 miles above the Indian Ocean and processed in Britain provides at least a starting point in understanding what happened to MH370, its 227 passengers and 12 crew. |
| Rescue efforts resume after Washington mudslide - Chicago Tribune Posted: 24 Mar 2014 08:43 AM PDT At least 8 people are known dead after the massive mudslide that buried several dozen homes north of Seattle. Authorities plan to search through the night for more victims. (Posted March 24, 2014) Rescue teams resumed scouring the wreckage of a deadly mudslide Monday morning that has claimed at least eight lives, hoping to find survivors in the swath of destruction but fearing there will be more casualties. Although an estimated 30 homes were destroyed when a wall of mud crashed down over State Route 530 in a rural enclave about an hour north of Seattle, "there may be people in their cars. There may be people in their homes," Travis Hots, chief of Snohomish County Fire District 21, told reporters Sunday. What remains on the banks of the Stillaguamish River about an hour north of Seattle is a square mile of damp destruction and a small town's worth of sadness and fear. Elected officials grappled to describe the devastation, which was as bad, one said, as "Mt. St. Helens 34 years ago when it erupted." The landslide was triggered after rain-soaked embankments along State Route 530 near Oso, Washington, about 55 miles northeast of Seattle, gave way on Saturday morning, washing away at least six homes. A spokesman for the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office said eight bodies had been found in the square mile of tangled debris, rocks, trees and mud by Sunday evening. A further eight people were hurt in the landslide. "We didn't find anybody alive. There was no sign of life" after a search of much of the area on foot, Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots told a news conference on Sunday, adding that the tally of missing was likely to grow. A press briefing was slated for 9 a.m. PDT on Monday. "I have a sense that we're going to have some hard news here," Washington Governor Jay Inslee said after flying over the affected area on Sunday. Reed Miller was in the grocery store check-out line in Arlington on Saturday morning when ambulances began to scream by. His son Joseph, 47, who has a history of mental illness, was home in the rural enclave of Oso about 12 miles northeast. "The grocery lady said there was a big mudslide in Oso, and to call her back when I got home OK," the 75-year-old resident of a hard-hit neighborhood recounted Sunday. "I never got there. Nope." Instead, the retired sawmill worker spent the night on a hard cot at a Red Cross shelter in the Post Middle School gymnasium here. His home is destroyed. His son is missing. And there is nothing he can do but wait. "I was planning on moving this year," Miller said, looking frail and dazed in outsized aviator glasses and a baggy blue-and-yellow jacket. "But not this way." The Millers planned to sell the house where the elder Miller had lived for a generation. Joseph Miller was at the top of a list for an apartment in nearby Darrington, population 1,359, which has been largely cut off by the slide. His father was next in line. "Joe was going to move in the first of April," Miller said. "It's a few months too late." The slide in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains along the Stillaguamish River piled mud, rock and debris up to 15 feet deep in some places. It blocked the flow of the river, creating floods and a backup of water behind a natural dam of mud and debris, but the threat to people downriver had begun to ease, Inslee said. The highway was closed in both directions, with no timeline for it to be reopened, he said. The Snohomish County sheriff's office has asked people affected by the slide to report to the Red Cross so an accurate count can be made of the missing. Washington state Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen has declared a state of emergency in Snohomish County. Reuters and Los Angeles Times contributed to this report |
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