Sub search for missing jet nearly complete
BEIJING – As the search continued Monday for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, the airline said another plane made an emergency landing in Kuala Lumpur after a tire burst on take-off, forcing the jet to fly on for four hours to burn off fuel ahead of its return landing.
Passengers on board flight MH192 to Bangalore, India, praised its "calm and excellent" pilot and said the crew helped avoid panic, reported the New Straits Times newspaper.
All 159 passengers and seven crew members arrived safely back in Kuala Lumpur about 2 a.m. on Monday, after the pilots aborted the flight to Bangalore, India. The mishap brought additional drama to an airline already under immense pressure for answers from the public and the families of those missing from Flight 370 more than six weeks after it departed the same airport.
No conclusive ending has yet emerged for the mystery of flight MH370, missing since it disappeared en route to Beijing on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew on board, mostly Chinese citizens.
Radar and satellite data show the jet veered far off course on March 8 for unknown reasons and would have run out of fuel in the remote section of ocean where the search has been focused. Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said if no debris was recovered, the scope of the search may be broadened or other submarines may be used.
The U.S. Navy's Bluefin-21, a robotic, slow-moving submarine that uses sonar to create a map of the ocean floor, descended Monday on its ninth mission to hunt for debris from the plane. It is searching a 6-mile radius around one of the spots where ships picked up a signal that may have come the aircraft's black boxes, the devices that record data on the plane's flight
After eight trips, the submarine has searched approximately two thirds of that narrowed down search area without finding any "contacts of interest," the Australia-led Joint Agency Coordination Center said Monday.
The air and sea search for debris also continued Monday, with up to 10 military aircraft and 11 ships scouring a 19,000 square mile area, about 1,000 miles northwest of Perth, Australia, said JACC in a statement.
The lack of debris has given some relatives hope that their loved ones survive and raises questions about the next steps in the multi-nation effort to find the plane.
A high-level decision is expected this week on whether to request additional, heavier, manned submarines that can search deeper water, Australia's ABC Television reported Monday.
There was more anger Monday in Beijing, where Chinese relatives gathered for their daily meeting expecting to be briefed by a high-level technical team sent from Malaysia. At a meeting room in the city's Lido Hotel, where hundreds of relatives have been housed, the four Chinese characters for "keep your promises" were pasted up on a white cloth behind the panel of speakers.
But only a Malaysian Embassy official and three representatives from Malaysia Airlines showed up to endure an almost three-hour meeting peppered by colorful cursing by Chinese relatives.
A similar meeting Sunday in Kuala Lumpur also much disappointed the family members in attendance. Fifty Malaysian citizens were on board the plane. The Chinese relatives insisted on meeting a technical team including experts from the U.K. satellite operator Inmarsat, which helped pinpoint the apparent last location of the plane, and Boeing, which made it.
The deputy chief of mission at the Malaysian embassy in Beijing, Bala Chandran Tharman, tried to placate the crowd by promising that another delegation of government and airline personnel will reach Beijing in the next 48 hours.
The relatives erupted, angry that no high-level technical group had briefed them since April 3. Overcome by emotion, a middle-aged woman was carried out by first-aid personnel.
Desperate for answers, the relatives have prepared a long list of technical questions on the plane and its emergency response systems and hardware.
"When will we go back home does not depend on us, but the Malaysian government," said Steve Wang, whose mother, 57, was on the flight returning from a tourist trip with friends. "If they give us the truth, we will go back home. Now we must stay here."
"Why can't the Malaysian government search in other possible places? What do they want to hide from us?" said a woman at the meeting who identified herself as Mrs. Wang, whose only daughter Zhang Qi, 31, was returning from a business trip to Malaysia when the plane vanished.
"I'm a farmer in Beijing, I'm illiterate ... I don't know any technical or professional things like them, all I want is my daughter back!" she cried. "I will stay here to find the truth with other family members."
Contributing: Sunny Yang