Malaysia must act

And the Malaysians have a no-find no-fee offer from US exploration company Ocean Infinity which will use a collection of underwater drones to sweep the search area now thought most likely to contain the wreckage of MH370.

They would be paid only if they find the wreckage and while there are no details about what that would entail, it is understood the company is not seeking excessive compensation outside the realms of normal commercial expectations.

Deputy Malaysian Transport Minister Aziz Kaprawi confirmed to Reuters that authorities had received the offer but said at the time that no decision had been made on whether it would be accepted.

He also told AP in August that the Malaysian government will need to evaluate the two-new analysis that could narrow the search area.

Malaysia must act swiftly to end the torment of the relatives and to find the cause of this unprecedented disaster that took the lives of 239 passengers and crew on March 8, 2014.

To do nothing is unacceptable according to noted aviation commentator and former senior air safety investigator with the US National Transportation Safety Board, Gregory Feith, who told Contrails that the public’s confidence in the search had suffered badly because of Malaysia’s handling on the disaster.

On the new evidence of MH370’s final resting place Feith says it is the “most credible we have seen in the past three years.”

“Now we have a high level of certainty on the location somebody needs to go and have a look.”

Feith adds that the “data has been refined there is no logical sense not to have a look.”

“You must exhaust all credible leads and be able to say there is nothing more that we can do.”

He believes that the Ocean Infinity offer to resume the search for MH370 on a no-find / no-fee basis is a great proposition. “You’re a winner.”

Feith is concerned that Malaysia’s global reputation will suffer if it does not exhaust every lead.

“The Malaysians need to demonstrate to the world they have done due diligence on MH370.”

“If Malaysia does not resume the search the Chinese will be questing their motivation,” warns Feith.

There is no question that the handling by the Malaysian government and its aviation authorities into the loss of MH370 has been sub-optimal.

The first weeks were best described as a shamble with first confusion then contradiction which left relatives of those aboard certain that there was a cover-up.

Certainly, the loss of MH370 is unprecedented in modern times but the Malaysian Government’s performance over this tragedy has only fueled the conspiracy theorists, who have had a field day.

And the suggestion that something is not right in Kuala Lumpur will only gain credibility if the Malaysians fail to act on this new evidence.

Reverse drift modelling work by the CSIRO last year based on the debris that has washed up narrowed the search to a new area of 25,000sq km just outside the main search area and that has been refined twice to a relatively tiny area – half the size of Melbourne.

And the new satellite imagery of debris has confirmed has confirmed a location at latitude 35.6°S and longitude 92.8°E, near the seventh arc defined by Inmarsat satellite data, as the most likely location for the missing plane.

The images taken by a French military satellite and showing potential debris were discarded by governments and authorities in late March 2014 – before the Australian Transport Safety Bureau became involved in the search.

The images contain at least 70 identifiable objects, 12 of which were identified by the Geosciences analysis as “probably man-made” and 28 of which were possibly man-made.

The dimensions of these objects were comparable with some of the MH370 debris that has washed up of African beaches.

While the CSIRO scientists cautioned was no confirmation the items in the images were from the missing Boeing 777, they argued that their similarity to the debris and location near the 7th arc “makes them impossible to ignore’’.

“Taking drift model uncertainty into account, we have found that the objects identified in most of the images can be associated with a single location within the previously identified region suggested by other lines of evidence,’’ they said.

“Furthermore, we think it is possible to identify a most-likely location of the aircraft, with unprecedented precision and certainty. This location is 35.6°S, 92.8°E.’’

The exact cost of the search thus far is unclear but most analysts believe it is about $190 million split three ways with Malaysia paying $100 million; Australia $70 million and China just $20 million.

China’s contribution has been small given MH370 was also a code-share with China Southern Airlines and carried the airline’s flight number CZ748. There were 153 Chinese aboard and China needs to contribute more.