Guyana chronicle 14 03 14 by Guyana Chronicle

GUYANA CHRONICLE Friday March 14, 2014

Malaysia says no evidence missing plane flew hours after losing contact (Reuters) - MALAYSIAN authorities said on Thursday there was no evidence that a jetliner missing for almost six days flew for hours after losing contact with air traffic controllers and continued to transmit technical data. The Wall Street Journal said that U.S. aviation investigators and national security officials believed the Boeing 777 flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from its Rolls-Royce Trent engines as part of a standard monitoring program. (r.reuters.com/ruw57v) “Those reports are inaccurate,” Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference. “As far as both Rolls-Royce and Boeing are concerned, those reports are inaccurate. The last (data) transmission from the aircraft was at 01:07 a.m.(local time) which indicated that everything was normal.” Boeing and Rolls-Royce have yet to comment. Reuters has previously reported that the plane’s transmission of the so-called ACARS technical data ceased after it lost contact with air traffic control. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, with 239 people on board, dropped off air traffic control screens at about 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, less than an hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were no reports of bad weather or mechanical problems. It is one of the most baffling mysteries in the history of modern aviation - there has been no trace of the plane since nor any sign of wreckage despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of over a dozen countries across Southeast Asia. “It’s extraordinary that with all the (satellite and telecommunication) technology that we’ve got that an aircraft can disappear like this,” Tony Tyler, the head of the International Air Transport Association that links over 90 percent of the world’s airlines, told reporters in London. “It will trigger a desire to see how can we avoid this from happening again... I wouldn’t be surprised that the technology didn’t exist already but is not being used.” The last definitive sighting of MH370 on civilian radar screens

came as the plane flew northeast across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand. On Wednesday, Malaysia’s air force chief said military radar had traced what could have been the jetliner to an area south of the Thai holiday island of Phuket in the Malacca Strait, hundreds of miles to the west of its last known position. However, he stressed the plotting had not been corroborated. The multi-national search team is combing both bodies of water, which total 27,000 square nautical miles (93,000 square km), an area the size of Hungary. Hishammuddin however said the focus was on the Gulf of Thailand and the nearby South China Sea, where the plane lost contact. The United States will send the world’s most advanced maritime surveillance aircraft, the P-8A Poseidon, to join the search later this week.

Rescuers search site of NY building collapse; seven dead (Reuters) - SEARCH crews picked through still-smoldering rubble on Thursday, looking for survivors of a gas explosion that caused the collapse a day earlier of two New York City apartment buildings, killing seven people and injuring about 40. Facing thick smoke and braving bitter cold, dozens of firefighters, police officers and federal investigators were at the scene in Upper Manhattan to determine what caused the explosion at about 9:30 a.m. (13:30 GMT) on Wednesday. The blast shook the East Harlem neighborhood shortly after a resident complained to the Con Edison utility about a gas odor. The National Transportation Safety Board, which reviews accidents involving natural gas, was also at the site. “It’s been a painful 26 hours now,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told a press conference, lamenting that the neighbor who called Con Ed at 9:13 a.m. (13:13 GMT) on Wednesday failed to call the night before, when he first noticed it.

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WRONG IMAGES On the sixth day of the search, planes scanned an area of sea where Chinese satellite images had shown what could be debris, but found no sign of the airliner. Hishammuddin said the images were provided accidentally. “The Chinese government neither authorized nor endorsed (putting it on a website),” he said. “The image is not confirmed to be connected to the plane.” It was the latest in a series of false signals for the Boeing 777200ER, adding to the confusion and agony of the relatives of the passengers. As frustration mounted over the failure to find any trace of the plane, China heaped pressure on Malaysia to improve coordination in the search. Around two-thirds of the people aboard the lost plane were Chinese.

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“That might have given us an opportunity here,” de Blasio said, urging anyone who smells gas to immediately call Con Edison or the city’s complaint line at 311. De Blasio, said he expected it would be days before the rescue and cleanup work would be completed, allowing investigators to get into the basement of the buildings to better determine the cause of the blast, earlier believed to have been a gas leak. Earlier on Thursday, the mayor met with first responders as heavy-duty evacuation equipment, including a machine known as “the grappler,” removed rubble that was being hosed down by fire trucks. A large sink hole, caused by a water main break in front of the buildings, had delayed the equipment from reaching the site on Wednesday. “I can only imagine knowing that at any moment you might find a body, how difficult that is,” de Blasio told rescue crews. “I admire the work you guys do... Thank God you do it.” The debris continued to

New York City emergency responders search through the rubble at the site of a building explosion in the Harlem section of New York, March 13, 2014. Credit: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid flare up at times as rescuers “Anyone affected by this clawed through the wreckage tragedy will be helped - anyone of the two structures that had - regardless of immigration stahoused 15 apartments on a tus... They should not be afraid,” largely residential block at East de Blasio said. 116th Street and Park Avenue. Authorities allowed some Passersby in the primariresidents to return to their ly Latino neighborhood wore homes to retrieve possessions, dust masks or wrapped winter but many left quickly, complainscarves around their faces to ing of the smoke. limit inhalation of dust and Four women and three smoke. men were killed, but only two Gas in the area has been victims’ identities have been turned off. After a return to frigreleased - Griselde Camacho, id temperatures, seven buildings a public safety officer for with no gas or heat were vacated Hunter College in East Harand 66 people have been given lem, and Carmen Tanco, a shelter, de Blasio said. dental hygienist.

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