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发表于 2016-7-11 11:51:23
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Then at 1:38 a.m., Ho Chi Minh contacted Kuala Lumpur to let the
controllers know that it had not heard a word from the plane. "Verbal contact
was not established," the transcript said.
The two control centers began a conversation about communications attempts
with Flight 370 and previous radar blips along its path.
They spoke every few minutes.
Reassuring messages cost precious time
Then two messages came from Malaysia Airlines that may have taken more
precious time.
At 2:03 a.m. came the first seemingly reassuring message from the airline.
The plane was in Cambodian airspace, the airline told Kuala Lumpur air traffic
control.
The Malaysians passed the message on to Vietnamese controllers. They then
tried to confirm Malaysia Airlines' news with Cambodian air traffic
controllers.
The airline later confirmed its reassuring message. It had been able to
"exchange signals with the flight," which was in Cambodian airspace, the
transcript read.
But an hour after Flight 370 signed off, Vietnamese air controllers poked
holes in Malaysia Airlines' message. The flight had not been scheduled to fly
over Cambodia, and officials there had no information on the plane -- nor
contact with it.
Malaysian air traffic controllers kept in communication with the airline,
which gave them yet another seemingly reassuring message at 2:35 a.m.
The airliner was "in normal condition based on signal download," which
placed it off the coast of Vietnam.
The flight probably appeared to be on track to its destination of
Beijing.
"We have two very unhelpful contributions from Malaysia Airlines -- one
suggesting the plane is in Cambodia, the other saying everything's normal.
Neither's true," Quest said.
Information 'not reliable for aircraft positioning'
If precious time had been lost by the trickle before, now it began to gush
away.
Nearly an hour later, Malaysia Airlines qualified its previous information.
Its new message: "The flight tracker information was based on flight projection
and not reliable for aircraft positioning," the transcript read.
It was 3:30 a.m., but two more hours would pass before air traffic
controllers notified rescuers.
In the meantime, controllers in Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City queried
each other and the airline. Kuala Lumpur air traffic control contacted
counterparts in Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing.
Then at 5:20 a.m., a Malaysian official pronounced, based on what was
known, "MH370 never left Malaysian airspace."
Ten minutes later, Malaysian air traffic controllers alerted a rescue
coordination center.
Where was the military?
The Malaysian Prime Minister has said the military tracked the plane as it
headed back across Malaysia.
According to the report, a playback of a recording from military primary
radar revealed that an aircraft that may have been Flight 370 had made a
westerly turn, crossing Peninsular Malaysia. The search area was then extended
to the Strait of Malacca.
But it's unclear when that happened. The report makes no mention of the
military's role the night of the disappearance.
The report is anemic on details
Preliminary reports are by their nature brief and to the point, but they
are usually much longer than Malaysia's. Such reports and accompanying documents
should be an audit of what happened and factually who did what, Quest said.
"I can certainly understand that the authorities had more pressing matters
in finding the plane than writing a long report, when there will be plenty of
other chances to do so," Quest said, "but this report is the barest possible
they could get away with."
The equivalent preliminary report on Air France Flight 447 was 128 pages
long. That report, produced by France's aviation safety agency just one month
after the plane went missing in 2009, offered specific details on communication
between various air traffic control centers.
Flight 447 was found more than a year later in the Atlantic Ocean; all 228
people on board had died.
And a preliminary report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau into the
Qantas engine explosion in 2010 ran more than 40 pages, including diagrams and
charts.
The Malaysian report was accompanied by a cargo manifest, seating plan, air
traffic control transcripts and three maps.
Debate over transparency
The report released Thursday was the same one Malaysia submitted to the
International Civil Aviation Organization but had not been made public.
Malaysian officials came under heavy criticism last week for submitting the
report to the U.N. body but not making it available to relatives of
passengers.
While authorities are not required to make a preliminary report public,
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak acquiesced.
Reporters could not ask questions raised by the report since the document
was released by e-mail and not at a news conference.
One safety recommendation
The report makes one safety recommendation: the need for real-time
tracking.
Authorities noted that while commercial planes spend considerable time
operating over remote areas, there is no requirement for real-time tracking of
such aircraft.
"There have now been two occasions during the last five years when large
commercial air transport aircraft have gone missing and their last position was
not accurately known," the Malaysian report states. "This uncertainty resulted
in significant difficulty in locating the aircraft in a timely manner."
CNN reported on this detail from the report last week.
The officials asked the International Civil Aviation Organization to
examine the benefits of introducing a standard for real-time tracking of
commercial planes.
It's the same recommendation that was made after the Air France Flight 447
disaster in 2009. But nothing seems to have happened after that report.
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