MH370 non-recovery of remains, and other clues, has to be a joke
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Prayers and anger over MH370. Don't the authorities understand this is about people?
The ground work is being laid for what appears to be the ultimate betrayal of the next of kin of those lost on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the non recovery of bodies and other potentially vital clues.
After beginning to work hints into the search progress reports about how the wreckage, if found, will only be recovered if possible, more concise stories are appearing saying most of the Boeing 777-200ER will be left on the floor of the south Indian Ocean.
Who do the Malaysians think they are kidding? Apart from lying about what they knew early about this baffling accident, it seems like there is a determined move underway to avoid recovering any personal smart phones or tablets on which important evidence as to what took place on board might have been recorded.
It’s one thing too for the Australian government to suppress elsewhere evidence of alleged corrupt behaviour involving senior Malaysia figures over a business deal involving an Australian enterprise, and another to risk being made a party to a cover up of the truth about this air disaster.
How grubby does the Australian government want this to get?
When the wreckage of Air France flight AF447 was found almost two years after it crashed in the mid Atlantic in 2009 not just the flight data recorders were recovered, but large chunks of wreckage including the identifiable remains of 104 passengers to add to the 50 that had been retrieved in the days after the crash from the ocean surface.
The wreckage was found on an abyssal plain at depth of 3980 metres. That sad operation brought closure to many of the next of kin of the 228 people killed in that appalling accident.
But important though the recovery of bodies and personal effects of the victims of MH370 would be, the limited ambit of a future recovery operation seems inherently not just to hurt the next of kin, but remove any risk that phone or computer SIM or memory chips will contain crucial information.
The Malaysian authorities and government, and the Australian managed sea bed search effort, simply cannot be allowed to shut down the discovery of such evidence.
The fact that such stories about a limited recovery are being placed more widely in the media and woven into the official narratives implies a determination to avoid the truth becoming known, whatever it might be.
If the authorities don’t like the inferences being drawn about a cover up, they ought to reflect on the statements they have been making, and commit fully to a future recovery operation that is as comprehensive as it is possible to be, as well as totally transparent.
At the moment, it all reeks of a softening up exercise for an announcement of a much awaited discovery of the major sunk pieces of wreckage from MH370.
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Back in April 2015 I advised Danica Weeks, who was fretting at the imminent cancellation of the seabed search that MH370 is actually insured with Allianz Germany for search & recovery costs up to US$2.5 billion. I suggested to her that relatives should agitate for the Australian government to access those funds.
Danica will not be happy with me for disclosing this, as she asked me not to, but she wrote to Minister Truss asking him why these insurance funds could not be used to extend the search?
As I understand it Truss was rather cornered by her question and wrote back to her along the lines of, leave it with me, but mention this to no one else. .
They then announced they would not cancel the search but continue with it however there would be no more searching after 2016.
Well my apologies to Danica. Congratulations to her that she convinced Truss not to cancel it immediately in May 2015 (as was being threatened) however a mere reprieve until 2016 does not merit keeping silent to placate Dr Truss.
Life has taught me the hard way that when people promise you something for keeping something secret for them they are merely trying to keep you quiet whilst they are trying to screw you. Sorry Danica, but I am doing this for you even if you don’t get it.
Tony Abbott and Warren Truss somehow seem to think the Australian taxpayer should not be compensated by insurance money and that the taxpayer need not be told about insurance funds anyway. Of course the people should know and shame on Truss for not claiming search costs back from MAS who can claim against their own insurance.
They are trying to position us for pulling the plug on this search and there is no need. Funds exist to continue the search for another 30 years.
I’m sorry Simon, but I call b******t on the $2.5 billion for SAR. Insurance is an actuarial game. Cost v risk v reward. There is no way possible that $2.5b would be in an insrance policy for SAR. Total liability maybe.
Ricardo
Given that it only took me five seconds to Google evidence for you, B***S*** is an apt description for your investigative skills.
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/no-cap-on-search-costs-for-mh370-in-mas-jet-crash-insurance-says-report
The issue about MH370’s insurance was published in the New York Times about a year ago.
So why all this talk about not mentioning it to anyone, and apologising to a victim’s relative about letting the big secret out?
No Simon. The total policy is for $2.25b which unusually doesn’t contain a clause limiting the SAR component. The insurance company knows it will be up for the hull loss and all the other things (like paying estates etc) out of the total policy limits.
Secondly, all claims are subject to post claim underwriting and ultimately a contract will be read down if required.
Your statement was that MAS was insured for $2.5b SAR. This is patently wrong, even by your article. The total policy limit is $2.25b and no amount of contractural whoopsie would ever allow the policy limit to be spent on SAR.
My statement remains.
Surely the search for MH370 has to have a finish date if there is no wreckage found. It would be a terribly sad conclusion but, like a missing person’s case, the authorities must call it quits sometime.
Ricardo, I didnt believe the amount of $2.5 bill for search and rescue costs either, and I checked the NY Times archive as I have a subscription: there is NO story that matches any of the claims by Malay Mail. The question is why would a Malay paper invent something like this.
It would have been a major story around the world and especially in Australia if true. But no-one else seems to have run it
Ghostwhowalksnz, I suspect that their ‘unnamed’ source either doesn’t read insurance contracts too well, or there really is a typo and the insurer will get the court to rectify the document, a pretty ‘normal’ process.
Most (particularly very large) insurance documents contains larges slabs of incorporated by reference material. It’s a common mistake for newby’s to read a contract and go “look what I found! A major piece missing in the contract!”. Generally this is refered to as a whoopsie until someone with knowledge of the contracts is called in.
Companies like Allianz are huge global players, they don’t start from scratch for every policy for every new case. They use precedents. These things don’t look like your car insurance.
The story when announced last year went almost unnoticed even by those watching MH370 developments. At the time there was no seabed search draining millions of taxpayer dollars and up until then the costs had been spread by a large multinational task force of planes and ships. Nobody in Australia had cause for concern then about a hugely expensive seabed search operation and the insurance story slipped beneath the waves just as surely as MH370 did.
Until I revived the story it was all but forgotten and warren Truss wanted it kept that way. He enjoined Danica to secrecy and she likewise asked the same of me.
It is a valid question to ask. Why are Aussie taxpayers left with the bill?
Why hasn’t the Australian Government sued MAS to recover the cost through insurers?
Moreover why haven’t funds been claimed from insurers via MAS to cover far in excess of the search cost so far, since recovery from such depths could double or triple the amount spent to date?
Other than next of kin only the governments involved have legal standing to make a claim. Australia’s Government seems to prefer it not be aired and seems unwilling to exercise an obligation of debt recovery to taxpayers.
You could bet your boots that if an individual taxpayer owed the government a few hundred bucks no stone would be left unturned to recover those funds, but it seems through diplomatic niceties taxpayers are not getting compensated for a heroic search effort.
It is not a contractural whoopsie. It is a contractural cover specified for the purpose of search and recovery of MH370. There will be no post claim underwriting if the 2nd anniversary passes without a claim made to recover costs.
Comet you might want to pose your question to Warren truss who specifically asked for it to be kept hush hush.
Roger:
As for finality of a search the JIT and ATSB specifically excluded searching locations that did not fit their satellite track theory. Since they have now spectacularly disproven their own theory, it is not unreasonable that relatives should ask well what about now searching the places they refused to consider?
On 24 March 2014 China used reverse drift calculation to propose a different search area based on floating objects seen by satellite. ATSB and JIT went to extraordinary lengths to cancel the search effort and shift it away from where China proposed.
It is not reasonable to arbitrarily declare because ATSB failed to find it where they bloody mindedly determined it must be, that there must be no further exploration of other locations.
It’s going to be a great movie when it eventually gets made,
but when the real truth is finally revealed at the end,
people will find it as preposterous as the ending of that movie,
Apollo 13.!!!!
Apollo 13 actually happened.
What is so ‘preposterous’ about it?
#Simon, yes, if there is still some plausible place to search, then keep looking. (Plausible meaning based on science and evidence, not witchcraft). There must come a time – don’t know when – the authorities have to stop. As tragic as this sounds.
Crocodile Chuck,
It was noted by the producers/director,
that some of the feedback from pre-release screenings was quite forthright in its response to the implausible ‘happy-ending’ of the movie.!
Irrespective of your quite correct assertion that ‘Apollo 13 actually happened’.
(My point was,
no-matter of how ‘true’ a movie (or other story) might be, there will always be those who refuse to believe it)
I have no knowledge of Malaysian bankruptcy law and often there are long and expensive court cases over who gets paid what in bankruptcy matters. Now that Malaysian seems to be bankrupt, it is possible even if the insurers payout the full search and recovery and passenger compensation to the financial shell of the old Malaysian airlines the Australian government and the relatives may stand as creditors along with everyone else who are owed money by Malaysian and they will all only get so many cents in the dollar. Maybe if Australia refused to continue the search unless they are paid the Malaysian government may make the legal changes to direct the funds from the insurance company direct to Australia government and the relatives.
For those interested here is an Aunty Pru forum post on the latest from Senate Estimates questioning of the ATSB on MH370, PelAir reinvestigation etc.
http://auntypru.com/forum/-Simply-Marvellous-Horse-pooh-Beaker-the-media-magnet?pid=837#pid837
Cheers
P2
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