MH370: April 2014

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Plane buffs captured Flight 370 in images before disappearance

(CNN) -- A few months before Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing, an enthusiastic plane spotter named Gunnar Kullenberg heard Malaysia Airlines was about to stop flying to the United States. He wanted a photograph of its majestic Boeing 777-200 and planted himself at the Los Angeles airport at dawn. That's where he snapped a photo of the airplane dancing in the glowing sky.

"I didn't think much of it, other than that it was a beautiful fall day here in Southern California," Kullenberg recalled.

Ercan Karakas, an airline captain, captured a similar image in Istanbul in January 2012. "I'm a spotter. I love to watch and photograph the takeoffs of heavy aircrafts," he wrote of the experience. "I know they are not a metal, flying bird; they connect thousands of people in a journey to happiness."

See MH370 before it disappeared

A milestone of the worst kind

MH370 families losing trust in officials

Vessels narrow search site for MH370

Photos: The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

When Flight 370 went missing, Kullenberg and Karakas were among the plane spotters who checked their trove of images. Several found they had photos of the plane when they discovered the registration number matched. Flight 370 was airplane 9M-MRO. These spotters' fantastical musings of planes in flight turned suddenly to dark speculation.

"I fly 60 to 90 times a year; how could this happen?" asked Hansueli Krapf, a Swiss businessman who captured 9M-MRO sitting on the runway in South Africa two years ago. "What on earth could have happened to a plane when there is so much tracking?"

Plane spotters upload hundreds of images to air buff websites all the time, reflections of their fascination with flight. They chat for screen pages about the mechanics and wonder about their far-off destinations and the passengers. They invent stories about people from far-flung countries touring faraway lands, on holiday, on business or studying abroad -- just like the passengers of Flight 370.

After the plane disappeared, Michael Raisch, a visual historian, surfed the airline websites looking for postings of the missing plane. "You begin to see how interconnected the world is," said Raisch, who once compiled a time-lapse photo project of the rebuilding of One World Trade Center. "There is a mystique to flying. Like everything matters more if it happened on an airline."

Raisch put up a Web page with some of the photos and reached out to the photographers for their recollections. What is emerging is a visual history of the plane.

The plane spotters document the 9M-MRO's travels. It spent time in Los Angeles, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Perth, Australia. It set down in South Africa, Vienna and Rome. The dates the spotters shared with CNN for the pictures they posted on websites such as airliners.net and Wikimedia.org sync with the dates the plane flew through those airports. So does the information they provided about their own backgrounds as pilots or aviation students or ordinary folks with long histories of photographing planes. Their motive for recording air travel is also well-documented. They all love planes.

Plane spotters seek 'Wayne's World' thrills

Canadian Dan Miclea said he contributed to the gallery after he had an "Oh, wow" moment when he realized he'd seen 9M-MRO sitting on a runway in Rome on June 27, 2010. The 20-year-old has taken thousands of images of planes, including the moment he spotted a shiny Boeing 777 from Malaysia. "It's fascinating that we get such a big piece of metal up in the air and fly," he said.

Bernhard Ebner posted his photo when he discovered he had spotted the missing plane on May 5, 2013, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. "We wanted to wake up early in the morning to catch the most long-haul flights," Ebner said. "It was a beautiful sunrise at this day as you can see on the picture, and a little bit foggy. Perfect for catching the early birds."

His excitement over capturing a picture of an exotic Malaysian airliner turned to sadness when he realized it had later vanished from the sky. "I was so surprised about this and can't really believe it. They have 105 planes, 15 Boeing 777-200, and I caught exactly this one, I don't know what I really should (say) now," Ebner said.

Raisch said he believes the plane spotters are deeply affected by having a piece of the airplane's history. "It's human nature to want to hold on to a piece of something," said Raisch, who still marvels at his photos of the towers before 9/11 and talks passionately of his chance encounter with actor Paul Walker, who died in a car crash. "The human part of you says, 'OMG, I have this piece of something that is now missing. I have something that is now lost.' "

Krapf, the frequent flier, said he feels like each picture allows him to share a special part of an airplane's history. He has been fascinated with planes since he was 4. "My father used to take us to Zurich Airport, and we would just watch," said Krapf, who later became an amateur pilot. "For me, pilots were heroes, gods. The aircrafts themselves with the noise they made and the size of them, the fact that we could fly, it all fascinated me."

How to never lose another plane

Malaysian PM: We will not give up

He remembers the five-hour layover in South Africa, where he caught sight of the bold white plane with its blue and red streaks sitting on the runway, a glint of sunshine piercing the metal. "I was on a business trip on the way home from Zambia. I always take free time at airports to take some photos of planes," he said.

Lorenzo Giacobbo's image on January 30, 2011, in Rome is the kind of breathtaking photo the plane spotters yearn to capture. The sky is cloudy and rain showers are painting the clouds. Streaks of light pierce the liquid gray sky and illuminate the metal. "The moment I saw those images that I took of the plane, I was feeling shock and glad at the same time, because I never believe that plane is now gone and I have in my personal collection a copy of the plane," he wrote.

The experience is perhaps most emotional for Ignatius "Iggy" Kwee, who snapped his image in Perth on August 10, 2010. He was active on a WhatsApp chat group for aviation fans when word of the missing plane came through.

"It's just sad really, and being a Malaysian myself, I might even have had a ride on that similar aircraft once upon a time ago flying from Kuala Lumpur to Perth back in the days before AirAsia X came to this part of the world," he said in a message to Raisch. "The triple seven is a joy to fly in. It's graceful with its huge twin engine, feeling robust in the air and beautiful to photograph in action with all the flaps down, the triple landing gear bogeys. Now having learned this is the first total airframe and lives lost of a triple seven in a crash, it's just unbelievable in this modern aviation world."

Ocean Shield: A mission of hope in search for Flight 370

Flight 370: High-tech search tools

Inside the flight simulator

Read the cockpit transcript

MH370 families storm out of glitchy teleconference with Malaysian officials

(CNN) -- The man's anger at authorities giving a briefing on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 could not be contained.

He screamed at the screen as a promised video conference with Malaysian authorities became the latest part of the aftermath of the plane's disappearance to encounter technical difficulties.

"You're all bloody liars, and you're lying to us again," the Chinese man said, according to a translation.

Families of the passengers on the missing plane in attendance at the Beijing briefing Wednesday exploded in anger and stormed out.

"We will request their team of experts to come to Beijing to conduct face-to-face communications and fulfill their commitment," said Jing Hui, a spokesman for some of the families. "What Is the truth? What problem do they want to cover up?"

The families have 26 questions they want answered now. The queries were posted on the social media site Weibo by a committee representing some of the passengers' relatives. Some of the "questions" are requests that evidence be shared with them, including the flight's logbook and recording of air traffic control on March 8, the night the plane disappeared with 239 people aboard.

Most of the people on the plane were Chinese, and their families have become very distrustful of Malaysian government authorities and officials with the airline.

That was apparent in the request for MH370's log book. John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, told CNN the log is usually on the plane and even if it wasn't, investigators wouldn't reveal specific information from it.

He also said a request for phone numbers of investigators would be denied.

But the other 24 questions and requests?

"These are not state secrets so the families should have access to all of that kind of information," he said.

Many of the 26 questions focus on technical issues involving emergency locator transmitters, or ELTs, and "black boxes." With an apparent in-depth understanding of how these work, the families ask about the specific technology on the missing plane.

ELTs are designed to activate after a crash and send a signal to a frequency monitored by air traffic controllers. "Black boxes," or voice and data recorders, could shed light on what went on in the plane's cockpit and other crucial flight information.

The families' final seven questions involve "protocol," including this: What did Malaysia Airlines do when the flight went missing?

Bluefin-21 redeployed in plane search

The challenges of salvaging MH370 debris

MH370 partner: They're still alive

Photos: The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

The families also ask whether search and rescue teams have final results from searched areas, and whether the Malaysian government could specify the rights of family members "to know the facts of cases or the details of an incident."

Malaysia Airlines has said it shares all the information it has with appropriate authorities.

In a video message this month, Hugh Dunleavy, the airline's commercial director, said the company shares the same "fundamental requirement" as the families: to find out what happened.

Malaysian authorities have come under criticism repeatedly for their handling of the investigation. But the government has insisted it's doing what it can to get to the bottom of what happened and support the families.

"We understand that it has been a difficult time for all the families. And we appreciate that many families want to see physical evidence before they will accept that MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean," acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at the end of March. "... The question that the families principally want answered, is the question we simply do not have the answer to -- namely, where their loved ones are, and where is MH370."

A week earlier, Hishammuddin made a pledge to the families: "We will do everything in our power to keep you informed."

Bluefin-21 completes 'full search'

After two previous setbacks that officials called minor, an underwater vessel searching for traces of MH370 resurfaced Thursday morning after completing what search officials called a "full mission."

The Bluefin-21 has now searched a total of 90 square kilometers (34.7 square miles) in its first three trips to the ocean floor.

On its second trip the Bluefin was forced to resurface after 11 hours because it needed to have a technical issue addressed.

Part of the equipment designed to help the Bluefin-21 move deeper and avoid seepage was low on oil. Officials replenished the supply and redeployed the vessel.

The Bluefin-21 has its electronics sealed in bottles so they are protected from saltwater. As the probe moves deeper and the pressure increases, the operating system pushes oil into these bottles. The oil counters the pressure and prevents saltwater from seeping in. If oil fills the container, there's no space for saltwater.

"In no way should this suggest that (the AUV) is not 'hardy' enough to be working at this depth. On the contrary, it is absolutely the best piece of equipment for the job we are doing," a source close to the operation said, adding that technical issues are common at great depths.

Data from its second and third mission have been downloaded, the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre said.

There were no "significant detections" during the second search.

24-hour mission

Bluefin-21 takes two hours to get near the ocean floor and another two hours to return to the surface. It aims to map the ocean floor for 16 hours to retrieve data, which then take four hours to analyze.

The vessel searches maximum depths of 4,500 meters (14,764 feet), and before the technical interruption, it was scheduled to complete its second dive about 10 a.m. ET, a source said.

The U.S. Navy has determined the seafloor in the search area reaches a maximum depth of 4,600 meters (15,092 feet).

The Bluefin operators said they can reprogram it to operate at 5,000 meters (16,404 feet), meaning it can search the originally designated area, which is thought to have yielded the most promising clues.

It is where a second audio signal that searchers thought was manmade and the right frequency to belong to the flight data recorder's emergency beacon.

The quality of the "ping" led authorities to focus the underwater search in the area.

An oil sample taken from a slick on the surface in that section of the ocean is at a lab being analyzed to see if it is an aviation or maritime fluid.

'Garbage patch'

"We have known a long time that especially the recent search area, the new search area they are looking at now, there's a lot of debris there because it is close to what we call the garbage patch, and that's where all of the garbage accumulates," said Erik Van Sebille, a physical oceanographer at University of New South Wales.

"There are five in each basin and one in the Indian Ocean. Everything that has been thrown in the ocean in the last 50 years and still floating is somewhere in this garbage patch."

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bound for Beijing.

With no debris found after weeks of searches and no possible pings from the plane's "black boxes" detected in a week, officials said it's time to focus the search underwater.

While air and sea surface searches continued Thursday in a zone centered about 2,170 kilometers (1,348 miles) northwest of Perth, those searches are probably nearing an end.

Still, Thursday's surface search area grew significantly to 40,349 square kilometres (15,578.8 square miles).

READ: A primer on the latest in the search for Flight 370

READ: How phones work in flight

READ: MH370: How do underwater sonar subs work?