Ladies and Gentlemen,
The ongoing information received shows that Malaysian military radar had spotted the missing plane turning sharp West after losing radio contact over South China Sea.
They also knew that immediately thereafter it climbed to 43,000 feet, 10, 000 feet above the service celling of the Boeing 777. It then dropped immediately thereafter to 23,000 feet, flew right across the Malay Peninsula over Penang and then made a right heading towards the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. All this, Malaysian military was aware.
My question to the Malaysian military is this. If you knew that one of your commercial aeroplanes is behaving erratically, diverting from its normal flight path within your airspace, flying right across your country, why did you not do anything?
Surely the right thing to do, in this day and age of piracy in the air and terrorism, is to scramble your fighter jets immediately to intercept this airliner and find out what exactly is the monkey business going on.
And had they done so, we would have known exactly what happened to the aircraft one week ago. Because of their inaction, although they may not have been able to save lives or perhaps, dozens of countries have been put through the agony of not knowing what happened, had to spend huge sums of money and effort to solve the jigsaw puzzle which it has now become.
This is downright inefficient. There is no other way to put it.
And this is where I have to confess that although I don't hold Lee Kuan Yew and his Son's administration in very high regard, I have to say that when it comes to safeguarding their borders, they are way ahead of the Malaysians.
As an example, I remember some years ago, a Spanish pilot flying his small single engine propeller private plane Beechcraft Bonanza from the Maldives to Singapore lost his radio while approaching Singapore. He also lost all electricity and had to rely on his flashlight pen to read the instruments to find his way. Not being able to contact the plane Singapore Air Force immediately scrambled jets to intercept him ordering him to land at Seletar. It was then they discovered why the aircraft could not communicate with Singapore ATC. What was even more surprising is the fact that the pilot, an elderly man, was paralyzed from waist down and had modified his aircraft to control the foot brake and rudder pedals with his hands!
And it appears that this very question, as to why they didn't do anything, was put to the Malaysian military, and their incredulous response appears to be "Since the plane did not appear hostile, we didn't do anything"!
I suppose if an unidentified aircraft had entered Malaysian airspace, flew over Kuala Lumpur and bombed it to smithereens, they would have still said, "We didn't do anything because the aircraft did not appear hostile"
So much for the efficiency, or rather the lack of, the Malaysian military. What were they doing at the time, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes?
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
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11 comments:
Didn't know you were pursuing a career in Aeronautical Engineering. At least you make more sense than the balderdash spewed out so far.
Now don't start getting soft on LKY.
This article "Amid Search for Plane, Malaysian Leaders Face Rare Scrutiny"
has great insights as to what nepotism, incompetence and hubris has done to Malaysia.
The Malaysians lost a plane with 230+ people.
Nepotism and LKY's hubris has cost Singaporeans their country, which has become dependent on FTs to keep the ponzi economy moving along.
The MRT is packed and not dependable. Flooding keeps happening. Wages for S'poeans are stagnant or down. Housing is unaffordable. CPF money cannot be withdrawn at 55.
The list goes on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/missing-jet-exposes-a-dysfunctional-malaysian-elite.html?_r=0
SG scholar leaders not ready for University of Hard Knocks
LKY's sycophants
http://www.thestar.com.my/Opinion/Columnists/Insight-Down-South.aspx/?c={3054A244-0EAD-4847-A743-A2610B82E86B}
LHL is INCOMPETENT:
Both LHL and his wife Ho Ching are (President’s) Scholars but based on their track record both are clearly INCOMPETENT.
Since LHL became PM wages of Singaporeans have stagnated, even depressed, while the costs of living, housing, education. healthcare and transport have risen sharply. Many Singaporeans even lost their jobs (and wages) to foreigners brought in by PAP’s pro-alien policies since LHL became PM.
Ho Ching has lost BILLIONS of taxpayers’ money when Temasek invested in Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Shin Corp and ABC Learning. This is on top of the $500m she lost in one year when she was Singapore Technologies CEO.
Dear Gopalan,
I have followed your blog since a couple of years ago and Had always supported your article.
But when come to this one, I reserved my support for you.
As a Malaysian, I support what ever the leaders of my country is doing to investigate this incidence.
This incidence is a very rare one and cannot be compare to an other flights mishap.
The last air crash involved Air France in 2009 took 6 days for the search team to finally discovered the plane.
By now this MH370 has broken all records.Even with the the technology of China and US are still leaving us to nowhere.
I believe our military had no reason to jump on the gun bearing that it was our own natioal aircraft and there are other bodies that monitored the flight such as our DCA and KLIA flight control.
Therefore this is a very rare case that probably your " former country" or US may acted the same.
Further more, would SIA air craft move back over Singapore air space which is just a dot among tons of them?
I reserved my comment on you and give you benefit of the doubt that your comment is non political one
Anonymous Super Yop said...
As a Malaysian, I support what ever the leaders of my country is doing to investigate this incidence.
Q: What if your leaders are incompetent and only there because of their family ties?
Super Yop said "This incidence is a very rare one and cannot be compare to an other flights mishap."
The incidence is rare, yes, but in the eyes of the world the response is amateurish bordering on incompetence.
Malaysia does not have a monopoly on nepotism and incomptence. In Singapore, LKY makes sure that his well education but still incompetent sons and family run the country to the point of overcrowding and ruin.
To Super Yop,
Thanks for your comment. But may I say one thing. As long as the transponder sqwaks the ID in the aircraft, the civilian radar on the ground knows it is MH 370.
At the point, the pilot turns off the transponder, it no longer appears on civilian radar.
However military radar spots all aircraft entering its airspace. However it does not know its identity.
From that point, MH370 is simply an unidentified aircraft which is flying not on a prescribed route across the northern Malaya.
This fact should ordinarily raise suspicion and the proper procedure would have been to intercept it. This was not done.
Blogger Gopalan Nair said...
To Super Yop,
Thanks for your comment. But may I say one thing. As long as the transponder sqwaks the ID in the aircraft, the civilian radar on the ground knows it is MH 370.
At the point, the pilot turns off the transponder, it no longer appears on civilian radar.
However military radar spots all aircraft entering its airspace. However it does not know its identity.
From that point, MH370 is simply an unidentified aircraft which is flying not on a prescribed route across the northern Malaya.
This fact should ordinarily raise suspicion and the proper procedure would have been to intercept it. This was not done.
Tue Mar 18, 07:13:00 PM PDT
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Layman says:
And this in a nutshell is a fact that cannot be ignored. Well said Mr Gopalan Nair!
MH370 also flew across Indonesia and no one seemed to notice. Everyone busy with kopi and kretek.
To Linda Kosmanto,
Not sure about overflying Indonesia. I think it flew right down the Bay of Bengal/ Indian Ocean on a South heading. But I may be wrong. Anyhow it is all moot now.
/// Anonymous Super Yop said...
Dear Gopalan,
I have followed your blog since a couple of years ago and Had always supported your article.
But when come to this one, I reserved my support for you.
As a Malaysian, I support what ever the leaders of my country is doing to investigate this incidence. ///
You blind support is the problem. If your leaders screwed up- you will also support them?
The military obviously was sleeping on the job, or no one was manning the radar. It is obvious that no one was on duty, and only after a review of the radar date 4 days later that they found MH370 had turned west.
Those in the radar control room must have been sleeping on the job. And this is not the first time.
http://johnislam.blogspot.sg/2014/03/lam-day-when-2-australians-shut-down.html
http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20080124-46384.html
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