Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: plea to US to release Pine Gap data
2014-03-19 08:47:00.497 GMT
By Lindsay Murdoch and Michael Bachelard
March 19 (The Age) -- Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia believes data
from US spy satellites monitored in Australia could help find
missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 but the information is
being withheld.
The country's Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has
specifically asked the US to share information obtained from
the Pine Gap base near Alice Springs, according to the
government-controlled New Straits Times newspaper.
Authorities in Kuala Lumpur believe that finding the plane
now depends on the willingness of a number of countries to
share potentially sensitive radar and satellite data.
They want to use the information to calibrate with data
they have already obtained to narrow the search areas from a
massive 2.4 million square nautical miles stretching from
Central Asia to the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean.
Thailand’s military said on Tuesday that its radar
detected a plane that may have been MH370 just minutes after
the plane’s communications went down, and that it didn’t share
the information with Malaysia earlier because it wasn’t
specifically asked for it.
Indonesia's Rear Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto said his country
had nothing to add to the information gathered by radar
facilities across the world, because Indonesia’s facilities had
not caught sight of the ill-fated flight. “The radar we have
which face Malaysia directly are in Sabang in Aceh and in
Medan, but the radar data provided no information on MH370.”
For three days, Mr Hishammuddin has reiterated publicly
that Malaysia had asked countries to provide sensitive data
from their satellites, specifically naming the US, France and
China.
“Our focus is on four tasks: gathering information from
satellite surveillance, analysis of surveillance radar data,
increasing air and surface assets and increasing the number of
technical and subject matter experts,” Mr Hishammuddin said on
Tuesday night.
“On satellite surveillance, I cannot disclose who has what
capability but I can confirm we have contacted every relevant
country that has access to satellite data,” he said.
Mr Hishammuddin concedes information obtained from
military-use satellites is regarded as privileged on national
security grounds and usually not shared among nations.
But he said Malaysia had “put our search effort above our
national security” by disclosing raw military data which had
allowed experts to identify areas where the plane could have
flown after it lost communications and turned back from its
scheduled flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.
Asked if countries had been forthcoming with information,
Mr Hishammuddin replied: “the only one [country] that is
basically out in the open is Malaysia.”
After speaking by telephone with US Defence Secretary
Chuck Hagel on Tuesday, Mr Hishammuddin said the US has
“possibly the best ability” to help locate the plane. US ships
and planes are involved in a 25-country search.
Mr Hishammuddin confirmed he also asked Mr Hagel about US
support from US satellite and radar systems. Mr Hagel has not
commented directly on Malaysia’s request for access to US
satellite data.
The New Straits Times newspaper on Wednesday led its
coverage of the missing plane with a story referring to Pine
Gap as a “super-secret” installation in the barren Australian
heartland that could solve the puzzle of the mystery
disappearance.
The newspaper quoted Mr Hishammuddin as saying Malaysia
would “appreciate” if the US could provide investigators with
data from its facilities in Australia.
“Although he did not mention the two facilities by name,
the New Straits Times believes he was alluding to the Pine Gap
and Jindalee facilities,” the newspaper said.
The Jindalee Operational Radar Network, known as JORN, is
Australia’s powerful military radar system that has an official
range of 3000 kilometres but experts say it’s
over-the-horizon-radar system can detect movements across
37,000 square kilometres.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Parliament
on Monday that all of Australia’s defence intelligence relating
to the plane “has been and will continue to be passed on to
Malaysian authorities”. Australia releases only limited
information about the JORN system which has enormous antenna
installations spaced across the outback.
John Blaxland of the Australian National University’s
strategic and defence studies centre said the JORN system would
probably have to have been programmed to look for MH370 in
advance.
But he said experts are certain to be scrutinising data
from the system that is seen as a key part of Australia’s
defence.
“I hope they find something but I think there would be a
remote chance they would pick up the plane,” he said.
Under a so-called “Five Eyes” program, the intelligence
services of the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada
share intelligence information among themselves. There is no
history of a general sharing of intelligence data with Malaysia
or China whose nationals account for most of the passengers on
the missing plane. Usually information is shared only on a
bilateral basis for specific reasons.
Chinese officials in Kuala Lumpur have told Chinese
journalists that “nothing is being hidden” by Beijing in the
search for the plane.
MH370 was confirmed as emitting a signal at 8.11 am on
March 8 by satellite data provided by London-based Inmarsat,
more than seven hours after it turned back from its scheduled
flight path while over the South China Sea.
Australia is leading a search for the plane in 600,000
square kilometres of the southern Indian Ocean, an area the
size of France. “A needle in a haystack remains a good
analogy,” said John Young of the Australian Maritime Safety
Authority which is co-ordinating the search in the Indian
Ocean.
Rear Marshall Hadi said the Indonesian navy had been
searching in the Malacca Strait since the day after the plane
went missing. Now that the search area had been expanded into
the Indian Ocean, he said the airforce was willing to join the
search, but it had not yet been given instructions about the
specific area to look in.
“We have our airforce liaison officer now in Malaysia to
help to coordinate us … on the search,” Rear Marshall Hadi
said. “With the recent information now that search area is
expanded to the Indian Ocean we are waiting to hear the search
coverage in Indian Ocean that Malaysia would like us to help
searching.
“We are still waiting for information from Malaysia …
However we have already started searching on areas in the
western part of Sumatra. It coincides with annual training we
are doing now in Medan for a week. We are using six F16
aircrafts in the training so we are doing training and
searching at the same time.”
Click here to see the story as it appeared on The Age web site.
The Age
Copyright © (2011) Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited.
www.theage.com.au. Not available for re-distribution.
-0- Mar/19/2014 08:47 GMT
2014-03-19 08:47:00.497 GMT
By Lindsay Murdoch and Michael Bachelard
March 19 (The Age) -- Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia believes data
from US spy satellites monitored in Australia could help find
missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 but the information is
being withheld.
The country's Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has
specifically asked the US to share information obtained from
the Pine Gap base near Alice Springs, according to the
government-controlled New Straits Times newspaper.
Authorities in Kuala Lumpur believe that finding the plane
now depends on the willingness of a number of countries to
share potentially sensitive radar and satellite data.
They want to use the information to calibrate with data
they have already obtained to narrow the search areas from a
massive 2.4 million square nautical miles stretching from
Central Asia to the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean.
Thailand’s military said on Tuesday that its radar
detected a plane that may have been MH370 just minutes after
the plane’s communications went down, and that it didn’t share
the information with Malaysia earlier because it wasn’t
specifically asked for it.
Indonesia's Rear Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto said his country
had nothing to add to the information gathered by radar
facilities across the world, because Indonesia’s facilities had
not caught sight of the ill-fated flight. “The radar we have
which face Malaysia directly are in Sabang in Aceh and in
Medan, but the radar data provided no information on MH370.”
For three days, Mr Hishammuddin has reiterated publicly
that Malaysia had asked countries to provide sensitive data
from their satellites, specifically naming the US, France and
China.
“Our focus is on four tasks: gathering information from
satellite surveillance, analysis of surveillance radar data,
increasing air and surface assets and increasing the number of
technical and subject matter experts,” Mr Hishammuddin said on
Tuesday night.
“On satellite surveillance, I cannot disclose who has what
capability but I can confirm we have contacted every relevant
country that has access to satellite data,” he said.
Mr Hishammuddin concedes information obtained from
military-use satellites is regarded as privileged on national
security grounds and usually not shared among nations.
But he said Malaysia had “put our search effort above our
national security” by disclosing raw military data which had
allowed experts to identify areas where the plane could have
flown after it lost communications and turned back from its
scheduled flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.
Asked if countries had been forthcoming with information,
Mr Hishammuddin replied: “the only one [country] that is
basically out in the open is Malaysia.”
After speaking by telephone with US Defence Secretary
Chuck Hagel on Tuesday, Mr Hishammuddin said the US has
“possibly the best ability” to help locate the plane. US ships
and planes are involved in a 25-country search.
Mr Hishammuddin confirmed he also asked Mr Hagel about US
support from US satellite and radar systems. Mr Hagel has not
commented directly on Malaysia’s request for access to US
satellite data.
The New Straits Times newspaper on Wednesday led its
coverage of the missing plane with a story referring to Pine
Gap as a “super-secret” installation in the barren Australian
heartland that could solve the puzzle of the mystery
disappearance.
The newspaper quoted Mr Hishammuddin as saying Malaysia
would “appreciate” if the US could provide investigators with
data from its facilities in Australia.
“Although he did not mention the two facilities by name,
the New Straits Times believes he was alluding to the Pine Gap
and Jindalee facilities,” the newspaper said.
The Jindalee Operational Radar Network, known as JORN, is
Australia’s powerful military radar system that has an official
range of 3000 kilometres but experts say it’s
over-the-horizon-radar system can detect movements across
37,000 square kilometres.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Parliament
on Monday that all of Australia’s defence intelligence relating
to the plane “has been and will continue to be passed on to
Malaysian authorities”. Australia releases only limited
information about the JORN system which has enormous antenna
installations spaced across the outback.
John Blaxland of the Australian National University’s
strategic and defence studies centre said the JORN system would
probably have to have been programmed to look for MH370 in
advance.
But he said experts are certain to be scrutinising data
from the system that is seen as a key part of Australia’s
defence.
“I hope they find something but I think there would be a
remote chance they would pick up the plane,” he said.
Under a so-called “Five Eyes” program, the intelligence
services of the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada
share intelligence information among themselves. There is no
history of a general sharing of intelligence data with Malaysia
or China whose nationals account for most of the passengers on
the missing plane. Usually information is shared only on a
bilateral basis for specific reasons.
Chinese officials in Kuala Lumpur have told Chinese
journalists that “nothing is being hidden” by Beijing in the
search for the plane.
MH370 was confirmed as emitting a signal at 8.11 am on
March 8 by satellite data provided by London-based Inmarsat,
more than seven hours after it turned back from its scheduled
flight path while over the South China Sea.
Australia is leading a search for the plane in 600,000
square kilometres of the southern Indian Ocean, an area the
size of France. “A needle in a haystack remains a good
analogy,” said John Young of the Australian Maritime Safety
Authority which is co-ordinating the search in the Indian
Ocean.
Rear Marshall Hadi said the Indonesian navy had been
searching in the Malacca Strait since the day after the plane
went missing. Now that the search area had been expanded into
the Indian Ocean, he said the airforce was willing to join the
search, but it had not yet been given instructions about the
specific area to look in.
“We have our airforce liaison officer now in Malaysia to
help to coordinate us … on the search,” Rear Marshall Hadi
said. “With the recent information now that search area is
expanded to the Indian Ocean we are waiting to hear the search
coverage in Indian Ocean that Malaysia would like us to help
searching.
“We are still waiting for information from Malaysia …
However we have already started searching on areas in the
western part of Sumatra. It coincides with annual training we
are doing now in Medan for a week. We are using six F16
aircrafts in the training so we are doing training and
searching at the same time.”
Click here to see the story as it appeared on The Age web site.
The Age
Copyright © (2011) Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited.
www.theage.com.au. Not available for re-distribution.
-0- Mar/19/2014 08:47 GMT