Aussie data may have MH370 clues

Thailand's military says its radar detected a plane that may have been Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Still looking ... a member of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue looks over horizon during a search in the Andaman Sea. Source: AFP

• Maldives residents report MH370 'sighting'
• Tomnod user spots plane — but is it MH370?
• Thailand defends not releasing radar data
• Expert slams search effort response

THE key to solving the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could lie with sensitive radar and satellite technology in Australia.

In a front-page story, which quoted no sources and was more an editorial, the English language New Straits Times, featured a photo on the front page of a "huge radome in the middle of the Australian heartland" and used the headline "The Answer to MH370 could be HERE".

The story said the Malaysian investigation team is waiting for access to the "big radar picture" which is needed to pinpoint the last movements of the Boeing 777-200.

It specifically mentioned the Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Radar or OTHR, which covers a vast swathe of northern Australia and beyond.

The joint Australia-US Pine Gap satellite tracking facility, near Alice Springs, was also mentioned as having information which could assist the search.

The story points out that for several days now Malaysia's Defence and acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has been vocal in seeking sensitive radar and satellite data from other nations. He has pointed out that Malaysia has put the search for the plane and its 239 passengers and crew above its national security and he hoped other counties would do the same.

The story is more of an editorial and a thinly veiled plea to countries holding out on handing over what is usually top-secret.

The Malaysian press has historically been far from free and it is believed that the Minister recently had a sit-down with all the country's newspapers bosses about their coverage of the hunt for MH370.

News Corp Australia has sought comment from the Minister's office about the issue.

It comes as reports surface that the searches on the pilot and co-pilots homes, emails, computers and phones have thrown up very little in the way of anything suspicious. The pilot's homemade flight simulator, which has been seized, has also not shown anything suspicious or to indicate that either had anything to do with the plane flying of course before disappearing.

The Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) consists of two OTHR - one near Longreach in Queensland and the other near Laverton in Western Australia – which are capable of all-weather detection of air and surface targets inside an arc of up to 3,000 km range extending from Geraldton in the west around to Cairns in the east.

JORN makes a crucial contribution to broad area surveillance of Australia's strategically important northern approaches.

A Defence spokesperson said Defence would not comment on the operational capability of surveillance systems but said that any Defence information relating to flight MH370 was being passed on to Malaysian authorities.

In any case, it is understood the Jindalee Operational Radar Network, known as JORN, was focussed north when MH370 disappeared and for it to have detected the plane, it would have had to have been facing north-west, which is where MH370 would have approached from.

CONSPIRACY? NO, JUST 'SLACK AND INCOMPETENT'

CONSPIRACY? More like incompetence, says a leading security expert baffled by the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

Dr Michael McKinley from the Australian National University said revelations that the missing Boeing 777-200ER was picked up by military radar in several countries but was only reported several days later suggested the search effort had been "slack".

"The more that comes out, Malaysia and some of its neighbours are not covering themselves in glory on this," he said.

"It seems to be somewhere between slack and incompetent."

Overnight it emerged that Thai military radar detected a plane that may have been the missing aircraft just minutes after its communications went down, but didn't share the information with Malaysia earlier because it wasn't specifically asked for.

Air Vice Marshal Montol Suchookorn said the Thai air force had not closely watched the aircraft because it did not view it as a threat.

"We did not pay any attention to it," he said.

Upset with the investigation ... Dr Michael McKinley from the ANU. Source: Supplied

"The Royal Thai air force only looks after any threats against our country, so anything that did not look like a threat to us, we simply look at it without taking actions."

It follows earlier revelations that Malaysian military radar tracked the plane until an hour after it disappeared but did not report this for several days.

READ MORE: Was the last witness to MH370 a penguin on an island near Australia?

Indian officials also said their installations on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands — within the search area for the missing plane — were probably switched off because they "operate on an as required basis".

Dr McKinley said the security concerns of some countries could explain their slowness to provide full information to help the search effort.

"There are issues that some states don't want to disclose surveillance capabilities, but this shouldn't apply to Malaysia or Thailand," he said.

However, Dr McKinley said some actions had been "bizarre, just bizarre."

He said diplomatic issues had undoubtedly "complicated" the response to MH370's disappearance on March 8, but stopped short of saying it had put the response offcourse.

Dr McKinley's criticisms come as the search for MH370 enters its 12th day, with claims of fresh sightings — both online and real-world — and new theories about what happened to the aircraft.

RELATED: Is this the most plausible MH370 explanation yet?

On the edge ... the Maldive Islands where residents claim to have seen an unusual low-flying jet similar in appearance to Malaysia Airlines MH370. Source: Supplied

MALDIVES RESIDENTS REPORT SIGHTING

EYEWITNESSES claim to have seen a low-flying jumbo jet "with red stripes" similar to that of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet flying over their houses in the Maldives, local media reports.

The Maldivian daily newspaper Haveeru reports residents described a white aircraft with red markings similar to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 passing overhead about 6.15am on March 8.

The claims, which have not been confirmed, follow reports of radar and satellite signals indicating the missing airliner could have followed a track in that general direction.

The holiday islands are about halfway between Malaysia and the east coast of Africa.

It's about 3200 kilometres from Malaysia — placing it at the extreme edge of how far flight MH370 could travel.

The newspaper reports residents of Kuda Huvadhoo as saying the unknown aircraft made an "incredibly loud noise" as it travelling southeast towards the southern end of the Maldives island chain, the island of Addu.

"I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We've seen seaplanes, but I'm sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly," said an eyewitness.

"It's not just me either, several other residents have reported seeing the exact same thing. Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too."

Mohamed Zaheem, an Island Councilor, told Haveeru that the residents of the island had spoken to him about the incident.

The Maldives international airport is located on the island of Hulhule and more than there are more than two dozen regularly scheduled flights from most of the world's major airlines to the popular holiday destination.

Malaysian newspaper Berita Harian reported yesterday that investigators have found five airport runways, which included the Male International Airport in the Maldives, loaded in MH370 pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's homemade flight simulator.

Is this it? ... A university student claims to have found the Malaysia Airlines missing flight MH370 on the website Tomnod. Picture: Tomnod Source: Supplied

TOMNOD USER SPOTS PLANE — BUT IS IT MH370?

A Taiwan university student who has assisted the search effort by scouring satellite images on the website Tomnod claims to have found an image of Flight MH370.

The Taiwan China Times reported that the image had not yet been verified and the surrounding jungle landscape had yet to be identified.

Three million people have joined the effort to locate the missing plane on Tomnod, in what may be the largest crowdsourcing project of its kind.

The satellite firm DigitalGlobe, which owns the Tomnod platform, said that its search area now has some 24,000 square kilometres (9,000 square miles) and that more images are being added daily, including a new area in the Indian Ocean.

The company said more than three million people had participated in the program, with some 257 million "map views'' and 2.9 million areas "tagged'' by participants.

The response was so great it overloaded the system's computers for a time last week.

It is unclear whether the above Tomnod image even shows a Malaysia Airlines plane. Commentators have suggested the coloured ring towards the tail seems more like the paint scheme of Qantas than Malaysian Airlines.

Qantas paintwork ... with distinctive red ring around tail. Source: Supplied

Malaysia Airlines ... no ring around the tail. Source: Supplied

THAILAND 'DIDN'T SHARE' RADAR DATA

The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet has grown to encompass an area slightly larger than the entire land mass of Australia, as Thailand's military says its radar detected a plane that may have been flight MH370 just minutes after the jetliner's communications went down.

But Thailand didn't share the information with Malaysia earlier because it wasn't specifically asked for it.

A twisting flight path described yesterday by Thai air force spokesman Air Vice Marshal Montol Suchookorn took the plane to the Strait of Malacca, which is where Malaysian radar tracked Flight 370 early March 8. But Vice Marshal Montol said the Thai military doesn't know whether it detected the same plane.

Remote community ... the Maldive Islands town of Kuda Huvadhoo. Picture: Google Maps Source: Supplied

Thailand's failure to quickly share possible information regarding the fate of the plane, and the 239 people aboard it, may not substantially change what Malaysian officials know, but it raises questions about the degree to which some countries are sharing their defence information, even in the name of an urgent and mind-bending aviation mystery.

When asked why it took so long to release the information, Vice Marshal Montol said, "Because we did not pay any attention to it. The Royal Thai Air Force only looks after any threats against our country, so anything that did not look like a threat to us, we simply look at it without taking actions."

He said the plane never entered Thai airspace and that Malaysia's initial request for information in the early days of the search was not specific.

The map where Australia is searching for Flight MH370. Source: Supplied

SEARCH AREA BIGGER THAN AUSTRALIA

"The entire search area is now 2.24 million square nautical miles (7.7 million square kilometres)," acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in a daily press briefing on Tuesday evening.

Australia has a land mass of around 7.6 million square kilometres.

The search area extends north into south Central Asia, passing across far western China, including Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as south deep into the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

As the search enters its 12th day after the jetliner vanished with its 239 passengers and crew authorities say they still cannot discount any possibility of what happened to the plane.

AUSTRALIA'S SEARCH AREA NOW HALVED

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean has moved closer to Australia, with experts halving the area of water where the plane might be found.

And while efforts so far have failed to find signs of the jet, search co-ordinators at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority remain confident.

"With a smaller area closer to Perth and more aircraft ... I hope we will do better tomorrow," the authority's head of emergency response John Young said today.

Four military aircraft from Australia, New Zealand and the United States on Wednesday combed a 300,000 square kilometre area, 2300km southwest of Perth, where conditions were clear enough to spot marine life.

"The search area has been significantly refined," Mr Young said. The previous search zone of 600,000 square kilometres, 3200km from Perth, have been reduced following more detailed analysis from the US National Transportation Safety Board.

The new calculations are based on MH370's fuel reserves.

Four ships have passed through the area with another due on Thursday, when up to five aircraft will again fly over.

Flight MH370 - carrying 239 people including six Australians - disappeared during a March 8 service bound for Beijing.

"We still have grave fears for the safety of anyone who might have managed to escape the aircraft in the southern (Indian) Ocean," Mr Young said.

"It remains a big area, it's still very hard to search 300,000 square kilometres ... still almost a third bigger than the state of Victoria."

Searching the sea ... the pilot of a RAAF AP-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft scanning the surface of the sea during a search operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Source: AFP

MALAYSIANS URGED TO PUT POLITICS ASIDE

Malaysian authorities are being urged to put domestic politics aside and focus on finding the plane.

Defence and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein would not comment on the specifics of the police investigation which is currently underway into the pilot copilot, crew, ground staff, engineers and al the passengers.

"The search for MH370 is bigger than politics," Mr Hussein said, urging all sides of politics to unite "during this difficult time".

His comments came after Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has admitted he has a family connection to the MH370 pilot, who may have hijacked the plane in a political protest.

Mr Hussein called on all parties to put politics aside and unite in the hunt for MH370 and attacked the foreign media for stirring up politics.

He was asked if he might call upon his arch political rival, Mr Anwar, to help with the investigation.

"We have been very consistent. The Government's main focus from day one has been to search and rescue MH370. We didn't bring this up. In fact the issue of politics was raised by the foreign press, the Daily Mail and CNN. Our position remains this issue is above politics," Mr Hussein said.

And he appeared shocked then bemused at a question from the French media, inquiring if he was Prime Minister Najib Razak's cousin and was he protected.

"Where are you from?" he asked. "Yes I can confirm I am Najib's cousin. I don't know what I am supposed to be protected from.

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