Flying Lessons

9M-MRO shot by Jay Davis at LAX last year.

Writing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- The lowly satellite pinger, a humble device designed to make sure that expensive satellite communication time is not wasted, is having its day in the sun as the mobile communications company Inmarsat, gets called in to help find the missing Malaysia Flight 370.

In an announcement this afternoon at the Sama-Sama Hotel at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak said evidence increasingly suggests that the Boeing 777 with 239 people on board has been hijacked.

Further, the once-an-hour pinging between Inmarsat's satellite network and the plane with the registration 9M-MRO, indicates Malaysia Flight 370 flew for at least six hours and fifty minutes after disappearing from radar off the northern coast of Malaysia at 1:21 a.m..

"The last confirmed communication with the satellite was 8:11 a.m." Malaysian time, Mr. Najib said.

With only primary radar to help them try and figure out where the plane flew after the transponder was turned off, authorities turned to their attention to the pinger data, with the idea that by determining which of several satellites transmitted the plane's signal as it moved, they could get a general idea of the plane's path compared to the information from the primary radar targets.

The investigators have not released the course they think the airplane flew, though some news outlets have quoted unidentified sources as saying it flew a winding route toward the southeast.

After telling reporters that police would begin a more serious review of everyone on board the plane with an eye toward who might have hijacked the flight, the Prime Minister then proceeded to outline an even larger search area in the ongoing effort to find the plane.

Fourty three ships and 58 aircraft from 14 countries will now be redirected to an area of search extending from Khasikstan to Thailand and Indonesia to the South Indian Ocean. Yesterday I posted this spoof graphic.

Today it is not too far from reality.

Meantime the folks at Inmarsat, can be compared to the brainy bespectacled girls at the dance. Toiling for years selling a valuable but technologically complicated service, all of a sudden they are in demand. Everybody wants to talk to them.

When I called the company for details on this unconventional use of airplane monitoring, David Coiley, business director for the aeronautical division told me, "We have been asked to be a technical advisor to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch," he told me, "and we are unable to comment further." The AAIB along with the American National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration have all contributed expertise and advice over the past week, the Prime Minister said.

Several days ago, I pointed out the Twitter paradox of our age. We are so reliant on a constant and never ending flow of information. Mysteries like the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 are not only intolerable, they are unfathomable. Then, we discover some tiny shred of information was there all along.

Seven days, countless theories, little progress. This tiny development from an unexpected source could be big.

Writing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- In the afternoon, hundreds of reporters assemble in the ground floor ballroom of the Sama-Sama Hotel in Kuala Lumpur and listen attentively while the various men investigating the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 repeat that they are investigating all possibilities.

When asked to expound on those potential scenarios, the definition of "all" really gets quite narrow. Those in front of the cameras and those behind them are totally focused on a crime; a hijacking, a deliberate act.

This is based on several findings. Various electronic communication methods ceased as the plane was leaving Malaysian airspace less than an hour into its six hour flight to Beijing. The pilot acknowledged a hand-off to Vietnam air traffic control but never radioed in. The plane made a sharp turn off its flight plan to the west and then began to fly erratically. Seven hours and 31 minutes after takeoff, the last hourly signal from the plane to the Inmarsat satellite network was received. Otherwise there was total silence from the crew on board flight 370.

The world has been looking for the Boeing 777 ever since.

Investigators seem to think only a deliberate act could be responsible for break-off of data from the plane's ACAR system and the radio transponder. Only someone at the controls could explain the left turn, the steep ascent and erratic course out to the west. Maybe they're right.

But I can't help but think that there are other scenarios and I'm not alone.

Several years ago I wrote a lengthy article about hypoxia based on the Payne Stewart and the Helios Airways Flight 522 crashes. In those events, an slow depletion of oxygen disabled the crews and the planes flew on for hours until fuel gone, they crashed, killing everyone on board. (Go ahead, read the full story here.)

I'm not suggesting hypoxia is the issue here, though an experienced 777 captain and air safety investigator who did not want me to use his name, suggests it is possible.

"What has been described as an erratic flight profile captured by military radar, would better describe the actions of a non-pilot attempting to control the plane, or even a partially incapacitated pilot, or no pilot at all," he told me. "This opens up scenarios to me that could include electrical fire, causing loss of some systems (transponder, ACARS) and incapacitation of the pilots due to smoke, fumes or fire. A bomb could cause structural damage that might result in loss of systems and incapacitation of pilots."

I understand that the evidence gleaned from the data streamed off the airplane and then the unexpected absence of data looks awfully suspicious. Intentional action is not far fetched, except for the fact that nine days of intense media scrutiny hasn't turned up even a hint that either of the pilots, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah and Fariq Abdul Hamid were interested in anything out of the ordinary for pilots; motor bikes, music, (women in the case of Fariq) and flying. Zaharie, even built a home-made flight simulator since 18 thousand hours in the air just wasn't enough for him.

Further at the news briefing today, the transportation minister Hishamuddin Hussein said the cockpit crew did not ask to fly together on flight 370 and fuel loaded on board was standard for the route, KL to Beijing. Two more reasons a rogue crew theory seems unlikely.

Considering his experience, the 52-year old Zaharie probably wasn't a bad enough pilot to be at the controls of the errant flight 370. In fact, two pilot acquaintances suggest to me that it is possible no one was.

"The 777 could, in theory, fly quite far even without an autopilot engaged and with no one in control. The controls are moved by flight computers which provide some degree of stability even when the autopilot is not engaged. It has automatic bank angle protection that would prevent it from banking steeply and entering the steep spiral that ends most uncontrolled flights. Loss of electric or damage to this computer system could remove some of this stability. The aircraft might meander in the sky repeatedly climbing and descending until it ran out of fuel."

9Y-MRO at LAX photo courtesy Jay Davis

"Most airplanes are dynamically stable, when they are disrupted from their flight path they return," another former 777 pilot told me. "If the airplane was no longer in an altitude hold the airplane will climb until it loses a little speed, then it will descend. As it descends it picks up speed." Changing winds might cause the the airplane track to change, the plane would roam in the sky.

These theories sound more credible so at the risk of having readers remind of this if I turn out to be wrong, I'm going to weigh in with the pilot and his "no-pilot" theory. Like everyone else watching and waiting and jawboning about this disturbing episode, I can't fathom how that happened. But neither can I join the growing chorus convinced this mystery is an intentional act.

The aircraft arriving at LAX in 2013 courtesy Jay Davis

Writing from Kuala Lumpur -- Regarding the quizzical disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 and the overwhelming flow of theories from professional and arm chair investigators alike, Tom Haueter told ABC News on Monday, "All it would take is one additional data point to say, 'Wow, we were completely off base.'"

These wise words from the former director of aviation safety with the National Transportation Safety Board should serve as a mantra for everyone reading, writing and jawboning about the Boeing 777 that left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8th and never arrived.

Several days ago, I went out on a limb, writing here that despite the groundswell of opinion, I was not convinced that the plane's disappearance was the result of a criminal act. Since I was ready to be embarrassed if I was wrong (and I still could be) let me take a public bow for having been at the forefront of a flood of subsequent similar suggestions.

Tracking courtesy FlightAware.com

On day 11, I find intriguing a fact reported by ABC News late last week that someone on the flight deck of Flight 370 changed the heading before subsequent losses of the plane's communication systems. (Disclosure, I am working in KL as a consultant to ABC News.)

If the information from David Kerley and Matt Hosford is correct, it is one of those course changing data points.

To recap, during many days of briefings in the packed ballroom of the Sama-Sama Hotel at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, we have been told that the order of known events on the flight deck was

loss of ACARs transmission
pilot handoff to Vietnam air traffic control
acknowledgement by first officer with "Alright, goodnight"
turning off of transponder

Zaharie Ahmad Shah from his YouTube post

According to investigators this pointed to a deliberate, sequential plan by someone in the cockpit to hijack the airplane. And no surprise that theory soon was embellished with news accounts some more sensational than others. The plane flew a purposeful path dodging radar, one newspaper reported. The captain's bearing when leaving his gated community the morning of the flight was uncharacteristically distracted and militaristic, reported another.

But on Monday, we got a different order of events, the turning off of the ACARs, was not the initiation of a number of sequential acts. In fact, investigators could not say exactly when the ACARs was turned off, or even if it was. Only that a data transmission scheduled for 1:37 a.m. did not arrive.

What this leaves us with is that the pilots got the hand-off at the edge of Malaysian air space and this was followed by the turning off of the transponder. At some point in this flight, the pilots would have turned the transponder to the out of radar range 2000 setting. How close to that point they were at the time, I can't say. But certainly this leaves open the idea that something else caused the loss of transponder and ACARs including pilot error, rather than deliberate actions of the pilot or cockpit intruder.

All of which elevates the reporting of a pre-programmed turn to verrrrrrry interesting status. Entering a turn into the flight management system which then beamed the info to the satellite before a 1:07 data transfer can only mean they knew they were taking the plane off course and did not communicate that in the air space hand-off. It could mean pilot action, it could mean pilot action under duress.

It's a big development ladies and gentlemen. But is it known for sure, or is it, like the order of communication shut down, a fact one day that will be disputed on another?

Or as Tom Haueter might have said, "Today's data point, tomorrow's equivocation."

Writing from Kuala Lumpur -- It's great to know people who can do math. My friend Steve Hart creates a picture of the task facing those who are searching the Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysian Flight 370.

To find a piece of the Boeing jumbo jet's wing, in an area of the sea that is 190,000 square miles is the equivalent of searching the state of Rhode Island for something the size of a bathmat.

Yes, it seems overwhelming but promising news is emerging from Australia today as the nation's prime minister told reporters satellite photos from the Indian Ocean southwest of Perth, reveal two pieces of what could be airplane debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

In a departure from how the Malaysians have handled the press, the Aussies then released two photos of what they are talking about.

Amidst a sea of black there is a teeny tiny smudge that John Young from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority described as "a blob." The larger of the two pieces of suspected aircraft debris was assessed as roughly 24 meters or 78 feet long. Explaining that he's no expert, Young characterized the blob as "indistinct," but added those in the know figure these "are credible sightings."

Coordinates of the sightings 44:03:02S, 091:13:27E

The wingspan on a Boeing 777 is 199 feet. The tail is sixty feet high. Other than those two items, I don't know what else from the 11-year old airliner of that size would float in the ocean for a week. The satellite photo was taken several days ago.

For everyone associated with the mysterious disappearance of Flight 370 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on the morning of March 8th, the Australian announcement was welcome news. We may be beginning the process of finding out what really happened.

That's welcome news for journalists for sure, we've been cooped up in this airport hotel in a modified version of the movie The Terminal without the charming companionship of Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta Jones.

For family members the news is shadowed by a sense of doom. They've told the ABC News correspondents with whom I am working, that so long as the plane is missing their loved ones could still be alive. Smudges, blobs, whatever you want to call them bobbing around in the ocean dashes frail hopes.

Everyone is urging caution. Though if I had one word to characterize the week just past it would be "reckless" with days of wild speculation about pilots commandeering the plane and a dozen theories as to how they dodged radar and flew the airliner to some remote island for some future nefarious plan.

For my money, the disappearance of Flight 370 has as a cause a unexpected and catastrophic problem that disabled the flight crew. They may have had just enough time to complete a turn back to the Kuala Lumpur airport before something incapacitated them. Then a pilot-less plane flew on, straight on that heading until, over water nearly 7 hours later, the plane finally ran out of fuel.

Signs of wreckage is disturbing news for the families, of course, but it is mitigated by the possibility that the uncertainty may soon end.

John Young from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority

Satellite image released by the Chinese Saturday evening

UPDATED WITH NEW INFORMATION AT THE END OF THE POST.

Writing from Kuala Lumpur---News this afternoon that a Chinese satellite has recorded images of a large piece of what could be debris from the missing Malaysia flight 370 will provide a distraction to the otherwise newsworthy realization that official investigators hyped a theory of criminal intent by the pilots with little evidence to support it.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, it is my hope that this friendly little country and the people who lead it, will re examine how their minister of transport and defense handled this unprecedented event.

The minister, Hishammuddin Hussein interrupted his daily press briefing Saturday afternoon to tell reporters about this latest debris sighting.

Google Earth representation of today's announced sighting.

At 72 X 40 feet, it is about the size of a jetliner wing and is located 1570 miles more or less to the south west of Perth, Australia. Whether this is the same large chunk the Australians reported seeing earlier in the week, I can't say. That was also reported to be about 1500 miles from Perth.

Mr. Hishammuddin has to be thrilled. Certainly for the obvious reason, we all want to find the plane and start working on solving the mystery, but also because the sooner he can talk about wreckage, the sooner people will start to forget how he called the disappearance of the plane very likely a deliberate act. With that announcement on March 15th, Hishammuddin launched the media on unchecked feeding frenzy even though there was little to support his claim.

Jay Davis photographed 9M-MRO at LAX last year

Everything presented to reporters as suspicious activity on the flight deck has either turned out to be not accurate or not knowable. For example, we were told that the ACARs transmission was turned off prior to 1:19am. Only to learn later that nobody knows if the ACARs was turned off, only that the transmission scheduled for 1:37 was not received.

Then U.S. officials leaked to reporters that the Malaysians said the ACARs transmission showed the pilots pre programmed a turn off course prior to acknowledging the hand-off to Vietnam air traffic control with an "Alright, goodnight." I have little confidence that such an action can be transmitted via ACARS. If it is true, it does beg the question, Why would the pilots program a turn back without reporting a problem during the hand-off?

Capt. Nik Huzlan in Kuala Lumpur

Now I think I know the answer. In an interview conducted by ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff and I in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, former Malaysia Airlines captain Nik Huzlan Nik Hussain told us, it is not uncommon for pilots to pre program the heading for the closest emergency airport throughout the flight. As the plane passes each way point the heading is changed to reflect the next nearest emergency airport.

I've believed for a while now that this plane experienced an sudden decompression that incapacitated the cockpit crew without affecting the fly-ability of the plane. I have no insider knowledge, but I'm familiar with similar events and I know it is possible.

Minister Hishammuddin at a press briefing

What I haven't seen before is such a ham handed effort to present to the press inflammatory characterizations and distortion of the facts. I'm assuming the whole thing is at attempt by the minister to spin the drama towards pilots and away from the fact that as minister of defense as well as transport, it is he who has some explaining to do.

An unidentified airliner blows through Malaysian airspace without being noticed. A Malaysian airliner goes missing for nearly seven hours before being reported. Satellite data presented to Malaysian officials gets stuck in somebody's inbox for days while a sea, land and air campaign stretches half way around the world for a failure to use that data to focus the search.

Bully for the Chinese and for the Australians for bringing what might be good news to this so far hopeless investigation. There's a lot of work ahead for everybody. But sometime in the future important questions need to be asked about the sorry performance of Minister Hishammuddin on three levels; as the transportation chief, as the defense chief and as the orchestrator of groundless speculation about the pilots of Flight 370.

UPDATE On Sunday evening the Malaysian authorities denied any pre-programming of the turn back when the MH370 flight crew reached the IGARI waypoint, eliminating the only suggestion that someone planned in advance to take the flight off course. The statement from the Ministry of Transport said, the ACARs transmission at 1:07 "showed a normal routing all the way to Beijing."

Writing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- Lost in the conversation about what could have caused Malaysia Flight 370 to go missing on March 8th during a routine flight to Beijing, is any discussion over the calamity that could have occurred, a mid air collision over one of Malaysia's populous urban centers.

When the transponder stopped working on the Boeing 777 jetliner, it was flying in the dark of night and headed Lord knows where.

In the same air space at the time were at least two Malaysia Airlines wide body jets and several other airliners. A medical charter jet, piloted by Richard Fulton out of Singapore was also flying in the vicinity. I'll assume Fulton and all the other pilots fully expected all the other planes to be where they belonged. They have a right to think that.

Air traffic control has one very important job; keep airliners separated. It can't do that when it doesn't know where everyone is. Yet from 1:21 am, for reasons unknown, Flight 370 was nordo, providing only skin paint returns to radar transmitters. That it did not collide with any one of the other planes in the sky that night is a miracle.

A this point, it appears that the plane ended up in the South Indian Ocean with the probable loss of all 239 people on board. But consider this, had it flown into another plane on this busy route, the casualties could have doubled and that's not taking into account the possible loss of life of those on the ground.

Perhaps Malaysia's civilian radar facilities are incapable of providing good returns from primary targets. If that's the case, that's a problem. On the other hand, The New York Times recently reported radar in the region was too robust for the plane to have gone unnoticed by some countries, China and India among them.

Whether Malaysia military radar picked up the plane and disregarded the blip as unimportant, or failed to see it at all, is still not clear, even after more than two weeks of press conferences dominated by questions of whether the Malaysians are going to apologize to the Chinese families who lost loved ones on the flight.

That is the sort of inane questioning that takes up limited valuable time reporters are given to get the facts from officials. And that kind of question results in equally inane answers from Minister of Transport and Defense Hishammuddin Hussein. Today for example, he decided to get offensive, saying the Chinese need to understand that the Malaysians lost loved ones on the flight too, as did the Australians. They've been "very rational" he said.

Forgive my digression. Like Alice in Wonderland, I've wandered into a strange place.

My point is that the transponder on Flight 370 stopped operating at 1:21 am. From that point until 2:11 (or 2:15 am both times have been given) this plane was either not detected by civilian and military radar or it was detected and no one did anything about trying to identify it or warn planes in the vicinity that it was there. Either way, its creepy, raising all sorts of concerns about the integrity of the airspace through which the world's airliners pass to and from Asia.

Hishammuddin Hussein at one of the daily briefings

Air travelers should be horrified, airlines should be cautious. Minister Hishammuddin ought to be mortified. Instead of picking fights over whether grieving Australians and Malaysians are comporting themselves better than grieving Chinese, some energy ought to be spent making sure the folks assigned to knowing where airplanes are flying are doing their jobs.

Every day, Hishammuddin spends a portion of his time telling reporters that he is thankful for the efforts of all the countries who are spending millions by sending their ships, planes and personnel to search for the missing airliner. He ought to be. Had his own agencies; defense and transport been doing their jobs, the plane might not have gotten lost in the first place. And he ought to be thanking his lucky stars that the catastrophe wasn't worse.

Writing from Kuala Lumpur -- The case of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has taken another unexpected turn now that searchers in the South Indian Ocean have moved from the last-best guess of where the airplane might be to an area 1100 kilometers north east.

Ten airplanes and six vessels headed to the new location, off the coast of Perth, as the 30 day clock on the black box locator pingers ticks down.

You may be asking, what new information prompted the moving of all this expensive hardware? I'm here to tell you.

According to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau the new area of focus comes after further analysis of radar data of the plane's "movement between the Straits of Malacca and Indian Ocean," in the early morning of March 8th.

The movement of the plane from 1:21 am when the transponder stopped functioning has been something of a mystery. At first, officials said the plane turned on a reciprocal heading back to Kuala Lumpur airport. Silly me, I believed they knew what they were talking about so I disputed a Reuters report that the plane headed west on a zig-zag course to the Straits of Malacca. On March 15th, however a new course was confirmed in one of the nightly briefings for the press.

Here or here? This way or that?

The Reuters story suggested whoever was in command of the flight may have been trying to evade radar detection. I could not understand why Flight 370 would turn back over land and cross the peninsula when it was already over water nearly out of radar range already and could have quickly gone into the South China Sea with a slight turn to the east.

Well my bad, because Reuters seems not only to have been right, it was first with that news. This week the government has been working double time to get the story out through back channels, while refusing to confirm it to reporters.

Presentation to families in Beijing

For example, in a briefing with families in China, this slide (thanks @TMFAssociates for the photo) was shown, depicting primary radar hits made by the plane moving west then north west, practically to the Thai border at Puket. The plane had 70 minutes to get to this position in Malaysian airspace from the hand-off at IGARI waypoint.

Australian Maritime Safety Authority Photo

It is the amount of time it would have taken the plane to fly that distance that sent the number crunchers back to their calculators. Still refusing to confirm the route flown by the Boeing 777, acting minister of transportation Hishammuddin Hussein explained the AAIB, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, NTSB and Inmarsat discovered something new.

"They took the point the aircraft was last sighted by a radar in the Straits of Malacca," he said and started from there with the fancy math. "We have taken through so many considerations the aircraft, the range of the aircraft, the fuel and the speed. That’s how they calculated with the performance."

That's how they determined the twin engine plane consumed so much fuel booking westward, it probably went to fumes and hit the ocean farther north than previously thought.

The Australians who are coordinating the air and sea search from Perth, may be delighted. The new zone is easier to get to and outside of the tumultuous section of the ocean known as the Roaring 40s. But there are those who are scratching their heads wondering why it took 20 days to figure out where the plane likely went down. Just as I am wondering why the authorities here won't just explain on what the new search data is based.

"Why is it taking this long to figure that out? How many radar hits do we have? How hard is it to figure that out?" one seasoned investigator told me, to which I can only answer, it is apparently, pretty darn hard.

But it is entirely in keeping with the way things are develop here in Kuala Lumpur, a place where the man overseeing two of the departments exhibiting significant incompetence for losing the plane in the first place, is also calling the shots in the investigation and controlling the release of information to the press.

Hishammuddin Hussein "honored" faces the cameras

Hishammuddin "don't eat his cabbage twice," is the way my old friend Ike would describe the minister's reluctance to repeat himself. But that reticence is selective. When it comes to platitudes and inanities he's happy to repeat how he is "hoping against hope" and "leaving no stone unturned." He "wouldn't have done anything differently" though there are "lessons to be learned."

So before I leave to you ponder this latest twist in the still developing saga, let me share with you how the minister concluded his most recent briefing to the press.

"I am honored to be part and parcel in what is going on here," he said. Illuminating in one perfect sentence the distorted view of the investigation from the man who is trying to controlling it.

With the latest news, that an Australian ship may have detected the sound of pinging from the black boxes on the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner, the massive effort in the South Indian Ocean begins to seem a little less overwhelming. But let's set aside the search and the constant speculation over whether this is an accident or a crime. I want to write about the effect the event is having on the people who live in Malaysia.
Since arriving in Kuala Lumpur on March 13, to assist ABC News in its coverage of this unusual story, I have been repeatedly startled that so many Malaysians personalize this event. I am told that Malaysia is not just an airline, it is part of the national identity.

From the first flight of Malayan Airways Limited in 1937 the air travel business was a stop and go effort here, with wars and occupations interrupting the development of an air transport network in the forties and the exit of Singapore from the Malaysian Federation in the sixties. The airline was called Malaysia Singapore Airlines until the city state of Singapore opted to go it alone, taking its name along with the international routes and creating Singapore Airlines.

The folks who shared this history with me confirmed what I suspected, that the loss of the lucrative long haul routes hobbled Malaysia Airlines, leaving it with the more labor intensive and lower profit domestic and regional destinations. Nevertheless, it grew and grew, this time with economic interruptions. The most current is the real threat posed by the low cost carriers, Malindo, Air Asia and Air Asia X.

Judging from my experiences at the packed and bustling LCC side of Kuala Lumpur Airport, Malaysians aren't necessarily brand loyal and neither are the tourists just passing through this paradise. Like air travelers everywhere, ticket price is powerful motivator. The anybody can fly-touting carriers have all the attraction of a new, fun boyfriend. Malaysia Airlines is the rock-steady-daddy - okay maybe often boring - but always with a place reserved in the heart.

This, and the fact that everyone here knows at least someone (and usually many someones) working at Malaysia Airlines accounts for the very public outpouring of sympathy and support for the troubles it now faces.

At a bar in Bukit Bintang

Full page ads in local newspapers offer prayers. Signs large and small are posted throughout the city, even, surprisingly in the bars of Bukit Bintang, the city's party-hearty nightclub district. During a visit to the city's famous KL Tower on Sunday a freshly-inked banner hung drying outside of a batik shop.

This morning, I interviewed Masnoor Ramli Mahmud, a Malaysian painter and photographer who is working on a one-man show from his round the world flight in a Pilatus. (About which, more later). The exhibition was planned long before Flight 370 went missing but there's a image of a plane, a man and a mystery that Masnoor wants to add to the show, though it is still just an idea in his mind.

Masnoor works on the idea for the MH 370 painting

The people I meet are immediately ready to talk about the airline. They are not obsessed with questions of air safety or air security, or even the financial impact that this is having on the airline or the governments who have sent people and expensive hardware to the region, though these matters surely concern them.

Mostly they want to shake their heads with me, befuddled like the rest of the world. Unlike everyone else, this is not distant curiosity. Malaysians are both on the scene of the drama and participants in it. It it as personal as if it had happened within the family, because it truly has.

One of many signs of sympathy on the streets in Kuala Lumpur

Everywhere you go there are Malaysian airliners, on the makeshift sympathy signs dotting the town, on a magnificent mosaic hidden in a highway underpass, on the back of (some) 20 ringgit notes. I've already written how the tragic mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has engaged the people who live here. Now that I've finished reading the history of the Royal Selangor Flying Club, I understand that a little better. The airline and the club grew up together and can even be considered products of the same parents. But as aviation soars, especially in this part of the world, the once formidable 85 year old club struggles to maintain a presence in a vastly different world.

Club president Maj. Razak

On a steamy Sunday two weeks ago I spent the day at the club, located at the in-town Simpang Air Force Base. I'd been invited by the president, Abdul Razak Hashim and the club manager and chief flight instructor Manvinderjit Gill. Inside the spacious two story building, it is easy to see how this was once a thriving center for aviators.

There's the operations desk and flight planning office both of which are still used, along with the game table where pilots knock around a ping pong ball while waiting for their turn to fly in one of the club's three Cessna 172s. But most of the tables in the spacious and sun-filled first floor are unoccupied and the bar appears not to have been stocked for years.

In its heyday, however, the flying club was the center for all things aviation, Major Razak tells me. The club was formed in 1929, even before the country's Civil Aviation Directorate. The first pilots pre-date certification so they they flew without licenses. The earliest members were British planters, merchants and businessmen, including, one of the founders, the grandfather of Flightglobal's David Learmount, Major L.W. Learmount. In 1929 he'd already started the Royal Singapore Flying Club two years earlier.

Chinese and Malay names start appearing in the membership rolls a few years later. Then, World War Two and the Japanese occupation of Malaysia put a halt to everyone's pleasure flying from 1941 to 1946.

The Clubhouse in the 1940s. The Japanese added the tower during the occupation.

I can imagine the good times described in the club's journals; air races and flying lessons, curry lunches and dinner dances. The club trained police pilots and private pilots and earned money with aerial photography. There were a few years when pilots were hired to air drop money onto the inaccessible agricultural plantations and tin mines, one hundred thousand dollars worth of payroll delivered from the sky in 1948 alone.

Members prepare for an air race in Perth

The club added planes and members and spruced up the club house. From 1952 to 1965 there was no better place to be. The brick building with the terrazo floors offered a view of the runway of what was Kuala Lumpur's first international airport.

In 1979 the club celebrated fifty years with a Golden Jubilee extravaganza featuring the Rothman's Aerobatic Team. It's bittersweet to read the program for the blowout event, now that fortunes have turned. Kuala Lumpur is a booming 21st Century metropolis, while the club flies on the edge of uncertainty. Soon they will be booted off the air base, practically the only home they have ever known, as the government eyes the property for development.

Flight instructor Nur Husamudin takes me by the Petronas Towers

The best place to see this ongoing evolution is from the sky, which I did that very afternoon in the company of flight instructor Nur Uzmana Husamudin. Moments after takeoff, KL's skyscrapers were below our little Cessna. I saw one enormous bird soaring across the sky though construction cranes were ubiquitous.

The Istana Negara Royal Palace

Nur zoomed by the KL Tower, tipped her left wing to give me a better view of the Istana Negara Royal Palace then circled the city's most famous landmark, the ornate Petronas Towers. Returning to the air base vast swaths of the city are in various stages of preparation for even more construction.

All this development was fueled by aviation, which is hot, hot, hot in Southeast Asia and has been for a while. In 2013 air traffic in the Asia Pacific region grew more than 5 percent over 2012 according to the International Air Transport Association.

Manvinderjit Gill

Opportunities for pilots, especially those with airline aspirations like Nur, have never been better. Will they appreciate the value of clubs where flyers can socialize as their parents and grandparents once did? I think so. My head was spinning as Manvinderjit carried on about all the air events the club participated in over the past few years. While Nur exhausted me listing her activities, the most inspiring, her volunteer work helping 21-year old James Anthony Tan, become the youngest pilot to fly around the world in 2013.

Members of the Royal Senangor Flying Club may not know where they will be in the future but I'm going to guess that more adventures lie ahead.

Watch Nur's landing on runway 22 here.

Nur does a pre flight

The clubhouse today

von Ribbeck from firm website

What is it with Chicago's Ribbeck Law firm? In news story after news story, this little band of ambulance chasers is revealed to play loose with the facts at best and be deliberate liars at worst and yet the latest from here in Southeast Asia is that they are not humbled by the attention paid to their deficits. If there's one thing that can be said about the brother/sister act that is Ribbeck Law Chartered, it is this; There is no such thing as bad press.

Making the ludicrous claim to be the biggest aviation law firm in the world, Manuel von Ribbeck, met a few days ago with some of the Indonesian families who lost loved ones on Malaysia Flight 370. Four of them signed retainers with the firm I am told.

Firman Siregar a passenger on MH 370

Indonesia is the home of Firman Siregar, a 25-year old from Sumatra who was headed to a new job at Schlumberger in China when the plane went missing. The very first legal action filed in Chicago on March 26th, was filed on behalf of Siregar's parents. Except for one tiny detail; the parents had no idea about the suit. The man named as Siregar's father in the court document was actually a distant relative. All of this was explained in a letter the family wrote disavowing the suit. The letter was sent to a national news site and the Indonesian government. Since then, Siregar's real family has met with Ribbeck lawyers and are said to be considering hiring them. Go figure.

One might think that sloppy legal work would raise eyebrows and maybe even embarrass the lawyers. But that would be wrong. Being first to file a case in MH 370 was the goal. The news bounced around the world and anyone googling "MH 370" and "lawyers" or "law suit" would be sure to hit on Ribbeck's name. That ladies and gentlemen is the goal.

Since just after the accident, von Ribbeck, his sister Monica Kelly and their associates (about which more in a future post) have been working to sign up passenger families, loitering at the hotels in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, where the families were staying.

Bajc with companion, passenger Wood

Sarah Bajc, whose partner Phillip Wood was on the plane, told me a friend in the media recommended she speak to Ribbeck and so she did. The man who called her said the Ribbeck firm was providing free counseling and general legal advice and would she like to meet with them? Bajc declined. In an interview with Gloria Riviera for ABC's Brian Ross the woman said lawyers chasing for business so soon was "unacceptable".

She is not alone. This is one reason that in accidents in the United States or involving American carriers, lawyers are prohibited by federal law from approach families for 45 days after the accident. Justin Green, a lawyer with Kreindler & Kreindler (and for whom I worked between 2001-2008) said various state laws prevent lawyers from soliciting at any time. It is also possible that by coming in to Malaysia and offering legal services, the firm is in violation of Malaysian law.

An NTSB briefing after the crash of Asiana 214

Those pesky details don't bother the Ribbecks though. Monica Kelly told The New York Times the firm sent six people each to Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. Reports suggest they did the same in San Francisco when Asiana Flight 214 crashed. That accident was on U.S. soil and authorities are said to be investigating that potential violation.

If you are wondering how this little band of lawyers plans to proceed in a case in which evidence is scant, have no fear, they'll never go to court with those cases anyway. The Ribbecks, who other aviation lawyers claim never to have seen at a deposition or in a courtroom in an aviation case, have a second goal. Take all those signed contracts and sell them off to lawyers in the United States who will do the legal work.

Eidson of Colson Hicks Eidson

If past is predictive, that means they are likely going to wind up in the office of the Florida law firm of Colson Hicks Eidson, whose president, Lewis Mike Eidson was once the leader of the American Trial Lawyers Association. One would think he'd be above this sort of thing but after the cruise ship Concordia sank off the coast of Italy, a number of people who thought they were clients of Ribbeck wound up dealing with Colson Hicks.

I have been told that Eidson was warned to steer clear of Ribbeck, but looks like he's decided not to follow that advice. One does have to wonder why anyone would want to be associated with Ribbeck Law Chartered. That goes for lawyers and it certainly goes for prospective clients.

Darlene Tipton, fired from FOX

See my previous post on this subject here

A Fox Cable Network executive has been fired from her job in Los Angeles after contacting the girlfriend of missing Malaysia Airlines passenger Philip Wood, with an offer to raise money through an online website. Darlene Tipton, vice president of standards and practices at Fox, told Sarah Bajc that she and her husband Ken Tipton could potentially raise $15 million for Wood's immediate family and asked if Bajc thought other family members would be interested in such a plan. She added that all the families would have to waive their rights to sue anyone associated with the accident.

Bajc and Wood

Bajc, who has made regular appearances on a number of television networks since the flight went missing on March 8th, suspected a scam and sent the email to Fox, leading to Tipton's dismissal on April 10.

Friday afternoon, Tipton expressed surprise at her termination because other employees used their company email for personal business. She vowed to continue the fund raising project.

"I have absolutely nothing to lose so I would like to pursue setting up the GoFundMe account for Philip Wood and possibly all 238 passengers," Tipton wrote to an employee at the social media fundraising site, GoFundMe.com.

Tipton’s lawyer Stan Lieber says there’s nothing illegal or immoral about trying to raise funds for someone even without their authorization. “If they don’t want to take it, they don’t have to take it,” he said of the families.

CNN was criticized recently by the Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts for pandering to ratings by continuing with non-stop coverage of the missing jetliner even in the absence of news. If the news producers want something exciting perhaps they should turn their attention to the Tiptons and the other audacious charactersemerging from the MH 370 mystery.

Tipton has posted a rambling video of her husband Ken, taped from his hospital bed where he claims he may know the real story of the missing airliner because it came to him in a vision. Alternatively, he could have been having a medicine-induced hallucination. He's not sure. Just the same, its full speed ahead, for the Tiptons and the GoFundMe project.

"They're not trying to make money out of this, they're trying to help the victims," Attorney Lieber told me.

The Tiptons are not the only odd ducks I’ve come across since I started covering the action in Kuala Lumpur. A woman named Aida Santa Lucia from a company called Consultant and Advisor Services was in Malaysia a few weeks ago offering to help families select just the right legal representation. Lucia's no lawyer, she will hand the cases she acquires over to a law firm that will then pay her a fee, according to a contract she showed to potential clients. (Just to make it more interesting, the New Jersey office address on the contract is a mail drop that 13 years ago was used as a convenience address by two 9/11 hijackers.)

John Mitchell of USA Consulting, also of New Jersey has been calling lawyers offering to sell retainers he has with more than two dozen MH 370 families. When I called Mr. Mitchell asking for details, he hung up on me. Don't you want to know more? These most definitely are the people who should go on TV and keep us entertained.

Botha from his Linked In profile

I’ve already written about Manuel von Ribbeck and Monica Ribbeck Kelly, the brother/sister team of Chicago lawyers who claim to be the world's largest aviation firm, though ABC News reported their Lakeshore Drive office is unoccupied and apparently without phones or computers. But how about a little air time for two of their sidekicks?

Deon Botha, who sat on the dais at a press conference at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton in March hands out business cards that say he’s the Ribbeck's Global Insurance Claims Manager. Sometimes he handles the sales pitches too, as he did when he called Sarah Bajc to offer free counseling and legal advice.

His LinkedIn profile says he’s in the hospitality business, running a guest house in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Also seated at the Ribbeck table with the name plate reading Ribbeck Europe, was Erik Ahrends a resident of the Canary Islands. I could find nothing to indicate he's a lawyer, but an online presence suggests he is quite an enthusiastic photographer.

Ah, yes, it is quite the assortment of folks attracted to the misery of Flight 370. Might it be in everyone's best interest if the Tiptons go ahead and set up some of those gofundme sites for these folks instead? Perhaps enough money will be raised so the opportunists and the crackpots don’t have to chase the families of plane crash victims just to make a living.

See my previous post on this subject here

My previous post on this story here.

When Fox Cable executive Darlene Tipton contacted Sarah Bajcabout raising money to compensate her for the loss of her life partner on Malaysian Flight 370, Sarah was less than enthusiastic. The American teacher living in Beijing thought the plan was a scam and wanted nothing to do with it. That hasn't stopped Tipton and her husband Ken from setting up a gofundme.com account with a goal of raising $22 million using Sarah's companion Philip Wood as the lure.

The campaign is an "'All or Nothing' plan," Tipton writes on the site. "If $22 million dollars is raised in 30 days, the funds will be offered to the legal rep of Philip Wood's family in exchange for them waiving all legal claims. Each family member will be compensated about $2.5 million dollars."

The strange saga culminating in this unwelcome money-raising began on the first of April when Darlene Tipton sent an email offer of help to Sarah from her Fox email account including her full title Vice President, Standards and Practices in her signature.

From the email exchanges it is apparent that Sarah would not have interacted with Tipton except that Tipton’s upper level position with Fox imbued her with some credibility as did the fact that the couple had a Los Angeles lawyer Stan Lieber vouching for them.

But the tone of the emails grew increasingly weird. Tipton told Sarah that she and her husband knew where the passengers were and had a lot of information about Flight 370.

“However, before we can release the info, we are REQUIRED to make sure that all immediate family members of passengers of Flight #370 are compensated and sign a waiver to not sue anyone BEFORE we are allowed to release the info.”

“Don't ask me to tell you the info because I just can't. Stan (Lieber) has been told and he can verify whether or not that the info is more then (sic) just plausible. The info can explain everything such as what happened, why, when, where, what screwed up, where did they go, and what government has control of the situation - for now.”

After reading this, which included a suggestion that movie deals and paid interviews would be part of the Tipton’s assistance to the Flight 370 families, Sarah Bajc felt obligated to notify Fox. She said that either the emails were from someone, “posing as a management person working for Fox, or at worst an actual management person at Fox who is capitalizing on her role with you to feed a scam together with her husband.”

Other than to say her concerns were being passed on, no one from Fox ever got back to Sarah. On April 9, she got an email from Ken Tipton. His wife had lost her job and been escorted off the property after 24 years with Fox.

"Was your intent to have my wife fired? We are trying to do something good. You just have to wait and see.”

Contacting a woman who has just lost her partner in an apparent air accident with promises of information in exchange for waiving legal rights and then blaming her for the loss of your wife's job are two of the many errors of judgment demonstrated by the Tiptons. So it came as no surprise to me that the broadcasting giant terminated Ms. Tipton’s employment.

What is surprising is that the Tiptons are undeterred.

In one of her email pitches to Sarah, Darlene Tipton’s frustration with Sarah’s reluctance becomes clear. Tipton writes, “The fact is that I don't need anyone's permission to do what I need to do in regard to raising money to compensation the passenger s family members. (sic) Whether the family members take the money or pass on it is not my problem. Money raised for family members who then pass on receiving it will be used to pay others.”

To Sarah Bajc’s alarm, the money-raising has begun and though there were 239 people on the plane and presumably they are all together in whatever universe the Tiptons suggest they are channeling, Philip Wood is the only passenger being used to front the couple’s crowd-sourced compensation campaign.

Lieber, the attorney told me on Friday that the Tipton's were “not trying to get money out of this. They’re trying to raise money for the victims.”

That’s an interesting choice of words because “not trying to get money” was pretty much the same comment made about another curious event in Ken Tipton’s past.

According to the Los Angeles Times, in 1998, Tipton masterminded an internet pay per view event that would draw spectators for 18 episodes culminating in what viewers would expect to be a teen-age first time sex act. But in the end, it would be a hoax.

Tipton said it was going to be a public service announcement for teen celibacy like War of the Worlds in public impact.

The Tiptons may be tone deaf about what is acceptable behavior but give Mr. Tipton credit, he knows what events have legs when it comes to getting publicity.

Whether the increasing public attention to the couple's campaign for MH 370 families will generate dollars is an entirely different matter. Earlier today, the Philip Wood gofundme site had$500, a prime-the-pump donation made by Ken Tipton. But something changed and by early Monday morning the account was back to zero.

View the movie about Ken Tipton's vision of what happened to MH 370, here.

My previous post on this story here.

Twice in the past, the pilots of JetBlue have turned down proposals to unionize. That changed today when seventy-one percent of those voting, cast ballots to join the Air Line Pilots Association. With this decision they get the benefit of ALPA’s sophisticated negotiators and its 70 years of experience with issues unique to this profession. They also get Lee Moak, the union boss who has learned to be a statesman while remaining, as he put it, “champion of the common pilot.”

Sure, the two and a half thousand pilots of the low cost carrier are concerned about basic issues of pay, retirement and protection of jobs and seniority should the airline someday merge with another carrier. Moak touched on all that. But he revels when he talks about another, larger theme; airlines in America are in a time of global transition. The companies and their employees need to work together if they are going to survive the tough times ahead.

"Ninety five percent of all the issues that the pilot profession is dealing with, we have in common," Moak told reporters. Improving pay and working conditions is one thing, equally important is to "combine our resources to affect government policy so our industry can compete in what is a competitive global economic environment."

ALPA's Lee Moak

Over the past few years, that's meant the union has joined with individual airlines and the industry trade association, Airlines 4 Americain campaigning against unfair international competition like Norwegian's application for a U.S. Air Operators Certificate.

ALPA joins American carriers in opposing the pre-clearance program at Abu Dhabi airport that will give U.A.E. airline Etihad an advantage because its customers will be able to skip immigration lines on arrival to U.S. airports, while the customers of American carriers wait in long lines and steam.

Open skies, airport security, U.S. government backed loans for airliner purchases are some of the other issues that bore the pants off most people but have serious consequences in the marketplace.

Call me Polly-anna, but I think this is a good thing. JetBlue's CEO DaveBarger doesn't seem to agree. In a churlish response the normally good-natured airline issued one simple statement from Barger.

"The National Mediation Board will authorize ALPA as the representative body for JetBlue pilots, and then both JetBlue and ALPA will organize negotiating committees." If Barger was trying to convey, "I'm pissed," well, mission accomplished.

Barger should get a grip on his not-so-inner petulant child by taking a lesson from Moak who, magnanimous in victory, summed it all up this way.

"We have the utmost respect for JetBlue's executive team and JetBlue's culture and enterprise going forward. We're going to work very well together and we are looking forward to it."

Maybe that’s what JetBlue’s pilots saw that convinced them this time was the right time to be part of something bigger.

When families of the passengers on Malaysia 370 were notified via text message that those aboard the missing jetliner were likely dead, attention focused on the ham handed-ness of such a notification. "Deep sadness and regret" delivered via cell phone just seems wrong.

There is another significance to this first-ever, intentional digital notification in an air disaster, as pointed out to me last night by the thoughtful and experienced French air accident investigator Olivier Ferrante.

So far, it is a crash with no airplane, no bodies, no crash site, no physical evidence, he told me. "It is a virtual crash until a piece of wreckage is found."

It could be the title for my new book, which ta da! Penguin Books has just announced it will publish in the near future. I'm not going to steal Ferrante's turn of phrase, just discuss it for a moment.

NTSB's Swaim examines TWA 800 wiring

With the loss of Malaysia 370, the century-old tradition of examining air accidents by kicking tin, has been eclipsed with something that is not necessarily hands-on.

I remember a photo used in my book on TWA Flight 800, Deadly Departure, of the NTSB's Bob Swaim examining airplane wiring inch by inch using a magnifying glass. That was 18 years ago. He had a plane to examine.

The Malaysians and their multinational advisors don't even have that. The magnifying glass is this case is the calculator as every scrap of information is considered for how it might be pushed and prodded to reveal something larger than itself.

Surely this is how Inmarsat pings with one simple dumb function; querying the plane to know if it was still powered, turned out to be the hugely beneficial clue as to where the plane might be.

New Scientist magazine reported yesterday that apps, cameras, accelerometers, and of course text messages on the digital devices of MH 370 passengers could hold clues to what happened as they have done in previous events like the Reno Air Race crash in 2011 and about which I reported for The New York Times after an amazing presentation on this subject by Adam Cybanski of the Canadian National Defense Forces.

Photo courtesy Royal Australian Air Force

It won't be simple and it makes the enormous presumption that a) the airplane will be found and b) that any of it can be recovered before even getting to c) that these digital devices prove to be useful.

Another new investigative tool, approached with some degree of ambivalence is crowd sourcing. Throughout the nearly two months of coverage of the accident, technical publications and sites for aviation professionals have taken interested readers on deep dives into obscure subjects. Reading these posts and the comments that follow can provide fresh-eyes insight into technical subjects.

And while professional investigators are somewhat apprehensive about the amount crackpot postings they may have to wade through, one recently told me, "You never know who is going to give you valuable information," she said. You are one conversation from finding out something truly illuminating.

In the past, expediency would allow the professionals to bypass the potential jewels of information hidden in a pile of unhelpful suggestions from armchair investigators. In the past, hands on the metal was often enough. In MH 370 there is nothing, which means that everything might be valuable -even the virtual.

So you can call Malaysia 370 the virtual crash. You can call it a complex mathematical challenge. Whatever you call it, one thing is for sure. It is the investigation of the future and the future is now.

CRASHED: What the World’s Most Mysterious Airplane Disasters Teach Us About Design, Technology and Human Performance will be published by Penguin Books

When I told my friend the other day that I'd be traveling on Etihad she asked, "What's that?" In the United States, the 10-year old airline is not a household name. And though I am more than tired of writing stories about the mad rush by airlines - including Etihad - to woo and coddle the premium class, I have to give the Abu Dhabi-based carrier credit for it's audacious new luxury product unveiled to the public on Sunday.

So spectacular was the series of beyond first class accommodations that will be installed on the airline's soon-to-be delivered Airbus A380s and Boeing 787 Dreamliners, that many reporters present for the event at Abu Dhabi's Fairmont Hotel didn't note the cautionary comment of Etihad chief, James Hogan, but here it is.

Hogan speaks to reporters in Abu Dhabi

The first routes on which the new Dreamliners will fly will include Dusseldorf to make sure the finicky 787 is close to a maintenance base to handle the anticipated problems.

Etihad wants to "ensure we have the right support on the ground," Hogan told reporters, "the right spares in case there are any issues. That’s why we selected Dusseldorf," to be one of the Dreamliner's first destinations he said.

Hogan has learned from his competitions' experience including Norwegian, another quick-start/now booming airline that was caught flat footed when the 787's on which its international low cost carrier dreams were made, were grounded last year. The global emergency airworthiness directive came just months before Norwegian was to begin new service to New York and Bangkok from Oslo.

The Dreamliner on its 2011 world tour

All is still not right in the Dreamliner skyscape. Etihad is correct to pay close attention to the entry-into-service-issues of other 787 operators. Especially its not-so-far away neighbor in New Delhi.

Air India's VT-ANM Dreamliner was out of service from early March to late April, with what I am told was a long software upgrade that turned into a parts shortage. The airline finally resorted to cannibalizing another plane, VT-ANI, a process that anchored that plane on the ground for 17 days and counting.

Except for their common choice of the Boeing 787, Etihad and Air India couldn't be more different. While Air India is dowdy, uninspired and unprofitable, Etihad is energetic and acquisitive, which brings me back to those seats.

Double bed in the Etihad A380 "Residence"

In creating a flying "Residence" a living room and bedroom suite with a full private bath and shower, Etihad had to essentially redesign the front end of the A380 interior, taking it from a twin aisle to a single aisle cabin. With the additional space, it could make the private suite and nine more capacious first class compartments. You can read the details in this article I wrote for Runway Girl Network.

What stands out in my mind about this whole enterprise is the chutzpah required to turn this ambitious idea into reality. Planning began five years ago, long before Hogan could have known just how successful the airline would become. Long before his big talk about shunning the established alliances and creating his own would indeed blossom into a network that includes equity stakes in six airlines from airberlin to Virgin Australia.

"We are 10 years old with a track record of innovation," Hogan said.

Whether trying to compete with private jets in the level of luxury afforded to high end airline passengers turns out to be a good idea or whether those Dreamliner purchases become more trouble than they're worth, remains to be seen. There's one thing you can say about Hogan, though, when it comes to finding a place between caution and risk he appears to have been careful in choosing where Etihad will sit.

In the Woody Allen movie, Annie Hall, an estranged couple is seen in separate visits to their therapists answering the question; "How often do the two of you have sex?"

"Aways," the woman says, "three times a week."

"Never," the man says, "three times a week."

When it comes to the way the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board see the question of the "safety" of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner the same flexibility in perception is on display. How well-contained are the risks on the world's newest wide body airliner?

"Very" says the FAA.

"Not so much," says the NTSB.

In March, while the world was preoccupied with the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370, the FAA released with little fanfare, the report capping its year long review of the design, certification and manufacturing of the Boeing 787. The plane was "fundamentally sound" the paper's writers determined. "Deficiencies" were typical of any new airplane and "are being addressed or have been addressed" by Boeing and the FAA.

That's not the way the NTSB sees it, though, as Thursday's safety recommendations and the accompanying letter make clear.

The folks investigating the two thermal events on Japanese airliners that grounded the entire 50 plane Dreamliner fleet for nearly four months last year take a more circumspect approach. "Boeing underestimated the more serious effects" of problems inside and outside of the novel new batteries it decided to use on the Boeing 787.

The safety board is talking about the cobalt oxide lithium ion used for the two large batteries on the plane, that is the same recipe used in those laptops and cell phones that spontaneously ignited in the mid 2000s. The fires occurred in public places like airports and videos were posted on YouTube.

The batteries were the subject of the world's largest industrial recall.

Investigator Matt Fox, Photo courtesy NTSB

Despite that, Boeing and its subcontractors went ahead with a plan to use lithium ion batteries in the air, requesting a special condition from the FAA. As the NTSB describes the process, Boeing tested the cells it planned to use on the Dreamliner by poking them with nails then sitting back and recording the resulting fireworks.

There was no requirement that the plane maker conduct a holistic examination of what would happen to the entire contraption; not just the cells but the external wiring and battery case. When the safety board staffers conducted their own tests of how everything worked together, it wasn't pretty.

Which is why in its recommendation letter the board says that lithium ion battery tests "should replicate the battery installation on the aircraft (emphasis mine) and be conducted under conditions that produce the most severe outcome." Well, yeah, aren't they doing that already?

Apparently not. You may find that shocking. I know I do. But in the case of variable perspectives that got me thinking about Woody Allen's sexually mismatched characters, the FAA doesn't have a problem with it.

Its 71 page report wraps up the whole Dreamliner review promised by then-Transportation Secretary Ray La Hood in January 2013, with a series of do-better-next-time fixes that are all about keeping more of an eye on the sub contractors.

During my coverage of MH370, I criticized that government for allowing Hishammuddin Hussein to oversee the handling of the investigation considering that Hishammuddin is the chief of the Malaysian Defence and Transportation departments. I asked how he could supervise a probe in which his own departments played a role.

We have a similar scenario with the FAA and Boeing conducting an examination of their own actions in the design, building and certification of the Dreamliner. The committee was composed of committee of 13, six from the FAA and seven from Boeing who together and not surprisingly found "no flaws in the verification of the airplane."

The NTSB on the other hand criticizes the FAA for failing to reach out to independent experts years ago, to get another view of the wisdom of installing such persnickety chemistry as lithium ion batteries on a commercial aircraft. Even before concluding what caused the two Dreamliner battery events, the NTSB has made an important statement by acknowledging the way insularity distorts perspective and hinders safety.

When it comes to the Dreamliner design, the FAA and the NTSB do have very different perspectives. But unlike the couple in Annie Hall, both sides cannot be right.

At Newark the night of my departure for London

Writing from London -- When I arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport earlier this week for my United Airlines flight to London, the check in agent had bad news; while a reservation appeared in her system, the ticket processed by Lufthansa, had not been generated. To fix this, I'd have to walk to the next terminal and get Lufthansa to sort it out.

Forty-five minutes later the problem was solved. Only the exceedingly pleasant demeanor of the United agents mitigated my frustration at the disconnect between these two airlines, who are supposed to be thisclose as fellow members of the Star Alliance.

Reporters and photographers get a tour of the new terminal

The soon-to-open Queen's Terminal 2, at Heathrow is going to change all that, I am told. Very soon, the people flying on any of the 23 airlines in Star, will move "seamlessly" through the process from check in to baggage claim. If all goes well. At least in London.

Common kiosks for check in

That's because the two dozen airlines along withAer Lingus and Germanwings will now all be together in Terminal 2, the first terminal dedicated to the near exclusive use of members of one airline partnership. It will offer common automated boarding pass kiosks and baggage drops and gates so close to each other that minimum transfer times will be cut in half, from two hours to one.

Heathrow COO, Holland-Kaye talks to reporters

During a press tour of the terminal still abuzz with the activity of carpenters, carpeters and cleaners fishing up, Heathrow COO John Holland-Kaye told me that in earlier phases of the airport renovation, other airlines were also able to move their operations closer to their alliance partners. SkyTeam is in Terminal 4, oneworld's British Airways with a dominant presence in its home base, will contribute passengers to its own alliance housed in Terminals 3 and 5 while sending others over to SkyTeam and Star.

Holland-Kaye said housing alliance airlines together is a benefit to passengers.

"It is terrific for transit passengers because it is much easier to transfer within a terminal than between terminals and it just makes it easier for Star to sell short connection times."

The main "plaza" at Terminal 2

That is exactly what Star executives plan to use to wrest travelers away from the competition. But the alliance is also touting the user-friendliness of the Luis Vidal designed structure with its undulating ceiling, abundant natural light and 20 million passenger a year capacity that will expand to 30 million when the second phase of construction is completed at a date not yet set.

Terminal designer, Luis Vidal

Explaining his decision to place a large open "plaza" at the center and make retail shops less conspicuous, Vidal insisted that airports should think of themselves as the first and last impression of the city. I heard that before when California's tiny Long Beach Airport underwent a renovation that tacked an open air bistro and passenger waiting area behind the airport's historic art deco building, to great effect. Small or large, making an airport into a welcoming place is a wonderful concept but it's not so easy to achieve.

Sprucing up an airport isn't like installing a Jacuzzi where your 1950s-style tub/shower combo used to be. Enormous complications notwithstanding, there are some stellar airports in addition to Long Beach. Singapore's Changi, Denver International are two others that come to mind. Next week I'll be touring Doha's Hamad International which will be getting its first true workout with the arrival of airline executives from around the world for the International Air Transport Association annual meeting. (Then there are the airports like New York's JFK that don't even try to be good.)

The difference between those airports and Heathrow's ambitious remake of all of its terminals is vast. Heathrow is old and size restricted. The controversy over adding another runway is so heated, a final decision has been put off until after the 2015 parliamentary elections. Wait too long, some British tourism and commerce officials say, and the booming airports in Asia and the Gulf could siphon away enough of London's transfer traffic to make a new runway unnecessary, to the great economic disadvantage of the country.

Queen Elizabeth at Heathrow in 1969 photo courtesy Heathrow

Despite, or perhaps because of the challenges, Terminal 2 will officially open with great fanfare. Queen Elizabeth will cut the ribbon on the 23rd of June just as she did 60 years ago. (Click here for some wonderful photos of that event.)

In the meantime, United will be first to shake out the glitches when it begins to use the terminal on June 4. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, its fair to expect it will be "seamlessly" checking in customers whether they booked with United, Lufthansa or any other of their roommates in the Star Alliance terminal.

A worker points out some hard-to-reach smudges on the glass

Sealing the brickwork floors in front of the Queen's Terminal

The aircraft arriving at LAX in 2013 courtesy Jay Davis

The recent release of communication data from missing Malaysia Flight 370, shows the Boeing 777 probably flew for no longer than nine minutes beyond the point at which the plane ran out of fuel.

Buried in the 47-page report (warning: heavy on numbers and light on text) is the notation that between 8:10 and 8:19 the morning it disappeared on March 8, the plane lost and then regained power. Fuel exhaustion and engine flameout would cut power to the airplane. The only explanation for what caused it to ramp up again is the deployment of the ram air turbine.

The ram air turbine sometimes called a RAT, is a last-ditch emergency power source, a small wind fed engine that automatically drops down from the underside of the airplane and generates a small amount of power from the airstream. Following a dual engine flameout the RAT automatically engages and electrical systems deemed critical will begin to power up again.

The Boeing 777, 9M-MRO was loaded in Kuala Lumpur with 49,100 kilos or 10,8246.97 pounds of fuel for its flight to Beijing. An educated estimate of fuel consumption on 777 is 15,000-17,000 pounds per hour, so the pilots had - if my math is correct - 7.2 hours of flying time at best.

The plane appears to have achieved even better performance because seven and a half hours after takeoff it sent full confirmation of power also known as a “handshake” to the satellite. (The handshake is also known as a “ping” but to avoid the dreaded black box ping confusion I’m avoiding that term in this context)

To be clear, the satellite doesn't care about MH 370's particulars. The purpose of the handshake is just to clear landed airplanes off the system network. As the folks at inmarsat explained to me, if a plane is not powered up, there is no reason for it to be on the system. In this intriguing mystery, these handshakes have been sliced and diced using "simple trigonometry" as one egghead described it, to see what more can be learned about the flight.

And darned if it didn't work. In addition to the attempt to narrow the scope of the search, about which more later, the transmission log also shows that nine minutes after the 8:10 handshake, the plane was still flying because a partial log-on request was initiated from the airplane. MH 370 was attempting to re-acquire the digital relationship with a system from which it had disconnected when it ran out of fuel.

These basic handshake signals from the plane to the satellite have been widely reported on because they were used to draw the conclusion that the plane turned south not north after military radar lost track of it early Saturday morning. (As an aside, considering MH 370 flew with notable fuel efficiency the dramatic ascent and descent maneuvers that have been suggested in various news reports seem unlikely.)

The satellite information has also been crunched to try and calculate where MH370 might have entered the ocean, knowing that the plane was fully powered as late at 8:10am.

All the data was supplied to Malaysia officials by inmarsat within days of the plane going missing.

This latest tidbit about MH 370 gliding for a period probably restricted to nine minutes at the most seems like it should be helpful but I can see it also raises another uncertainty. There's no telling whether the engines flamed out immediately after the last full handshake or as long as 9 minutes later. If the latter, then why did the log on attempt fail other than the plane hit the ocean at that time?

In the enigma that is MH 370, each new lead always seems to take us to a whole new set of questions.

Last fall to celebrate our anniversary, my husband and I decided to go to Paris. That we chose to fly on Icelandair and stop in Reykjavik rather than non stop, provides an example of the way airlines are coming up with new ways to take on the competition. After all, to fly New York to Paris via Iceland added several hours to our trip and a middle-of-the-night (by our body clocks) change-of-planes to our itinerary.

On the other hand, each ticket was about $200 less than fares being offered by American, Delta and Air France on the same route. My husband can charitably be described as "thrifty" but $400 is an attention-getting dollar figure, even for a spendthrift like me. But what pushed us to fly Icelandair was not the savings but the value added. For no additional fee, we could get off the plane and spend up to seven days exploring this still-exotic destination.

Photo by and courtesy of S. Stefnisson

Following the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, in April of 2010, I was invited to speak to airline executives about the media response at the Atlantic Conference on Eyjafjallajokull in Reykjavik. My Icelandic hosts were welcoming and I was charmed by my brief time in the country. Now I could learn a little bit more and share the place with my husband.

Icelandair has offered some variation of the "procrastination vacation" for decades but its not the only airline to turn a negative experience - change of planes - into a selling point.

Singapore, Turkish, Qatar, Emirates and Hawaiian are among the others siphoning passengers from other carriers while feeding their local economies with tourist dollars.

Primarily this is not going to be the premium passenger airlines are tripping over themselves to woo. These are leisure travelers looking to turn one vacation into two. The airlines benefit by filling seats on the plane and the hub cities get a shot at visitors they might not ordinarily receive. So if the tourist is not traveling first class and filling up four star hotels, who cares?

Last week, in a story for Runway Girl Network, I wrote about how IATA's Tony Tyler was commiserating with LATAM boss Enrique Cueto because the Brazilian airlines will probably lose money during the upcoming FIFA World Cup. The odd nature of travel during timed events like sport tournaments is ill suited to scheduled airline service. Still, Tyler said that there is an unquantifiable benefit in exposing the world to a new place.

Tyler (center) at the IATA meeting in Doha

"The long term marketing effect on the infrastructure does produce a good payback," he said of the games, but he could just as easily have been talking about the exposure that these procrastination vacations provide.

Icelandair's Michael Raucheisen explained as a revenue producer the stopover plan is small potatoes. "Our goal is to encourage tourism in Iceland and give people enough of a sample that they want to return for a longer journey. So I guess, if we create a return customer that is the best way we could increase revenue."

More than any of the other airlines, Hawaiian may be the one least in need of promoting its hub city as a playground, at least among North Americans. I have to wonder though if the thought of changing planes in Honolulu won't sound like paradise to anyone transiting the Pacific who might otherwise have to transfer on the U.S. mainland. Ask any Australian or New Zealander what they think about hubbing at LAX, but only if you have hours to spend listening to their horror stories.

When I interviewed him for a story for The New York Times last year, Hawaiian's Peter Ingram, told me Honolulu is never going to be a Dubai, but its location still offers lots of opportunities in a region of the world where air travel is growing. "Our route map is ideal for connections between Oceania and Southern Asia and many sought after travel destinations in North America," he said.

Turned out that the weather in Iceland when Jim and I arrived last September was blustery and wet, but we enjoyed it just the same, especially spending the afternoon of our onward flight in the beautiful warm waters of the Blue Lagoon, (about which, more here). Next trip though, I think a stopover with palm trees might be just the ticket.

Queen of Sheba at Bole International Airport

The Ethiopian Airlines pilot had no idea that the lady bounding off the bus filling with passengers headed out to board ET Flight 602, was an aviation blogger with plenty of ink both behind and in front of her on the subject of the prone-to-ignite Dreamliner batteries. But, as are many Ethiopians, he was courteous and answered my questions in the 45 seconds I had before being shooed back on the bus by the driver and my fellow passengers.

Pointing across the runway at the plane I thought to be ET-AOP, I had asked him, "Isn't that the airplane that caught fire back at Heathrow last summer?"

ET-AOP taxis to takeoff

He nodded.

Fixed okay?

He nodded again.

Will you feel okay flying it?

"I've already flown it about 10 times Madam, it's fine."

I could only get out a "Good to hear," before being ordered to re-board the bus. I didn't have time to clarify whether he was feeling good about the repairs or the larger issue of whether lithium ion batteries are reliable enough to be used in aviation. On that the jury is still out.

NTSB's Matt Fox examines a damaged 787 battery

The National Transportation Safety Board has yet to issue its report on the two battery smoke events on Japanese 787s that prompted the grounding of the entire fleet from January to April of 2013. Nor has the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the UK, ruled on the question arising from the fire on board ET-AOP, (Or, Queen of Sheba, as the airline has dubbed her.)

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that the AAIB is calling for "a better understanding of how such batteries can experience a volatile thermal meltdown," in a story about the special bulletin it issued yesterday. (Read the bulletin here.)

The AAIB bulletin takes the same approach as the NTSB when it issued recommendations last month as a result of the JAL Dreamliner event in Boston.

"Although these two investigations are not linked and the respective batteries differ, both in their chemistry and aircraft application, the NTSB and AAIB investigations made similar findings with respect to the certification/approval process and testing requirements for lithium batteries," the AAIB noted.

It was not lost on me that even as the British air safety authorities were hitting the send button on this bulletin, raising once again the disturbing question about how much regulators don't know about the relative safety of energy products on airplanes, the Ethiopian pilot was headed out to fly out of the two Dreamliners parked side by side.

From the Boeing 777 on which I was a passenger, I watched ET-AOP, ET-AOT and ET-AOU taxi and depart. Two other Dreamliners were at the gate. In fact, Bole International Airport is practically littered with 787s because the Dreamliner is finally living up to its name and becoming a dream-come-true for Ethiopian Airlines.

The seven 787s in the fleet have a dispatch reliability rate of 98.7 or point 8 percent according to airline CEO Tewolde Gebremariam.

"Maintenance reliability is also a function of utilization so right now we are in a good position because our utilization is higher than the industry average, Gebremariam told me - around 14 hours a day.

During a ninety minute interview on a variety of subjects, the airline chief said he is feeling good about this airplane though he is not ruling out the possibility that Boeing engineers are hard at work re designing the Dreamliner to use a less volatile energy source, as I speculated in this blog post several months ago.

CEO Tewolde Gebremariam in Addis Ababa

"We did not have first-hand experience on a problem with the battery" he told me - referring not to the little ELT battery that seems to have been the source of the blaze on Queen of Sheba, but to the two lithium ion batteries used to provide engine start up and supplemental power on the B787. Gebremariam said it is possible that the Japanese airlines may have had batteries with quality control issues.

"Without first-hand experience it will be very difficult for me to say, 'yes it must be changed,'" he said of those batteries."Boeing will have to make that decision in consultation with the FAA of course."

ET-AOT takes off from Bole International Airport

I remain cynical - maybe concerned is a better word - about the future of lithium ion batteries on airplanes. Still, after a day with two insiders who are cheerleaders for the Dreamliner, I can't help but cheer that Ethiopian is finally getting to realize all the promised improvements in range and efficiency that made it and so many other airlines buy this airplane in the first place.

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