Were opportunities for clues from MH370 debris missed?
Were opportunities for clues from MH370 debris missed?
SYDNEY (AP) — Three nations shelled out around $160 million and years’ worth of work on the underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The result: No plane. The only tangible — and arguably most important — clues into what happened to the aircraft have come courtesy of ordinary citizens, who bore the costs themselves.
The deep-sea sonar search for the vanished Boeing 777 was suspended on Tuesday after officials conceded defeat following the most expensive, complex aviation search in history.
But while search crews spent years trawling in futility through a remote patch of the Indian Ocean, people wandering along beaches thousands of kilometers (miles) away began spotting pieces of the plane that had washed ashore. Those pieces have provided crucial information to investigators and prompted some to question whether Malaysia, Australia and China — who funded the hunt for the underwater wreckage — missed key opportunities by failing to organize coastal searches for the remnants that drifted to distant shorelines.
“It would have been good to have been getting people looking for debris,” said David Griffin, an Australian government oceanographer who worked on an analysis of how the debris drifted in a bid to pinpoint where the plane crashed. “I think that was a job that fell between the cracks of whose responsibility it was.”
Since the plane vanished on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, more than 20 pieces of debris confirmed or believed likely to have come from the aircraft have turned up on beaches along the east coast of Africa and on islands including Madagascar. All of the parts have been found by local residents and tourists who stumbled upon them, and by Blaine Gibson, an American amateur sleuth who launched his own, self-funded hunt for debris after working with oceanographers to estimate where bits of the plane may have ended up.
Power shortages leave Gaza in the dark
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — At night, large swaths of the Gaza Strip plunge into darkness — the result of chronic and worsening power outages. In crowded city streets, the only source of light comes from the headlights of passing cars.
The power shortages are the worst to hit Gaza since Hamas seized control of the territory 10 years ago. In recent weeks, electricity has been available for just three or four hours a day. Although some relief has arrived, the power woes have turned Gaza into a cold, dark place at the height of the winter season and sparked rare public protests against the Islamic militant group.
“Our situation is bad. I swear to God it’s very, very bad,” said Majed Abu Nemer, a father of six who supports his family by transporting goods on a horse-drawn cart.
On a recent day, he and other residents in a poor neighborhood of the southern town of Khan Younis burned scrap wood inside their homes, unbothered by the smoke. His family clustered around the fire, on which their mother cooked soup and roasted bread.
“I can’t afford to keep buying candles, or go and bring an (emergency) light,” Abu Nemer said. “When the light’s battery is about to die, I go to my neighbors to charge it so I can see how my children are sleeping and if they are covered.”
Prosecutor: Orlando gunman’s widow knew about the attack
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The widow of the Orlando nightclub gunman knew about the attack ahead of time and then hindered the criminal investigation when she lied to FBI agents after the shooting, prosecutors said Tuesday during a brief court appearance a day after her arrest in California.
Visibly nervous and bewildered, Noor Salman quietly acknowledged she understood the two felony charges alleging she assisted her husband and obstructed justice. She could face life in prison if convicted of both counts.
She didn’t enter a plea and was ordered back to court Wednesday for the formal appointment of a lawyer and discussions on how to transfer her and the case to federal court in Orlando, where a grand jury indicted her.
She was arrested Monday at her mother’s home in Rodeo, a middle-class suburb about 25 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Salman, 30, was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, with her husband Omar Mateen when he attacked the Pulse nightclub on June 12.