Neg Starter Pack vs. Flight 370 Aff
*** A-to the Case and all Aff modules
Inherency and Solvency – Neg
Inherency – Neg
Frontline
( ) US committed to the search – Obama pledge proves.
Digital Journal ‘14
(Digital Journal – April 27, 2014 – lexis)
President Barack Obama on Sunday offered continued US support for Malaysia in the search for missing flight MH370 but warned of a "laborious" task ahead to find the plane. "It is a very challenging effort, a laborious effort and it is going to take some time," said Obama, who arrived in Malaysia on Saturday for a two-day stay. The jet mysteriously disappeared on March 8 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard and is thought to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. But no trace has been found, leaving distraught relatives demanding answers and accusing Malaysia's government of a bungled response and possible cover-up. Obama expressed the "deepest condolences of the American people to all the families who lost love ones on that flight". "I completely understand the heartache the families are going through and want some answers. But I can tell you the United States is absolutely committed to providing whatever resources and assets that we can," he said during a joint press conference with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. US experts were brought in shortly after the plane vanished to help with investigations. American assets have been involved in a multi-nation search coordinated by Australia that has for weeks scoured the remote Indian Ocean for wreckage.
( ) China solving now – they’re doing a bathymetric search for 370.
Amos ‘14
Jonathan Amos, BBC Science Correspondent -- “MH370 spur to 'better ocean mapping'” – BBC News – May 27th, 2014 – http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27589433
Scientists have welcomed the decision to make all ocean depth data (bathymetry) gathered in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 publicly available. A detailed survey of 60,000 sq km of seabed is to be undertaken to help refine the hunt for the lost jet. The depth and shape of Earth's ocean floor is very poorly known. Leading researchers say the MH370 example should be a spur to gather much better data elsewhere in the world. The search has been hampered by the lack of a high-resolution view of the bed topography west of Australia. This was apparent on the very first dive made by an autonomous sub investigating possible sonar detections of the aircraft's cockpit voice and flight data recorders. It was forced to cut short the mission because it encountered depths that exceeded its operating limit of 4,500m. There are places thought to exceed 7,800m. Australian Transportation Safety Board (ATSB) officials said this week that an area in the southern Indian Ocean the size of Tasmania would now be subject to a full survey using multibeam echo sounders (MBES). A Chinese navy vessel, Zhu Kezhen, has already started on the project. It will be joined by a commercial ship in June, with the work likely to take three months.
Backlines – China solves ocean mapping now
( ) China solves ocean mapping now.
J.A.C.C. ‘14
(The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) was announced on 30 March 2014 by the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Tony Abbott. The purpose of the JACC is to ensure the public and other stakeholders, particularly families, are well-informed about the progress of the investigation into Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared on 8 March 2014 on a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. “Update on MH370 Search” – May 29th – http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/releases/2014/may/mr048.aspx)
The Chinese survey ship Zhu Kezhen has already begun conducting the bathymetric survey—or mapping of the ocean floor—of the areas provided by the ATSB. Its operations are being supported by the Chinese ship Haixun 01 and Malaysian vessel Bunga Mas 6 which are assisting with transporting the survey data to Fremantle weekly for further processing by Geoscience Australia. A contracted survey vessel will join the Zhu Kezhen in June. The bathymetric survey is expected to take about three months. Knowing the seafloor terrain is crucial to enabling the subsequent underwater search.
(Note: ATSB = Australian Transport Safety Bureau)
Solvency – Neg
Frontline
( ) Search is a waste of time – it’s a cover-up.
Harress ‘14
Christopher spent four years in the British Royal Navy and then attend Journalism school at Edinburgh Napier University. He went on to work in the UK, New Zealand, Paris and Dakar, Senegal as an investigative reporter before attending the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University. He works as Defense and Aviation reporter at the International Business Times in New York. This article internally quotes Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed. “CIA Withholding Information About Flight MH370 Search, Former Malaysian Prime Minister Claims” – May 20 2014 – http://www.ibtimes.com/cia-withholding-information-about-flight-mh370-search-former-malaysian-prime-minister-1587198
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, 88, claims the CIA may be withholding information about missing Malaysian Airline flight MH370. The politician made his comments on his personal blog, on which he also opined that the continuing search is futile and that too much blame has been placed on the Malaysian government and Malaysian Airlines. "It is a waste of time and money to look for debris or oil slicks or listen for 'pings' from the black box," Mahathir wrote. "Someone is hiding something. It is not fair that MAS [Malaysia Airlines] and Malaysia should take the blame. For some reason the media will not print anything that involves Boeing or the CIA." The Kuala Lumpur-based airline has come under heavy criticism in the wake of the MH370’s disappearance while en route from the Malaysian capital to Beijing, China, on March 8 with 239 passengers onboard. Early media reports suggested that the aircraft had crashed in the South China Sea or in the Strait of Malaca, or that it had been hijacked and flown north to a former Soviet state in Central Asia. However, more recent indications are that the Boeing 777 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. However, Mahathir doesn’t believe the aircraft crashed into the sea at all. "This is most likely not an ordinary crash after fuel was exhausted. The plane is somewhere, maybe without MAS markings," Mahathir wrote.
( ) Impossible to find – it’s buried under ocean sentiment.
Sandilands ‘14
***This is actually this guy’s last name *** – Ben Sandilands has been a reporter for more than 49 years at home and abroad and divided between Fairfax publications and the ABC and in recent times as a freelance writer, broadcaster, Crikey contributor and the author of its blog, Plane Talking. He became the last full time shipping cadet on The Sydney Morning Herald at the start of his career, and has closely followed transport issues, mainly in the airline sector – “MH370 Inmarsat says best guess crash site wasn’t searched” – Crickey – Plane Talking – June 17th – http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2014/06/17/mh370-inmarsat-says-best-guess-crash-site-wasnt-searched/
It may take two years. Success isn’t guaranteed, as the sea floor topography may have buried the wreckage under an avalanche of silt . For the Australian co-ordinated search, this is going to be an intensely difficult task, made so much harder by residual ambiguities and variables in satellite and aircraft performance data it has to rely upon.
( ) Searching in the wrong place – Pinger data was wrong.
Marsh ‘14
et al, Rene Marsh is CNN's aviation and government regulation correspondent, based in the network's Washington bureau. Internally quoting Michael Dean, the US Navy's deputy director of ocean engineering – “Navy official: Pings not thought to be from Flight 370's black boxes” – CNN – May 28, 2014 – http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-pinging/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
The four acoustic pings at the center of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 for the past seven weeks are no longer believed to have come from the plane's black boxes, a U.S. Navy official told CNN. The acknowledgment came Wednesday as searchers wrapped up the first phase of their effort, having scanned 329 square miles of southern Indian Ocean floor without finding any wreckage from the Boeing 777-200. Authorities now almost universally believe the pings did not come from the onboard data or cockpit voice recorders but instead came from some other man-made source unrelated to the jetliner that disappeared on March 8, according to Michael Dean, the Navy's deputy director of ocean engineering. If the pings had come from the recorders, searchers would have found them, he said. Dean said "yes" when asked if other countries involved in the search had reached the same conclusions. "Our best theory at this point is that (the pings were) likely some sound produced by the ship ... or within the electronics of the Towed Pinger Locator," Dean said. The pinger locator was used by searchers to listen for underwater signals. "Always your fear any time you put electronic equipment in the water is that if any water gets in and grounds or shorts something out, that you could start producing sound," Dean explained. He said it is not possible to absolutely exclude that the pings came from the black boxes, but there is no evidence now to suggest they did. However, a U.S. Navy spokesman called Dean's statement to CNN "speculative and premature." "I am not saying that what Michael Dean said was inaccurate," said spokesman Christopher Johnston, "but what we are saying is that it is not his place to say it." The Navy is continuing "to work with our partners to more thoroughly understand the data acquired by the Towed Pinger Locater," according to Johnson. "As such, we would defer to the Australians, as the lead in the search effort, to make additional information known at the appropriate time," Johnson said. Key role in search The pings have played a key role in shaping the search for the plane, which disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard.
Backline – can’t ever find the plane
( ) Search impossible – conditions make the plane too hard to locate.
Jacobs ‘14
Frank Jacobs is a London-based journalist, “MH370 and the Secrets of the Deep, Dark Southern Indian Ocean” – The Complex, maintained by Foreign Policy – MARCH 26, 2014 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/26/mh370_and_the_secrets_of_the_deep_dark_indian_ocean
The southern Indian Ocean is not only remote, but it has worse weather than just about any other place on the planet. Storms have hampered the search by grounding flights, reducing the usefulness of the handful of vessels in the area (including an Australian Navy ship and a Chinese icebreaker), and further dispersing and submerging much of the debris floating on the surface. Storms are the rule rather than the exception in this part of the world, plagued by the Roaring Forties -- the never-ending winds that howl around 40 degrees latitude south. The weather, combined with the fact that this zone, just north of Antarctica, is the only place where water can flow around the globe without hitting land, means that the waves are among the highest in the world. (Surfing is inadvisable.) That these are some of the deepest parts of the Indian Ocean, with a rugged and volcanic ocean floor, decreases the likelihood that the black boxes would be retrievable. All of which adds up to an almost impossible race against time: Those black boxes have limited battery life and will likely stop transmitting around April 7.
A-to “Inmarsat = search is in the right spot”
( ) Inmarsat data does not mean search is in the right area
Sun Daily ‘14
Internally quoting Duncan Steel, New Zealand-based space scientist and physicist, “Search for MH370 not getting more complicated, expert claims” – June 2nd, 2014 – http://www.thesundaily.my/news/1066103
An expert has said that the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, flight MH370 is not becoming more complicated and that the search and rescue (SAR) team was looking in the wrong area. New Zealand-based space scientist and physicist, Duncan Steel, made the remarks in an email interview with Bernama following the latest announcement by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which discounted the vicinity of acoustic signals detected previously. "They were never leads (the claimed acoustic detections). Having discounted them is a good thing, in that it enables other possibilities to be considered," said Steel, who is also a visiting Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham, England and a space scientist at NASA-Ames Research Centre in California, USA. According to him, the sonic pings in the Indian Ocean were obviously (to a physicist) not from the MH370 emergency locator beacon and that ATSB's announcement was entirely disconnected from the satellite-derived information. He believed that based on available information from the released raw data, it was most likely that the aircraft headed south at near 500 knots, and ended up much further south than the current search area. Steel lauded British satellite telecommunications company, Inmarsat for doing a good job of pulling out the data and analysing it, noting that the Inmarsat analysis was good. "However, that does not mean I am sure they are correct, because we have not been given vital information about the composition of the BFOs (Burst Frequency Offsets) and the modelling that Inmarsat performed.