Ten years on, Jiang Hui still hopes he will one day find the answer to what happened when his mother disappeared in 2014. “My mother was a very normal person. She came from a working-class family. She was very resilient, persistent,” says Jiang, 50, from Beijing. His mother, Jiang Cuiyun, was a 72-year-old retired picture editor and had just been on a holiday in Malaysia. She was one of 153 Chinese citizens onboard flight MH370. Jiang now tries to embody those tenacious qualities of his mother in his decade-long search…
Tag: Air transport
MH370: one of aviation’s biggest mysteries remains unsolved 10 years on
Shortly after midnight on 8 March 2014, a Boeing 777 heaved into the air from Kuala Lumpur and climbed steadily to its assigned cruising altitude of 35,000ft. After being instructed to switch frequencies to Vietnamese air traffic control, the pilot replied in the polite but methodical manner that is common in radio calls: “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero.” It was the last message that would ever be received from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. A decade has passed since the plane veered wildly off course during a routine flight to…
Timeline of the search for MH370 – a visual guide
Since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in 2014, countless hours have been spent scouring vast swathes of the Indian Ocean to locate the wreckage, using search aircraft and surface vessels equipped with the latest technology. The three official investigations launched by Malaysia and Australia, piecing together evidence from as far away as Mozambique, have so far failed to prove conclusively what happened to the missing flight. Below is a timeline of the search, from the moments of hope when pieces of debris were discovered, to the devastation after…
North Korea abruptly cancels first post-Covid international commercial flight
North Korea’s national airline’s first commercial flight since it largely closed itself off from the world in early 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic has been abruptly cancelled. Journalists gathered on Monday at Beijing’s Capital international airport to await Air Koryo flight JS151 from Pyongyang, due to arrive at 9.50am. But almost two hours after its scheduled arrival, the arrivals board in the terminal showed it as cancelled, prompting groans of disappointment from media waiting to see some of the isolated North’s first international travellers in years. Beijing airport…
China’s first domestically produced passenger jet makes maiden commercial flight
China’s first domestically produced passenger jet took off on its maiden commercial flight on Sunday, a milestone event in the nation’s decades-long effort to compete with western rivals in the air. Beijing hopes the C919 commercial jetliner will challenge foreign models like the Boeing 737 MAX and the Airbus A320, though many of its parts are sourced from abroad. Its first homegrown jetliner with mass commercial potential would also cut the country’s reliance on foreign technology as ties with the West deteriorate. “In the future, most passengers will be able…
Qantas pilots told to fly through radio interference reportedly coming from Chinese warships
Qantas has told pilots to fly through radio interference and GPS jamming reportedly coming from Chinese warships in Asia Pacific. In standing orders issued to pilots, Qantas says that some aircraft have experienced interference on VHF channels “purporting to represent the Chinese military” and GPS jamming from ships “off the north-west shelf of Australia”. But the orders added that the interference had not caused any safety problems and that pilots should report any incidents to air traffic control. It comes after the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA)…
Wrath and awe: a short history of balloons and their power to fire up mob fury | Jeff Sparrow
On 16 December 1784 – barely a year after the first crewed flight – a British cartoonist published a sketch entitled The Battle of the Balloons, depicting airships belonging to the leading powers of the day firing cannons at each other from among the clouds. In his book Falling Upwards, Richard Holmes adduces the drawing as evidence of the intimate relationship between balloons and military competition, with, for instance, the first French company of aeronauts formed on the remarkably early date of 29 March 1794. Today we might contemplate another…
Heathrow has busiest start to year since before Covid lockdowns
Heathrow airport had its busiest start to the year since before the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns in 2020 as travel restrictions continued to ease, according to data published on Monday. More than 5.4 million passengers travelled through the UK’s and Europe’s busiest airport in January, double the 2.6 million from 2022, Heathrow said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange. In January 2020 the airport had recorded its best ever start to the year, with 6.1 million passengers, despite early signs that the virus was spreading rapidly from China, where…
Rishi Sunak to impose Covid tests on travellers from China in U-turn
Rishi Sunak has performed a major U-turn by imposing Covid checks on travellers from China from 5 January, after criticism from a growing number of Conservative MPs over his “dithering”. After a series of seemingly mixed messages about whether the UK would follow the lead of Spain, Italy, Israel, the US and India in screening arrivals, the prime minister backed the move to bring the UK into line with its allies in a change of policy on Friday. The UK Health Security Agency will also initiate surveillance from 8 January,…
All 132 people on board crashed China Eastern plane confirmed dead
All 132 people on board the plane that crashed into a mountainside in southern China this week have been confirmed dead, the country’s civil aviation authority has said. Dozens of victims’ relatives have been waiting for days as rescue teams combed heavily forested slopes for plane debris and signs of survivors from Monday’s crash near the city of Wuzhou in Guangxi province. “All 123 passengers and nine crew members of flight MU5735 of China Eastern airlines have been killed on board on 21 March,” Hu Zhenjiang, deputy director general of…