MUMBAI, India : Malaysia Airlines, the operator of Flight MH370 that went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on Saturday, has established a record as one of the Asia-Pacific’s best full-service carriers in terms of safety and service despite some recent financial problems.
The Kuala Lumpur-based carrier competes with AirAsia domestically, and with the likes of AirAsia X , Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways and Cathay Pacific on international routes.
The airline, part of the Oneworld alliance that includes British Airways and Qantas, has 88 aircraft in its fleet, including Airbus A330s and A380s, and Boeing 777-200s and 737s, according to its website.
They include 15 777-200ERs, one of which was involved in Saturday’s disappearance. These aircraft are deployed on its long-range services within the Asia-Pacific and to Europe.
Its fleet of 777-200ERs has an average age of 14.2 years, according to airfleets.com, an authoritative website that tracks airline fleets, making it one of the oldest such fleets of 777-200s in the world.
Malaysia Airlines gave the registration number of the aircraft as 9M-MRO, indicating the plane is 11 years and eight months old. It was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines, an airline official confirmed by telephone from Kuala Lumpur.
It was unclear if the age of the plane had any bearing on its disappearance, given authorities were still trying to determine the flight’s presumed crash site in the South China Sea on Saturday.
The airline was set to order Airbus A330 or A350 aircraft to start replacing some of its older 777s from 2016, with the management having identified fleet replacement as a key plank of its plan to turn around the loss-making airline.
In February, the airline reported a net loss of 343.4 million ringgit ($104 million) for the three months ended December 2013, its fourth consecutive quarterly loss.
Its full-year loss of 1.17 billion ringgit was nearly three times higher than in 2012.
The last fatal incident involving a Malaysia Airlines aircraft took place on Sept. 15, 1995, when 34 people died after a Fokker 50 crashed on approach to Tawau, a town in the Eastern Malaysian state of Sabah.
Before that, in 1977, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737-200 crashed in Tanjung Kupang, in Johor state, killing all 100 people on board. That was the deadliest crash to date involving a Malaysian aircraft.
The Boeing 777 is the US plane maker’s most popular wide-body aircraft. The first models to be produced were the 777-200 in 1995 and the 777-200ER two years later, followed by the 777-300 in 1998. Boeing then produced the longer-range 777-300ER and 777-200LR variants in 2004 and 2006 respectively.
The Boeing 777-200ER has a range of 7,725 miles (14,305 km) and a cruising speed of Mach 0.84, or about 640 miles per hour, according to Boeing.
The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any commercial aircraft in service.
The first serious incident took place in January 2008, when a British Airways 777-200ER crash-landed just short of London’s Heathrow airport, injuring 45 people.
In July 2011, an Egypt Air 777-200ER had a fire in the cockpit while parked at a gate in Cairo and was evacuated without injuries.
Both aircraft were written off.
The only fatal crash so far came on July 6 last year when Asiana Airlines flight 214 struck a seawall on landing in San Francisco. Of 307 people aboard, three died and more than 180 were injured.
The crash investigation, while still ongoing, has so far indicated no mechanical failure and focused on the pilots’ failure to recognize that the plane was flying too low and too slowly as it approached the runway.
Malaysia Airlines has one of Asia’s best safety records
Malaysia Airlines has one of Asia’s best safety records
Denmark aims to limit shadow fleet of Russian oil tankers
- Russia sends about a third of its seaborne oil exports, or 1.5 percent of global supply, through the Danish straits
Russia sends about a third of its seaborne oil exports, or 1.5 percent of global supply, through the Danish straits that sit as a gateway to the Baltic Sea, so any attempt to halt supplies would send oil prices higher and hit the Kremlin’s finances.
Denmark has brought together a group of allied countries evaluating measures targeting the so-called shadow fleet of aging ships transporting the Russian oil, Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said.
NATO in talks to put nuclear weapons on standby, Stoltenberg tells UK’s Telegraph
- Jens Stoltenberg tells paper there are live consultations between members to use transparency around its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent
- ‘Transparency helps to communicate the direct message that we, of course, are a nuclear alliance’
LONDON: NATO is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons, taking them out of storage and placing them on standby, in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China, the head of the alliance said on Monday.
Jens Stoltenberg told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that there were live consultations between members to use transparency around its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent.
“I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” he told the paper.
“Transparency helps to communicate the direct message that we, of course, are a nuclear alliance.”
“NATO’s aim is, of course, a world without nuclear weapons, but as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will remain a nuclear alliance, because a world where Russia, China and North Korea have nuclear weapons, and NATO does not, is a more dangerous world.”
Stoltenberg said last week that nuclear weapons were NATO’s “ultimate security guarantee” and a means to preserve peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that Moscow could use nuclear weapons to defend itself in extreme circumstances. It accuses the US and its European allies of pushing the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation by giving Ukraine billions of dollars worth of weapons, some of which are being used against Russian territory.
NATO, which has taken on a greater role in coordinating arms supplies to Kyiv, rarely talks about weapons publicly, although it is known that the US has deployed nuclear bombs to several locations in Europe.
Afghan Taliban govt says to attend next round of UN talks in Doha
- Taliban government were not included in first set of talks, refused invitation to second round in February
- The talks in Doha are scheduled for June 30 and July 1 and have already been criticized by women’s groups
KABUL: Taliban authorities will attend the third round of United Nations-hosted talks on Afghanistan in the Qatari capital, a government spokesman said on Sunday, after snubbing an invitation to the previous round.
The Taliban government’s participation in the conference of foreign special envoys to Afghanistan had been in doubt after it was not included in the first set of talks and then refused an invitation to the second round in February.
“A delegation of the Islamic Emirate will participate in the coming Doha conference. They will represent Afghanistan there and express Afghanistan’s position,” Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.
The talks in Doha are scheduled for June 30 and July 1, and have already been criticized by women’s groups.
Mujahid told Afghan media on Sunday that a delegation — yet to be announced — would attend because the talks’ agenda appeared “beneficial to Afghanistan.”
The agenda includes “topics such as aid for Afghanistan and creating opportunities for investors in Afghanistan, which are important,” he said.
However, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi warned in a post on social media site X later on Sunday that “if there are any changes to the agenda and participation, it would naturally affect our decision” to attend.
Launched by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in May 2023, the series of talks aim to “increase international engagement with Afghanistan in a more coherent, coordinated and structured manner,” according to the UN.
Civil society groups that included women were invited to the February talks but the Taliban government refused to participate unless its members could be the sole representatives of Afghanistan.
It also requested to meet Guterres, who at the time said the set of conditions to participate “were not acceptable.”
In recent weeks, multiple UN representatives and international envoys have held meetings with the Taliban government on the next Doha talks, which Guterres will not attend.
Diplomatic sources told AFP there were plans to consult with Afghan civil society groups before and after the next talks, but that they would not take part in meetings that include the Taliban authorities.
The sources said the official meetings were due to cover finance and economic issues, as well as counternarcotics efforts.
Several civil society groups have urged the UN to prioritize women’s rights and include Afghan women.
“The world must provide platforms for the people and women of Afghanistan to discuss the future of their country,” Afghan women’s rights activist Hoda Khamosh, now based in Norway, told AFP.
“Still, they are not heard because the world is interacting anyway with the Taliban, even if they say they do not recognize them.”
The international community has wrestled with its approach to the Taliban government since it returned to power in 2021, still not officially recognized by any other state.
The Taliban government has imposed a strict interpretation of Islam, with women subjected to laws characterised by the UN as “gender apartheid.”
Human Rights Watch’s Associate Women’s Rights Director, Heather Barr, said the Taliban should not have been allowed to make demands on the conditions of the meetings considering their policies targeting women.
“It is unthinkable that diplomats could gather to discuss Afghanistan in the middle of such a crisis and do so without women’s rights being the main issue on the agenda and Afghan women being full participants in the discussion,” she told AFP.
Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, extended Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi an advance invitation to the talks during a visit to Afghanistan in May, a statement said.
A key element of the talks held in the Gulf state, which hosted the Taliban during years of peace talks with the United States, is a UN independent assessment on Afghanistan released late last year.
The assessment, backed by Western nations, suggested recognition of the Taliban authorities be tied to the removal of restraints on women’s rights and access to education.
It also recommends the appointment of a UN special envoy, which the Taliban government has rejected.
Seven killed as Indian passenger and goods trains collide
- Images on Indian broadcasters showed tangled wreckage of carriages flipped on their side
- India has one of the world’s largest rail networks and has seen several disasters over the years
KOLKATA: At least seven people were killed when an express passenger train and a goods train collided Monday in India’s West Bengal state, derailing three passenger carriages, police said.
Images on Indian broadcasters showed the tangled wreckage of carriages flipped on their side, and one thrust high into the air precariously balanced on another.
Police said rescuers were scouring the twisted carriages in case there were more bodies trapped beneath.
“We have confirmation of seven deaths and 39 passengers admitted at a local hospital with various injuries,” local police officer Iftikar-Ul-Hassan told AFP.
The incident is the latest to hit India’s creaking rail network, which carries millions of passengers each day.
“We just saw the bodies of a dead driver and a guard... their bodies were taken out,” Rajesh Kumar Singh, from the Railway Protection Force, told AFP.
“Some more bodies may be under the crash site, but we don’t yet know for sure.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to “those who lost their loved ones,” in a post on social media, adding that “rescue operations are underway.”
West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called the crash “tragic” in a post on social media.
“Doctors, ambulances and disaster teams have been rushed to the site for rescue, recovery, medical assistance,” Banerjee said. “Action on war footing initiated.”
Banerjee said the crash took place in the Phansidewa area of Darjeeling district, when the Kanchenjunga Express train was hit by a goods train.
Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the “injured are being shifted to the hospital.”
India has one of the world’s largest rail networks and has seen several disasters over the years, the worst in 1981 when a train derailed while crossing a bridge in Bihar state, killing an estimated 800 people.
In June last year, a three-train collision killed nearly 300 people in Odisha state.
In recent years, India has been investing huge sums of money to upgrade the network with modern stations and electronic signalling systems.
On Sunday, a train crossed for the first time the world’s highest railway bridge — 359 meters (1178 feet) above a river — in India’s Himalayan region, the railways minister Vaishnaw said.
The arch-shaped steel structure over the Chenab River links sections of northern Jammu and Kashmir state, connecting the disputed territory to the rest of India.
Work on the railway track has been ongoing for nearly three decades, and the trial run comes ahead of a formal opening expected within weeks.
Strong winds, steep terrain hamper crews battling Los Angeles area’s first major fire of the year
- Los Angeles County’s first major wildfire of the year swiftly grew to nearly 60 square kilometers
- The blaze, dubbed the Post Fire, was just two percent contained Sunday evening
GORMAN, California: Strong winds pushed flames through dry brush in mountains along Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles on Sunday, and officials warned residents in the wildfire’s path to be prepared to leave if it explodes in size again.
Los Angeles County’s first major wildfire of the year swiftly grew to nearly 23 square miles (60 square kilometers), one day after it forced the evacuation of at least 1,200 campers, off-roaders and hikers from the Hungry Valley recreation area.
The blaze, dubbed the Post Fire, was just 2 percent contained Sunday evening. No injuries were reported. The cause was under investigation.
Firefighters working in sweltering conditions and steep terrain raced to douse spot fires that erupted as unpredictable winds blew embers ahead of the flames, said Kenichi Haskett, a section chief for the LA County Fire Department. The gusts also hampered efforts by aircraft crews to drop water and fire retardant, he said.
“When it’s windy, it just sprays the water everywhere we don’t need it. So that’s a challenge,” Haskett said.
Meanwhile in Northern California, a small wildfire sparked Sunday prompted evacuation orders and warnings for a sparsely populated area near Lake Sonoma. The so-called Point Fire sent up a huge plume of dark smoke as it churned through brush and timber about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of San Francisco. It was 15 percent contained.
The Southern California fire erupted Saturday afternoon near I-5 in Gorman, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles. Two structures burned within the evacuated recreation area.
Flames were moving toward Pyramid Lake, a popular destination for boaters that was closed as a precaution on Father’s Day. No houses were threatened Sunday, but officials warned residents of Castaic, home to about 19,000 people, that they should prepare to leave if the fire pushes further south.
“If you’re in a warning area, be prepared with a ‘go bag,’ with overnight clothes and your cellphone, your medicines, your glasses. Have your car fueled up,” said Haskett. “Be ready to evacuate.”
Low humidity and gusts around 50 mph (80 kph) were expected throughout the day, and winds could pick up speed after sundown, warned the National Weather Service office for Los Angeles.
About 75 miles (120 kilometers) to the east, the nearly 2-square-mile (5-square-kilometer) Hesperia Fire forced road closures and prompted evacuation warnings after it broke out Saturday near mountain communities in San Bernardino County. The blaze was 19 percent contained Sunday evening.
