my life

PETALING JAYA: A Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight bound for Bengaluru (Bangalore) which was forced to make a turn back, landed safely at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport early Monday.

                  MAS tweeted that the Boeing 737-200 aircraft landed at 1.56am, after a tyre in its right-hand landing gear burst during take off.

                  Earlier, MAS had issued a statement that Flight MH192, that departed from KLIA at 10.09pm bound for Bengaluru, had to make an air turn back.

                  It was scheduled to arrive in Bengaluru, India, at 11.35pm the same day.

                  The aircraft was carrying a total of 166 people, including 159 passengers and seven crew members.

                  MH192 has been re-timed to depart KLIA at 3.30pm Monday and arrive in Bengaluru at 5.00pm the same day.

                  All passengers are being accommodated at nearby hotels.

KAMPAR: Bukit Gelugor MP and veteran DAP leader Karpal Singh was killed when the car he was travelling in collided with a five-tonne lorry near Gua Tempurung on the North South Expressway here early Thursday.

                The impact of the crash at about 1am killed the prominent lawyer and his assistant, C Michael, on the spot. Karpal's son, Ramkarpal, and the car's driver, C Selvam, were injured.

                Karpal's Indonesian domestic helper was also injured and is in critical condition.

               He was on his way to Penang to attend a court case later in the day.

               In 2005, Karpal was involved in an accident which left him paralysed and wheelchair-bound. He was returning to his home in Penang when a car hit his taxi at the rear.

               Karpal graduated from University of Singapore and started his law practice before becoming a DAP politician in 1978.

              He recently stepped down as DAP chairman pending his appeal against a sedition charge of uttering seditious words against the Sultan of Perak in 2009.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A multi-story ferry carrying 459 people, mostly high school students on an overnight trip to a tourist island, sank off South Korea's southern coast Wednesday, leaving nearly 300 people missing despite a frantic, hours-long rescue by ships and helicopters. At least three people were confirmed dead and 55 injured.

                        The high number of people unaccounted for — likely trapped in the ship or floating in the ocean — raised fears that the death toll could rise drastically, making it one of South Korea's biggest ferry disasters since 1993 when 292 people died.

                        One student, Lim Hyung-min, told broadcaster YTN after being rescued that he and other students jumped into the ocean wearing life jackets and then swam to a nearby rescue boat.

                        "As the ferry was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another," Lim said, adding that some people were bleeding. Once he jumped, the ocean "was so cold. … I was hurrying, thinking that I wanted to live."

                        Local television stations broadcast live pictures of the ship, Sewol, listing to its side and slowly sinking even as passengers were jumping out or being winched up by helicopters. At least 87 vessels and 18 aircraft swarmed around the stricken ship. Rescuers clambered over its sides, pulling out passengers wearing orange life jackets. But the ship overturned completely and continued to sink slowly. Within a few hours only its blue-and-white bow was seen sticking out of the water. Very soon that too had disappeared.

                       Some 160 coast guard and navy divers searching for survivors inside the ship's wreckage, a few kilometers (miles) from the shore of Byeongpung Island, which is not too far from the mainland. The area is about 470 kilometers (290 miles) from Seoul.

                     Those rescued — wet and many without shoes — were brought to the nearby Jindo Island, where medical teams wrapped them in pink blankets and checked them for injuries before settling them down on the floor of a cavernous gymnasium hall.

                     The ship had set sail from Incheon, a city in the northern part of the country and the site of South Korea's main international airport, on Tuesday night for an overnight, 14-hour journey to the tourist island of Jeju.

                     About three hours from its destination, the ferry sent a distress call at about 9 a.m. local time Wednesday after it began listing to one side, according to the Ministry of Security and Public Administration. Officials didn't know what caused it to sink, and said the focus was still on rescuing survivors.

                    Lee Gyeong-og, a vice minister for South Korea's Public Administration and Security Ministry, said 30 crew members, 325 high school students, 15 school teachers and 89 non-student passengers were aboard the ship.

                    Kang Byung-kyu, a government minister, said the two dead are a female crew member and a male believed to be a student. A third body was found in the water but details were sketchy.

                    He said 164 people were rescued, of whom 55 were injured. He said 292 people were missing, likely either trap

IPOH: An express bus fell into a nine metre-deep ravine after veering off the North-South Expressway near Gua Tempurung in Gopeng.

                       Kampar OCPD Supt Ng Kong Soon said the driver of the Expres Konsortium bus was killed instantly while two passengers were left seriously injured as a result of the incident at KM301.5 of the expressway, at about 4.25pm on Monday.

                      Supt Ng said the injured victims, one man and one woman, were rushed to the Raja Permaisuri Bainun Hospital here for treatment.

                     The bus, he added, was heading north at the time of the incident.

                     "Initial investigations show that the bus driver could have lost control of the vehicle while trying to avoid a vehicle, which had skidded, in front of it.

                      "As far as we know, there were only three people onboard the bus.

                      "However, search and rescue efforts by the police and Fire and Rescue Department are still ongoing to ensure there are no other victims," said Supt Ng .

         

A new report suggests the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 made its first off-course turn to the west after a heading change was entered into the aircraft’s flight computer, a move that requires advanced knowledge of the plane’s flight systems

The missing Malaysia Airlines airliner first deviated from its set flight path following an entry into its flight computer, according to a new report.

The New York Times, citing “senior American officials,” reports Flight MH370’s first unexpected turn to the west was made “through a computer system” in the aircraft’s cockpit. That revelation is significant because changing the aircraft’s route via the flight computer requires a more intimate understanding of the Boeing 777’s flight systems than manually manipulating the control yoke to change heading.
                                 Commercial jets and other large aircraft typically travel the skies via a system of waypoints, each identified by a five-character code. Those waypoints are manually entered into an aircraft’s flight computer so the airplane’s autopilot system can fly the desired route. Pilots can insert new waypoints into an aircraft’s flight computer to change the aircraft’s course midflight if asked to do so by an air-traffic controller or for other reasons.

The Times report suggests that someone on board the aircraft did indeed enter a new waypoint into Flight MH370’s computer. However, it remains unclear whether the waypoint change was made before or after the flight began.

                           The Wall Street Journal reported last week that data from the aircraft indicated “someone made a manual change in the plane’s direction.” That report, though, didn’t specify whether someone on board the plane had made a change in the aircraft’s flight computer or used the aircraft’s yoke to change its direction.

                             Flight MH370 has been missing since disappearing from radar screens on March 8, triggering a huge search operation that currently involves 26 nations. Many theories have been considered to explain why the plane would go so drastically off course in the absence of much solid evidence.