Misplaced Pages

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114-477: Fugro took delivery of the ship on 27 July 2012. She is the third specially-designed, dedicated survey vessel delivered to Fugro and was planned to serve in the Asia-Pacific region. The ship was contracted to conduct a bathymetric survey in the southern Indian Ocean during the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 . The survey was needed to produce a bathymetric map of the sea floor of the search area, which

228-526: A towed pinger locator (TPL), joined China's Haixun 01 , equipped with a hand-held hydrophone, and the Royal Navy's HMS Echo , equipped with a hull-mounted hydrophone, in the search. Operators considered the effort to have little chance of success given the vast search area and the fact that a TPL can only search up to 130 km (50 sq mi) per day. Between 4 and 8 April, several acoustic detections were made that were close to

342-608: A 19-per cent stake in SkyWave Mobile Communications Inc., a provider of Inmarsat D+/IsatM2M network services which in turn purchased the GlobalWave business from TransCore. Inmarsat won the 2010 MacRobert Award for its Broadband Global Area Network ( BGAN ) service. Inmarsat at first provided services using Marisat and MARECS , which were launched by the US Navy and ESA respectively. In

456-474: A 2007 agreement with Malaysia Airlines, Tzu Chi (an international Buddhist organisation) immediately sent specially trained teams to Beijing and Malaysia to give emotional assistance to passengers' families. The airline also sent its own team of caregivers and volunteers and agreed to bear the expense of bringing family members of the passengers to Kuala Lumpur and providing them with accommodation, medical care, and counselling. Altogether, 115 family members of

570-601: A 60 nmi (110 km; 69 mi) range made four detections of an unidentified aircraft between 01:30:37 and 01:52:35; the tracks of the unidentified aircraft are "consistent with those of the military data". At 01:52, Flight 370 was detected passing just south of the island of Penang. From there, the aircraft flew across the Strait of Malacca, passing close to the waypoint VAMPI, and Pulau Perak at 02:03, after which it flew along air route N571 to waypoints MEKAR, NILAM, and possibly IGOGU. The last known radar detection, from

684-476: A commercial agreement with Inmarsat. Advanced services are provided via distribution partners but the satellite gateways are owned and operated by Inmarsat directly. The "BGAN Family" is a set of IP-based shared-carrier services: The "BGAN M2M Family" is a set of IP-based services designed for long-term machine-to-machine management of fixed assets: The company offers portable and fixed phone services: These are based on older technologies: On 30 June 2008,

798-404: A distress signal, indications of bad weather, or technical problems before the aircraft vanished. Two passengers travelling on stolen passports were investigated, but eliminated as suspects. Malaysian police identified the captain as the prime suspect if human intervention was the cause of the disappearance, after clearing all others on the flight of suspicion over possible motives. Power was lost to

912-504: A hybrid satellite/terrestrial network. It was built by Thales Alenia Space and launched in 2017. The complementary ground network consists of around 300 LTE base stations constructed by Deutsche Telekom . The European Aviation Network faced legal challenges as of 2018 , including one from Viasat alleging unfair bidding practices and a misuse of spectrum and a ruling by the Belgian telecommunications regulator revoking permission for

1026-452: A level where they are comparable to, and in many cases lower than, international roaming costs, or hotel phone calls. Voice call charges are the same for any location in the world where the service is used. Tariffs for calls to Inmarsat country codes vary, depending on the country in which they are placed. Inmarsat primarily uses country code 870 (see below). Newer Inmarsat services use an IP technology that features an always-on capability where

1140-611: A minor incident while taxiing at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in August 2012 resulted in a broken wing tip . Its last maintenance "A check" was carried out on 23 February 2014. The aircraft was in compliance with all applicable Airworthiness Directives for the airframe and engines. A replenishment of the crew member oxygen system was performed on 7 March 2014, a routine maintenance task; an examination of this procedure found nothing unusual. Ten years after MH370's disappearance, however, leaked documents have shown that MH370

1254-468: A move of the search 1,100 km (590 nmi; 680 mi) northeast of the previous area on 28 March, which was followed by another shift on 4 April. Between 2 and 17 April, an effort was made to detect the underwater locator beacons (ULBs, informally known as "pingers") attached to the aircraft's flight recorders , because the beacons' batteries were expected to expire around 7 April. Australian naval cutter ADV Ocean Shield , equipped with

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1368-567: A point near the limits of Malaysian military radar, was at 02:22, 10 nmi (19 km; 12 mi) after passing waypoint MEKAR (which is 237 nmi (439 km; 273 mi) from Penang) and 247.3 nmi (458.0 km; 284.6 mi) northwest of Penang airport at an altitude of 29,500 ft (9,000 m). Countries were reluctant to release information collected from military radar because of sensitivity about revealing their capabilities. Indonesia has an early-warning radar system, but its ATC radar did not register any aircraft with

1482-400: A public service. Services include traditional voice calls, low-level data tracking systems, and high-speed Internet and other data services as well as distress and safety services. The Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) network provides General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) - type services at up to 800 kbit/s at a latency of 900-1100 ms via an Internet Protocol (IP) satellite modem

1596-556: A range of governments, aid agencies , media outlets and businesses (especially in the shipping, airline and mining industries) with a need to communicate in remote regions or where there is no reliable terrestrial network. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Connect Bidco, a consortium consisting of Apax Partners , Warburg Pincus , the CPP Investment Board and

1710-533: A repetition of the circumstances associated with the loss. These include increased battery life on underwater locator beacons , lengthening of recording times on flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders , and new standards for aircraft position reporting over open ocean. Malaysia had supported 58% of the total cost, Australia 32%, and China 10%. The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER operated by Malaysia Airlines, last made voice contact with ATC at 01:19  MYT , 8 March (17:19  UTC , 7 March) when it

1824-785: A search for the submarine HMAS AE1 lost in 1914, possibly due to a diving accident, off the Duke of York Islands . This expedition was funded by the Commonwealth Government and the Silentworld Foundation with additional assistance from the Submarine Institute of Australia and the Australian National Maritime Museum . As a result of this effort, the submarine was found at a depth of 300 metres (980 ft) and

1938-700: A significant expansion of Inmarsat's commercial operations in the aviation markets. In 2017, Inmarsat launched its first S-band satellite, intended to provide (in association with an LTE ground network) inflight internet access across Europe. In March 2018, Inmarsat partnered with Isotropic Systems to develop a state-of-the-art, all electronic scanning antenna intended to be used with the Global Xpress network. On 20 September 2018, Inmarsat announced its strategic collaboration with Panasonic Avionics Corporation for an initial ten-year period, to provide in-flight broadband for commercial airlines. Inmarsat will be

2052-537: A statement regarding Flight 370, during which he announced that he had been briefed by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch that it and Inmarsat (the satellite data provider) had concluded that the airliner's last position before it disappeared was in the southern Indian Ocean. As no places exist where it could have landed, the aircraft must therefore have crashed into the sea. Just before Najib spoke at 22:00 MYT, an emergency meeting

2166-614: A three-year search across 120,000 km (46,000 sq mi) of ocean failed to locate the aircraft, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre heading the operation suspended its activities in January 2017. A second search launched in January 2018 by private contractor Ocean Infinity also ended without success after six months. Relying mostly on the analysis of data from the Inmarsat satellite with which

2280-422: Is not known at what time the last radar contact was made, and the signal did not include identifying data. Also, the flight was not detected by Australia's conventional system or its long-range JORN over-the-horizon radar system, which has an official range of 3,000 km (1,900 mi); the latter was not in operation on the night of the disappearance. Sometime after the final ACARS transmission at 01:06,

2394-408: Is renowned for its strong winds , inhospitable climate, hostile seas, and deep ocean floors. Satellite imagery of the region was analysed; several objects of interest and two possible debris fields were identified on images made between 16 and 26 March. None of these possible objects were found by aircraft or ships. Revised estimates of the radar track and the aircraft's remaining fuel led to

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2508-438: Is that Flight 370 crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean sometime between 08:19 and 09:15 on 8 March due to fuel exhaustion, although the exact time and location of the crash remains uncertain. At 01:38 MYT, Ho Chi Minh Area Control Centre (ACC) contacted Kuala Lumpur Area Control Centre to query the whereabouts of Flight 370 and informed Kuala Lumpur that ACC had not established verbal communication with Flight 370, which

2622-553: The European Commission selected two operators, Inmarsat Ventures and Solaris Mobile, giving these operators "the right to use the specific radio frequencies identified in the Commission's decision and the right to operate their respective mobile satellite systems". EU Member States now have to ensure that the two operators have the right to use the specific radio frequencies identified in the commission's decision and

2736-717: The European Parliament and the European Council adopted the European's Decision to establish a single selection and authorisation process (ESAP – European S-band Application Process) to ensure a coordinated introduction of mobile satellite services (MSS) in Europe. The late 2008 selection process attracted four applications by prospective operators ( ICO Global Communications (ICO), Inmarsat, Solaris Mobile ( EchoStar Mobile ), and TerreStar ). In May 2009,

2850-819: The International Maritime Organization (IMO)—the United Nations maritime body—and pursuant to the Convention on the International Maritime Satellite Organization, signed by 28 countries in 1976. The organisation was created to establish and operate a satellite communications network for the maritime community. In coordination with the International Civil Aviation Organization in the 1980s,

2964-632: The Kuda Huvadhoo atoll in the Maldives saw the missing airliner. A fisherman claimed to have seen an unusually low-flying aircraft off the coast of Kota Bharu , while an oil-rig worker 186 miles (299 km) southeast of Vung Tau claimed he saw a "burning object" in the sky that morning, a claim credible enough for the Vietnamese authorities to send a search-and-rescue mission, and Indonesian fishermen reported witnessing an aircraft crash near

3078-621: The Malacca Straits . Three months later, the Phuket Gazette reported that a British woman sailing in the Indian Ocean claimed to have seen an aircraft on fire. A search-and-rescue effort was launched in southeast Asia soon after the disappearance of Flight 370. Following the initial analysis of communications between the aircraft and a satellite, the surface search was moved to the southern Indian Ocean one week after

3192-549: The Malay Peninsula and Andaman Sea . It left radar range 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) northwest of Penang Island in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia . With all 227 passengers and 12 crew aboard presumed dead , the disappearance of Flight 370 was the deadliest incident involving a Boeing 777 , the deadliest of 2014, and the deadliest in Malaysia Airlines' history until it

3306-578: The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan , in December 2019. On 8 November 2021, a deal was announced between Inmarsat's owners and Viasat , in which Viasat was to purchase Inmarsat. The acquisition was completed in May 2023. The present company originates from the International Maritime Satellite Organization (INMARSAT), a non-profit intergovernmental organisation established in 1979 at the behest of

3420-667: The Strait of Malacca . On 12 March, the chief of the Royal Malaysian Air Force announced that an unidentified aircraft—believed to be Flight 370—had travelled across the Malay peninsula and was last sighted on military radar 370 km (200 nmi; 230 mi) northwest of the island of Penang; search efforts were subsequently increased in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. Records of signals sent between

3534-471: The 227 passengers, 153 were Chinese citizens, including a group of 19 artists with six family members and four staff returning from a calligraphy exhibition of their work in Kuala Lumpur ; 38 passengers were Malaysian. The remaining passengers were from 12 different countries. Twenty passengers, 12 of whom were from Malaysia and eight from China, were employees of Freescale Semiconductor . Through

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3648-534: The Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission. The satellites carrying the Inmarsat payload were to be manufactured by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS). Launch for GX-10A and 10B was scheduled for 2022. At the end of 2015, Inmarsat ordered two sixth generation satellites from Airbus . These satellites planned to offer both Ka- and L-band payloads and additional capacity to the existing BGAN and Global Xpress networks. In 2017, it

3762-862: The Chinese passengers flew to Kuala Lumpur. Some other family members chose to remain in China, fearing they would feel too isolated in Malaysia. Flight 370 was a scheduled flight in the early morning of Saturday, 8 March 2014, from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China. It was one of two daily flights operated by Malaysia Airlines from its hub at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to Beijing Capital International Airport —scheduled to depart at 00:35 local time (MYT; UTC+08:00 ) and arrive at 06:30 local time (CST; UTC+08:00). On board were two pilots, 10 cabin crew, 227 passengers, and 14,296 kg (31,517 lb) of cargo. The planned flight duration

3876-525: The Earth's surface, apart from the poles. Overall, global beam coverage extends from latitudes of −82 to +82° regardless of longitude. Each regional beam covers a fraction of the area covered by a global beam, but collectively all of the regional beams offer virtually the same coverage as the global beams. Use of regional beams allow user terminals (also called mobile earth stations) to operate with significantly smaller antennas. Regional beams were introduced with

3990-635: The Global Xpress network. Trials of new technologies demonstrated bandwidths of 330 Mbit/s over the existing Global Xpress network, far in excess of the existing 50 Mbit/s. Polar Coverage To provide GX coverage to the users in the Arctic region , Inmarsat plans to improve GlobalXpress connectivity to above 65° North. Two high-capacity, multi-beam payloads GX-10A and GX-10B were planned in Highly elliptical orbits (HEO) for reliable coverage. Inmarsat worked in partnership with Space Norway HEOSAT in

4104-522: The I-3 satellites. Each I-3 satellite provides four to six spot beams; each I-4 satellite provides 19 regional beams. Narrow beams are offered by the three Inmarsat-4 satellites. Narrow beams vary in size, tend to be several hundred kilometres across. The narrow beams, while much smaller than the global or regional beams, are far more numerous and hence offer the same global coverage. Narrow spot beams allow yet smaller antennas and much higher data rates. They form

4218-558: The Kuala Lumpur Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre (ARCC) at 05:30, more than four hours after communication was lost with Flight 370. The ARCC is a command post at an Area Control Centre that coordinates search-and-rescue activities when an aircraft is lost. Malaysia Airlines issued a media statement at 07:24 MYT on 8 March, one hour after the scheduled arrival time of the flight at Beijing, stating that communication with

4332-642: The Malaysian military's primary radar showed Flight 370 turning right, but then beginning a left turn to a southwesterly direction. From 01:30:35 until 01:35, military radar showed Flight 370 at 35,700 ft (10,900 m) on a 231° magnetic heading, with a ground speed of 496 knots (919 km/h; 571 mph). Flight 370 continued across the Malay Peninsula, fluctuating between 31,000 and 33,000 ft (9,400 and 10,100 m) in altitude. A civilian primary radar at Sultan Ismail Petra Airport with

4446-555: The Norwegian ship Seabed Constructor . The search area was significantly extended during the course of the search, and by the end of May 2018, the vessel had searched a total area of more than 112,000 km (43,000 sq mi) using eight autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The contract with the Malaysian government ended soon afterward, and the search was concluded without success on 9 June 2018. The Kuala Lumpur Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre (ARCC)

4560-477: The South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand, and Strait of Malacca in order to focus their efforts on the two corridors. The northern arc—from northern Thailand to Kazakhstan—was soon discounted, for the aircraft would have had to pass through heavily militarised airspace, and those countries claimed that their military radar would have detected an unidentified aircraft entering their airspace. The emphasis of

4674-433: The South China Sea, not the Indian Ocean where Flight 370 presumably crashed). The time when contact was lost was later corrected to 01:21. Neither the crew nor the aircraft's communication systems relayed a distress signal , indications of bad weather, or technical problems before the aircraft vanished from radar screens. On 24 March, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak appeared before media at 22:00 local time to give

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4788-601: The ULB attached to Flight 370's flight data recorder may have expired in December 2012 and thus may not have been as capable of sending signals as would an unexpired battery. Inmarsat Inmarsat is a British satellite telecommunications company, offering global mobile services. It provides telephone and data services to users worldwide, via portable or mobile terminals which communicate with ground stations through fifteen geostationary telecommunications satellites . Inmarsat's network provides communications services to

4902-468: The US$ 6 ;billion sale, in which it was accused of ignoring a potential boost to the company's value. Oaktree argued that the recommended offer for Inmarsat failed to take account of the potential value of spectrum assets used by Inmarsat's U.S. partner Ligado. Inmarsat delisted from London Stock Exchange, as the private equity funds took control of the company, on 5 December 2019; at the time, Inmarsat

5016-555: The aircraft . In March 2019 the company's board agreed to recommend a takeover offer of US$ 3.4 billion from Connect Bidco, a consortium consisting of Apax Partners , Warburg Pincus , the CPP Investment Board and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan . On 9 October 2019, Bloomberg reported that the UK government was set to approve the takeover with the final consultation for the deal set to conclude on 24 October 2019. In November 2019, Inmarsat rejected an eleventh-hour effort to derail

5130-484: The aircraft and a communications satellite over the Indian Ocean revealed that the plane had continued flying for almost six hours after its final sighting on Malaysian military radar. Initial analysis of these communications determined that Flight 370 was along one of two arcs—equidistant from the satellite—when its last signal was sent. On 15 March, the same day upon which the analysis was disclosed publicly, authorities announced that they would abandon search efforts in

5244-553: The aircraft last communicated, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) initially proposed that a hypoxia event was the most likely cause given the available evidence, although no consensus has been reached among investigators concerning this theory. At various stages of the investigation, possible hijacking scenarios were considered, including crew involvement, and suspicion of the airplane's cargo manifest; many disappearance theories regarding

5358-411: The aircraft other than some marine debris on the coast of Africa. The final ATSB report, published on 17 October 2017, stated that the underwater search for the aircraft, as of 30 June 2017 , had cost a total of US$ 155 million (~$ 190 million in 2023). The underwater search accounted for 86% of this amount, bathymetry 10%, and programme management 4%. Malaysia had supported 58% of

5472-419: The aircraft was flying at its assigned cruise altitude of flight level 350 and was travelling at 471 knots (872 km/h; 542 mph) true airspeed . There were few clouds around this point, and no rain or lightning nearby. Later analysis estimated that Flight 370 had 41,500 kg (91,500 lb) of fuel when it disappeared from secondary radar. At the time that the transponder stopped functioning,

5586-503: The aircraft's satellite data unit (SDU) at some point between 01:07 and 02:03; the SDU logged onto Inmarsat's satellite communication network at 02:25, which was three minutes after the aircraft had left the range of radar. Based on analysis of the satellite communications, the aircraft was postulated to have turned south after passing north of Sumatra and then to have flown for six hours with little deviation in its track, ending when its fuel

5700-508: The aircraft's satellite data unit remained in contact with Inmarsat's ground station in Perth via the IOR satellite (Indian Ocean Region, 64° East). The aircraft used Inmarsat's Classic Aero satellite phone service. Analysis of these communications by Inmarsat and independently by other agencies determined that the aircraft flew into the southern Indian Ocean and was used to guide the search for

5814-619: The aircraft's satellite data unit . At 01:20:31 MYT, Flight 370 was observed on radar at the Kuala Lumpur ACC as it passed the navigational waypoint IGARI ( 6°56′12″N 103°35′6″E  /  6.93667°N 103.58500°E  / 6.93667; 103.58500  ( Waypoint IGARI ) ) in the Gulf of Thailand ; five seconds later, the Mode-S symbol disappeared from radar screens. At 01:21:13, Flight 370 disappeared from

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5928-403: The aircraft's disappearance. Between 18 March and 28 April, 19 vessels and 345 sorties by military aircraft searched over 4,600,000 km (1,800,000 sq mi). The final phase of the search was a bathymetric survey and sonar search of the sea floor, about 1,800 kilometres (970 nmi; 1,100 mi) southwest of Perth, Western Australia. With effect from 30 March 2014,

6042-411: The aircraft, which was to become the most expensive aviation search in history, began in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, where the aircraft's signal was last detected on secondary surveillance radar , and was soon extended to the Strait of Malacca and Andaman Sea. Analysis of satellite communications between the aircraft and Inmarsat's satellite communications network concluded that

6156-458: The airline was renationalised by the end of 2014. The Malaysian government received significant criticism, especially from China, for failing to disclose information promptly during the early weeks of the search. Flight 370's disappearance brought to public attention the limits of aircraft tracking and flight recorders, including the limited battery life of underwater locator beacons (an issue that had been raised about four years earlier following

6270-608: The backbone of Inmarsat's handheld ( GSPS ) and broadband services ( BGAN ). This coverage was introduced with the I-4 satellites. Each I-4 satellite provides around 200 narrow spot beams. The Inmarsat I-5 satellites provide global coverage using four geostationary satellites. Each satellite supports 89 beams, giving a total coverage of approximately one-third of the Earth's surface per satellite. In addition, 6 steerable beams are available per satellite, which may be moved to provide higher capacity to selected locations. On 26 November 2019,

6384-528: The coast of Africa and on Indian Ocean islands off the coast of Africa—the first of which was discovered on 29 July 2015 on Réunion —have been confirmed as pieces of Flight 370. The bulk of the aircraft has not been located, prompting many theories about its disappearance. In January 2018, a search by private US marine exploration company Ocean Infinity began in the search zone around 35°36′S 92°48′E  /  35.6°S 92.8°E  / -35.6; 92.8  ( CSIRO crash area ) ,

6498-473: The competitive nature of the satellite communications industry, while many recognised the need to maintain the organisation's older systems and the need for an intergovernmental organisation to oversee public safety aspects of satellite communication networks. In 1998, an agreement was reached to modify INMARSAT's mission as an intergovernmental organisation and separate and privatise the organisation's operational business, with public safety obligations attached to

6612-467: The convention governing INMARSAT was amended to include improvements to aeronautical communications, notably for public safety. The member states owned varying shares of the operational business. The main offices were originally located in the Euston Tower , Euston Road, London. In the mid-1990s, many member states were unwilling to invest in improvements to INMARSAT's network, especially owing to

6726-516: The crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 in 2013, in which three people died; Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 , which was shot down over Ukraine , killing all 298 people aboard in July 2014; Emirates Flight 521 , which crashed and burned out while landing at Dubai International Airport in August 2016; and in November 2017, the seventh Boeing 777 hull loss occurred when a Singapore Airlines 777-200ER

6840-532: The deadliest involving a Boeing 777, surpassing Asiana Airlines Flight 214 (three fatalities). In both of those categories, Flight 370 was surpassed 131 days later by Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 , another Boeing 777-200ER, which was shot down on 17 July 2014, killing all 298 people aboard. The news media reported several sightings of an aircraft fitting the description of the missing Boeing 777. For example, on 19 March 2014, CNN reported that witnesses including fishermen, an oil rig worker, and people on

6954-677: The destination Inmarsat terminal is logged-in. SNAC is now usable by all Inmarsat services. Country codes phased out on 31 December 2008 were Since 18 July 2017, Inmarsat users using the service provided by China Transport Telecommunication & Information Center may apply for 11 digits Chinese mobile phone numbers starting with 1749. An international call function is not required when making phone calls to such numbers from Mainland China . Inmarsat networks provide existing, evolved, and advanced services. Existing and evolved services are offered through land Earth stations which are not owned nor operated by Inmarsat, but through companies which have

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7068-633: The early 1990s Inmarsat launched its first dedicated satellite constellation , Inmarsat-2. These satellites provided the Inmarsat-A service for maritime uses. Between 1996 and 1998 Inmarsat's second constellation, Inmarsat-3, was launched. Consisting of five geostationary L-band satellites the constellation provides the Inmarsat-B and Inmarsat-C services, primarily providing low bandwidth communications and safety services for global shipping. Following privatisation in 1999 Inmarsat developed and launched

7182-457: The exclusive provider of Panasonic for connectivity using the Ka-band satellite signal. Inmarsat will now be offering Panasonic's portfolio of services to its commercial aviation customers. In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. After turning away from its planned path and disappearing from radar coverage,

7296-630: The first satellite communications system offering global coverage, BGAN. This service was provided initially through the three Inmarsat-4 satellite launched between 2005 and 2008, and was then extended with the addition of Alphasat in 2013. In the 2010s, Inmarsat began development of the High Throughput Satellite (HTS) constellation Global Xpress , operating in the Ka-band portion of the spectrum. Global Xpress, launched in 2015, offers global satellite capacity to various markets including shipping and aviation. Global Xpress also marks

7410-405: The first satellite to extend the original 4 satellite first generation Global Xpress constellation was launched from Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) by an Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Transferred from 25° East to 63° East in mid-2015 The permanent telephone country code for calling Inmarsat destinations is: The 870 number is an automatic locator; it is not necessary to know to which satellite

7524-426: The flight have also been reported by the media. The Malaysian Ministry of Transport 's final report from July 2018 was inconclusive. It highlighted Malaysian ATC's fruitless attempts to communicate with the aircraft shortly after its disappearance. In the absence of a definitive cause of disappearance, air transport industry safety recommendations and regulations citing Flight 370 have been implemented to prevent

7638-430: The flight continued until at least 08:19 (nearly an hour after Malaysia Airlines publicly announced the plane's loss) and flew south into the southern Indian Ocean, although the precise location cannot be determined. Australia assumed charge of the search on 17 March, when the search effort began to emphasise the southern Indian Ocean. On 24 March, the Malaysian government noted that the final location determined by

7752-425: The flight had been lost by Malaysian ATC at 02:40 and that the government had initiated search-and-rescue operations. Unbeknownst to investigators or Malaysia Airlines at the time, Flight 370 was still airborne at the time of this initial media statement, and search-and-rescue operations were commenced while the plane was still in flight over the Indian Ocean (albeit the search-and-rescue operations initially focused on

7866-879: The flight was on the ground and that the Captain communicated with ATC after departure. Shortly after departure, the flight was transferred from the airport's ATC to "Lumpur Radar" air traffic control on frequency 132.6 MHz. ATC over peninsular Malaysia and adjacent waters is provided by the Kuala Lumpur Area Control Centre (ACC); Lumpur Radar is the name of the frequency used for en route air traffic . At 00:46, Lumpur Radar cleared Flight 370 to flight level 350 —approximately 35,000 ft (10,700 m). At 01:01, Flight 370's crew reported to Lumpur Radar that they had reached flight level 350, which they confirmed again at 01:08. The aircraft's final transmission before its disappearance from radar

7980-463: The flight was scheduled to arrive in Beijing. The aircraft sent a log-on request at 08:19:29, which was followed, after a response from the ground station, by a "log-on acknowledgement" message at 08:19:37. The log-on acknowledgement is the last piece of data received from Flight 370. The aircraft did not respond to a status request from Inmarsat at 09:15. The general consensus among investigators

8094-405: The frequency and rhythm of the sound emitted by the flight recorders' ULBs; analysis of the acoustic detections determined that, although unlikely, the detections could have come from a damaged ULB. A sonar search of the seafloor near the detections was carried out between 14 April and 28 May but yielded no sign of Flight 370. In a March 2015 report, it was revealed that the battery of

8208-513: The information they contain, before they sink into the water. Flight 370 was operated with a Boeing 777-2H6ER, serial number 28420, registration 9M-MRO. The aircraft was delivered new to Malaysia Airlines on 31 May 2002. The aircraft was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 892 engines and configured to carry 282 passengers in total capacity. It had accumulated 53,471.6 hours and 7,526 cycles (takeoffs and landings) in service and had not previously been involved in any major incidents, though

8322-410: The loss of Air France Flight 447 , but had never been resolved). In response to Flight 370's disappearance, the International Civil Aviation Organization adopted new standards for aircraft position reporting over open ocean, extended recording time for cockpit voice recorders , and, starting from 2020, new aircraft designs have been required to have a means of recovering the flight recorders , or

8436-399: The most likely crash site according to the drift study published in 2017. In a previous search attempt, Malaysia had established a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to investigate the incident, working with foreign aviation authorities and experts. Malaysia released a final report concerning Flight 370 on 17 October, 2017. Neither the crew nor the aircraft's communication systems relayed

8550-476: The plane had travelled far southward over the southern Indian Ocean . The lack of official information in the days immediately after the disappearance prompted fierce criticism from the Chinese public, particularly from relatives of the passengers, as most people on board Flight 370 were of Chinese origin. Several pieces of debris washed ashore in the western Indian Ocean during 2015 and 2016; many of these were confirmed to have originated from Flight 370. After

8664-464: The radar screen at Kuala Lumpur ACC and was lost at about the same time on radar at Ho Chi Minh ACC, which reported that the aircraft was at the nearby waypoint BITOD. Air traffic control uses secondary radar, which relies on a signal emitted by a transponder on each aircraft; therefore, the ADS-B transponder was no longer functioning on Flight 370 after 01:21. The final transponder data indicated that

8778-532: The right to operate their respective mobile satellite systems for 18 years from the selection decision. The operators are compelled to start operations within 24 months (May 2011) from the selection decision. Inmarsat's S-band satellite programme provides mobile multimedia broadcast, mobile two-way broadband telecommunications and next-generation MSS services across all member states of the European Union and as far east as Moscow and Ankara by means of

8892-602: The sale. In April 1999, INMARSAT was succeeded by the International Mobile Satellite Organization (IMSO) as an intergovernmental regulatory body for satellite communications, while INMARSAT's operational unit was separated and became the UK-based company Inmarsat Ltd. The IMSO and Inmarsat Ltd. signed an agreement imposing public safety obligations on the new company. Inmarsat was the first international satellite organisation that

9006-455: The satellite communication system aboard the aircraft went offline (possibly due to a power interruption), and remained offline during the plane's initial deviation from its scheduled flight path. However, for an unknown reason, at 02:25 MYT, the aircraft's satellite communication system booted back up and sent a "log-on request" message—the first message since the ACARS transmission at 01:06—which

9120-424: The satellite communication was far from any possible landing sites, and concluded, "Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean." From October 2016 to January 2017, a comprehensive survey of 120,000 km (46,000 sq mi) of sea floor about 1,800 km (1,100 mi; 970 nmi) southwest of Perth , Western Australia, yielded no evidence of the aircraft. Several pieces of marine debris found on

9234-461: The search was coordinated by the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), an Australian government agency that was established specifically to manage the effort to locate and recover Flight 370, and which primarily involved the Malaysian, Chinese, and Australian governments. On 17 January 2017, the official search for Flight 370—which had proven to be the most expensive search operation in aviation history —was suspended after yielding no evidence of

9348-670: The search was shifted to the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia and within Australia's aeronautical and maritime Search and Rescue regions that extend to 75°E longitude . Accordingly, on 17 March, Australia agreed to manage the search in the southern locus from Sumatra to the southern Indian Ocean. From 18 to 27 March 2014, the search effort focused on a 315,000 km (122,000 sq mi) area about 2,600 km (1,400 nmi; 1,600 mi) southwest of Perth. The search area, which Australian prime minister Tony Abbott called "as close to nowhere as it's possible to be",

9462-596: The single deadliest case of aircraft disappearance . The crew of the Boeing 777-200ER , registered as 9M-MRO, last communicated with air traffic control (ATC) around 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea . The aircraft was lost from ATC's secondary surveillance radar screens minutes later but was tracked by the Malaysian military's primary radar system for another hour, deviating westward from its planned flight path, crossing

9576-508: The size of a notebook computer, while the Global Xpress network offers up to 50 Mbit/s at a latency of 700 ms via antennas as small as 60 cm. Other services provide mobile Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) services used by the media for live reporting on world events via videophone, and inflight Internet access via the European Aviation Network . The price of a call via Inmarsat has now dropped to

9690-573: The status of Flight 370 would be changed to an "accident", in accordance with the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation , and that all passengers and crew are presumed to have lost their lives. If the official assumption is confirmed, Flight 370 was, at the time of its disappearance, the deadliest aviation incident in the history of Malaysian Airlines, surpassing the 1977 hijacking and crash of Malaysian Airline System Flight 653 that killed all 100 passengers and crew aboard, and

9804-401: The total cost, Australia 32%, and China 10%. The report also concluded that the location where the aircraft went down had been narrowed to an area of 25,000 km (9,700 sq mi) by using satellite images and debris drift analysis. In January 2018, the private American marine-exploration company Ocean Infinity resumed the search for MH370 in the narrowed 25,000 km area, using

9918-412: The transponder code used by Flight 370, despite the aircraft possibly having flown near, or over, the northern tip of Sumatra. Indonesian military radar tracked Flight 370 earlier when en route to waypoint IGARI before the transponder is thought to have been turned off, but did not provide information on whether it was detected afterwards. Thailand and Vietnam also detected Flight 370 on radar before

10032-468: The transponder stopped working. The radar position symbols for the transponder code used by Flight 370 vanished after the transponder is thought to have been turned off. Vietnam's deputy minister of transport Pham Quy Tieu stated that Vietnam had noticed MH370 turning back toward the west and that its operators had twice informed Malaysian authorities the same day on 8 March. Thai military radar detected an aircraft that might have been Flight 370, but it

10146-578: The use of the ground network in Belgium . Inmarsat ordered a fifth Global Xpress satellite from Thales Group . The satellite launched 26 November 2019 from Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle. The satellite has been described as a 'very high throughput satellite', and provides services to the Middle East, India and Europe. former CEO Rupert Pearce (new CEO Rajeev Suri) indicated that Inmarsat planned further expansion of

10260-411: The users are only charged for the amount of data they send and receive, rather than the length of time they are connected. In addition to its own satellites, Inmarsat has a collaboration agreement with ACeS regarding handheld voice services. There are three types of coverage related to each Inmarsat I-4 satellite . Each satellite is equipped with a single global beam that covers up to one-third of

10374-591: Was 5 hours and 34 minutes, which would consume an estimated 37,200 kg (82,000 lb) of jet fuel . The aircraft carried 49,100 kilograms (108,200 lb) of fuel, including reserves, allowing an endurance of 7 hours and 31 minutes. The extra fuel was enough to divert to alternate airports — Jinan Yaoqiang International Airport and Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport —which would require 4,800 kg (10,600 lb) or 10,700 kg (23,600 lb), respectively, to reach from Beijing. At 00:42 MYT, Flight 370 took off from runway 32R, and

10488-462: Was activated at 05:30 MYT—four hours after communication was lost with the aircraft—to coordinate search and rescue efforts. Search efforts began in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. On the second day of the search, Malaysian officials said that radar recordings indicated that Flight 370 may have turned around before vanishing from radar screens; the search zone was expanded to include part of

10602-730: Was an automated position report, sent using the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) protocol at 01:06 MYT. Among the data provided in this message was the total fuel remaining: 43,800 kg (96,600 lb). The last verbal signal to air traffic control occurred at 01:19:30, when Captain Zaharie acknowledged a transition from Lumpur Radar to Ho Chi Minh ACC : Lumpur Radar: "Malaysian three seven zero, contact Ho Chi Minh one two zero decimal nine. Good night." Flight 370: "Good night. Malaysian three seven zero." The crew

10716-508: Was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China . The cause of its disappearance has not been determined. It is widely regarded as the greatest mystery in aviation history, and remains

10830-574: Was announced that the first of these satellites would be launched by MHI in December 2021. The first of the two satellites, Inmarsat-6 F1 , was successfully launched on 22 December 2021 on a H-IIA rocket. The second satellite Inmarsat-6 F2 ( GX 6B) was launched on 18 February 2023 on a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, but suffered a power system failure in orbit that prevented it from becoming operational. In May 2023, Inmarsat ordered three eighth-generation satellites from SWISSto12 SA , which will be based on their HummingSat satellite platform. Inmarsat

10944-635: Was called in Beijing for relatives of Flight 370 passengers. Malaysia Airlines announced that Flight 370 was assumed lost with no survivors. It notified most of the families in person or via telephone, and some received an SMS (in English and Chinese) informing them that the aircraft likely had crashed with no survivors. On 29 January 2015, the director general of the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia , Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, announced that

11058-402: Was cleared by air traffic control (ATC) to climb to flight level 180 —approximately 18,000 feet (5,500 m)—on a direct path to navigational waypoint IGARI (located at 6°56′12″N 103°35′6″E  /  6.93667°N 103.58500°E  / 6.93667; 103.58500  ( Waypoint IGARI ) ). Voice analysis has determined that the first officer communicated with ATC while

11172-421: Was exhausted . With the loss of all 239 lives on board, Flight 370 is the second-deadliest incident involving a Boeing 777 and the second-deadliest incident of Malaysia Airlines' history, second to Flight 17 in both categories. Malaysia Airlines was struggling financially, a problem that was exacerbated by a decrease of ticket sales after the disappearance of Flight 370 and the downing of Flight 17;

11286-626: Was expected to signal ATC in Ho Chi Minh City as the aircraft passed into Vietnamese airspace, just north of the point where contact was lost. The captain of another aircraft attempted to contact the crew of Flight 370 shortly after 01:30, using the international air distress frequency , to relay Vietnamese air traffic control's request for the crew to contact them; the captain said he was able to establish communication, but heard only "mumbling" and static. Calls made to Flight 370's cockpit at 02:39 and 07:13 were unanswered, but acknowledged by

11400-453: Was given supplemental fuel and crew member oxygen supplies just before takeoff. The Boeing 777 was introduced in 1994 and has an excellent safety record. Since its first commercial flight in June 1995, the type has suffered only seven other hull losses : the crash of British Airways Flight 38 in 2008; a cockpit fire in a parked EgyptAir Flight 667 at Cairo International Airport in 2011;

11514-461: Was in Cambodian airspace. At 02:15, the watch supervisor at Kuala Lumpur ACC queried Malaysia Airlines' operations centre, which said that it could exchange signals with Flight 370 and that Flight 370 was in Cambodian airspace. Kuala Lumpur ACC contacted Ho Chi Minh ACC to ask whether the planned flight path for Flight 370 passed through Cambodian airspace. Ho Chi Minh ACC responded that Flight 370

11628-423: Was last detected by radar at waypoint BITOD. The two centres exchanged four more calls during the next 20 minutes with no new information. At 02:03, Kuala Lumpur ACC relayed to Ho Chi Minh ACC information received from Malaysia Airlines' operations centre that Flight 370 was in Cambodian airspace. Ho Chi Minh ACC contacted Kuala Lumpur ACC twice in the following eight minutes asking for confirmation that Flight 370

11742-484: Was located at 14°54′N 109°15′E  /  14.900°N 109.250°E  / 14.900; 109.250 . Later, another Malaysia Airlines aircraft (Flight 386 bound for Shanghai) attempted, at the request of Ho Chi Minh ACC, to contact Flight 370 on the Lumpur Radar frequency – the frequency on which Flight 370 last made contact with Malaysian air traffic control – and on emergency frequencies. The attempt

11856-410: Was not supposed to enter Cambodian airspace and that they had already contacted Phnom Penh ACC (which controls Cambodian airspace), which had no communication with Flight 370. Kuala Lumpur ACC contacted Malaysia Airlines' operations centre at 02:34, inquiring about the communication status with Flight 370, and were informed that Flight 370 was in a normal condition based on a signal download and that it

11970-403: Was operating 14 geostationary communications satellites. On 8 November 2021, a $ 7.3bn deal was announced between Inmarsat's owners, led by Apax and Warburg Pincus, and Viasat in which Viasat would purchase Inmarsat for $ 850m in cash, issuing approximately 46 million shares of Viasat stock and taking on $ 3.4bn in debt. Viasat has promised to honour a pledge made by the previous owners, when it

12084-513: Was over the South China Sea, less than an hour after takeoff. It disappeared from ATC radar screens at 01:22 MYT, but was still tracked on military radar as it turned sharply away from its original northeastern course to head west and cross the Malay Peninsula, continuing that course until leaving the range of the military radar at 02:22 while over the Andaman Sea, 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) northwest of Penang Island, in northwestern Malaysia. The multinational search effort for

12198-516: Was previously poorly mapped and largely uncharted and mountainous, before a phase of the search using a towed side-scan sonar vehicle and autonomous underwater vehicles which need to operate close to the seafloor. In August 2017, it was announced that Fugro had been awarded the contract for that phase of the search and that Fugro Equator and sister ship Fugro Discovery would conduct the search (with some assistance from Malaysian & Chinese naval vessels). In December 2017, Fugro Equator conducted

12312-401: Was privatised. In 2005, Apax Partners and Permira bought shares in the company. The company was also first listed on the London Stock Exchange in that year. In March 2008, it was disclosed that U.S. hedge fund Harbinger Capital owned 28% of the company. In 2009, Inmarsat completed the acquisition of satellite communications provider Stratos Global Corporation (Stratos) and acquired

12426-465: Was relayed by satellite to a ground station, both operated by satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat . After logging on to the network, the satellite data unit aboard the aircraft responded to hourly status requests from Inmarsat for the next 6 hours and two ground-to-aircraft telephone calls, at 02:39 and 07:13, both unanswered by the cockpit. The final status request and aircraft acknowledgement occurred at 08:10, about 1 hour and 40 minutes after

12540-641: Was seen to be well preserved and in one piece. The exact location of the wreck was not announced by the Australian government at the time of discovery, in order to protect it from "unauthorised salvage attempts". The government's stated position is that the wreck will be treated as a war grave . The ship has digital seismic, acoustic, seabed, and sub-seabed mapping equipment as well as a dedicated Hugin 1000 autonomous underwater vehicle (capable of reaching 3,000 m depths). Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ( MH370/MAS370 )

12654-456: Was surpassed in all three regards by Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 , which was shot down by Russian-backed forces while flying over Ukraine four months later on 17 July 2014. The search for the missing aircraft became the most expensive search in the history of aviation. It focused initially on the South China Sea and Andaman Sea, before a novel analysis of the aircraft's automated communications with an Inmarsat satellite indicated that

12768-680: Was taken private in 2019, that Inmarsat would remain a UK-based company, and for other planned investments. Provisional approval for the merger was given by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority in March 2023 with 25 May 2023 set as the date for a formal decision. On 31 May 2023, the acquisition was closed. The Inmarsat head office is at Old Street Roundabout in the London Borough of Islington . Aside from its commercial services, Inmarsat provides Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) to ships and aircraft at no charge, as

12882-650: Was unsuccessful. At 03:30, Malaysia Airlines' operations centre informed Kuala Lumpur ACC that the locations it had provided earlier were "based on flight projection and not reliable for aircraft positioning." Over the next hour, Kuala Lumpur ACC contacted Ho Chi Minh ACC asking whether they had signaled Chinese air traffic control. At 05:09, Singapore ACC was queried for information about Flight 370. At 05:20, an undisclosed official contacted Kuala Lumpur ACC requesting information about Flight 370; he opined that, based on known information, "MH370 never left Malaysian airspace." The watch supervisor at Kuala Lumpur ACC activated

12996-545: Was written off after catching fire and burning out at Singapore Changi Airport . The aircraft was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 different nations. On the day of the disappearance, Malaysia Airlines released the names and nationalities of the passengers and crew, based on the flight manifest . The passenger list was later modified to include two Iranian passengers travelling on stolen Austrian and Italian passports . All 12 crew members—two pilots and 10 cabin crew—were Malaysian citizens. Of

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