Australian air safety investigators are exploring whether interference from a US-Australian naval transmitter or even a passenger’s laptop caused a Qantas jetliner to nose-dive twice over the Australian coast last month, an official said yesterday.
Initial investigations of the midair emergency that injured 44 people, 13 seriously, indicated the Oct. 7 malfunction on the Airbus A330-300 was caused by a fault in a computer unit that uses sensors to detect the angle of the plane.
While that theory is still considered the most likely, investigators are looking into whether the fault could lie with electromagnetic interference from a low-frequency naval submarine communications transmitter on the northwest coast at Exmouth, near where the plane made its emergency landing.
The Naval Communications Station, Harold E. Holt, was built by the US Navy in the 1960s. It provides very low frequency radio transmissions to the US and Australian navies across the western Pacific and eastern Indian oceans.
Another possible source of the interference is portable electronic devices, such as cellphones, Australian Transport Safety Bureau director Kerryn Macaulay said. She said even those considered safe to operate during flights, such as laptop computers, are being investigated.
“Possible external sources of electromagnetic interference are being explored and assessed,” she said.
But even as investigators consider that theory, the plane’s three computer units — called air data inertial reference units (ADIRUs) — will be examined next week at manufacturer Northrop Grumman Corp’s factory in the US, the bureau said in a preliminary report.
The electromagnetic interference “is unlikely, especially if the problem is clearly identified during the ADIRU and the system testing,” Macaulay said.
Qantas said its own investigations found the likely cause of the emergency was a “manufacturer fault” in the computer unit.
The plane nose-dived 200m in 20 seconds, followed by a second drop of about 120m in 16 seconds.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’