Journal 2014 - # 682

#MalaysiaAirlines, #MH370, #PrayForMH370 #MengenangMH370

 Loved one of TWA crash victim feels pain, loss of Malaysia Airlines families

Courtesy Heidi Snow Cinader

Heidi Snow Cinader and fiance Michel Breistoff, who was killed when TWA flight 800 crashed in 1996.

When TWA Flight 800 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 1996, all 230 people aboard were killed. One passenger, Michel Breistoff, was the fiancé of Heidi Snow. After the tragedy, Snow founded AirCraft Casualty Emotional Support Services (ACCESS) and wrote "Surviving Sudden Loss: Stories from those who have lived it" about her loss and experiences with the many generous volunteer grief mentors who have helped to provide emotional support for the nearly 18 years since.

Michel and I met in the summer of 1994 in Martha’s Vineyard. He was from Lille, France, and a Harvard senior and I was working in finance in Boston. He was playing for a professional hockey team when he left for Paris on TWA Flight 800 to prepare to play for a hockey team in Europe. I was to join him in a week or so after I finished studying for a finance exam. We had our entire lives planned out together. 

My mother called that evening to tell me about the crash. I turned on the TV to witness the burning debris in the dark waters off Long Island. TWA’s 800 telephone number was perpetually busy. 

Finally, friends of mine went to the airport and confirmed that Michel was on the passenger manifest. The press announced that they were looking for survivors. Search teams were in life rafts so that helped me to hold on to hope that he had survived. 

I thought, “Michel is so strong that he will, of course, survive. He cannot possibly be gone.” That was unthinkable. And so I waited with hope for Michel’s return. The next morning they called off the rescue operation to pursue one of recovery. I kept thinking that any minute he would walk through the door.

ACCESS/Heidi Snow Cinader

Heidi Snow Cinader

In my mind, we did not say goodbye forever.

We said goodbye only for those hours before he would arrive in Paris and could call me. The grief site closed down after a few weeks, and I had to return home still hoping for his return. But then after five weeks they found his remains and the waiting and hoping were over. 

Like thousands of loved ones of the 230 people who perished on that Paris-bound flight, I was left in unspeakable grief and torment. My life was changed forever. As the initial shock subsided during the first weeks and months, the agony intensified. My future was with Michel, but now he wasn’t there. 

Finally, after looking for an air disaster support group in New York City to no avail, I called Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s office. He advised that I might benefit from meeting with friends and families of victims from Pan Am Flight 103, which was destroyed by a terrorist bomb in 1988. It had been eight years and they were living examples that you can survive the emotional devastation after having loved ones ripped from their lives. 

I realized that the help they gave me could be extended to all the others left behind after Flight 800. I recognized the need for access to long-term emotional support from those who had already survived the sudden loss of a loved one in air disasters. 

The idea of creating ACCESS, and pairing grief mentors to callers with similar relationships lost, was borne from my direct personal experience, my observations and learning from others what they had found most helpful in dealing with their grief.

The front cover of 'Surviving Sudden Loss: Stories from those who have lived it.'

For example, a woman with four children who lost her husband on the TWA flight found it especially comforting to get help from a woman with children who had lost her husband years earlier on Pan Am 103. She had already dealt with the challenges of helping her children through their grief and all the changes they suddenly faced from the loss of their father. 

Grief is a common tie for everyone who loses a loved one suddenly, but there are collective logistics among women left with young children to raise alone, among children who lose their parents, and among fiancés, spouses and significant others who lose the loves of their lives. 

Through the Pan Am group, I met two women who had lost their fiancés years earlier and had already dealt with some issues specific to my loss. We had all experienced sudden death indiscriminately taking away our loved ones as we were just setting out to begin careers and marriages. Their stories had a special significance for me and showed me the importance of having a model of survival from a similar type of loss. That is why we pair mothers to mothers, spouses to spouses, children to children and others based on relationships lost. Matching the grief-stricken seeking our emotional support to the most appropriate mentor was my goal from the start and is a distinctive feature of the grief support through ACCESS.

ACCESS first provided services after the crash of Swissair Flight 111 in Nova Scotia in September 1998. Then came EgyptAir Flight 990, which crashed over Nantucket in 1999, and Alaska Air Flight 261, which crashed into the Pacific Ocean north of Los Angeles in 2000. Then, of course, came 9/11. It is heartbreaking now to see the families connected to Malyasia Airlines Flight 370.

The most important thing that we at ACCESS say to the families of the Malaysia crash is that we are very sorry for their losses and that we remember and truly understand their pain. Their experience reawakens all our memories. We want them to know that even though it will be very difficult and take a very long time, that they will get through it just as we did. At times it will seem overwhelming but we will be with them for as long as they need our help.

Given the unknown and the mystery around the Malaysian Airlines 370, we realize some will continue to hope that eventually answers will be found and others will accept that they may never learn these answers. 

Everyone determines his own timeline for continuing to hope for answers and everyone is allowed to react differently to the unknowns. It is OK to be angry. It is OK to be sad. It is OK to yell, or sit quietly. It is OK to protest or bow your heads. 

We accept them and let them vent and respond to their situation the way they feel they need to. While air disasters are always associated with delays in finding wreckage, remains of loved ones and the cause of the crash, the Malaysian Air 370 disaster is especially challenging. We empathize with the pain of not knowing what our loved ones felt and went through in their final moments. 

Ultimately, we stand with them in their grief.

Heidi Snow Cinader is married and has two daughters, ages 3 and 6. She lives in San Francisco, where ACCESS is headquartered. Her story was told with the help of TODAY.com's Kavita Varma-White.

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Journal 2014 - # 681

#MalaysiaAirlines, #MH370, #PrayForMH370 #MengenangMH370

Search for Missing Jet Resumes With Focus on 'Potential Objects'

The search in the southern Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet began early Thursday (late Wednesday ET), Australian authorities said.

Searchers from four countries — Australia, Japan, China and the United States — resumed scouring for the doomed airplane before 9 a.m. Thursday (local time) — a day after Malaysian investigators said satellite images taken Sunday show 122 “potential objects” off the coast of Perth, Australia.

The search area Thursday will cover a cumulative 30,000 square miles southwest of Perth, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

The HMAS Success, a Royal Australian Navy ship, was stationed in the search area roughly 1,553 southwest of Perth early Thursday. It was joined by four Chinese ships — including the icebreaker Xue Long — as well as a Chinese IL-76 aircraft.

A U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft, two Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft, a Japanese Gulfstream jet and P-3 Orion aircraft were also due to be dispatched for the grueling hunt.

A total of 16 assets — 11 aircraft and five ships — are involved in Thursday’s search operation, officials said.

AMSA said the operation had staggered departure times between 8 a.m. and 5

 manager of Phoenix International Holdings, the U.S. Navy’s contractor for deep ocean search and recovery equipment.

Gibson said after 30 days, the pings begin to fade away like a dying “flashlight—after time it slowly dims and then stops working.”

Authorities have said a U.S. Navy pinger locator as well as an underwater drone were due to arrive off Perth early Wednesday. It was not immediately clear when they would be deployed.

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Journal 2014 - # 680

#MalaysiaAirlines, #MH370, #PrayForMH370 #MengenangMH370

Hi uols!! Salam perpaduan salam perjuangan!! Sememangnya kita diuji dengan pelbagai ujian oleh Allah swt. Oleh itu kita sebagai orang islam diajar untuk menerima qada dan qadar dalam setiap ujian ini. Maka dengan itu aku cuba kongsikan sebuah artikel daripada Majalah SOLUSI Bil. 26: Beza Beriman dengan Tidak Beriman. Jom kita baca artikel ini moga kita dapat manfaat bersama.

Allah s.w.t. telah berfirman: “Apakah sama seorang yang beriman, dengan seorang yang fasik? (Tentulah) sama sekali tidak akan sama!” (Surah as-Sajadah 32: 18)

Imam at-Tobari di dalam Tafsirnya menyatakan bahawa makna ‘fasiq’ di sini ialah orang yang kafir. Beliau juga menukilkan daripada Qatadah bahawa, mereka yang beriman dengan mereka yang tidak beriman itu sama sekali tidak akan sama. Baik semasa kehidupan di dunia, semasa meninggal dunia mahupun dalam kehidupan di akhirat nanti.

Malangnya hari ini, betapa ramai orang yang mengaku beriman dengan Allah s.w.t. dan apa yang dibawa oleh Rasulullah s.a.w. merasakan bahawa jika mereka gagal menyamakan diri mereka dengan orang tidak beriman, mereka merasa seperti masih gagal dalam hidup mereka. Sedangkan, kegagalan sebenar yang mereka hadapi ialah kegagalan untuk memahami nilai iman yang ada di dalam hati mereka.

Kita perlu faham, pandangan Allah s.w.t. terhadap seseorang yang beriman amat jauh bezanya dengan pandangan Allah kepada orang yang tidak beriman. Kecintaannya berlainan. Kecaknaannya berlainan. Nilainya berlainan. Martabatnya berlainan. Necaranya berlainan. Fadhilatnya berlainan. Sensitivitinya berlainan. Pendek kata, semuanya amat berlainan dan berbeza sekali.

Sebagaimana yang ditafsirkan oleh Hadrat Qatadah tadi, kelainan ini bulan sahaja merujuk kepada balasan dan corak kehidupan di akhirat nanti; malah meliputi sejak daripada kehidupan di dunia ini lagi.

Imam Ibnu Kathir juga menyimpulkan perkara yang sama, apabila ayat surah as-Sajadah ini dirujuk pula dengan firman Allah s.w.t., “Patutkah orang-orang yang melakukan kejahatan menyangka bahawa Kami akan menjadikan mereka seperti orang-orang yang beriman dan beramal soleh, dengan menyamakan keadaan (mereka semua) semasa mereka hidup dan semasa mereka mati? Buruk sungguh apa yang mereka putuskan itu.” (Surah al-Jaathiyah 45:14)

Alangkah malangnya kita, apabila kita yang dianugerahkan kemuliaan iman dan amal soleh ini merasakan bahawa diri kita juga adalah sama dengan mereka yang tidak beriman! Sungguh ini adalah musibah yang amat besar!

Jika kita memahami betapa berbezanya kita pada pandangan Allah dengan orang lain, maka adalah menajdi tanggungjawab kita untuk memahami apakah neraca dan hukum istimewa yang dikhususkan kepada orang yang beriman.

Ambil sahaja contoh mudah, iaitu mengenai rezeki. Allah s.w.t. mempunyai hukumNya sendiri mengenai rezeki orang yang beriman. ‘The Law of Attraction’ bagi orang yang beriman adalah amat berlainan dengan mereka yang kufur. Angkanya mungkin sama, RM10.00 juga, tetapi nilainya berbeza. Perbezaan ini Allah gambarkan dengan ungkapan ‘Pembukaan Keberkatan vs Pembukaan Kemewahan’.

Cuba tatap dan tadaburkan dua ayat suci al-Quran ini:

“Dan (Tuhan berfirman lagi): Sekiranya penduduk negeri itu, beriman serta bertakwa, tentulah Kami akan membuka kepada mereka (pintu pengurniaan) yang melimpah-limpah berkatnya, dari langit dan bumi…” (Surah al-A’raaf 7:96)

“Kemudian apabila mereka melupakan apa yang telah diperingatkan mereka dengannya, Kami bukakan kepada mereka pintu-pintu segala kemewahan dan kesenangan, sehingga apabila mereka bergembira dan bersukaria dengan segala nikmat yang diberikan kepada mereka, Kami timpakan mereka secara mengejut (dengan bala bencana yang membinasakan), maka mereka pun berputus asa (dari mendapat sebarang pertolongan).” (Surah al-An’aam 6:36)

Di dalam dua ayat al-Quran di atas, jelas Allah s.w.t. membezakan antara natijah keimanan dengan natijah keingkaran. Pembukaan keberkatan adalah satu konsep yang berbeza dengan pembukaan kemewahan. Keberkatan akan membawa ‘kesenangan’ dan ‘kenikmatan’ hidup serta membawa seseorang itu semakin dekat dan dikasihi oleh Allah s.w.t. Manakala pembukaan kemewahan hanyalah bersifat angka dan luaran sahaja; sedangkan kemewahan tersebut tidak dapat membawa ‘kenikmatan’ hidup dan akhirnya menjadi umpan untuk menyebabkan seseorang itu direntap daripada rahmat dan kasih sayang Allah.

Perbezaan dalam ‘law of attraction’ ini juga dapat dilihat melalui cara seseorang yang beriman itu dituntut berusaha agar diuruskan rezeki yang berkat untuknya. Sebenarnya, bagi seseorang yang beriman, Allah s.w.t meletakkan tuntutan yang mudah. Selain berusaha, Allah s.w.t. meletakkan juga penyelesaian masalah rezeki mereka melalui amalan-amalan peribadi mereka yang amat mudah.

Contohnya, melalui amalan solat Dhuha. Amalan membaca surah al-Waqi’ah pada malam hari. Amalan bersedekah. Dan tidak ketinggalan, amalan menjaga solat fardhu.

Allah s.w.t. berfirman:
“Dan perintahkanlah keluargamu serta umatmu mengerjakan sembahyang dan hendaklah engkau tekun bersabar menunaikannya. Kami tidak meminta rezeki kepadamu, (bahkan) Kamilah yang memberi rezeki kepadamu dan (ingatlah) kesudahan yang baik adalah bagi orang-orang yang bertakwa. “ (Surah Toha 20: 132)

Lihatlah, bagaimana Allah s.w.t. telah menghubungkan antara amalan menjaga solat fardhu kita dengan masalah rezeki. Malah adalah sunnah praktikal Rasulullah s.a.w. agar abila sahaja ada ahli keluarga baginda mengadu tentang kesempitan hidup, baginda akan menyuruh mereka menjaga solat fardhu dan memperbanyakkan solat sunat.

Ini adalah contoh tentang betapa tidak samanya hukum dan sunnatullah bagi seorang yang beriman dengan mereka yang tidak beriman.

Yakinilah atas apa yang Allah s.w.t. firmankan ini melebihi yakin kita kepada apa yang mata dan indera kita dapat lihat dan taakulkan,“ Sesiapa yang beramal soleh, dari lelaki atau perempuan, sedang dia beriman, maka sesungguhnya Kami akan menghidupkan dia dengan kehidupan yang baik dan sesungguhnya kami akan membalas mereka, dengan memberikan pahala yang lebih dari apa yang mereka telah kerjakan.” (Surah an-Nahl 19:94)

Inilah kemuliaan iman. Inilah fadhilat keimanan. Inilah janji Allah kepada mereka yang beriman. Yakinlah, apa yang Allah sediakan untuk mereka yang beriman adalah jauh lebih baik daripada apa yang disangkakan oleh pertimbangan dangkal kita yang sering terpedaya dengan kesenangan dunia yang menipudaya ini.

Yakinilah!

Journal 2014 - # 679

#MalaysiaAirlines, #MH370, #PrayForMH370 #MengenangMH370

How Math Solved the Mystery of the Missing Malaysian Jet's Path

Analysts at the Inmarsat satellite venture executed a computational tour de force to determine where a missing Malaysia Airlines jet probably went, but mathematician John Zweck says the feat is simple enough to explain with a basketball, a hoop ... and an ant.

"The math involved is really just a little bit more than the trigonometry you'd have in high school," Zweck, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, told NBC News.

Don't worry: Zweck isn't popping a trig quiz on us. Instead, he's retracing the steps that the investigators at Inmarsat, Britain's Air Accidents Investigations Branch and the Boeing Co. took to narrow down the search area for the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 jet, which disappeared from radar screens on March 8.

All the investigators had to go on were signals from a transmitter on the Boeing 777 jet that sent hourly pings to an Inmarsat telecom satellite, hovering high over the Indian Ocean. They were able to glean two key sets of clues from those signals: the angular distance of the jet when each of the pings was sent, and the frequency of each ping.

The angular distance allowed Inmarsat to draw a series of arcs, to the north and to the south, indicating the range of possible locations when each ping was sent. "We know the times at which the airplane crossed those arcs," Zweck said. But the arcs stretch so far it'd be impossible to search the entire swath of ocean.

An analysis of satellite pings from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 allowed Inmarsat to sketch out broad arcs that the jet crossed hour by hour. Further analysis produced projected flight paths for the missing jet. The black dashed lines indicate the paths plotted by Inmarsat, and the yellow line indicates mathematician John Zweck's computed flight path. The black dot with a white dot in the center indicates the precise point over which the satellite was flying.

To narrow down the search area, Zweck took the plane's last known position, as of 2:11 a.m. local time, and then looked for straight-line routes that traced a great circle around the globe. That would be consistent with a scenario in which the crew — and perhaps the passengers as well — were incapacitated, leaving the plane to fly on autopilot until the fuel ran out.

North-south lines of longitude are examples of great circles. "However, in our case, instead of the great circles being lines of longitude through the North Pole, they are going through where the plane was thought to be at 2:11 a.m.," Zweck said.

Put the ball in the hoop

If you're looking for a straight-line, great-circle route, it's possible to figure out the jet's path using only the satellite data. This is where the basketball comes in handy.

“You could take a basketball, and draw the arcs with a red pen on the basketball," Zweck said. "Then put the basketball in a hoop that fits snugly around the ball. Pin that basketball onto the rim at the place where the plane was at 2:11 a.m., and put another pin on the exact opposite point on the ball."

The rim of the hoop can now define any of the great circles that pass through the starting point.

"Let's say the rim has a ruler marked on it," Zweck said. "Rotate the rim around the sphere and look to see where it crosses the arcs. Measure the distance between the first arc and the second arc, the second arc and the third arc, the third and the fourth. You want all those measurements to be the same.”

That would produce a route that intersected all the pings at the right time to reflect a constant speed for the plane.

               

Inmarsat's analysts had an advantage over Zweck, in that they could estimate the speed of the plane by analyzing Doppler shifts in the frequency of the pings. "They knew how to calibrate their ruler," Zweck said. "I didn't, but I was able to infer it."

Zweck ended up with a speed estimate that was the same as Inmarsat's: 450 knots, or 518 mph.

"What I was able to do was reproduce Inmarsat's results," Zweck said. "But I didn't use a basketball and a rim. I used a computer and trigonometry."

North vs. south

There was one other problem to solve: The arcs could point to a northward flight just as easily as a southward flight. So which path did Flight 370 take? The key clue came from the pings' Doppler shift.

You can hear a Doppler shift in the whistle of a passing train: The pitch rises when the train is approaching you, and falls when it's chugging away from you. Similarly, the frequency of the jet's ping would be slightly higher if the plane is moving toward the satellite, and slightly lower if it's moving away.

To explain how this relates to the north vs. south question, Zweck metaphorically passes you the basketball once more. Imagine you're holding the ball in front of you at arm's length. The point in the very center of your vision is analogous to the point on Earth directly below the satellite.

"It makes all of us math majors around the world swell with pride."

"We know the plane started north of the satellite," Zweck said. "If you imagine that the plane was an ant on the basketball, the ant starts a little bit above the level of your eye. Now imagine that the ant is walking south, across the surface of the basketball. When the ant walks south along that straight line, it’s getting just a little closer at first."

But when it crosses the plane of your vision, the ant starts receding. The jet would go through a similar, ever-so-slight advance and retreat as it crossed the equator and headed south.

That rate of movement, forward and back, was reflected in the pings' Doppler shift: first a slight rise in frequency, and then a fall. "They were able to tell by looking at the frequency of the signal that it was getting closer to the satellite, but then after a certain point, it's moving away," Zweck said.

That suggested that the plane took the southern route. If it had gone north, the Doppler data would have shown that the plane was consistently farther away from the satellite.

The forward-and-back Doppler shift was so subtle that Inmarsat's analysts had to double-check it by comparing data from other 777 jets that traveled similar routes. They also checked the data that the Malaysian jet sent back before it disappeared. "It all agreed," Zweck said.

For more of the technical nitty-gritty, check out this statement from Malaysia's acting transport minister, or Zweck's UT-Dallas website.

Producing the proof

"It's an amazing bit of analysis, because the beginning of the path is so darn close to the equator," observed James Oberg, NBC News' space analyst. "It makes all of us math majors around the world swell with pride."

However, the only way to verify the analysis is to identify wreckage in the search area, an Alaska-sized stretch of the Indian Ocean about 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) southwest of Perth, Australia.

There have been some intriguing sightings of debris, gleaned from satellite imagery and aerial observations. Ships and aircraft from six countries — Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United States — are combing the area. NASA says it's taking pictures of the southern search zone with its Terra and EO-1 satellites. But so far, Inmarsat's masterful theorem has yet to be proven.

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