U.S. Cyber Forces Succumb to Suicide Clusters

"[Among the command's top unfunded priorities, spending $11 million to study and address the mental health of cyber personnel is critical]."

"[The funding is used for] cognitive, psychological, physiological and spiritual sustainment for high-tempo cyber operators."

"Without funding, burnout and force degradation will increase."

General Joshua Rudd, Leader, Cyber Command 

US Cyber Command is scrutinizing an unusually high number of deaths by suicide among personnel over a month-long period this summer, Bloomberg  

Deaths by suicide in unusual numbers among the cyberwarfare unit of the U.S. military represents a dilemma in search of a cure; at the very least an understanding of what drives the cluster of suicide deaths. The secretive section of the armed forces facing this phenomenon are of high concern to both U.S. lawmakers and military leaders within the armed forces section tasked to defend U.S. computer systems, and which in turn hacks the systems of foreign adversaries.

 

The mental health state of military hackers have long been concerning, as a reflection of their  workload surging as a result of foreign conflicts. Up to five individuals working in or closely with US. Cyber Command took their on lives between early June and early July, according to internal military communications, public records and those who spoke on condition of anonymity. Cyber Command's leader acknowledged three of those suicides in an email to staff; two more suicides fo;lowed.

 

Sgt. Kevin Stallings, a digital network intelligence analyst, was stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland where Cyber Command headquarters sits. He took his own life just before his 37th birthday. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is rarely caused by a single event or circumstance. The circumstances of at least one of the recent deaths is being actively investigated. Motivation for the suicides remains unclear from a study of the records. 

 

An unusually high number of deaths by suicide among personnel in the U.S. military's cyberwarfare unit is concerning for lawmakers and military leaders. Josef Cole/ U.S. Army Files

 

Personnel with Cyber Command most often work far from the physical front lines of war; their roles are largely secret. They suffer, in some cases, from insomnia, from memory loss, rumination and physical illness, according to Erick Miyares, psychologist and former military employee embedded at the National Security Agency. 

 

Cyber Command has linked the quick succession of deaths as a 'suicide cluster', which the Pentagon defines as suicides taking place closer together than normal, and requires they be addressed with specific actions. Cyber Command's workload surged this year, resulting from factors that include the U.S. war with Iran and other foreign conflicts. Also driven up by the urgent need to use and guard against new artificial intelligence models, increasingly adept at hacking computer systems.

 

According to the National Defense Authorization Act from 2023, the command faced "chronic shortage of proficient personnel in key work roles" since its founding in 2010.  

 

The U.S. Cyber Command building (center) stands on the National Security Agency campus at Fort Meade, Maryland. | REUTERS

 

"The loss of any member of the military community is a tragedy, and our deepest sympathies are with their loved ones."

"[The military] remains steadfast in our commitment to suicide prevention. [We] take a comprehensive, integrated approach to suicide prevention [at all levels]."

"[As a result of these] tragic incidents [the Senate Armed Services Committee] is actively engaging with Cyber Command to discuss what resources are needed."

Pentagon  

Air India Crash Cause Still a Mystery

"The preliminary report nowhere states that the pilots have moved the fuel control switches, and this has been corroborated by the CVR [cockpit voice recorder] recording."

"Let the investigation team investigate in detail; wait and have patience until the time the final report comes." 

"Assigning blame before a thorough, transparent and data-driven investigation is both premature and irresponsible."

"Such speculative commentary undermines the professionalism of highly trained crew members, [and] causes undue distress to their families and colleagues."

Charanvir Singh Randhawa, president, Federation of Indian Pilots

 

"The safety of international air travel depends on learning as much as we can from these rare events so that industry and regulators can improve aviation safety." 

"And if there are no immediate safety issues discovered, we need to know that as well."

Jennifer Homendy, chair, U.S. National Transportation Safety Board 

 

"In the balance between privacy and safety, the scale tips toward safety, unequivocally."

"Protecting the flying public is a sacred obligation."

Air safety expert and former commercial airline pilot John Nance 

 

"[If one of the pilots was responsible for shutting down the switches, intentionally or not, it ] does beg the question: why." 

"Was it intentional, or the result of confusion? That seems unlikely, as the pilots reported nothing unusual."

"In many cockpit emergencies, pilots may press the wrong buttons or make incorrect selections - but there was no indication of such a situation here, nor any discussion suggesting that the fuel switches were selected by mistake."

"This kind of error doesn't typically happen without some evident issue." 

Shawn Pruchnicki, former airline accident investigator and aviation expert, Ohio State University

A police officer stands in front of the wreckage of an Air India aircraft, bound for London's Gatwick Airport, which crashed during take-off from an airport in Ahmedabad, India June 12, 2025. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

"The finding is very disturbing - that a pilot has shut off the fuel switch within seconds of flying."

"There's likely much more on the cockpit voice recorder than what's been shared. A lone remark like 'why did you cut off the switches' isn't enough."

"The new details suggest someone in the cockpit shut those valves. The question is, who, and why? Both switches were turned off and then restarted within seconds."

"The voice recorder will reveal more: was the flying pilot trying to restart the engines, or the monitoring one?"

"They haven't identified the voices yet, which is crucial. Typically, when the voice recorder is reviewed, people familiar with the pilots are present to help match voices. As of now, we still don't know which pilot turned the switches off and back on."

Peter Goelz, a former managing director, U.S. National Transportation Safety Board

 

Wreckage of the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plane sits on the open ground, outside Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, where it took off and crashed nearby shortly afterwards, in Ahmedabad, India July 12, 2025. REUTERS/Amit Dave

 

Much hinges on the cockpit voice recording of Air India Flight 171. So far it would appear that the  younger co-pilot asked his experienced colleague why he had turned off the plane's fuel-supply switches. People involved with the investigation, asking to remain anonymous as not being authorized to speak on the matter, have revealed who said what in the flight deck, an exchange first referred to in the preliminary report presented last week from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, probing the June 12 crash in the western city of Ahmedabad.

 

According to the report, two fuel switches in the cockpit had been moved to a cut-off position, the cause of the Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner losing lift and crashing 32 seconds following takeoff. The pilot being questioned denied having turned the switches off, according to the AAIB, regarding the extracted data from the cockpit voice recorder. 

 

Speculation by aviation experts was that first officer Clive Kunder had posed the question to captain Sumeet Sabharwal. Kunder has been identified as flying the plane, and as such would have had his hands full; one on the yoke commanding the widebody passenger jet into the skies, the other on the throttle controlling the speed of the aircraft. It was the Wall Street Journal that had reported previously who was responsible in the exchange of having shut off the fuel-supply switches.

 

The fuel-control switches were turned off immediately the plane departed, an event identified through the initial investigation. And although the move was reversed some 10 seconds afterward, it was too late to amend the situation, leading to the June 12 crash that killed 260 people aboard, with one miraculous survivor. "What does this [bit in the report] exactly mean? Does it mean that with a single flip, that switch could shut the engine off and cut the fuel supply? When the locking feature is disengaged, what exactly happens? Could the switch just flip itself to off and shut down the engine? If that's the case, it's a really serious issue. If not, that also needs to be explained", questioned Mr Pruchnicki.

 

The two shut-off switches are located at the lower end of the centre console between the two pilot seats, near the thrust levers, designed in such a way as to prevent unintended movement -- with metal guards on either side of the knobs and the switches themselves with a spring-loaded locking mechanism that require a pull-up motion to change position. How and why the switches were turned off that cut the flow of fuel to the engines represent the key lines of inquiry for investigators; whether the result of a failure of the plane's systems or deliberate human action.

 

"At this stage, it is too early to reach to any definite conclusions. The investigation by AAIB is still not complete", cautioned the AAIB -- not to leap to premature conclusions and to await the final report that would include root causes and recommendations. Critical to the investigation is that the mic positions might have captured and discerned the direction from which the sound of the fuel switches had been turned off, in which case definitive information could be deciphered regarding who cut off the fuel supply to the plane's engines.

 

According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with U.S. officials' early assessment of evidence, the first officer had expressed surprise that the fuel switches were off and then panicked. The captain, on the other hand, seemed calm, according to the report. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, assisting on the investigation, referred questions to the Indian authorities. The Airline Pilots' Association of India is indignant at the preliminary finding appearing to find human action as the cause of the doomed plane's crash. 

 

 

 

Canadian Indigenous Zionists

"Our children and youth, the students of the TDSB [Toronto and District School Board], are our much welcomed and loved treaty partners. They are not colonizers. The true colonizers are the adults who hijacked the field trip and wickedly co-opted our child and youth treaty partners to facilitate their anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian demonstration -- to facilitate hate."

"A thorough investigation is needed into the events of September 18. The investigation cannot be conducted by the TDSB, which has shown itself to be demonstrably unfit to do so on so many levels."

"What the TDSB did to children on September 18 is despicable and borders on criminal. It dishonours the very concept of reconciliation and the Seven Sacred Teachings."

"Together we must ensure that such politically ideologically-driven events never happen again."

The Honourable Harry S LaForme, Anishinaabe, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation

Karen Restoule, Anishanaabe-Kwe, Dokis First Nation

Dr. Mark S. Dockstator, Onyota'd:ka, Oneida Nation of the Thames

Photo by Tristan Sosteric on Unsplash

When hundreds of school children from 15 schools of the Toronto District School Board were taken by their teachers to a field trip on September 18, their parents were advised that the trip's purpose was to expose the students to yet another facet of Canada's ill-treatment of its First Nations; in this instance generations of Indigenous Canadians exposed to mercury contamination at Grassy Narrows, calling out for attention and long-ignored remediation.

 

Parents were informed that the trip would represent a measure to instill in students a sense of human rights so sorely lacking historically in Canada's relations with its First Nations populations. This event was meant to raise public awareness in "efforts to address mercury contamination and advocate for their rights regarding mining and logging activities within their territory". Parents were advised the students' presence would be to "observe and learn from the presentations and discussions".  

When parents were informed that their children preparing for the outing should wear blue shirts it is likely that none among them would have suspected that blue shirts would identify the students as 'colonial' usurpers of Indigenous land, and that the colour blue had another linkage, reflecting the colour of the Israeli flag; the ultimate 'colonialists', ostensibly depriving Palestinians of land they claimed as their own despite that Israel sits on its own ancestral heritage geography.

In effect, the Grassy Narrows River Run Rally became a focal point for anti-Israel-pro-Palestinian demonstrators; an ideologically hostile group that holds Israel accountable for a conflict forced upon the Jewish state by Palestinian terrorists who almost a year ago had carried out a wholesale atrocity of sadistically savage rape, torture, and mass murder, finally spiriting away as hostages 240 Israeli infants and children, women and men for the ransom of prisoner exchanges.

The demonstrators, many of whom were teachers with the school board who connived with others to turn attention away from Indigenous suffering to transform the event into one where Palestinian aggrieved 'victimhood' carried the day. Children are wont to obey their teachers and this event saw them being coerced to chant the Palestinian mantras of 'Zionist genocide' and 'From the river to the sea Palestine will be free'; essentially calling for the destruction of Israel.

Indigenous leaders were not amused at the turn this event took. The leaders listed above pointed out in their objections to the atrocious shoving aside of Indigenous historical injustice and the lack of government policies to adequately address them, that the teachers and other adults involved in this hijacking of a critically important Indigenous event viewed the introduction of an anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian crusade as injurious to their own cause. 

"Zionism does not kill -- as the stickers handed out to students at the 'rally' declared; extremism does. Chants of 'Turtle Island to Lebanon, Israel will be gone' by anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian demonstrators promotes terrorism", they pointed out.

Indigenous values, they pointed out with justifiable indignation, "do not align with pro-terror and hateful messages. They are anathema to the Seven Sacred Teachings of Indigenous people. These values are found in Treaties of Peace and Friendship, which are grounded in the Seven Sacred Teachings -- Love, Respect, Courage, Honesty, Wisdom, Humility and Truth", they pointed out.

Their call for an independent investigation into the event co-opting, humiliating and denying justice to the people of Grassy Narrows, is critical. Without such an investigation thoroughly examining the event, its participants, the role of the Toronto and District School Board, the need to hold the board and the teaching staff involved to account, and to take steps to cleanse the largest school board in Canada of their malign, inappropriate and harmful agenda is required, to re-build failed trust with the Canadian public.

Parents and others protest after a Toronto school trip that was supposed to teach students about mercury poisoning at Grassy Narrows was hijacked by anti-Israel protesters and teachers failed to intervene. Photo by Peter J. Thompson / National Post

Secret Security Malfunction

"[The multiplicity of Secret Service failures leading up to the July rally for former president Donald Trump were] foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt that day".

Bipartisan Senate investigation conclusion

 

"Every single one of these actions is directly related to a failure in the U.S. Secret Service's planning, communications, intelligence sharing and law enforcement coordination efforts." 

"Every single one of those failures was preventable, and the consequences of those failures were dire."

Senate Committee Chairman Gary Peters

Still from video

 

The monumental failures of all police and intelligence agencies combined at that dramatic July rally event utterly belie the proud professionalism of American agencies tasked to protect the well-being of politicians at the very time of tense and angry divisions within the American voting public. Multiple investigations into the event when a gunman opened fire at the former president even while his suspicious presence had been seen and that information conveyed to different levels of public safety officers draw similar conclusions; a massive failure of both intelligence and professional vigilance.

The Secret Service Agency itself had launched an internal investigation. And there is an ongoing bipartisan House probe. First to present their findings, however, was an interim report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which found multiple failures on every conceivable level leading up to the Butler, Pennsylvania shooting.

Planning, communications, security and allocation of resources were all inadequate and ill-fitting to the occasion. "The consequences of those failures were dire", commented Senator Gary Peters, Michigan Democratic chairman of the Homeland panel. There was no clear chain of command among the Secret Service, according to investigators' findings. Nor was there among other security agencies. 

 

No plan was formulated for coverage of the building where the shooter positioned himself on the roof to fire from relatively close range toward his target.

Separate multiple radio channels were used by security officials which inexorably led to missed communications. After  his equipment failed to work properly, an inexperienced drone operator was fixed on a help line with no assistance forthcoming. Most telling of all, likely, was a report finding the Secret Service had been given notice of an individual on the roof of the building several minutes before the shooter opened fire.

In total, eight rounds were fired in Trump's direction from a distance less than 150 yards from the location of the speaking former president. The presidential nominee for the Republican ticket ended up struck in his ear by a bullet or bullet fragment during the assassination attempt. A superficial wound, with great dramatic effect. More serious was the death of one individual at the rally, with two others injured before the gunman was shot to death by a counter-sniper with the Secret Service.

The report found that a local officer had sent a radio alert some 22 seconds before shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks fired his first shot. The information sent of an armed individual on the building roof failed to be relayed to key Secret Service personnel, however. 

 

Getty Images

"Leaving a roof unattended, just you know, barely over 100 yards from the podium with a direct line of sight was an unacceptable and inexcusable error." 

"Everybody thought this guy was suspicious and nobody thought to stop the proceeding and remove the former president from the stage." 

GOP Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, committee member

Who Was Thomas Matthew Crooks?

• 5:10 p.m. Crooks was first identified as a person of interest
• 5:30 p.m. Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder
• 5:52 p.m. Crooks was spotted on the roof by Secret Service
• 6:02 p.m. Trump takes the stage
• 6:12 p.m. Crooks fires first shots

"While Crooks was making his way to his shooting position, Secret Service agents were listening to radio traffic about a suspicious person police were looking for and heard local law enforcement talking about some sort of confrontation involving police, the sources said."

"Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe told ABC News that he was informed by other law enforcement officials that a Butler Township police officer searching for the suspicious person was vaulted onto the AGR building's roof and briefly confronted the gunman, who turned his weapon to the officer, causing him to retreat back down. Shots rang out moments later."

ABC News

 

 Bit by excruciating bit, details are emerging about the Saturday evening shooting in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania election campaign rally, when 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified as the shooter and as the FBI is laboriously investigating, while its specialists "continue to analyze his electronic devices". 

It was explained that the shooter's residence and vehicle were searched, and close to a hundred interviews took place, questioning law enforcement personnel, attendees at the rally, along with other witnesses to fine-comb sources for details of interest. Photos and videos shot at the scene are also being thoroughly reviewed.

 

Prior to the Saturday shooting Crooks went to a shooting range where he was a member and there he practised firing. He was known to have gone to Home Depot where he bought a ladder and 50 rounds of ammunition from Allegheny Arms and Gun Works in Bethel Park, Penn. He had with him a rifle bought by his father in 2013. Following his purchases, an hour's drive north took him to the rally site.

 

An "Improvised explosive device" was found on inspection of his car trunk, a Hyundai Sonata. An unidentified official described the device as having been connected to a receiver with wires, and a remote control detonator was in Crooks' possession. "That suggests the gunman may have been planning to set off an explosion remotely, and investigators are considering the theory that he may have been planning a distraction during the shooting."

 

Before Secret Service snipers on a roof neighbouring the one Crooks was crouching on, he was able to get off several shots -- an estimated eight in total, including the first one, that grazed Trump's ear --until he was shot and killed. Those shots fired from the roof killed one person at the rally -- Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old engineer and firefighter -- shot in the head, while two others were critically wounded.

 

Bethel Park is a quiet suburb of Pittsburgh, south of where the Saturday rally took place. Crooks lived there with his parents and he worked at a nursing home. He graduated with an associate's degree in engineering science from the Community College of Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania in May. "Like all Americans, we are shocked and saddened by the horrific turn of events that took place", stated the community college.

 

High school yearbook and graduation photos of Thomas Matthew Crooks

 

According to a former classmate who asked to remain anonymous, Crooks was reserved, seldom discussing politics at school and seemed centre-right and moderate. Hearing that Crooks was identified as the gunman, the classmate texted Crooks that he was sorry that someone attempted to impersonate him. When he later saw the photo of Crooks on the roof of the building where he was fatally shot, he understood why he received no text back.

Despite having ample access to Crooks' family and friends, his phone and those of some people he communicated with, investigators find themselves with scant information that might point to a motive for his actions. According to FBI officials, there is no evidence of any ideology that drove Crooks to commit such an act of violence. 

Police block roads around the home of Thomas Matthew Crooks in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, on Monday, as the FBI continues its investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.    Rebecca Droke/AFP/Getty Images

 

"A Total Act Of Bastardry"

"Typically, we would only see fentanyl being detected in quantities of one gram or less. To have a detection that is 11 kilograms pure is just quite frankly extraordinary."

"The audacity of the group behind this is just ... outrageous, I'd describe it as a total act of bastardry."

"Th base of the lathe had poor quality welding and touch-up paint applied to it, which frankly just looked out of place."

"[Fentanyl] is one of the more dangerous drugs our officers can come into contact with." 

"We were absolutely shocked by the size of the detection and the audacity of this attempted importation."

"[Generically border force officers] work with its partners both here in Australia and internationally to ensure illicit drugs don't reach our communities."

James Watson, Australian Border Force commander

"Our concern is that if such a large amount of fentanyl was in the hands of Australian-based criminal networks driven by greed, it could have passed uncontrolled and hidden into the community with possibly deadly results."

"Someone out there in the community knows something. We are at a crucial stage in the investigation and would appreciate some more information."

"The interception of this amount of drugs would be a significant blow even to a well-resourced criminal syndicate and prevents millions of dollars of drug profit flowing back into the syndicate to fund their lavish lifestyles or next criminal venture."

Anthony Hall, Australian Federal Police acting commander

Investigators were forced to wear bio-hazard suits as they inspected the shipment.(Supplied: AFP

 

Canada, like the United States, is experiencing a public-health crisis fuelled largely by fentanyl use -- along with fentanyl mixed into street drugs, unknown to users but the cause of many overdoses. Between January of 2016 and December 2021, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, a total of 29,052 deaths attributable to fentanyl took place.

Australian authorities seized the largest ever fentanyl cache being smuggled from Canada into Australia recently. A public warning was issued several days ago relating to the dangers of the opioid known for its explosive potency. Designed to medically treat pain, its use as a street drug often leads to lethal overdoses. Never before has the illicit drug been known to be available for drug users in the bulk and purity the recently seized drugs represented. 

Although Australia has some familiarity with fentanyl drug seizures, none have been in large quantities, about 30 grams being the average. Fentanyl street sales are more generally derived from stolen drugs or medical patches diverted from medical use. The latest discovery came about with suspicions over a shipping container sent by the Australian Border Force for further scrutiny.

Suspicions increased when a forklift raised the lathe out of its shipping container and what followed was a two-week operation to remove and analyze the suspected contents. Officers drilled into the base revealing a light brown substance on the end of the bit, field-testing positive for fentanyl.  Further work was done by officers in full biohazard protection, a decontamination zone, ambulances and naloxone within easy reach. Altogether, 60 kilograms of powdered substance was revealed.

The powder was wrapped in plastic sealed with zip ties, stuffed into metal ammunition cases stacked inside the undercarriage of the lathe. Enough of the substance to produce 4.5 million doses. Along with the fentanyl was found 30 kilograms of methamphetamine, with an estimated street value of $27 million.

A shipment of fentanyl and methamphetamine was hidden inside a wooden lathe, which is a machine for shaping wood or metal.(Supplied: AFP)

Community Grief in South Africa

"We are so heartbroken, guys. We lost one of our family members, a child wo was doing Grade 12 [final year] this year. We can't accept it."

"By the look of the child she has no visible injuries."

Yandiswa Ngqoza, aunt of one deceased youth

"I'm so devastated. We are so angry."

"People were complaining about the tavern. No one was happy about it. The community wanted the tavern to be shut."

Maxhabiso Sibotoboto, 50, grandfather

"It is either something they ingested, which will point to poisoning, whether it's food or drinks, or it is something they inhaled."

"We are ruling out a [panic] stampede completely." 

Unathi Binqose, spokesperson, Eastern Cape provincial community safety department

Crowds gathered Sunday as police investigated inside the Enyobeni Tavern near East London in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. (Reuters)

"On Sunday morning at about 4am police from the Scenery Park Police Station received a report of the lifeless bodies of the teenagers at a local tavern in the area. Upon arrival police found seventeen bodies inside the building."

"It was later established two more died at a local clinic, one died en route to hospital and another died in hospital. Nine of the deceased are female while twelve of the deceased are male. "

"Police have since registered an inquest into the death of the teenagers."

Police spokesperson Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana

Investigation by police when the bodies of 21 teenagers were discovered in a tavern in East London, South Africa showed clearly there were no marks of violence on the dead. What led to their deaths appeared baffling to authorities who at first thought that something might have panicked the young people leading them to die of asphyxiation resulting from a stampede. Attention then speculated that the deaths might have been caused by ingesting something poisonous.

As yet no evidence of the reason for the sudden deaths have been revealed but a forensic team is working on the mystery. No comfort, however, to the grieving relatives of the young people, most of whom were celebrating the end of the school year in a tavern that was known to serve underage teens. One of the victims of whatever it was that took those lives was only13 years of age. The consensus at this point is that something they all ate, drank or smoked had been lethal.

Binge-drinking is evidently a common youth-culture problem in the area. Occasionally resulting in medical emergencies and/or injuries. So there have been previous reports of such incidents. All of which paled in comparison to the discovery of 21 young people dead in an inexplicable manner. People living at Scenery Park located on the periphery of East London had urged authorities to close the Enyobeni Tavern because of its reputation of serving to underage kids. It took this disaster of 21 dead to have its license revoked.

There are photographs that were circulated on social media showing the lifeless bodies of young people scattered across the floor of the tavern. Some were photographed motionless, lying across tables and couches. Outside a morgue holding the bodies, a news conference featuring Police Minister Bheko Cele paused as tears swept his countenance Sunday. The audience joined him in their mutual grief for the deaths of so many young people. In an interview preparatory to the publication of a toxicology report, Unathi Binqose speaking for the provincial community safety department revealed that hookah pipe wre visible in CCTV scene footage. 

"We call on parents and legal guardians not to abdicate their responsibility to their children or minor children entrusted in their care. As a parent myself, I am pained by this tragedy and cannot imagine losing a child in this manner. We grieve with parents and families at this hour and ask for your patience in getting to the facts around this tragic event."

"We are saddened by the loss of young lives, future leaders of our country, future breadwinners for their families, and for all the investments made by their families in them that now have evaporated in an instant."

Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane

A body being removed on Sunday from a bar in East London, South Africa. Associated Press

Origins of COVID Under WHO Investigation in China

"My understanding is in fact there is no limit in accessing information we might need for the team."

"We will see. We are not in China yet."

Hung Nguyen, Vietnamese biologist

"What we would like to do with the international team and counterparts in China is to go back in the Wuhan environment, re-interview in-depth the initial cases, try to find other cases that were not detected at that time and try to see if we can push back the history of the first cases."

Peter Ben Embarek, WHO expert on animal diseases crossing species barrier

 

"We are looking for the answers here that may save us in future — not culprits and not people to blame."

"[The WHO is willing to go] anywhere and everywhere."

World Health Organization top emergency expert, Mike Ryan 

 

"At this stage what I think we need is a very open mind when trying to step back into the events that led eventually to this pandemic."

Marion Koopmans, virologist, Erasmus University Medical Center, Netherlands 

 

A worker in protective coverings directs members of the World Health Organization team on their arrival at the airport in Wuhan, in central China's Hubei province, on Thursday. (Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press)

An earlier attempt by WHO experts who set out to investigate the origins, extent and the host country's initial realization they were dealing with a novel coronavirus and the information they shared with the World Health Organization, resulted in a disappointing setback when members of the team were denied authorization by China to enter the country to fulfill the function they were dispatched by the world  health body to accomplish. At the time WHO chief Tetros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had voiced his disappointment and China responded that there had been a 'misunderstanding'.

 

That misunderstanding appears now to have been settled and the WHO team of expert investigators set off once again -- comprised of global scientists, experts in their field -- to investigate the novel coronavirus origins, planning to spend a month in the city of Wuhan. Just having arrived now, their first two weeks will be spent in quarantine. Before their arrival, Hung Nguyen, speaking via video-call from Singapore said the ten-member team did not expect to encounter any restrictions to their movements nor access to vital investigation sites.

 

They were preparing at that point to fly from Singapore to Wuhan. The end result of their investigation would presumably put to rest the skepticism voiced by the governments of the United States and Australia, to mention several of the more prominent voices demanding answers of Beijing. China has been accused of screening the extent of the initial outbreak leading to calls for a transparent investigation led by the WHO in the wake of criticisms of the terms by which experts in China conducted their research during the SARS-CoV-2 virus's initial entrance. 

The group arrived late in the morning from Singapore and was expected to head into two weeks of quarantine. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Dr.Hung explained in a media interview that the WHO team  had conducted regular virtual meetings for discussions with their Chinese virus-expert counterparts, taking place over the months before the team embarked on their trip to China. Once their period of quarantine had lapsed, the team planned to spend the following two weeks in interviews with people from research institutes, hospitals and from the seafood market in Wuhan where the pathogen was believed to have first emerged and began its spread, eventually appearing everywhere across the globe.

Dr.Hung's expertise is in the field of food safety risks arising from wet markets, whose existence is common throughout Asia and parts of Africa. He is himself based in Kenya, and he was chosen to take part in the investigative mission taking advantage of his training and experience. China has pushed back against international criticism as the crucible of yet another malignant virus that managed to leap the species gap between animals and humans; bats and pangolins considered to be vectors. Pangolins happen to be the most trafficked wild-animal species found in wet markets.

China has its own narrative of the novel coronavirus origins; that it was brought to China, not that it originated in China. Its state media has been expressing and promulgating a home-grown narrative of the virus being present in imported frozen food packaging from abroad. That it was present in 2019 in Europe. China being made a scapegoat for something it was not at all responsible for. And China has produced scientific papers featuring those claims. 

 

Before the WHO delegation of experts left for China they underwent COVID-19 tests in their countries of origin and then again in Singapore, all negative, which cleared them all for travel. On arrival in China additional, more complex tests were taken that showed two members of the delegation had bloodstream antibodies to COVID, and they were denied entry. 

 

Nucleic acid tests were negative but two of the members had coronavirus antibodies. "They are being retested for both IgM and IgG antibodies", explained the WHO. "Relevant epidemic prevention and control requirements and regulations will be strictly enforced", noted Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a briefing update Thursday responding to a question about the two team members.

People wearing face masks walk in a street market in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicentre of China's novel coronavirus disease, in April 2020. The WHO team, which landed Thursday, will spend two weeks interviewing people from research institutes, hospitals and the Wuhan seafood market market where the new pathogen is believed to have emerged. (Aly Song/Reuters)

To Solve a Morbid Mystery

"We know it's very, very similar to the virus in the bat, but did it go through an intermediate species?"
"This is a question we all need answered."
WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris

"Two WHO experts are currently en route to China to meet with fellow scientists and learn about the progress made in understanding the animal reservoir for COVID-19 and how the disease jumped between animals and humans."
"This will help lay the groundwork for the WHO-led international mission into the origins."
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

"Science must stay open to all possibilities [regarding the pandemic’s origins]."
"We need to lay out a series of investigations that will get the answers that I’m sure the Chinese government, governments around the world, and ourselves really need in order to manage the risk going forward into the future."
Mike Ryan, executive director, WHO's Health Emergencies Program

In this July 8, 2020, file photo, Stephane Labossiere, right, with the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, hands out masks and printed information about free COVID-19 testing in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

Scientists around the world are working feverishly, wracking their brains, engaging in research, involved in experimental trials, all in an effort under huge pressure, to discover a safe and effective vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that behaves like no other before it, sparing the majority of people it infects, and wreaking utterly morbid destruction in a minority of others. But this is a substantial minority, well over a half-million people have so far died from the dire effects of the novel coronavirus.

Few such zoonitics have proven to be so successfully opportunistic as this one. Spreading with lightning speed across an unready world. It was always known, and scientists warned governments that the global community was 'due' for a major pandemic. No one might have imagined the vast sweep and level of destruction such a global pandemic would be capable of causing, even with the historical record of the Black Plague that destroyed so many lives that Europe lost 25 million people.

Close to 13 million people worldwide have contracted COVID-19. This, in a technologically advanced world, with modern hospitals, well-trained health professionals, laboratories the world over using sophisticated research techniques, medical equipment relying on the latest in technical advances to aid in the desperate effort to save lives, stem the tide of infections, bring the virus under control.

But it is also an interconnected world, of travel and communications, trade and commerce of great assistance to the replicating and mutating disease seeking new homes in human bodies.

The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory researches some of the world's most dangerous pathogens.  Photo: Wuhan Institute of Virology 

Science wants to know where the virus originated, when and how it transmitted from animals to humans to become a deadly zoonotic. It was initially held to have been transmitted to shoppers at an open-air market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were sold as well as fruits and vegetables and fish. But then, outbreaks were seen elsewhere in Wuhan, not from the market. The mystery compounded by the presence of two pathology research laboratories located in Wuhan, one quite close to the Wuhan market.

A theory was born that the virus was one produced in the laboratory, and that it had 'escaped'. Since then, tests on sewage in Italy and in Spain have detected traces of the virus that pre-date the first known emergence of the virus in China. None of the claims have been validated. But there are more than enough questions surrounding the mystery of where, how and when, that a scientific enquiry will be hard put to answer.

But the answers would provide some much-needed insights in the world of medical science to aid in combating this global pandemic, and to make preparations for those to follow.

The two WHO experts who are specialists in animal health and epidemiology are set to work in tandem with their Chinese counterparts. hoping to determine the scope and itinerary of the investigation. Among other questions to be probed, did the virus transfer through an intermediate species. As to its origins, as a chimera of a virus that the Wuhan laboratory worked on, then lost -- months before the outbreak was reported, U.S. diplomats visited the laboratory and were struck by its lax security, reporting back to Washington that they felt concerned.

All of which may, or may not be merely coincidental. The laboratory had discovered a SARS-like virus in bat caves in an isolated location and had been working on the virus for several years before the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In time, perfectly reasonable explanations in science may be discovered to clear up any mysteries relating to origin and transmission. In the meanwhile, there is an aura of distrust in t he scientific and political community worldwide, with accusations that China was less than forthcoming with its data.

Add to that the perception that the World Health Organization was less than objective in its relationship with China, and with the kind of information it was itself making available to governments worldwide in preparation for the spread of a highly infectious disease gaining a formidable reputation as a world-wide threat, and the impression is that whenever a report does
circulate that summarizes the analyses undertaken by the UN team, it may be viewed with skeptical caution.

Medical staff transfer a patient at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong, China. Photo Reuters

"We view the scientific investigation as a necessary step to having a complete and transparent understanding of how this virus has spread throughout the world."
"We expect that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] will offer the team of scientists full access to data, samples, and localities, and look forward to its timely report."
Andrew Bremberg, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Geneva

Deciphering A Mystery

"We [in professional vocabulary] call it an accident because that's our terminology [as air accident investigators]. But this is a criminal act. It's not an accident."
"If someone does this intentionally, you can call that suicide. The pilot took his own life and he took the lives of everyone who was on board that aircraft."
"People accuse me of being insensitive to families. I don't mind taking the question, but if someone challenges me, I say, 'I don't need any lessons from you. How many grieving families have you talked to after an airplane accident? I've done it by the hundreds. Don't tell me that I don't have any sympathy. I've had people faint in my arms."
"What they're [searchers for the wreckage of MH370] proving every day they search is that their assumptions were wrong."
"[The Malaysian Airline pilot’s] intention was to make the plane disappear forever, and make it so that no one would ever find it."
Larry Vance, retired Ottawa air accident investigator

"When you start looking at them [identifiable parts of MH370], there's a story in every one of them. And the story is consistent."
"When the airplane is coming in [vertically] at 300 to 600 feet per second, everything is shattering into a million pieces. In a third of a second to half a second, it's gone."
"There's no way you could end up with a piece like this with the leading edge absolutely intact."
"Wreckage analysis is a dying art. They're depending on the recorders [recovered black box]. They tell you what happened -- maybe. But they don't tell you the sequence or why things are happening. You need to be able to do wreckage analysis."
Terry Heaslip, retired Transportation Safety Board investigator

A flaperon from MH370 recovered from the Indian Ocean, showing the intact rounded leading edge that air crash expert Terry Heaslip says proves the plane was ditched at sea and didn’t crash at high speed. AFP/Getty Images

Three investigators with the Transportation Safety Board, a federal Canadian investigative authority, retired to launch their own consulting company into accident disasters, calling it HVS Aviation. Larry Vance, Terry Heaslip and Elaine Summers, all retired, thought their own independent investigation into the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 might represent a good joint exercise, whose conclusion might have a twofold purpose; their effort leading to success would give comfort to the grieving families in solving the mystery, and the results would give closure to a puzzle.

Vast sums of funding went into international searches, at first desperate in nature, in hopes of being able to rescue survivors lost at sea awaiting help, or marooned on a remote island somewhere. When the critical  time frame for rescue had passed, it became an international search without anyone knowing precisely where to search in a confused and confusing scenario that placed hope on various areas of vast oceanic searches. Airplane parts were found and  discovered not to be those being looked for, though eventually some pieces did surface and were identified as having come from Flight 370.

That the Boeing 777 had simply vanished with all 239 passengers and crew aboard on March 8, 2014 was a shocking catastrophe. Explanation eluded, and searches were futile. In all of aviation accident history this single flight disaster likely epitomizes the most puzzling. In a later flight of a German airliner in the remote French Alps a brief mystery also puzzled investigators when in March of 2015 Flight 9525 crashed into mountains with the loss of 144 passengers and six crew. Its young co-pilot had carefully planned his own suicide and sacrificed the lives of all aboard to his plan. That conspiracy, however, was solved with the aid of recordings and a successful investigation.


The mystery surrounding the Malaysia Airlines flight is more enduring, however, and it isn't that long ago that the last of a succession of searches was called off with a sense of hopelessness. There were 20 confirmed and identified MHY370 pieces retrieved since the plane and its human cargo vanished. It was some of those pieces that have helped this investigative team who took on this investigation of their own initiative, to solve the seemingly unsolvable. They examined all available data and came to their conclusion.

Mr. Heaslip, an expert on wreckage analysis, who with the Transportation Safety Board was its director of engineering and his partners were convinced the crash resulted from a deliberate action on the part of one of the pilots. Whom they theorize in all probability killed his passengers through depressurizing the plane. And then he deliberately flew toward a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean and ditched the plane to end his life, taking so many others with him, becoming a mass murderer in one fell stroke.

Their theory bears no resemblance to the official story which holds that the plane flew in a straight line until running out of fuel when it plunged vertically into the sea. Quite dissatisfied with the official theory, the Ottawa-based investigators examined wreckage photographs, the flight path maps and schematic drawings of the aircraft. Their investigation transcended a cold analysis of engineering calculations and cockpit procedure, however; their concern also lay with the need of the families to know the truth of what had occurred.

"This is an attempt by us to give some amount of closure by telling them [families of the victims] what happened. Because if people in the end -- I don't care who they are -- if they know the truth it's better in the long run than if they never know what happened."
Larry Vance

And so they zeroed in on pieces that had washed ashore and identified as having belonged to flight MH370; the aircraft's right flap, a part of the wing extended when the plane slows before landing, and the adjacent "flaperon", used to control the plane in low and slow flight. Along with the eight-by twelve foot piece also examined which they knew could not possibly have survived a high-speed vertical impact. Both it and the rounded leading edge of the flap and flaperon were undamaged.

Relying on tried-and-true wreckage analysis; studying stresses and fractures visible on the recovered pieces Heaslip and Vance deduced the forces that tore apart the plane; an exercise that no electronic data of a black box recorder could reveal. Earlier parts of the flight, including the pilot turning off the plane's transponder to make it invisible to radar before reversing direction and flying along the boundary point of two different air traffic control regions to ensure the plane would be missed by controllers, all contributed to their analysis and final conclusion.

The team documented their careful study of all available evidence and their professional analytical methodology, to reach their final, informed conclusion, and it all appears in a book titled MHY370 Mystery Solved which can be ordered online at hvsaviation.com.