Sunday Times 2
MH 370: Disappearance deliberate, says Najib
View(s):KUALA LUMPUR, March 15, (AFP) – A missing Malaysian airliner was apparently deliberately diverted and flown for hours after vanishing from radar, Prime Minister Najib Razak said today, stopping short of confirming a hijack but taking the excruciating search for the jet into uncharted new territory.
A man cries as Buddhists hold a special prayer for family members of passengers onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in a temple in Subang Jaya yesterday. Reuters
Najib said investigators believed “with a high degree of certainty” that systems relaying Malaysia Airlines flight 370′s location to air traffic control were manually switched off before the jet veered westward in a fashion “consistent with deliberate action”.
But a grave-looking Najib told a press conference watched around the globe that he could not confirm whether the plane had been forcibly taken over.
Prime Minister Najib Razak addresses the media at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur International Airport yesterday.
“Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear: we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path,” he said.
He called it an “excruciating time for the families of those on board.” The new information appeared to cast aside a host of theories on the plane’s disappearance, which has transfixed the world and left frustrated families of the 239 passengers and crew baying for scarce information.
Dauntingly large search area
Previous scenarios included a sudden mid-air explosion, catastrophic equipment or structural failure, or a crash into the South China Sea.
But Najib’s announcement opened a whole new avenue of speculation including an attempted 9/11-style attack.
The 9/11 hijackers had turned off the transponders of three of the four planes that were commandeered. Transponders transmit data on a plane’s location to air traffic controllers.
MH370′s transponder was manually shut off, Najib said.
Final satellite communication with the Boeing 777, scheduled to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, came more than six-and-a-half hours after it vanished from civilian radar at 1:30am on March 8, said Najib.
That would equate with the time Malaysia Airlines has said the plane would have run out of fuel.
Investigators had concluded the plane was diverted west from its original flight path, and thus a search in the South China Sea would end, Najib said, but would continue in the Indian Ocean.
But the new search zone is now dauntingly large — Najib said the plane could be anywhere from Kazakhstan to the southern Indian Ocean.
Earlier, a senior Malaysian military official had told AFP investigators believed the plane was commandeered by a “skilled, competent and current pilot” who knew how to avoid radar, stopping short of speculating whether a hijacker or crew member was suspected.
Something beyond 9/11
Dozens of ships and aircraft from 14 countries have been deployed across a huge search zone since MH370 went missing.
As the search continues, investigators will focus on who would have diverted it and why.
Malaysian security officials were earlier embarrassed by revelations that two Iranian men had managed to board the plane using stolen European passports.
It could also bring new attention on Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and his First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27.
Malaysian reporters told AFP they witnessed police enter Zaharie’s house on today, staying for two hours. Police declined comment to AFP.
An Australian television station had days earlier broadcast an interview with a South African woman who alleged she and a friend were invited into the cockpit of a flight Fariq co-piloted in 2011 — a breach of post-9/11 security rules.
The New York Times quoted American officials with knowledge of the investigation saying the plane saw wild fluctuations in altitude after it changed course.
| Scenarios: What could have happened KUALA LUMPUR, March 15, (AFP) – The week-long search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took a major new turn today as evidence indicated that its communication systems were manually switched off and the airliner was deliberately diverted.
The first concrete, verified lead as to the possible reason behind the disappearance has fuelled speculation over how and why MH370 might have been commandeered — and its likely fate. Here are some of the possible scenarios being weighed up by experts. THEORY: Terror attack WHY: As the theory that the plane was deliberately taken over gains traction, questions over the involvement of terrorist organisations have come back to the fore. The presence of two passengers travelling on stolen passports fuelled early fears of a terror link. Authorities now believe the two Iranian men were simply illegal migrants, but CIA director John Brennan has said a terror attack has not been ruled out. The search area covers a massive region — a northern corridor from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan through northern Thailand and a southern corridor from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean — with no potential target or destination pinpointed so far. “If that was deliberate, we may be dealing with something beyond the mission planning for 9/11,” he said. While the southern corridor is less monitored, the northern zone would be bristling with radar. Dropping altitude to fly as low as possible would be one way to avoid detection, he said. But the Malaysia Airlines scenario had too many loose ends for a terror attack, said Adam Dolnik, professor of terrorism studies at the University of Wollongong in Australia. “Nothing from what I have seen points to that conclusion,” he told AFP. “For something this big, you would have somebody claiming it.” THEORY: Pilot involvement WHY: With Malaysia confirming that communications were likely switched off manually, pilot involvement — whether intentional or under duress — is a possibility, some experts say. EXPERT VIEW: “For me there’s only a few scenarios,” says Paul Yap, aviation lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore. “First, the people involved in the deliberate actions…are the pilots, one of them or both of them in cahoots. “Then we have a scenario where terrorists make the pilots change course and switch off the transponders under duress, maybe threatening to kill of the passengers. “Or, we could have a scenario where the security protocol surrounding the cockpit is compromised.” Passengers have been prohibited from entering the cockpit during a flight after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. “It’s certainly someone who knew what they were doing,” said Chris De Lavigne, a vice president at business consultancy Frost & Sullivan. THEORY: Pilot suicide WHY: While rare, there have been cases of pilots crashing planes to take their own lives. In December 1997, a SilkAir Boeing 737 from Jakarta to Singapore plunged into a river in Indonesia with the loss of 104 passengers and crew. US investigators blamed pilot suicide. EXPERT VIEW: A suicide bid “is possible and if that’s the case there might not be a lot of debris because the plane would have come down in relative structural integrity”, said Terence Fan, aviation expert at Singapore Management University. “The airplane is not meant to float and if the airplane sinks in the water, water will go inside because the door seals are not meant to seal water.” Nothing has emerged to suggest any serious psychological problems with either of the pilots who were flying MH370. WHY: The lack of debris and apparent absence of any data indicating impact have led to speculation that the plane may have landed safely and be hidden in a remote location. EXPERT VIEW: The size of the Boeing 777 and the amount of space needed for it to land make it unlikely that this was the flight’s fate, says Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at industry publication Flightglobal. “The triple seven is a very large aircraft that requires a long airport-size runway to land… it’s possible, but I think not probable.” But Yap believes that if those controlling the flight were skilled enough to evade military radar, “that person should most likely be able to land it safely as well”. “Evidence of deliberate action does open several new leads – including the possibility that the aircraft is not lost at sea,” said London-based David Kaminski-Morrow, air transport editor for Flight International. Soejatman added that most flights have enough fuel to cover an additional two hours in the air so, given the latest data, MH370 would have been close to running out. THEORY: Cover up WHY: The apparent slowness to reveal key radar data has led to speculation that countries may know more about the plane’s likely whereabouts, but are unwilling to share due to a perceived security risk. EXPERT VIEW: The latest information on the plane’s route poses more questions than it answers over how it remained undetected, says Soejatman. “If it went through the northern corridor, it would have passed through so many countries. But why hasn’t anybody detected it and said anything? “It’s extremely different to comprehend that so many countries might have seen it and kept it under wraps.” A path through the remoter southern corridor would explain a lack of radar coverage, but would bring the motive into doubt, he said. |