Focus shifts to crew and passengers
Print Edition
THE missing Malaysian jetliner was deliberately diverted and continued flying for more than six hours after severing contact with the ground, meaning it could have gone as far northwest as Kazakhstan or into the Indian Ocean’s southern reaches, Malaysia’s leader said yesterday.
Prime Minister Najib Razak’s statement confirmed days of mounting speculation that the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 to Beijing more than a week ago was not accidental. It also refocused the investigation into the flight’s crew and passengers, and underlined the complicated task for searchers who have been scouring vast areas of ocean.
“Clearly the search for MH370 has entered a new phase,” Najib told a news conference.
Najib said investigators were looking into all possibilities as to why the Boeing 777 deviated so drastically from its flight path, saying authorities could not confirm whether it was a hijacking. Earlier yesterday a Malaysian official said the plane had been hijacked, though that no motive had been established and no demands made known.
“In view of this latest development, the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board,” Najib told reporters.
Police yesterday went to the Kuala Lumpur homes of both the pilot and co-pilot of the missing plane, according to a guard and several local reporters.
Experts have previously said that whoever disabled the plane’s communication systems and then flew the jet must have had a high degree of technical knowledge and flying experience. One possibility they have raised was that one of the pilots wanted to commit suicide.
The plane was carrying 239 people when it departed for an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing at 12:40am on March 8. Its communications with civilian air controllers were severed at about 1:20am, and the jet went missing — heralding one of the most puzzling mysteries in modern aviation history.
China, where the bulk of the passengers were from, expressed irritation over what it described as Malaysia’s foot-dragging in releasing information.
Investigators now have a high degree of certainty that one of the plane’s communications systems — the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System — was disabled before the aircraft reached the east coast of Malaysia, Najib said. Shortly afterward, someone switched off the aircraft’s transponder, which communicates with civilian air traffic controllers.
Najib confirmed that Malaysian air force defense radar picked up the plane turning back westward, crossing over Peninsular Malaysia into the northern stretches of the Strait of Malacca.
“These movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane,” Najib said.
Although the jet was virtually blind to air traffic controllers, onboard equipment sent “pings” to satellites.
The prime minister said the last confirmed signal between the plane and a satellite came at 8:11am — 7 hours and 31 minutes after takeoff. This was more than five hours later than the previous time given by Malaysian authorities.
Airline officials have said the plane had enough fuel to fly for eight hours.
“The investigations team is making further calculations which will indicate how far the aircraft may have flown after this last point of contact,” Najib said.
He said authorities had determined that the plane’s last communication with a satellite was in one of two possible arcs, or “corridors” — a northern one from northern Thailand through to the border of the Central Asian countries Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Najib said search efforts in the South China Sea, where the plane first lost contact, had ended.
Two-thirds of the plane’s 227 passengers were Chinese. In a stinging commentary yesterday, Xinhua news agency said the Malaysian information was “painfully belated,” resulting in wasted efforts and straining the nerves of relatives.
“Given today’s technology, the delay smacks of either dereliction of duty or reluctance to share information in a full and timely manner,” Xinhua said. “That would be intolerable.”
Relatives of passengers awaiting news at a hotel near Beijing’s airport said they felt deceived at not being told earlier about the plane’s last signal.
“We are going through a roller coaster, and feel helpless,” said one woman.
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