Malaysia rejects cockpit calls reports
Print Edition
MALAYSIA yesterday rejected claims that phone calls were made from flight MH370 before it vanished, but refused to rule out any possibility in a so far fruitless investigation over the cause of the jet’s disappearance.
The New Straits Times, quoting an anonymous source, reported on Saturday that co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid made a call which ended abruptly, possibly “because the aircraft was fast moving away from the (telecommunications) tower.”
There have also been unconfirmed reports of calls by the Malaysia Airlines plane’s captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah before or during the flight.
Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters yesterday that authorities had no knowledge of any calls made from the jet’s cockpit.
“As far as I know, no,” he said when asked if any calls had been made.
However, he added that he did not want to speculate on “the realm of the police and other international agencies” investigating the case.
“I do not want to disrupt the investigations that are being done now not only by the Malaysian police but the FBI, MI6, Chinese intelligence and other intelligence agencies,” he said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Hishammuddin also said that no passenger on the plane had been cleared in the criminal investigation into the fate of the flight, clarifying an earlier indication from Malaysia’s police chief.
“The Inspector-General of Police said at that particular point in time there is nothing to find suspicion with the passenger manifesto but ... unless we find more information, specifically the data in the black box, I don’t think any chief of police will be in a position to say they have been cleared,” he said.
The police chief also clarified last week that passengers had not categorically been cleared as the investigation was ongoing.
Pilots Fariq and Zaharie have come under intense scrutiny since the plane vanished on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8, with still no clue as to the cause of its disappearance.
Investigators last month indicated that the flight had been deliberately diverted and its communication systems manually switched off as it was leaving Malaysian airspace, triggering a criminal investigation by police which has revealed little so far.
A number of theories have been put forward, including hijacking, a terrorist plot or a pilot gone rogue, with authorities grasping at straws as to the fate of the plane without crucial data from the jet’s black boxes, which have yet to be located, and no wreckage found.
Several sonic ‘pings,’ which authorities have said are consistent with a black box, have been detected by ships in the search area in the remote southern Indian Ocean, off the west coast of Australia.
But Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Center, which is leading the search, said yesterday that another 24 hours had passed without a confirmed signal, increasing fears that the batteries in the beacons attached to the plane’s two black boxes may have run flat.
The last pings were detected last Tuesday.
There were 12 aircraft and 14 ships combing a 57,506 square kilometer region of the Indian Ocean yesterday, 2,200 kilometers northwest of Perth.
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