Missing Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 triggers Southeast Asia search

[Hulkster]

The stolen passports could mean something but mean completely nothing. Malaysia lets anyone cross their borders with few questions. Kuala Lumpur is a human trafficking hub. Who knows what these guys were involved in.

Then again, they might have been Iranian terrorists. Didn't the Iranian terrorists who blew off their own legs in Bangkok spend time in Pattaya before their failed mission?

Can you back the human trafficking part?

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa app

Back what? Kuala Lumpur is a human trafficking hub. This is hardly news.

[eurozhongguo]

Italian and Austrian passports. The Italian name "Luigi Maraldi" indicates ethnic Italian i.e. European appearance. Austrian is likely Caucasian too. Not the best choices for terrorists of the usual origin, though still wouldn't rule it out.

I suspect that South-East Asian wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Caucasians, Middle Easterners and Latinos. They are all just falang to them.

I would assume that this incident has some connection to the Uighur separatist movement in Xinjiang as this plane would mainly have Chinese on board. They also perpertrated an attack in the last few days at Kunming railway station where they stabbed several Chinese passengers some of whom died. The Uighur people have more in common with Central Asia than China. Xinjiang's real name is East Turkestan. It is a huge area of some 1.6 million square kms and the population is mostly muslims. The Chinese don't allow Uighur people to hold passports. So, the act may have been perpertarated by sympathisers, possibly from the Middle East or Central Asia.

[Jingthing]

4 suspicious identities.

Yes I think it's reasonable to look at the Chinese Uigher angle.

However, that's doesn't mean it's likely:

Greg Barton, a professor of international politics at Australia's Monash University and a terrorism expert, said if the disaster was the result of terrorism, there is no obvious suspect. If it was terrorism, Barton expected China would be quick to blame separatists from the ethnic Uighur minority, as authorities did recently when 29 people were killed in knife attacks at a train station in the southern city of Kunming.

"If a group like that is behind it, then suddenly they've got a capacity that we didn't know they had before, they've executed it very well — that's very scary," Barton told AP. "It's safe to start with the assumption that that's not very likely, but possible."

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/4-passengers-IDs-being-checked-on-missing-jet-5299268.php

[Credo]

Italian and Austrian passports. The Italian name "Luigi Maraldi" indicates ethnic Italian i.e. European appearance. Austrian is likely Caucasian too. Not the best choices for terrorists of the usual origin, though still wouldn't rule it out.

I suspect that South-East Asian wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Caucasians, Middle Easterners and Latinos. They are all just falang to them.

I would assume that this incident has some connection to the Uighur separatist movement in Xinjiang as this plane would mainly have Chinese on board. They also perpertrated an attack in the last few days at Kunming railway station where they stabbed several Chinese passengers some of whom died. The Uighur people have more in common with Central Asia than China. Xinjiang's real name is East Turkestan. It is a huge area of some 1.6 million square kms and the population is mostly muslims. The Chinese don't allow Uighur people to hold passports. So, the act may have been perpertarated by sympathisers, possibly from the Middle East or Central Asia.

If the Uighurs can't have passports, then it wasn't them, since they wouldn't have been able to get out of China. If they were sympathizers from elsewhere, they wouldn't need stolen passports.

I am inclined to think that these are people being trafficked into Europe. The passports will get them through Malaysia, through China and they can claim asylum as soon as they hit Amsterdam, which was the final reported destination. They only planned to transit through China.

[Thai at Heart]

Oh for Pete's sake. There are people who ate from deepest darkest parts of the world to Eskimos who hold passports all over the world.

Least of all for example my kids who are thai but have blondish hair. Arguing that a uighur Couldn't pass for a Mediterranean is pointless but more than possible. All they have to do is get through. Thats all.

They aren't running for patliament.

these guys are not the typical mediterraneans. They look both very caucasians, they look more Scandinavians than Mediterranean actually

But they could have changed the passport photographs.

Anyway,In the European passports there are the names of the parents too, so it is easy to check they weren't 50% mixed.

An Italian with both italian parents and an austrian with both austrian parents.

I bet if it was a US or European Inmigration instead Malaysia, they would have been caught on the spot.

Maybe. Google blonde Uyghurs . Who says they have to be Uyghurs resident in china anyway. There are many central Europe a states with populations very sympathetic to the plight of the Uyghurs.

give anyone a basic effort to improve their.appearance and they look completely inoffensive.. I doubt the immigration was going to ask them in Italian were they.

[steven100]

Just received a report ..5:00pm

Another pilot who was flying ahead of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has revealed he made contact with aircraft minutes after he was asked to do so by Vietnamese air traffic control.

The captain, who requested to remain anonymous, told Malaysian media outlets his plane, which was bound for Narita, Japan, was in Vietnamese airspace when he was asked to contact the pilot flying the missing plane.

In using his plane’s emergency frequency, he was asked to try and establish its position after authorities failed to make contact.

“We managed to establish contact with MH370 just after 1.30am and asked them if they have transferred into Vietnamese airspace,” he told the New Straits Times.

“The voice on the other side could have been either Captain Zaharie or Fariq, but I was sure it was the co-pilot.

“There were a lot of interference... static... but I heard mumbling from the other end.

“That was the last time we heard from them, as we lost the connection,” he said.”

First officer Fariq ab Hamid ... who was on the missing aircraft. Source: Facebook

He said those on the same frequency at the time would have heard him, including vessels on the waters below.

He said he thought nothing of losing contact at first, as it was was normal, until the plane never landed in Beijing.

“If the plane was in trouble, we would have heard the pilot making the Mayday distress call. But I am sure that, like me, no one else up there heard it.

“Following the silence, a repeat request was made by the Vietnamese authorities to try establishing contact with them.”

The new details come as the lcation of the plane remains a mystery.

Oil slicks were spotted today, which could possibly lead officials to where it landed.

Source New Strait Times

[sirchai]

4 suspicious identities.

Yes I think it's reasonable to look at the Chinese Uigher angle.

However, that's doesn't mean it's likely:

Greg Barton, a professor of international politics at Australia's Monash University and a terrorism expert, said if the disaster was the result of terrorism, there is no obvious suspect. If it was terrorism, Barton expected China would be quick to blame separatists from the ethnic Uighur minority, as authorities did recently when 29 people were killed in knife attacks at a train station in the southern city of Kunming.

"If a group like that is behind it, then suddenly they've got a capacity that we didn't know they had before, they've executed it very well — that's very scary," Barton told AP. "It's safe to start with the assumption that that's not very likely, but possible."

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/4-passengers-IDs-being-checked-on-missing-jet-5299268.php

But wouldn't such a group make a message that they're responsible for that?

[Explorer]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Italian and Austrian passports. The Italian name "Luigi Maraldi" indicates ethnic Italian i.e. European appearance. Austrian is likely Caucasian too. Not the best choices for terrorists of the usual origin, though still wouldn't rule it out.

I suspect that South-East Asian wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Caucasians, Middle Easterners and Latinos. They are all just falang to them.

I would assume that this incident has some connection to the Uighur separatist movement in Xinjiang as this plane would mainly have Chinese on board. They also perpertrated an attack in the last few days at Kunming railway station where they stabbed several Chinese passengers some of whom died. The Uighur people have more in common with Central Asia than China. Xinjiang's real name is East Turkestan. It is a huge area of some 1.6 million square kms and the population is mostly muslims. The Chinese don't allow Uighur people to hold passports. So, the act may have been perpertarated by sympathisers, possibly from the Middle East or Central Asia.

If the Uighurs can't have passports, then it wasn't them, since they wouldn't have been able to get out of China. If they were sympathizers from elsewhere, they wouldn't need stolen passports.

I am inclined to think that these are people being trafficked into Europe. The passports will get them through Malaysia, through China and they can claim asylum as soon as they hit Amsterdam, which was the final reported destination. They only planned to transit through China.

From the Guardian

The Guardian’s Tania Branigan has more detail on the movements of the two suspect passengers who boarded the missing plane using stolen passports.

Both passengers used Thai bhat to purchase their travel tickets on 6 March, a day before the flight took off from Kuala Lumpur destined for Beijing.

The pair, who booked tickets with consecutive numbers, were due to fly to Beijing, then wait for around 10 hours before flying to Amsterdam. Once they arrived in Amsterdam, one of the passengers was due to travel on to Frankfurt and the other to Copenhagen.

Source - The Guardian

[coma]

This article show the live tracker. Feature the aircraft's coordinates,air speed, altitude etc etc

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-live-3219331

[bubba]

So the Italian and Austrian stolen passport holders board a flight with a connection in Beijing to Europe. Maybe it would be possible to get past immigration with that in KUL. But I don't think it would be so easy to enter any European country using stolen European passports.

Looks to me like they never intended to reach their destination.

scenario often used,

A person is arrested an jailed, He than escapes and gets a fake passport. He than uses his stolen passport he brought to buy a ticket to another country. He than smuggles himself into a 2nd country, In the country he goes to his embassy which will issue him a NEW good passport.

In flight he destroys the stolen passport an arrives at his final destination with his new real passport.

OK arrested./jailed in Thailand.

Buys stolen passport in Bangkok, buys a ticket from KL- Amsterdam via Bejing,

travels to Malaysia, gets into Malaysia via land border, applies for and gets new real passport, passes malay immigration with stolen passport , destroys stolen passport on board arrives in Amsterdam with valid passport

flys out at KL

Or just buys stolen passport for whatever reason in Bangkok an .....

Does not need be a terrorists.

Still does not explain where the pane went but can be used to rule out terrorism.

So he gets to Amsterdam immigration and hands the officer his newly reissued and unused passport. There are no entry or exit stamps in his passport from China. So the officer obviously asks "So you just arrived from China. Where is your visa and Chinese immigration stamps? Where have you been?". Then he swipes the passport into the system and sees that it was issued to the passenger in Malaysia.

Nope. Hardly possible this would work.

[mallyrd]

You would think that the Thai navy would have some kind of presence in the Gulf of Thailand, but heard nothing of them yet. Lots of other countries are helping the search in the area.

This didn't happen in the Gulf of Thailand - it happened off the coast of Malaysia, apparently not too far from Vietnam.

Wrong sea, chum. Miles away around the coast of Singapore and back north again ...

Wrong mate, anything off the east coast of Malaysia is classified as the Gulf of Thailand.

[Tywais]

I've edited two posts to add a link to the media source for copyright reasons. Please be sure to leave a link to any news sources that you may post. Also, keep the quote to a few sentences for fair use copyright reasons.

[Credo]

We don't know for sure that a statement hasn't been made, but not released. China is not the easiest place to release a statement from, especially if it is from an area with tight security.

Second, the plane was a Malaysian flight with a lot of Chinese. They may have wanted to target a Chinese airliner. Difficult to say.

[sirchai]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Italian and Austrian passports. The Italian name "Luigi Maraldi" indicates ethnic Italian i.e. European appearance. Austrian is likely Caucasian too. Not the best choices for terrorists of the usual origin, though still wouldn't rule it out.

I suspect that South-East Asian wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Caucasians, Middle Easterners and Latinos. They are all just falang to them.

I would assume that this incident has some connection to the Uighur separatist movement in Xinjiang as this plane would mainly have Chinese on board. They also perpertrated an attack in the last few days at Kunming railway station where they stabbed several Chinese passengers some of whom died. The Uighur people have more in common with Central Asia than China. Xinjiang's real name is East Turkestan. It is a huge area of some 1.6 million square kms and the population is mostly muslims. The Chinese don't allow Uighur people to hold passports. So, the act may have been perpertarated by sympathisers, possibly from the Middle East or Central Asia.

If the Uighurs can't have passports, then it wasn't them, since they wouldn't have been able to get out of China. If they were sympathizers from elsewhere, they wouldn't need stolen passports.

I am inclined to think that these are people being trafficked into Europe. The passports will get them through Malaysia, through China and they can claim asylum as soon as they hit Amsterdam, which was the final reported destination. They only planned to transit through China.

From the Guardian

The Guardian’s Tania Branigan has more detail on the movements of the two suspect passengers who boarded the missing plane using stolen passports.

Both passengers used Thai bhat to purchase their travel tickets on 6 March, a day before the flight took off from Kuala Lumpur destined for Beijing.

The pair, who booked tickets with consecutive numbers, were due to fly to Beijing, then wait for around 10 hours before flying to Amsterdam. Once they arrived in Amsterdam, one of the passengers was due to travel on to Frankfurt and the other to Copenhagen.

Source - The Guardian

That's pretty much weird. Wouldn't they have to show a ticket before boarding that they actually fly to Europe?

[MobileContent]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

This is all more than a little unsettling...

First, everytime the Vietnamese authorities say something, the Malaysian authorities say they can't confirm it or verify it.

And now, the MAS exec seems to be dismissing the 2-4 wrong identity passengers issue. Well, even if that ends up having nothing to do with the crash, the fact the airline is allowing false passengers onto its flights apparently so easily ought to be a big cause for concern, regardless. It certainly tends to suggest that their security measures are horrible.

You have a good point but the main issue is that is is part of the immigration to establish if the passports are wrong or fake and it's not part of the airline to check if a pp is fake or wrong.

My guess is that the biometrics details matched the details of the passenger also it's complicated to alter the chip. A lot needs to be confirmed which year the passport was issued but you can be for sure that it was most properly Caucasian's that might took the flight.

I wouldn't be surprise if those people are wanted by Interpol or people smuggling which often goes on via China, then off to Eastern Europe before they end up in the EU.

[bubba]

OK so if a sophisticated hijacking is possible and the aircraft was flown somewhere, the aircraft just disappears, nobody claims responsibility, makes ransom demands, etc...

Has anyone checked the cargo manifest?

[Jingthing]

It's still probably not terrorism but if it was, who knows, maybe the stolen passport people were involved in the drug trade and didn't even know what was in their luggage? People like that are often manipulated by strongmen.

[mcfester]

Just because they were stolen doesnt mean the travelers were terrorists," a Department of Homeland Security official said. "They could have been nothing more than thieves. Or they could have simply bought the passports on the black market."

True but the chances of both(four) thieves being on the same flight at the same time would be astronomical, surely

Could just be a pair of shady guys traveling together who bought stolen passports.

The other two suspects have been confirmed as people who booked flights but didn't board, happens all the time.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/09/malaysia-airlines-missing-plane-investigation-widens-live

The Guardians Tania Branigan has more detail on the movements of the two suspect passengers who boarded the missing plane using stolen passports.

Both passengers used Thai bhat to purchase their travel tickets on 6 March, a day before the flight took off from Kuala Lumpur destined for Beijing.

The pair, who booked tickets with consecutive numbers, were due to fly to Beijing, then wait for around 10 hours before flying to Amsterdam. Once they arrived in Amsterdam, one of the passengers was due to travel on to Frankfurt and the other to Copenhagen.

I suspect the Frankfurt and Copenhagen is speculation, otherwise how would they know this?

[davidstipek]

Only a small point, but if a terrorist group wanted to have a pop at China, why would they bring down a Malaysian aircraft?

It was code shared with China Southern airlines and the vast majority of passengers were Chinese.

All 4 had bought tickets from Chinese Airline (China Southern Airlines), possibility not knowing they would actually be flying in a Code Shared - MAS based Aircraft. I have a felling this thought was felt confirmed when they sat awaiting Boarding with they Largely surrounded by Chinese Passengers. Probably never saw they were actually boarding Malaysian Aircraft because of the time...

RIP fellow Travelers....... Whoever responsible (If this is the case...) "Rot, Rot in Hell!" There were 4 Passengers age 4 and under.... God Bless them! May Angels hae caught them and held them securely on their trip to Heaven!!

[laolover88]

Another MAS pilot 30 minutes ahead of MH370 talked to them while in the air

http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-pilot-i-established-contact-with-plane-1.503464?cache=03%2F7.212150%3Fpage%3D0%3Fpage%3D0%2F7.247066%2F7.490557%2F7.502513%2F7.576388

I think this one of the oddest parts of it all. Also on the Flight Path Radar there are lots of other planes around. Any other MAS ones? And it does not look to me that the other plane was only 30 minutes ahead, if that is the one well into Vietnam.

And if it was 30 minutes ahead where was its destination? MAS Flights to Hong Kong, Seoul,Narita, Shanghai should have

been at least 1 hour ahead! Osaka?

[Mudcrab]

CNN interview Malaysian official says the plane turned back but the pilot did not notify them &lt;deleted&gt;???

Malaysian officials said too many lies already. Why would a plane fly back without informing the ground control, as they'll have to take them over.

Throats of the pilots were cut?

[JDGRUEN]

CNN interview Malaysian official says the plane turned back but the pilot did not notify them &lt;deleted&gt;???

Is it possible the pilot was forced to turn around and forced to cut any communications ?

A scenario similar to the failed hijacking on 9-11 seems to fit ... the one that was almost retaken by passengers and flew into the ground in Pennsylvania in the attempt ...

[davidstipek]

FLIGHT MH370 asked to establish it's position before .....

The captain, who requested to remain anonymous, told Malaysian media outlets his plane, which was bound for Narita, Japan, was in Vietnamese airspace when he was asked to contact the pilot flying the missing plane.

In using his plane’s emergency frequency, he was asked to try and establish its position after authorities failed to make contact.

“We managed to establish contact with MH370 just after 1.30am and asked them if they have transferred into Vietnamese airspace,” he told the New Straits Times.

“The voice on the other side could have been either Captain Zaharie or Fariq, but I was sure it was the co-pilot.

“There were a lot of interference... static... but I heard mumbling from the other end.

“That was the last time we heard from them, as we lost the connection,” he said.”

Is there a Voice recording of this on recorder of Narita Bound flight??? Secure it for analisis

[BeforeTigers]

Go ahead and view that with a skeptical eye.

[Huk]

When AF plane went down

"One of the first things we had was a series of ACARS messages that showed failure of the aircraft and degradation of the systems," CNN

I think MAS have a lot of explaining to do

Does anyone know what this means?

ACARS is an automated system relaying system data on aircraft performance back to base, for it to stop along with traditional radios and transponders the immediate thought would be an electrical failure.

Wasn't it the 777 that had the battery issues a year or so ago? If the batteries had cooked and burned, this could cause a system wide electrical failure that would explain this. And I don't know if the APU or emergency RAT could work to supply systems under these conditions.

The battery issues were on the 787 dreamliner - an entirely different system with bleeding edge technology.

[Old Croc]

Just because they were stolen doesnt mean the travelers were terrorists," a Department of Homeland Security official said. "They could have been nothing more than thieves. Or they could have simply bought the passports on the black market."

True but the chances of both(four) thieves being on the same flight at the same time would be astronomical, surely

Could just be a pair of shady guys traveling together who bought stolen passports.

The other two suspects have been confirmed as people who booked flights but didn't board, happens all the time.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/09/malaysia-airlines-missing-plane-investigation-widens-live

The Guardians Tania Branigan has more detail on the movements of the two suspect passengers who boarded the missing plane using stolen passports.

Both passengers used Thai bhat to purchase their travel tickets on 6 March, a day before the flight took off from Kuala Lumpur destined for Beijing.

The pair, who booked tickets with consecutive numbers, were due to fly to Beijing, then wait for around 10 hours before flying to Amsterdam. Once they arrived in Amsterdam, one of the passengers was due to travel on to Frankfurt and the other to Copenhagen.

I suspect the Frankfurt and Copenhagen is speculation, otherwise how would they know this?

Currently there are six undocumented Syrians being held at Phuket airport. They were refused entry at Beijing and returned to Thailand when it was discovered they had false passports. Their plan was to travel onwards to Europe and claim asylum.

Coincidence?

[speedtripler]

FLIGHT MH370 asked to establish it's position before .....

The captain, who requested to remain anonymous, told Malaysian media outlets his plane, which was bound for Narita, Japan, was in Vietnamese airspace when he was asked to contact the pilot flying the missing plane.

In using his plane’s emergency frequency, he was asked to try and establish its position after authorities failed to make contact.

“We managed to establish contact with MH370 just after 1.30am and asked them if they have transferred into Vietnamese airspace,” he told the New Straits Times.

“The voice on the other side could have been either Captain Zaharie or Fariq, but I was sure it was the co-pilot.

“There were a lot of interference... static... but I heard mumbling from the other end.

“That was the last time we heard from them, as we lost the connection,” he said.”

Is there a Voice recording of this on recorder of Narita Bound flight??? Secure it for analisis

there is on all planes now

the "black box " will have every detail and should be sending out its gps location every few seconds for anyone who knows how to search for it

very strange that nobody from all the governments involved have mentioned anything about it

maybe they all want to analyse it and theyre racing to see who can find it first to get 1st hand information and not rely on the chinese or malayasian or fbi version of events

even weirder is the sea in that area is only 50m deep ,so it would seem near impossible with all the navys and fleets of planes searching for it they havent managed to pull it up yet ,

[Seismic]

Don't flight recorders have a transmitter in them to aid recovery after an air crash?

Any comments?

Yes they are called black boxes.

Perhaps they are down into the Indian Ocean and unable to transmit.

I remember the case of that plane Air France from Brazil to France which got desintegrated in the air.

In that case, it was a problem of the speed sensor, not a terrorist attack.

Actually the black boxes are not , in themselves, transmitters, nor are they black. There are two types of boxes, the CVR (cockpit voice recorder) and the FDR (flight data recorder), Generally they are placed in seperate locations. The may have ELB's incorporated or attached to aid in recovery. There will also be ELB's in other areas, but In the event of a catasrophic failure, they may not survive.

[phuketrichard]

So the Italian and Austrian stolen passport holders board a flight with a connection in Beijing to Europe. Maybe it would be possible to get past immigration with that in KUL. But I don't think it would be so easy to enter any European country using stolen European passports.

Looks to me like they never intended to reach their destination.

scenario often used,

A person is arrested an jailed, He than escapes and gets a fake passport. He than uses his stolen passport he brought to buy a ticket to another country. He than smuggles himself into a 2nd country, In the country he goes to his embassy which will issue him a NEW good passport.

In flight he destroys the stolen passport an arrives at his final destination with his new real passport.

OK arrested./jailed in Thailand.

Buys stolen passport in Bangkok, buys a ticket from KL- Amsterdam via Bejing,

travels to Malaysia, gets into Malaysia via land border, applies for and gets new real passport, passes malay immigration with stolen passport , destroys stolen passport on board arrives in Amsterdam with valid passport

flys out at KL

Or just buys stolen passport for whatever reason in Bangkok an .....

Does not need be a terrorists.

Still does not explain where the pane went but can be used to rule out terrorism.

So he gets to Amsterdam immigration and hands the officer his newly reissued and unused passport. There are no entry or exit stamps in his passport from China. So the officer obviously asks "So you just arrived from China. Where is your visa and Chinese immigration stamps? Where have you been?". Then he swipes the passport into the system and sees that it was issued to the passenger in Malaysia.

Nope. Hardly possible this would work.

HUH;

he transited China, ( no stamp needed) passport was issued in Malaysia where he left from.

Have had acquaintances use this method

Plus using an Austrian and Italian passport they would not have needed visa for Holland

If they were being trafficked they would not be traveling alone,

one needs see the footage of the passengers an than they can eliminate the good ones and....

[orosee]

Maybe terrorists mailed in a message but the letter got lost in the mail?

But it would mean they are 2 isolated terrorists not related with any group.

Otherwise, the group would have claimed responsability.

That's strange.

I am thinking about Uighur separatists from China or Southern Thai Islamic extremists, but why would they attack a Malaysian airline ,which belongs to an Islamic country ?That's murky.

I am afraid a very dark page of history has been written. Let's get prepared for some shocking details.

in the eyes of Islamic extremists, those Muslims who fail to take up jihad against the Western infidels are almost as guilty as infidels themselves...

Having said that, the majority of passengers are listed as Chinese, and probably that is normal for this flight, so it seems less likely that people from a Muslim country were the target

As a sad fact, almost all victims of Islamist terror are Muslims in Muslim countries. I'd be surprised if the number of non-Muslim victims reaches even 5%. We're talking about a number of victims here that is easily met by the monthly car bombings in the Middle East and the -stans.

Our press of course needs to focus on our losses, as we have so much more to lose. That's not even sarcastic.