Disappearance of Malaysian jet appears 'deliberate': PM

[Lite Beer]

It WAS hijacked: Malaysian official says it's CONCLUSIVE jet carrying 239 was seized by individual or group 'with significant flying experience' as PM admits tracking was 'deliberately' disabled

Investigators believe the missing Malaysia Airlines jet could have been hijacked and steered off-course.

A Malaysian government official said people with significant flying experience could have turned off the flight's communication devices, meaning the plane could have flown for up to six hours after it was lost by satellite.

The representative said that hijacking theory was now 'conclusive', and police are now believed to be searching the home of one of the pilots.

While Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak refused to confirm that flight MH370 was seized, he admitted 'deliberate action' on board the plane resulted in it changing course and losing connection with ground crews.

It is not yet clear where the plane was taken, however Mr Razak said the most recent satellite data suggests the plane could have headed to one of two possible flight corridors.

One possibility is the northern corridor, which stretches from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, while the other is the southern corridor from Indonesia to the Southern Indian Ocean.

The aircraft's fuel reserves mean it could have travelled as far as Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Australia in the other direction.

Mr Razak said authorities have not ruled out any possibilities in the international search for the plane and the 239 people on board.

'Clearly the search has entered a new phase. Over the last seven days, we have followed every lead and looked into every possibility,' Mr Razak said. 'For family and friends (of the passengers), we hope this new information brings us one step closer to finding the plane.'

As of Saturday, 14 countries, 43 ships and 58 aircraft are involved in the search, with Malaysia set to approach countries in the northern and southern 'corridors' where the plane was last believed to have been.

The Boeing 777's communication with the ground was severed just under one hour into the flight on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

It has now been confirmed the plane turned back and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula after setting out on a northeastern path toward the Chinese capital.

Experts say signals from the plane shows it then continued flying for at least five hours in an unknown direction. The plane's messaging system and transponder were both deliberately cut off and with them all hopes of further tracking the plane.

American officials had been briefing Friday that the investigation was looking at 'human intervention' - one source even said it may have been 'an act of piracy'.

The disabling of the Boeing 777's transponder and messaging system occurred around 12 minutes apart. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe and gave authorities the clearest indication to date someone on-board was behind it.

The motive of the hijack is still not clear. No demands have been made and no groups have publicly claimed involvement in the disappearance.

Some experts have said that pilot suicide may be the most likely explanation for the disappearance, as was suspected in a SilkAir crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997 and an EgyptAir flight in 1999.

Malaysian authorities and others will be urgently investigating the backgrounds of the two pilots and 10 crew members, as well the 227 passengers on board.
Indeed Prime Minister Najib said they would be examined in his public statement.

The already global search effort will now be expanded along the two large corridors outlined in his speech. It is unclear how resources will be allocated but the Prime Minister said all the countries within those areas had been notified of the renewed focus.

The USS Kidd arrived in the Strait of Malacca late Friday afternoon. It uses a using a 'creeping-line' search method of following a pattern of equally spaced parallel lines in an effort to completely cover the area.

A P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced long range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world, will arrive Saturday. It has a nine-member crew and has advanced surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, the department of defense said in a statement.

Malaysia has come under fire for what has been described as a 'pretty chaotic' search, with China saying the overall search effort has consequently been mired in confusion after a series of false alarms, rumors and contradictory statements.

Meanwhile, the hijacking news will renew focus on the two pilots at the helm of the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet.

Police in Malaysia have said they are looking at the psychological background of the pilots, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, their family life and connections.

Malaysian officials and friends of the pilots have told MailOnLine this week that there are no reasons to suspect either the Captain or co-pilot of having personal problems that would have resulted in them taking control of the aircraft.

The only known blot on co-pilot Fariq's character appears to be the time 2011 when he invited two South African women into the cockpit when he and another officer flew a jet from Thailand to Malaysia.

In the days since the flight went missing, it has emerged that Shah was so passionate about flying he has is own flight simulator at home.

As the search continued for the missing Boeing 777, military radar suggested the plane was deliberately flown towards India's Andaman Islands.

Two sources familiar with the investigation said an unidentified aircraft - which investigators believe was flight MH370 - was plotted by military radar following a route between navigational waypoints.

This indicates that it was either being flown by the pilots or someone with knowledge of those waypoints, the sources said.

The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying towards India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.

Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.

India recently began searching hundreds of uninhabited islands in the Andaman Sea, using heat-seeking devices.

Two Indian air force reconnaissance planes began flying over the islands as a precaution, after they and two naval ships scoured the seas surrounding the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, according to spokesman Col. Harmit Singh of India's Tri-Services Command on the territory.

The archipelago that stretches south of Myanmar contains 572 islands covering an area of 720 by 52 kilometers. Only 37 are inhabited, with the rest covered in dense forest.

The focus of search efforts shifted on Thursday from the South China Sea after the US said 'new information' indicated that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may have gone down to the west in the Indian Ocean.

China, which had more than 150 citizens on board the missing plane, has deployed four warships, four coastguard vessels, eight aircraft and trained 10 satellites on a wide search area.

Chinese media have described the ship deployment as the largest Chinese rescue fleet ever assembled.

The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any commercial aircraft in service.

Source: Daily Mail 2014-03-15
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581488/It-WAS-hijacked-Malaysian-official-says-CONCLUSIVE-jet-carrying-239-hijacked-35-000-ft-individual-group-significant-flying-experience.html



Malaysia says jet's disappearance 'deliberate'
by M JEGATHESAN

KUALA LUMPUR, March 15, 2014 (AFP) - A missing Malaysian airliner was apparently deliberately diverted and flown for hours after vanishing from radar, Prime Minister Najib Razak said Saturday, in an announcement that stopped short of confirming a hijack but took the "excruciating" jet drama into uncharted new territory.

Najib said investigators believed "with a high degree of certainty" that Malaysia Airlines flight 370's communications systems were manually switched off, and that the plane veered westward in a fashion "consistent with deliberate action" after dropping off primary radar.

But he told a highly anticipated press conference watched around the world that he could not confirm rising suspicions that the plane had been forcibly taken over.

"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.

The investigation data appeared to cast aside a host of theories attempting to explain the plane's disappearance, which has transfixed the world and left the families of the 239 passengers and crew distraught, enraged and baying for information that authorities have not been able to provide.

These include the notion of a sudden mid-air explosion or a catastrophic equipment or structural failure, or a crash into the South China Sea.

At the same time, it opened a whole new avenue of possible speculation, including an attempted 9/11-style attack, enhancing the twist-and-turn mystery surrounding one of the biggest enigmas in modern aviation history.

-Unable to confirm precise location-

Final satellite communication with the Boeing 777 flying 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, Najib said.

He said investigators had concluded the plane was indeed diverted to the west from its original flight path, and as a result search operations in the South China Sea were being called off.

But the remaining area remained dauntingly large. Najib said the plane could be anywhere from "Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern corridor stretching approximately from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean".

Earlier, a senior Malaysian military official had told AFP that investigators now believe the plane was commandeered by a "skilled, competent and current pilot," but stopped short of specifying whether a hijacker or member of the crew was suspected.

"He knew how to avoid the civilian radar. He appears to have studied how to avoid it," the official said.

As the search for the plane continues, the focus in the gripping saga will shift to who would have diverted the plane and why.

Malaysian security officials were already embarrassed by revelations earlier in the week 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.

An Australian television report broadcast an interview with a young South African woman who alleged Fariq and another pilot colleague invited them into the cockpit of a flight he co-piloted in 2011 -- a breach of post-9/11 security rules.

-'Something beyond 9/11'-

Gerry Soejatman, a Jakarta-based independent aviation analyst told AFP following Najib's remarks that the new information makes a possible motive "extremely difficult to understand."

"If that was deliberate, we may be dealing with something beyond the mission planning for 9/11," he said.

As unconfirmed reports had mounted suggesting the plane banked west and flew for hours, analysts have speculated on a sudden loss of cabin pressure or other mechanical event that incapacitated the pilots, catastrophic pilot error, a hijack, action by a rogue member of the flight crew, or pilot suicide.

The reports of a westward bank had coincided with an accelerating shift of search and rescue resources towards the Indian Ocean.

A US destroyer and surveillance plane joined expanded search operations Saturday in the Bay of Bengal.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said the USS Kidd guided missile destroyer and a P-8 Poseidon aircraft had been deployed to the "western search area" in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal.

The Boeing 777 vanished over waters between Malaysia and southern Vietnam. The night was clear and no distress signal was received.

-'Right now, anything is possible'-

Dozens of ships and aircraft from 14 countries have been deployed across the entire search zone since MH370 went missing.

For distraught relatives of the passengers and crew, the long drawn-out search has been torture.

"Right now, anything is possible," said a middle-aged Chinese woman in Beijing who had a relative on the flight and complained of a lack of information.

"We keep hoping there will be some good news, but it's not going well."

Even with attention now firmly on the Indian Ocean, the search parameters pose enormous logistical challenges.

The vast Indian Ocean has an average depth of nearly 3,900 metres (12,800 feet) and any debris would have been widely dispersed by currents after a week.

"Wind and sea conditions are definitely going to play a very big part if there is wreckage, and if it happens to be in the Indian Ocean. It is an immense area," said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor for aviation industry magazine FlightGlobal.

The plane has one of the best safety records of any jet, and the airline also has a solid record.


-- (c) Copyright AFP 2014-03-15

[krisb]

Now the story changes again.

Sounds like bs to me.

[whoisyourdaddy]

Now the story changes again.

Sounds like bs to me.

Actually this one is the most sensible one, as jumbo planes do not just disappear from the face of the earth with no trace at all

[khwaibah]

i

Now the story changes again.

Sounds like bs to me.

The story sounds very plausible unfortunately the Malaysians authorities have lost any and all credibility.

[TVGerry]

Well at least there's some good news. The plane maybe didn't go down and the passengers could still be alive.

[sjjmmi]

Super cover up

[Familyonthemove]

The two possible flight paths cover a vast area to search. Looks like the relatives will need to endure more uncertainty.

How far could it go after the turn? Just thinking about the purpose of diverting the plane. If it went North West could it get to Crimea for example? There's so much political unrest these days there's quite a few possible locations for a politically motivated crime - but all seem to be a long way from Malaysia?

Sent from my C6902 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[DNPBC0]

Now the story changes again.

Sounds like bs to me.

The 'story' has changed as new information becomes available. That's how investigations proceed.

[Songhua]

Well at least there's some good news. The plane maybe didn't go down and the passengers could still be alive.

Let's hope so. But can't help wondering, if the aircraft has not crashed and the intended mission has been completed, what was the purpose of it and why has there been no claim of responsibility or demand made?

[Rob8891]

This latest report should get the tinfoil hat brigade foaming at the mouth.... I am surprised that no one has concentrated on the 20 or so passengers who were employees of the defence-related company that was involved in making things "disappear"....

[webfact]

Malaysian PM: Someone turned missing jet around



MALAYSIA, 15 March 2014 (NNT) - The Malaysian prime minister says communications of the missing aircraft were disabled and its movements were consistent with a deliberate act by someone who turned the jet back across Malaysian coast.

Prime Minister Najib Razak made an official announcement at a press conference, saying the movements of the plane that went missing last Saturday were consistent with deliberate actions by someone on the plane, adding that investigators were looking into all possibilities of the disappearance.

Investigators earlier confirmed that communications of flight MH370 were switched off before reaching the east coast of Malaysia a week ago.

The prime minister however did not confirm the speculations of the plane being hijacked. Based on the direction in which the plane was steered, he said the jet could have headed to two possible corridors -- a northern corridor from northern Thailand through to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and a southern corridor from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

Lastly, Mr. Najib expressed hope that this new piece of information would lead authorities closer to finding the plane.


-- NNT 2014-03-15

[webfact]

RT @mpoppel: CNBC: Malaysia Airlines tells families of Chinese passengers that plane's disappearance is now "a criminal investigation."

[webfact]

Missing Malaysia Airlines flight systems disabled, PM says

(BBC) The communications systems of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were deliberately disabled, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak has said.

According to satellite and radar evidence, he said, the plane then changed course and could have continued flying for a further seven hours.

He said the "movements are consistent with the deliberate action of someone on the plane".

The plane disappeared a week ago with 239 people on board.

The Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight last made contact with air traffic control over the South China Sea to the east of Malaysia, about one hour after take-off.

Mr Razak told a news conference that new satellite evidence shows "with a high degree of certainty" that the aircraft's communications systems were disabled and then it changed course, flying back over Malaysia towards India.

Full story: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26591056

-- BBC 2014-03-15

[Chicog]

Mr Razak told a news conference that new satellite evidence shows "with a high degree of certainty" that the aircraft's communications systems were disabled

That's some satellite they've got there.

[keemapoot]

Mr Razak told a news conference that new satellite evidence shows "with a high degree of certainty" that the aircraft's communications systems were disabled

That's some satellite they've got there.

An earlier news report out of the US said the US authorities broke this news, based on some type of Boeing "ping" to the satellite that even though this airline was not subscribed to the Boeing service it still was communicating with the satellite and that's how they determined when each part of the system was disabled. Evidently, it took highly trained aviators, and the pilot is under scrutiny now. If you read the blogs on that original USA report, there are all sorts of scary scenarios being posited, such as the plane being used as a sort of super attack vehicle in the future. There was evidence to suggest they took the plane up to 45,000 feet which resulted in the deaths of all passengers from lack of oxygen.

[Hulkster]

I have been saying for the last 5 days that it was most likely hijacked by crew or passengers.

I was labelled a "conspiracy theorist" for my troubles despite it being the most likely and logical explanation.

The Malaysians had been avoiding it and sending people on a wild goose chase in the Gulf of Thailand because the truth will be a huge black eye against Malaysia Airlines and KLIA security.

I don't expect an apology to be forthcoming...

[keemapoot]

I have been saying for the last 5 days that it was most likely hijacked by crew or passengers.

I was labelled a "conspiracy theorist" for my troubles despite it being the most likely and logical explanation.

The Malaysians had been avoiding it and sending people on a wild goose chase in the Gulf of Thailand because the truth will be a huge black eye against Malaysia Airlines and KLIA security.

I don't expect an apology to be forthcoming...

Your theory seems to be very possible now. There is further evidence that the hijackers (if that's what they were) deliberately picked this flight because it has the advanced Boeing service disabled. This satellite Boeing service enables Boeing to advance warn on all sorts of maintenance issues or something, but is a paid service. But, much like your mobile phone still being trackable when switched off by GPS, this ping was still operating until it was deliberately disabled by someone on board.

If this was a planned hijacking, they may have had a remote island refueling plan, and literally the plane could be anywhere in the world by now.

[BKKBrit]

And here come the armchair conspiracists...adnauseum.

[BKKBrit]

I have been saying for the last 5 days that it was most likely hijacked by crew or passengers.

I was labelled a "conspiracy theorist" for my troubles despite it being the most likely and logical explanation.

The Malaysians had been avoiding it and sending people on a wild goose chase in the Gulf of Thailand because the truth will be a huge black eye against Malaysia Airlines and KLIA security.

I don't expect an apology to be forthcoming...

Oh whoppee-doo-dee for you. Pilot intervention or hijacking has been a theory since Sunday 9th March. How do I know? I flew MH on their 6:10am departure on the 9th for a connection through KLIA and KLIA was already awash with what was happening. It's not new.

I flew 4 sectors with MH - two of them on the B777. On the return flight the C Class toilet was blocked and we were told to use the toilet aft of business. I asked why, and they said it was a company directive issued on the morning of the 13th....basically, restricting passengers' access to within the cockpit area.

But to say that the Malaysians purposely executed a search in the South China Sea to detract from a hijack is nonsense. If this is the case, why did the Americans only on Thursday indicate that they had knowledge the plane flew west and that resources would be moved to the Andaman Sea and the Indian Ocean? On Tuesday the Chinese released photos of 'wreckage' for which the Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia apologised by saying it was a mistake.

And no, you don't deserve an apology but admonishment for propagating unfounded and illogical comments that this is a cover-up. Incompetence, yes. Not a cover-up.

[FireMedic]

It WAS hijacked: Malaysian official says it's CONCLUSIVE jet carrying 239 was seized by individual or group 'with significant flying experience....

Followed by 2 consecutive statements with "could have been".

[Basil B]

It WAS Hijacked...

NO

It is now believed to have been Hijacked

Unless the Malay Government is in direct contact with the hijackers who are demanding a big ransom, how do they know it has been hijacked? I am sure the Chinese will be pleased to know.

[Crushdepth]

Well at least there's some good news. The plane maybe didn't go down and the passengers could still be alive.

There's not too many places you could land it without attracting attention. Let alone hide it.

[chrischronic]

I think that they have known all along...

Maybe they are covering up because they are still in negotiations over a hostage situation.

The Aviation forums have been saying that the government knew where the aircraft was and there was virtually no way to not track it

Posted by a commercial pilot

Why has nobody confirmed/announced if there were any transmissions sent via SATCOM? Seems to be the elephant in the room – the media currently appears to have an unhealthy tunneled obsession with; radar, ads-b, voice comms, gps, black boxes, etc. Surely ACARS and engine telemetry data could shine a good dose of light on this incredibly sad fiasco.

Many aircraft today also have Panasonic Avionics high-bandwidth eXconnect GCS (Global Communications Suite) to augment SATCOM.

And what about the signals from monitoring systems embedded in the plane’s Rolls-Royce PLC engines?

Malaysia’s Air Force Chief General Rodzali Daud first raised the possibility that the plane had reversed course the very next day and then was pressured into retracting his statement..

Now many people think the aircraft was diverted to Diego Garcia air force base...

Have you seen the pictures of the two Iranian asylum seeker's?

It looks like they chopped and copied legs.

Maybe the aircraft was shot down or hostage negotiations are still on going ..

I don't know but seems like some kind of coverup.

[Blackmirage2013]

They are wasting time looking for the plane at the bottom of the ocean... what they should be doing is scouring every airport in the Middle East of countries that are hostile to the west.... for example YEMEN and PAKISTAN.... no doubt more than a few people are involved.... the plane has not been hijacked for ransom.... it is obvious that whoever is behind this thought it through and are probably using the plane as a weapon... the passengers are in some auditorium being held hostage... but the hijackers do not want them... they are merely "collateral damage.."

Let's see how this plays out....

[chiang mai]

I wonder what the ransom value is of a 777 plus passengers!

[Thai at Heart]

Now the story changes again.

Sounds like bs to me.

I believe this better than it accidentally crashed in course and that dozens of boats and planes can't find it.

[chrischronic]

They are wasting time looking for the plane at the bottom of the ocean... what they should be doing is scouring every airport in the Middle East of countries that are hostile to the west.... for example YEMEN and PAKISTAN.... no doubt more than a few people are involved.... the plane has not been hijacked for ransom.... it is obvious that whoever is behind this thought it through and are probably using the plane as a weapon... the passengers are in some auditorium being held hostage... but the hijackers do not want them... they are merely "collateral damage.."

Let's see how this plays out....

Yes agree... but I think its all a ploy to push media attention away from the real situation at hand...

but who knows because Ive been wrong on many occasions.

[lostinisaan]

Police in Malaysia have said they are looking at the psychological background of the pilots, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, their family life and connections.

Just wondering why no other Radar had picked the aircraft up.Wouldn't countries be surprised about an aircraft that shouldn't be there? What utter bs are they trying to sell now?

[krisb]

Now the story changes again.

Sounds like bs to me.

The 'story' has changed as new information becomes available. That's how investigations proceed.

Not new information, it's new theories.

That's how conspiracy theories proceed.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaysian-airlines-plane-copilot-smoked-took-photos-in-cockpit-with-tourists-in-2011-20140312-hvhkh.html

[hansnl]

Two fake or stolen passports.

Two Iranian Asylum seekers.

A recipe for trouble?