Malaysian flight with 239 people aboard missing, including 153 Chinese nationals

[InformationSociety]

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[InformationSociety]

Malaysia Airlines plane ‘may have been flown deliberately towards Andaman Islands’

Inquiries focus on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight hundreds of kilometres off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing

PUBLISHED : Friday, 14 March, 2014, 4:41pm
UPDATED : Friday, 14 March, 2014, 9:00pm

Reuters in Kuala Lumpur

A navigator from the Royal Malaysian Air Force co-ordinates a search of the Strait of Malacca. Photo: AFP.

Military radar-tracking evidence suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula towards the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters on Friday.

Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints – indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training – when it was last plotted on military radar off the country’s northwest coast.

New military radar data suggest flight MH370 was flying toward India’s Andaman Islands. Photo: SCMP

The last plot on the military radar’s tracking suggested the plane was flying toward 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.

A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight, with 239 people on board, hundreds of miles off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.

All three sources declined to be identified because they were not authorised to speak to the media and due to the sensitivity of the investigation.

This new theory seems to clash with findings by a team of seismologists at one of China's top universities, who said they had detected a slight seismic event on the sea floor between Vietnam and Malaysia on March 8, which might be consistent with an airplane crashing into the sea, possibly related to the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

At a press conference held on Friday evening, Malaysia's Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein confirmed the search for missing flight MH370 had been expanded but stopped short of confirming it was due to new reports that suggest the plane had flown west towards the Andaman Islands.

"Although there is information of a turn back, it's not 100 per cent identified as MH370. That is why we have expanded our search to the Strait of Malacca," he said.

Malaysia’s civil aviation chief, Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, added that experts from Rolls Royce, which manufactured the plane's engines, were due to arrive from the UK 'to study the position of satellite communication'.

Officials at Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport, the official point of contact for information on the investigation, did not return calls seeking comment.

Malaysian police have previously said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew had personal or psychological problems that might shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or mechanical failure.

The comments by the three sources are the first clear indication that foul play is the main focus of official suspicions in the Boeing 777’s disappearance.

As a result of the new evidence, the sources said, multinational search efforts were being stepped up in the Andaman Sea and also the Indian Ocean.

Last sighting

In one of the most baffling mysteries in modern aviation, no trace of the plane nor any sign of wreckage has been found despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries.

The last sighting of the aircraft on civilian radar screens came shortly before 1.30am Malaysian time last Saturday, less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur, as the plane flew northeast across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand. That put the plane on Malaysia’s east coast.

The Malaysian air force search for wreckage in the Andaman Sea. Photo: XinhuaMalaysia’s air force chief said on Wednesday an aircraft that could have been the missing plane was plotted on military radar at 2.15am, 320 kilometres northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia’s west coast.

This position marks the limit of Malaysia’s military radar in that part of the country, a fourth source familiar with the investigation told Reuters.

When asked about the range of military radar at a news conference on Thursday, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said it was “a sensitive issue” that he was not going to reveal.

“Even if it doesn’t extend beyond that, we can get the co-operation of the neighbouring countries,” he said.

The fact that the aircraft – if it was MH370 – had lost contact with air traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone aboard had turned its communication systems off, the first two sources said.

They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified aircraft was heading – following aviation corridors identified on maps used by pilots as N571 and P628. These routes are taken by commercial planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe and can be found in public documents issued by regional aviation authorities.

In a far more detailed description of the military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, the first two sources said the last confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 144 kilometres off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a navigational waypoint called “Igari”. The time was 1.21am.

Wellwishers leave messages at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Photo: EPA

The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading towards a waypoint called “Vampi”, northeast of Indonesia’s Aceh province and a navigational point used for planes following route N571 to the Middle East.

From there, the plot indicates the plane flew towards a waypoint called “Gival”, south of the Thai island of Phuket, and was last plotted heading northwest towards another waypoint called “Igrex”, on route P628 that would take it over the Andaman Islands and which carriers use to fly towards Europe.

The time was then 2.15am. That’s the same time given by the air force chief on Wednesday, who gave no information on that plane’s possible direction.

The sources said Malaysia was requesting raw radar data from neighbours Thailand, Indonesia and India, which has a naval base in the Andaman Islands.

 

[InformationSociety]

Search for MH370 helps US test China's satellite capability

Staff Reporter
2014-03-14

A model of one of the satellites that makes up China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System. (File photo/CFP)

The United States has taken advantage of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight to test the capabilities of China's satellites and judge the threat of Chinese missiles against its aircraft carriers, reports our sister paper Want Daily.

Erich Shih, chief reporter at Chinese-language military news monthly Defense International, said the US has more and better satellites but has not taken part in the search for flight MH370, which disappeared about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the early hours of March 8 with 239 people on board. Shih claimed that the US held back because it wanted to see what information China's satellites would provide.

Chinese satellite Gaofen-1 on March 9 spotted three floating objects in the area where the airliner might haev gone down but did not reveal the information until three days later. The Malaysian civil aviation bureau said China did not inform it of the discovery in violation of diplomatic protocol. The country's transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, also said China told Malaysia that its satellites did not pick up any aircraft debris.

Shih said the US has been observing China's satellites during the search to see how long they would take to locate an object. China's new anti-ship ballistic missiles such as the Dong-Feng 21D are seen as a potential threat to US aircraft carriers in the Western Pacicifc, so the US viewed the search as a chance to see how long its carriers would have to respond to the launch of a Chinese carrier-killer missile, Shih sid.

It is possible that the military radar systems of several countries could have picked up the missing plane but no country would be likely to actively disclose anything since the strength of their aerial surveillance capabilities is sensitive information, the UK's Daily Telegraph wrote.

Vietnamese search teams said they did not find any floating wreckage at locations where three Chinese government satellite images showed what may potentially have been debris from the plane. New information suggests the plane may have continued flying for another four hours beyond its last confirmed contact position over the South China Sea. The search area is now likely to reach into the Indian Ocean, having already been expanded to include the Strait of Malacca on the other side of the Malaysian peninsula to the plane's last confirmed location.

 

[InformationSociety]

Investigators focus on foul play behind missing plane: sources

By Niluksi Koswanage and Siva Govindasamy
KUALA LUMPUR Fri Mar 14, 2014 6:02pm EDT

(Reuters) - An investigation into the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner is focusing more on a suspicion of foul play, as evidence suggests it was diverted hundreds of miles off course, sources familiar with the Malaysian probe said.

In a far more detailed description of military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, two sources told Reuters an unidentified aircraft that investigators suspect was missing Flight MH370 appeared to be following a commonly used navigational route when it was last spotted early on Saturday, northwest of Malaysia.

That course - headed into the Andaman Sea and towards the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean - could only have been set deliberately, either by flying the Boeing 777-200ER jet manually or by programming the auto-pilot.

A third investigative source said inquiries were focusing more on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight hundreds of miles off its scheduled course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards," said the source, a senior Malaysian police official.

One of the most baffling mysteries in the history of modern aviation remains unsolved after nearly a week.

The latest radar evidence is consistent with the expansion of the search for the aircraft to the west of Malaysia.

There has been no trace of the plane nor any sign of wreckage as the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries scour the seas across Southeast Asia.

Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he could not confirm the last heading of the plane or if investigators were focusing on sabotage.

"A normal investigation becomes narrower with time ... as new information focuses the search, but this is not a normal investigation," he told a news conference. "In this case, the information has forced us to look further and further afield."

Investigators were still looking at "four or five" possibilities, including a diversion that was intentional or under duress, or an explosion, he said. Police would search the pilot's home if necessary and were still investigating all 239 passengers and crew on the plane, he added.

INDIAN OCEAN "BIGGEST CHALLENGE"

If the jetliner did stray into the Indian Ocean, a vast expanse with depths of more than 7,000 meters (23,000 feet), the task faced by searchers would become dramatically more difficult. Winds and currents could shift any surface debris tens of nautical miles within hours, dramatically widening the search area with each passing day.

"Ships alone are not going to get you that coverage, helicopters are barely going to make a dent in it and only a few countries fly P-3s (long-range search aircraft)," William Marks, spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet, told Reuters.

"So this massive expanse of water space will be the biggest challenge."

The U.S. Navy was sending an advanced P-8A Poseidon plane to help search the Strait of Malacca, a busy sealane separating the Malay Peninsula from the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It had already deployed a Navy P-3 Orion aircraft to those waters.

U.S. defense officials told Reuters that the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer, USS Kidd, was heading to the Strait of Malacca, answering a request from the Malaysian government. The Kidd had been searching the areas south of the Gulf of Thailand, along with the destroyer USS Pinckney.

Satellites picked up faint electronic pulses from the aircraft after it went missing on Saturday, but the signals gave no immediate information about where the jet was heading and little else about its fate, two sources close to the investigation said on Thursday.

U.S. experts are still examining the data to see if any information about its last location could be extracted, a source close to the investigation told Reuters. Malaysia's civil aviation chief confirmed on Friday the government was working with U.S. investigators to establish if there was any satellite information that could help locate the airliner.

LAST RADAR SIGHTING

The last sighting of the aircraft on civilian radar screens came shortly before 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, less than an hour after take-off. It was flying as scheduled across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand on the eastern side of peninsular Malaysia, heading towards Beijing.

However, Malaysia's air force chief said on Wednesday that an aircraft that could have been the missing plane was plotted on military radar at 2:15 a.m., 200 miles northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia's west coast.

This position marks the limit of Malaysia's military radar in that part of the country, a fourth source familiar with the investigation told Reuters.

Malaysia says it has asked neighboring countries for their radar data, but has not confirmed receiving the information. Indonesian and Thai authorities said on Friday they had not received an official request for such data from Malaysia.

The fact that the plane - if it was MH370 - had lost contact with air traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone on board had turned off its communication systems, the first two sources said.

They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified aircraft was heading - following aviation corridors identified on maps used by pilots as N571 and P628 - routes taken by commercial planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe.

Hishammuddin said it remained unclear if that aircraft was MH370. "We need to get verification and we are working very closely with the experts," he said.

An already difficult search task has been complicated in some areas by a choking haze caused by burning forest and farmland that has enveloped much of Malaysia and spilled into the Strait of Malacca. The haze, exacerbated by a prolonged dry spell, has reached hazardous levels in several spots.

India had deployed ships, planes and helicopters from the remote, forested and mostly uninhabited Andaman and Nicobar Islands, at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, military spokesman Harmeet Singh said on Friday.

The Indian Defence Ministry said the Eastern Naval Command would also search across a new area measuring 15 km by 600 km along the Chennai coast in the Bay of Bengal.

The shape of this area, located 900 km west of Port Blair, capital of the islands, suggested the search was focusing on a narrow flight corridor.

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. Its only previous fatal crash came on July 6 last year when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck a seawall with its undercarriage on landing in San Francisco. Three people died.

(Additional reporting by Anshuman Daga, Yantoultra Ngui and Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah in Kuala Lumpur, Tim Hepher in Paris, Mark Hosenball, Andrea Shalal, Will Dunham, Phil Stewart and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Sanjib Kumar Roy in Port Blair, India; Writing by Stuart Grudgings and Alex Richardson; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

[InformationSociety]

Lost airliner was diverted deliberately - Malaysian PM

By Anshuman Daga and Siva Govindasamy
KUALA LUMPUR Sat Mar 15, 2014 12:37pm GMT

A member of a rescue team looks through binoculars during a search and rescue operation to find the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, in the Straits of Malacca March 14, 2014. REUTERS-Junaidi Hanafiah (INDONESIA - Tags: DISASTER TRANSPORT)

(Reuters) - A missing Malaysian jetliner was likely steered deliberately to a course that could have taken it anywhere from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysia's prime minister said on Saturday, in a dramatic revelation that intensified scrutiny of the 239 crew and passengers.

Minutes after Malaysian leader Najib Razak outlined investigators' latest findings at a news conference, police began searching the house of the flight's 53-year-old captain for any evidence that he could have been involved in foul play.

Najib, giving his first statement at a news conference since the day that the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER vanished from radar screens a week ago, confirmed reports that investigators believe somebody cut off the plane's communications and steered it west, far from its scheduled route to Beijing.

"In view of this latest development the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board," he said.

"Despite media reports the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear, we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate."

Search operations by navies and aircraft from more than a dozen nations were immediately called off in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea to the east of Malaysia, where the plane dropped off civilian air traffic control screens at 1:22 a.m. last Saturday (1722 GMT on Friday).

Najib said new data showed the last communication between the missing plane and satellites at 8:11 a.m. (0011 GMT), almost seven hours after it turned back and crossed the Malay peninsula.

The data did not show whether the plane was still flying or its location at that time, presenting searchers with a daunting array of possible last locations. Seven hours more flying time would likely have taken it to the limit of its fuel load.

Najib said the plane's final communication with satellites placed it somewhere in one of two corridors: a northern corridor stretching from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, or a southern corridor stretching from Indonesia to the vast southern Indian Ocean.

"Clearly, the search for MH370 has entered a new phase," said Najib, whose government has come under criticism for its slow release of information surrounding what is one of the most baffling mysteries in aviation history.

About two-thirds of the passengers on board the flight were Chinese, and Beijing has been showing increasing impatience with the speed and co-ordination of the Malaysian search effort.

On Saturday, China said it had demanded that Malaysia keep providing more thorough and accurate information, and added that it was sending a technical team to Malaysia to help with the investigation.

China's Xinhua state news agency said in a commentary that Najib's disclosure of the new details was "painfully belated".

"And due to the absence - or at least lack - of timely authoritative information, massive efforts have been squandered, and numerous rumours have been spawned, repeatedly racking the nerves of the awaiting families," it said.

FOUL PLAY

The fate of flight MH370 has been shrouded in mystery since it disappeared off Malaysia's east coast less than an hour into its March 8 scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

But investigators have increasingly discounted the possibility of an accident due to the deliberate way it was diverted and had its communications switched off.

Investigative sources told Reuters on Friday they believed the plane was following a commonly used navigational route when it was last spotted early on Saturday, northwest of Malaysia.

Their suspicion has hardened that it was flown off-course by the pilot or co-pilot, or someone else with detailed knowledge of how to fly and navigate a large commercial aircraft.

No details have emerged of any passengers or crew with militant links or psychological problems that could explain a motive for sabotaging the flight.

The experienced captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was a flying enthusiast who spent his off days tinkering with a flight simulator of the plane that he had set up at home, current and former co-workers said. Malaysia Airlines officials did not believe he would have sabotaged the flight.

The 27-year-old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid was religious and serious about his career, family and friends said, countering news reports suggesting he was a cockpit Romeo who was reckless on the job.

TWO ROUTES

As the search enters its second week, several governments are using imagery satellites - platforms that take high definition photos - while data from private sector communications satellites is also being examined.

China alone says it has deployed 10 satellites in the search in a pointed reminder of its growing influence in space.

"It is like finding a needle in a haystack and the area is enormous. Finding anything rapidly is going to be very difficult," said Marc Pircher, director of the French space centre in Toulouse, run by the country's CNES space agency.

"The area and scale of the task is such that 99 percent of what you are getting are false alarms".

The corridors given by Najib represent a satellite track, which appears as an arc on a map. The plane did not necessarily follow the corridor, but was at some point along its path at the moment the signal was sent.

Officials at Kazakhstan's state air navigation service were not available for comment while in Turkmenistan, state aviation officials referred queries to the Foreign Ministry.

Earlier, a source familiar with official U.S. assessments of electronic signals sent to geostationary satellites operated by Britain's Inmarsat said it appeared most likely the plane turned south over the Indian Ocean, where it would presumably have run out of fuel and crashed into the sea.

The other interpretation was that the aircraft continued to fly to the northwest and headed over Indian territory.

The source added that it was believed unlikely the plane flew for any length of time over India because it has strong air defence and radar coverage and that should have allowed authorities there to see the plane and intercept it.

It is extremely rare for a modern passenger aircraft to disappear once it has reached cruising altitude, as MH370 had. When that does happen, the debris from a crash is usually found close to its last known position relatively quickly.

In this case, there has been no trace of the plane, nor any sign of wreckage.

The maximum range of the Boeing 777-200ER is 7,725 nautical miles or 14,305 km. It is not clear how much fuel the aircraft was carrying though it would have been enough to reach its scheduled destination, Beijing, a flight of five hours and 50 minutes, plus some reserve.

(Additional reporting by Niluksi Koswanage, Yantoultra Ngui, Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah and Stuart Grudgings in Kuala Lumpur, Greg Torode in Hong Kong, Tim Hepher in Paris, Paul Sandle in London, Mark Hosenball, Andrea Shalal, Will Dunham, Phil Stewart and Roberta Rampton in Washington and Sanjib Kumar Roy in Port Blair, India; Writing by Alex Richardson and Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Mark Bendeich, Neil Fullick and Robert Birsel)

 

[InformationSociety]

Island runway a 'possible landing destination'

Yahoo! and wires March 15, 2014, 4:50 pm

Officials were exploring the likelihood that missing the Malaysia Airlines plane was hijacked, with one airport runway a possible landing destination.

The international airport at Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman, is believed to have a runway that could cater for a plane the size of missing flight MH370.

CNN reports though that it would be a highly difficult place for a Boeing 777 to land conspicuously, with the area highly militarised due to the importance to India.

Indian officials said it would be unlikely for hijackers to take a plane with a wingspan of 200 feet and try to sneak it in.

Denis Giles, editor of the Andaman Chronicle newspaper, believed that there was no chance a plane as big as the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing could have landed in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

TWO POSSIBLE PATHS SUGGESTED

Analysis of electronic pulses picked up from a missing Malaysian airliner shows it could have run out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean after it flew hundreds of miles off course, a source familiar with official U.S. assessments told Reuters.

The source, who is familiar with data the U.S. government is receiving from the investigation into the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane, said the other, but less likely possibility, was that it flew on toward India.

The data obtained from pulses the plane sent to satellites had been interpreted to provide two different analyses because it was ambiguous, said the source, who declined to be identified because of the ongoing investigation.

A U.S. official said in Washington that investigators are examining the possibility of "human intervention" in the plane's disappearance, adding it may have been "an act of piracy." The official, who wasn't authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, said it also was possible the plane may have landed somewhere.

Earlier Friday, acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the country had yet to determine what happened to the plane after it dropped off civilian radar and ceased communicating with the ground around 40 minutes into the flight to Beijing on March 8.

He said investigators were still trying to establish with certainty that military radar records of a blip moving west across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca showed Flight MH370.

"I will be the most happiest person if we can actually confirm that it is the MH370, then we can move all (search) assets from the South China Sea to the Strait of Malacca," he told reporters. Until then, he said, the international search effort would continue expanding east and west from the plane's last confirmed location.

A Malaysian official said it had now been established with a "more than 50 percent" degree of certainty that military radar had picked up the missing plane.

Who were the pilots of MH370?

As a Malaysian official reportedly confirms hijacking on board MH370, attention has turned to the pilot and first officer.

Malaysian investigators earlier this week said police would search the pilot's home if necessary and were still investigating all passengers and crew.

The captain of the flight, 53-year-old Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was a flying enthusiast who spent his off days tinkering with a flight simulator of the plane that he had set up at home, current and former co-workers said. Malaysia Airlines officials did not believe he would have sabotaged the flight.

A relative of Fariq Abdul Hamid, the flight's First Officer, confirmed police had come to question his family about his background this week.

Fariq Abdul Hamid and Zaharie Ahmad Shah, pilots of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. No evidence has been found of foul play from passengers or crew. Photos: Facebook

Friends and family of the co-pilot who flew the missing Malaysia Airlines jet said the 27-year-old was religious and serious about his career, countering news reports suggesting he was a cockpit Romeo who was reckless on the job.

Fariq Abdul Hamid, who joined the national flag carrier in 2007, was helping to fly the Boeing 777 whose disappearance on Saturday has turned into one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries.

There has been no trace of the plane carrying 239 people nor any sign of wreckage as the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries scour the seas across Southeast Asia.

Australian media reported that Fariq and a pilot invited two women to join them in the cockpit on a flight from Thailand to Malaysia in 2011, where he smoked and flirted with them.

Jonti Roos, a South African living in Melbourne, confirmed to Reuters that the incident took place but said she did not feel that Fariq behaved irresponsibly.

Malaysia Airlines said it was shocked by the allegations in the report, which was based on photos of the apparent cockpit meeting and an interview with Roos.

Smoking has been banned on almost all commercial flights since the late 1990s. Cockpit doors have been reinforced since the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington and passengers have largely been barred from entering the cockpit during the flight since then.

South African tourists Jonti Roos and Jaan Maree with co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, right. Photo: A Current Affair

The report also angered some of Fariq's friends, some of whom took to social media to rebut the report first aired by Australian Channel Nine's A Current Affair programme.

Fariq, first officer of Flight MH370, had clocked a relatively few 2,700 hours of flying.

He had wanted to become a pilot from his school days, said a relative who asked not to be identified.

"He is a good student. He worked very hard to get where he was. His parents are so proud of him," said the relative, who had visited Fariq's family home for prayers in the outskirts of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

Fariq and his family are Muslims, like a majority of people in the Southeast Asian nation.

"And now, there is news that he was someone else. It is a very cruel thing to do at this time. We just want him to be safe," the relative said.

POLICE QUESTION FAMILY

Malaysian investigators said police would search the pilot's home if necessary and were still investigating all passengers and crew, he said.

The son of a high-ranking civil servant in Malaysia's central Selangor state near Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Fariq was often seen attending prayers at a mosque near his family home, family and friends said.

"I haven't stopped praying to Allah in hope that my grandson and the other passengers are safe," Fariq's grandmother, Halimah Abdul Rahman, 84, told media in the north-eastern Malaysian state of Kelantan from where the family hails. "He is a good person, respectful to elders and religious."

Roos said she assumed passengers must be allowed to fly in the cockpit in 2011 and would not have done so if she had known it was against regulations.

"I thought that they were highly skilled and highly competent and since they were doing it that it was allowed," Roos told Reuters. "I want to make it clear, at no point did I feel we were in danger or that they were acting irresponsibly."

Former and current Malaysia Airlines flight personnel said inviting passengers into the cockpit was rare, while smoking in the cockpit was frowned upon, although it did happen.

They declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue and company policy.

Muslim men leave a mosque after Friday prayers, just down the road of the home of Fariq Abdul Hamid, co-pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner MH370, center, in Shah Alam, Malaysia. The pilots of the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet were a contented middle-aged family man passionate enough about flying to build his own simulator and a 27-year-old contemplating marriage who had just graduated to the cockpit of the Boeing 777. Details about the men have emerged from interviews with neighbors, Malaysia Airlines staff, a religious leader and from social networks and news reports in Malaysia and Australia. Photo: AP Photo/Eileen Ng

"It is a very male atmosphere in the cockpit. He was probably trying to fit in," said a former air stewardess with Malaysia Airlines who declined to be identified. "It can be a high-pressure job. It is not easy."

Social media users who said they knew Fariq said his character was very different to one portrayed by the Australian news report.

"As a friend, I vehemently disagree (with) the allegations made by Ms Roos. The Fariq I know is soft spoken and quite shy," said a friend who goes by the twitter name @Herleena Pahlavy.

The flight's pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and had more than 18,000 hours of experience. His Facebook page showed an aviation enthusiast who flew remote-controlled aircraft, posting pictures of his collection, which included a lightweight twin-engine helicopter and an amphibious aircraft.

THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE

Mike Glynn, a committee member of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said he considers pilot suicide to 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.

“A pilot rather than a hijacker is more likely to be able to switch off the communications equipment,” Glynn said. “The last thing that I, as a pilot, want is suspicion to fall on the crew, but it’s happened twice before.”

Glynn said a pilot may have sought to fly the plane into the Indian Ocean to reduce the chances of recovering data recorders, and to conceal the cause of the disaster.

 

[InformationSociety]

Chronological events of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 15 March, 2014, 11:20am
UPDATED : Saturday, 15 March, 2014, 11:20am

Andrea Chen and Danny Lee
[email protected] [email protected]

Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER MH370 takes off from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France. Photo: AP

Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished from radar within an hour of taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Saturday, March 8, 2014. Despite attempts by air traffic contollers to make contact with the flight, no communication was received from those on board. Here, we look at the events that took place in the lead up to the disappearance.

00:25 Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 pushed back from the gate at Kuala Lumpur International Airport

00:41 Airborne

01:07 Malaysia Airlines Operational Control Centre (OCC) receives aircraft communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS) message from flight MH370 reporting at cruise altitude

01:30-02:30 Malaysian Air Traffic Control (ATC) recognised it lost contact with flight MH370 from Malaysian ATC radar. ATC made various attempt to re-establish contact with aircraft

02:30 Malaysian ATC called Malaysia Airlines operational control centre to announce ATC has lost contact with flight MH370. Last known location FL350 (35,000ft) - about five minutes after way point IGARI

02:35-03:00 MAS OCC called flight MH370 via satellite communication. No response received from the aircraft. Uplinked aircraft communication addressing and responding system to message flight MH370. Messages failed to go through

03:15-03:40 Five Malaysia Airline planes in the area asked to establish radio link to flight MH370. None of the five was able to establish link with the aircraft MH370

03:40-04:00 MAS OCC issued a red alert. Malaysia air traffic control call counterparts in Vietnam and Hong Kong to locate flight MH370. Both responded flight MH370 never entered their air space

04:26 Text message alert for all members of emergency operation centre. Code Red standby issued

04:30-05:00 Checked with Subang Airport ATC if crash alarm activated for control tower at Kuala Lumpur International Airport between the time periods. No positive reply

05:00-05:35 Code Red declared all EOC members informed. Hong Kong and Beijing station managers alerted. Beijing updated all this, and began to prepare for escalating situation

05:35-06:15 Beijing station activated station coordination centre after declaring MH370 missing

06:30 Flight MH370 due to land at Beijing Capital International Airport, but did not

06:45 MAS checked with Rescue Command Centre (RCC) to determine if air and sea rescue mission has been launched. No firm reply received from RCC. (The Malaysia Airlines representative added they had due process to finish before they could inform us with updates)

07:00-07:20 Hong Kong and China confirmed flight MH370 not been sighted on their radar system

07:40 First Malaysia Airlines media statement issued about losing contact with flight MH370 [South China Morning Post received confirmation at 07.24am that Malaysia Airlines lost contact with one of its aircraft]

08:15 RCC in Subang informed that search and rescue has been activated. No further details on deployed assets being provided

From 08:15 onwards, all search and rescue operations coordinated by the government, not the airline

 

[InformationSociety]

Experts cast doubt on unanswered calls from flight MH370

Staff Reporter
2014-03-15

A woman in Fuzhou, Fujian province, uses her smartphone. (File photo/CNS)

After the daughter of a passenger on the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 said she had received an unanswered phone call from her father, a Chinese expert has said this is not a solid evidence that it was the passenger who made the call.

Chinese media reported that the daughter dialed her father's phone a number of times after discovering the unanswered call but heard only a pre-recorded voice message saying that the phone was shut off.

Some family members of passengers aboard the flight said their cell phones were still ringing days after the Boeing 777-200 disappeared around an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8 with 239 people aboard. They have sought answers from telecom companies who have rejected them and said the information is confidential, said Hugh Dunleavy, the commercial director of Malaysia Airlines, cited in China's state newswire Xinhua.

Telecom experts said a record of an unanswered phone call could originate from the owner of the phone but could also come from entities using software or other technology to pretend to be the owner. It is also possible that telecom operators' systems malfunctioned and delivered false information, our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily said.

Experts with Chinese software company Qihoo 360 said the passengers' families could pull cell phone records from telecom operators. If the operators' records matched those of the families, the phone call could be reliably judged to have been made by a passenger on the missing plane. If the records to not match, the call could have originated from an illegal telephone base or online telephone.

In the latest news concerning the missing flight, Malaysia's prime minister, Najib Razak, has announced that satellite evidence indicates with a high degree of certainty that the plane was hijacked by people with flying experience who deliberately switched off the aircraft's communications systems and changed course after the last confirmed contact with the flight over the South China Sea, turning it back across the Malaysian peninsula and towards India.

 

[InformationSociety]

'My friend is not a terrorist': member of Malaysian opposition party defends captain of missing flight MH370

Captain of Malaysia Airlines jet a 'professional and dedicated pilot', says fellow member of Malaysian opposition party, ruling out terrorist link

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 15 March, 2014, 1:05pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 4:16am

Adrian Wan in Kuala Lumpur [email protected]

Pilots Zaharie Ahmad Shah (left) and Fariq Abdul Hamid were described as respectable, community-minded men.

A well-connected friend of missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah has leapt to his defence as speculation mounts over who was responsible for the disappearance of the Boeing 777.

An aide to a Malaysian member of parliament with strong links to the most controversial figure in the country's politics in recent times - Anwar Ibrahim - has told the Sunday Morning Post that Zaharie is a close friend and fellow member of Anwar's opposition People's Justice Party.

Peter Chong, 51, secretary to People's Justice Party MP Sivarasa Rasiah, who represented Anwar in his recent sodomy court case, has described 53-year-old Zaharie as a "caring man and a professional and dedicated pilot" who always puts the safety of his passengers first.

Chong, who first met Zaharie two years ago, said they struck up a close relationship and spoke regularly. The last time he spoke to Zaharie was a week before the missing flight took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

"We basically ran into each other so we did not spend much time together, but we said we would meet after he returned from Beijing," he said. "There was nothing unusual about him that time, and nothing unusual in the recent few months also," Chong told the Post.

Chong describes Zaharie as a "confidant" and "fellow activist" on his Twitter account,

"The Malaysian government may play with his political membership with the opposition party, but I think it's got nothing to do with this. I hope to let the families of the passengers know their lives were in the hands of somebody good," he said.

He also told of the captain's home flight simulator. "One of his reasons to build a flight simulator in his home was to share the joy of flying with his friends. People have asked me if that means he'll also invite other people into the cockpit. The answer I think is 'no'. The law doesn't allow it," Chong said.

"So if his friends want to try their hands at flying, they can do it at his home. In fact, according to him, it's even more challenging than flying a real plane. Because when you fly a real plane, usually the weather condition isn't bad, but in the simulator you can create all kinds of snowstorms and wind.

"He's invited me many times but I haven't got to try it myself."

Video: Pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah on how to save electricity on air conditioning

Penang-born Zaharie has amassed more than 18,000 flying hours during his 33-year career.

"He's a very caring and friendly person. If he were sitting with us, he would be the one moving things on the table making sure you have your food and coffee," Chong told the Post.

"And if he flies a plane, he would make sure his passengers are safe," he said, adding that that was why Malaysia Airlines picked him to train other pilots.

"Things are pointing towards [him] probably [being] the cause of the thing, terrorism and all that. I think that's not fair because nobody knows what's happening. That's why I decided to come forward and speak," he said.

"I don't blame people for exploring every angle. But until there is proof that he is a terrorist, I will not accept it," he said.

An anonymous writer has launched an information page for people to get to know Zaharie better in a bid to avoid a character assassination against his professional record.

Several current Malaysia Airlines flight personnel who knew Zaharie and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid personally said they could not accept allegations made against their friends.

"The co-pilot was a close friend of mine. We used to go out together and he was always a good man who loved his profession," a female flight attendant said.

She said she could not reveal her name because the company had asked staff not to comment publicly on the incident.

"I saw them just a week before it happened, and they were both acting very normal. I can't accept claims that he's been having another life," she said.

 

[InformationSociety]

Taiwan considering whether to continue search for missing plane

2014/03/15 21:10:58

(Photo courtesy of the Military News Agency)

Taipei, March 15 (CNA) The Ministry of National Defense said Saturday that it will learn more about the latest developments in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 before deciding what "follow-up work" it should do in the search for the missing plane.

Spokesman Luo Shou-he said that the defense ministry, which has contributed a transport plane and Navy vessels to the search, will wait to understand what Malaysia intends to do after the country announced it would stop searching an area of the South China Sea for the Boeing 777 in favor of considering new possibilities.

The Taiwanese C-130 transport plane has been combing the area daily since March 10 to help find the plane, which disappeared two days earlier on March 8 with one Taiwanese citizen aboard. A Chengkung-class Navy frigate, a Lafayette-class vessel and two Coast Guard Administration (CGA) vessels also joined the search out of the spirit of humanitarian rescue.

Taiwan's part in the search began when the missing flight was still suspected to have crashed in the ocean, but authorities now believe its disappearance and apparent divergence from its planned route were intentional decisions.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a news conference Saturday afternoon that investigators believe someone aboard the flight deliberately shut down communications and tracking systems, changed the flight course and continued to fly for nearly seven hours after disappearance.

The plane could have headed northward from northern Thailand toward Kazakhstan or southward from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, the prime minister said, greatly widening the radius from where search operations have been conducted.

Malaysia itself has called off the search in the South China Sea in light of new evidence to search other areas and investigate the flight's passengers and crew.

MH370 disappeared from radar screens in the early hours of March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the aircraft, which was carrying 227 passengers, including Taiwanese national Chuang Hsiu-ling, and a 12-member crew.

No debris from the plane has been discovered so far, leaving investigators perplexed and with few clues as to what might have happened.

(By Tang Pei-chun and Lilian Wu)

 

[InformationSociety]

Malaysia says pilots’ homes searched and flight simulator examined

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 3:39pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 7:02pm

Agence France-Presse in Kuala Lumpur

Pilots Zaharie Ahmad Shah (left) and Fariq Abdul Hamid were described as respectable, community-minded men.

Malaysia said on Sunday that police had searched the homes of a missing airliner’s two pilots and were examining the captain’s home flight simulator, but warned against “jumping to conclusions”.

“Police searched the home of the pilot on Saturday, 15 March,” a statement by the transport ministry said, referring to Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53.

“Officers spoke to family members of the pilot and experts are examining the pilot’s flight simulator.”

The statement added: “On 15 March, the police also searched the home of the co-pilot.”

Journalists stand outside the home of Fariq Abdul Hamid, the co-pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, in Shah Alam, outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: AP

Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, was co-pilot of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which vanished eight days ago, sparking a massive international search across a huge swathe of Asia.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Saturday the plane appeared to have been deliberately diverted from its flight path after it dropped off radar. He said satellites continued to detect it for hours afterwards, an announcement which raised fears of a hijack or rogue action by pilots or crew.

The revelation has prompted fresh scrutiny of the two pilots.

Zaharie is said to have assembled his own complex flight simulator at home but nothing has emerged to cast suspicion on him.

The government statement said engineers who may have had contact with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 before it took off on March 8 were also part of the probe into the missing jet, but called this “normal procedure” for such an event.

“We appeal to the public not to jump to conclusions regarding the police investigation,” it said.

It reiterated that all crew and passengers on board the flight were being investigated for possible leads. Nothing that suggests a motive had yet surfaced, it said.

The plane disappeared from civilian radar less than an hour into its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Najib also said investigators believe that systems relaying MH370’s location to air traffic control were manually switched off before the jet veered westward.

An Australian television programme earlier broadcast an interview by a South African woman who alleged that she and a friend were invited into the cockpit of a 2011 flight co-piloted by Fariq, in breach of post-9/11 security rules.

 

[InformationSociety]

The 3 pieces of evidence that point to possibility that Malaysia Airlines plane was taken over

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 7:44pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 7:44pm

Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur

Young children write messages on banner filled with signatures and well wishes for all involved with the missing jetliner at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Photo: AP

New revelations about a missing Malaysia Airlines plane have left anguished relatives contemplating the prospect that those on board endured a terrifying, high-altitude hijack ordeal that may have lasted nearly eight hours.

But while the disclosures have led to increased speculation of a terror plot or pilot suicide, for some they offered a glimmer of hope - that the Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 passengers and crew may have landed safely and that, somehow, loved ones may be alive.

Three pieces of evidence that aviation safety experts say make it clear the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was taken over by someone who was knowledgeable about how the plane worked:

Transponder

One clue is that the plane’s transponder - a signal system that identifies the plane to radar - was shut off about an hour into the flight.

Relatives of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 meet in Beijing. Photo: Reuters

In order to do that, someone in the cockpit would have to turn a knob with multiple selections to the off position while pressing down at the same time, said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. That’s something a pilot would know how to do, but it could also be learned by someone who researched the plane on the internet, he said.

Acars

Another clue is that part of the Boeing 777’s Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was shut off.

The system, which has two parts, is used to send short messages via a satellite or VHF radio to the airline’s home base. The information part of the system was shut down, but not the transmission part. In most planes, the information part of the system can be shut down by hitting cockpit switches in sequence in order to get to a computer screen where an option must be selected using a keypad, said Goglia, an expert on aircraft maintenance.

That’s also something a pilot would know how to do, but that could also be discovered through research, he said.

But to turn off the other part of the ACARS, it would be necessary to go to an electronics bay beneath the cockpit. That’s something a pilot wouldn’t normally know how to do, Goglia said, and it wasn’t done in the case of the Malaysia plane. Thus, the ACARS transmitter continued to send out blips that were recorded by the Inmarsat satellite once an hour for four to five hours after the transponder was turned off. The blips don’t contain any messages or data, but the satellite can tell in a very broad way what region the blips are coming from and adjusts the angle of its antenna to be ready to receive message in case the ACARS sends them. Investigators are now trying to use data from the satellite to identify the region where the plane was when its last blip was sent.

Guided flight

The third indication is that that after the transponder was turned off and civilian radar lost track of the plane, Malaysian military radar was able to continue to track the plane as it turned west.

The plane was then tracked along a known flight route across the peninsula until it was several hundred kilometres offshore and beyond the range of military radar. Airliners normally fly from waypoint to waypoint where they can be seen by air traffic controllers who space them out so they don’t collide. These lanes in the sky aren’t straight lines. In order to follow that course, someone had to be guiding the plane, Goglia said.

Goglia said he is very sceptical of reports the plane was flying erratically while it was being tracked by military radar, including steep ascents to very high altitudes and then sudden, rapid descents. Without a transponder signal, the ability to track planes isn’t reliable at very high altitudes or with sudden shifts in altitude, he said.

 

[InformationSociety]

'Deliberate act' took missing plane off course, says Malaysia PM Najib Razak

Malaysian PM stops short of blaming hijacking, as search refocused on two specific flight corridors

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 5:13am
UPDATED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 10:23am

Adrian Wan in Kuala Lumpur and Danny Lee

Indonesian Search And Rescue personnel head out into the vastness of the Andaman Sea, exemplifying the difficulty crews face in finding missing flight 370. Photo: EPA

The mystery of missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has taken a dramatic new twist, with the country's prime minister, Najib Razak, confirming the disappearance of the Boeing 777 jet was the result of a "deliberate act".

Investigators now believe that someone on board the plane deliberately shut off its communications and tracking systems, turned the plane around and flew for nearly seven hours after it vanished, Najib said yesterday.

As the unprecedented search for the plane and its 239 passengers and crew enters its second week, Najib said the hunt for wreckage around the scheduled flight path to the east of Malaysia was being called off.

While he stopped short of calling it a hijacking, Najib said: "The Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board."

Of the 227 passengers, 154 are from China.

Reports from Malaysia said the homes of those on the flight deck of the missing plane - including Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53 - were raided shortly after the prime minister spoke at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

The hunt for the aircraft has narrowed to two specific corridors where it may have flown.

"Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path," Najib said.

The plane's last satellite contact - at 8.11am on March 8 - revealed it flew more than seven hours after dropping off civilian radar. Two flight corridors are now the focus of the search - one from northern Thailand to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and a southern corridor from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

According to satellite data, if the plane headed north, it would have flown over sensitive and disputed border regions in Asia. If it went south, it would have crossed parts of the Indian Ocean several thousand metres deep.

Najib said new satellite information had had a significant impact on "the nature and scope of the investigation ... the search for MH370 has entered a new phase".

Najib called on "relevant foreign embassies" to help share sensitive military data to pinpoint the aircraft.

Investigators now know that the missing airliner's communications were deliberately disabled and that it turned back from its flight path to Beijing and flew across Malaysia.

The disappearance of the plane on March 8 triggered a vast international search operation.

Search teams have yet to find any wreckage despite trawling thousands of square kilometres of open water.

According to a report in The New York Times, citing an unnamed American official, radar readings indicated the plane's altitude changed several times soon after it disappeared from civilian radar screens.

The Boeing 777-200 Extended Range climbed to 45,000 feet - above the approved altitude limit for such aircraft - then descended unevenly to 23,000 feet on the western fringe of the Malay Peninsula, below cruising altitude, before climbing to 29,500 feet over the Strait of Malacca.

Families of missing Chinese passengers said they hope they are still alive but are angry at the handling of the crisis.

Wen Wancheng from Shandong , whose son is a passenger on board, told the Sunday Morning Post: "I think this is a conspiracy. Malaysian authorities didn't treat us honestly … The time they gave wasn't right and the location was not correct.

"I feel deeply upset for what [the Malaysian government] have done. They should be more honest to us and other countries that made tremendous efforts to rescue [those on board]."

Another, Bian Weiliang, whose elder brother is on board, said: "I think this press conference was basically telling us that it's a hijacking. My question is will Malaysia Airlines continue to take care of us? Or will they abandon us since they kindly said it's not their responsibility."

Malaysia Airlines representatives in Beijing told passengers' families it could not answer questions as a criminal investigation was under way.

China's foreign ministry said it paid "very close attention" to the latest development.

Pan Zhiping , director of the Institute of Central Asia at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, said: "It's likely that the plane was hijacked, or subject to some kind of attack."

But he said it was unlikely the incident was linked to Uygurs, a Turkic minority in Xinjiang. Some Uygurs are known to have joined the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).

"The attacks carried out inside China do not involve the use of high technology," he said.

"I doubt if the ETIM is capable of hijacking a Boeing 777 plane, and hiding it in an area that cannot be found."

Additional reporting by Keith Zhai, Teddy Ng and Andrea Chen in Beijing

 

[InformationSociety]

Malaysian aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman the butt of criticism

Missing flight 370 has thrust little-known Malaysian bureaucrat Azharuddin Abdul Rahman into front line of a crisis, and he's struggled

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 5:13am
UPDATED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 5:13am

Satish Cheney in Kuala Lumpur

Illustration: Craig Stephens

The past week has been the toughest of Azharuddin Abdul Rahman's hitherto unremarkable career as Malaysia's civil aviation chief.

Once virtually unknown even in his own home country, Azharuddin was thrust into the international spotlight with the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. He is leading the multinational search for the plane, which vanished without a trace eight days ago with 239 people aboard.

The Malaysian government officials who meander in and out of the search's media centre seem to know little about Azharuddin, other than that he worked as an air-traffic controller and rose up the ranks to become the chief of the Department of Civil Aviation. But they all agree on one thing: He's now in an unenviable position.

Besides facing the wrath of the missing passengers' family members, Azharuddin has been inundated with criticism from the international community and his own countrymen, who have grown infuriated by a week of confusing and contradictory statements about the search.

The toughest part of his routine has been the daily press conference at the media centre at Sama Sama Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

Faced with a barrage of increasingly hostile questions from the world's press, Azharuddin's introduction to media relations has been a baptism of fire.

His inexperience shone through when he made a bizarre reference to Italian footballer Mario Balotelli, as he tried to correct reports that two passengers travelling on stolen Italian and Austrian passports had looked "Asian".

These false reports led many to wonder how immigration officers in Kuala Lumpur had allowed Asian-looking men to go through customs using European passports.

When prompted on Monday to describe the pair's appearances based on CCTV footage, Azharuddin said: "Do you know a footballer by the name of [Balotelli]? He's an Italian. Do you know what he looks like?"

A reporter then asked: "Is he black?" The aviation minister replied: "Yes."

Balotelli is black, born to Ghanaian parents in Italy. Azharuddin was, however clumsily, trying to make a sensible point: that the colour of one's skin has no bearing on nationality.

But the damage was done, and the baffling analogy was reported to worldwide ridicule.

On another occasion, when asked about the widening search area and why certain areas were being looked at, he said enigmatically: "There are some things I can tell you, and some things I can't."

Azharuddin said he did not have time to grant an interview. However, other government officials defended a man they respect and whom they feel has been unfairly portrayed as incompetent by the foreign media.

"The stress is unimaginable," said one government official. "You have no idea what he's going through, no idea of the kind of things he has to deal with before he meets you [reporters]."

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official said there was no communications structure when the search began.

Such a structure could have helped provide clear and non-contradictory information; it was only established "two or three" days after the search began, the official said. But even with this system supposedly in place, mixed messages continued to flow, apparently reflecting a lack of co-ordination between various players.

"You have one side [a government agency] saying one thing, and then you have people from the airlines saying another thing, and then you have someone from the army saying another thing, and you might have someone else say something else," the official said. "Then, you have the media speculating, so how is he [Azharuddin] supposed to do his job properly if other people give him the wrong information?"

The official also alluded to other parties wanting to seize the spotlight and refusing to play second fiddle to Azharuddin. However, he refused to elaborate.

Some members of the local media said it was unfair that Malaysia as a whole was being criticised over the lack of information about the search.

"I think this is the first time Malaysian citizens are aware who Azharuddin is," said local TV news presenter Shadila Abdul Malek. "Before this incident, even I had no idea who he was. I think he is doing his best, but I think there's something they are not telling us and that is probably because of security reasons.

"They should bring more of the media along to witness the search-and-rescue operations, so they can see how tough it is, and how it is not easy to find something in the sea," she said.

Another local journalist covering the search said the world's media had been too quick to judge Malaysia harshly.

"There are so many countries involved in the search mission. So, do they mean all the countries are useless since they can't find the plane? Even the US is involved," he said. "Do they know how hard the people involved in the mission are working? You have no idea until you go and see for yourself, OK?"

The director general of the Department of Information, Haji Ibrahim Abdul Rahman, also defended Malaysia's efforts.

" There was some conflicting information initially but now things have been streamlined," Ibrahim said. " From what we know, we can see the co-ordinated effort, and officials from the US and UK have commended the Department of Civil Aviation's efforts."

One Transport Ministry official said the human tragedy was being lost amid recriminations.

"It's not easy. Which country can ever be prepared for this? The people from MAS, they had friends and colleagues working as crew on the flight," he said. "You think we don't want to find out where the plane is? We are doing everything we can, but you cannot just keep pointing at one or two mistakes."

As pressure over the search mounted, some questioned why Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was not more prominent in the effort.

From last Wednesday, the lead role in the daily press briefings was taken by the prime minister's cousin, Hishammuddin Hussein, who is acting transport minister and defence minister.

Yet Hishammuddin's handling of the media has sometimes been just as cryptic as Azharuddin's.

When one reporter asked about confusion over misinformation regarding the search, Hishammuddin said: " It's only confusion it you want it to be seen as confusion."

Although the fate of the Boeing jet remains a hazy mystery, Malaysia's seeming inability to handle international scrutiny is devastatingly clear.

 

[InformationSociety]

​

 

[InformationSociety]

'No link' between pilot's politics and loss of Flight 370

PUBLISHED : Monday, 17 March, 2014, 4:54am
UPDATED : Monday, 17 March, 2014, 4:54am

Adrian Wan in Kuala Lumpur [email protected]

A message for pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah (centre) is pictured at an event to express solidarity to the family members of passengers onboard the plane.

Reports linking the pilot's political affiliation to the plane's disappearance were dismissed as wild, groundless allegations by the Malaysian opposition People's Justice Party, of which the captain is a life member.

The party said reports that captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was at the court that sent opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to jail on sodomy charges several hours before the pilot was to fly the plane to Beijing were untrue.

"Allegations that some tabloids in the UK have made about captain Zaharie were wild and not supported by facts," party spokesman Fahmi Fadzil said.

"I was at the trial during the two days and do not remember seeing him," he added. But he also said he did not know Zaharie was a party member until the news about the plane broke on March 8.

Fahmi said he hoped that the federal government would not use such reports to "label" opposition party members.

The Daily Mail ran a widely circulated story yesterday claiming Zaharie was a "political fanatic" and an obsessive supporter of Anwar, who was sentenced to five years' jail.

Citing unnamed colleagues, the report said that Zaharie planned to attend the court case involving Anwar on March 7 - just hours before he was to pilot flight MH370 to Beijing - and that he was reportedly there, adding that Anwar's conviction left Zaharie profoundly upset.

Investigators have so far not been able to confirm if Zaharie was in court, according to a source close to the investigation.

Sivarasa Rasiah, a member of Parliament and a lawyer representing Anwar in the case, told reporters yesterday: "He has been a party member since early last year and campaigned for us during the general election but this is irrelevant to the case.

"Even though I was not there at the trial for its entirety, I can say that he was not there. Because if he was, I would have been notified," he said.

Speculation is mounting as to who might be responsible for the disappearance of the plane. Investigations have revealed that the plane flew under the radar and that its communications systems were switched off, lending plausibility to the theory that the plane was hijacked by a person with aviation skills.

Police had intensified their checks on the two pilots, and on other crew members and passengers on the plane, Malaysian defence and acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said yesterday.

Hishammuddin said that the police searched the homes of the two pilots and were looking at the captain's flight simulator.

Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said: "Police have dismantled it and reassembled it to examine it. Meanwhile we're getting experts to look at it."

Hishammuddin said that the pilot and co-pilot did not ask to fly together, and said reports that the pilot's family had moved out a day before the flight vanished were untrue.

 

[InformationSociety]

Outside therapists vital for relatives of Malaysia Airlines passengers, say experts

Malaysia Airlines volunteers are the only ones allowed at briefings

PUBLISHED : Monday, 17 March, 2014, 4:54am
UPDATED : Monday, 17 March, 2014, 5:33am

Andrea Chen [email protected]

Chinese relatives of passengers at the Metropark Lido Hotel in Beijing are on an emotional roller coaster. Photo: AFP

The call for more therapists to provide counselling to the relatives of passengers onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight is growing.

A week of waiting has taken the families in a painful circle to where they started when the search began, with no idea about the fate of their loved ones.

"People fear the unknown the most. At this stage, it is necessary that people with professional training step in as soon as possible," said Hu Lin, a therapist at Ciming Oasis Hospital in Beijing.

Psychologists who have volunteered to help relatives staying at Metropark Lido Hotel, where Malaysia Airlines holds daily briefings, shared Hu's sentiments.

Hu Lin focuses on music therapy to heal the disturbed. Photo: SCMP

"Every day their hope ends in despair. And many are suffering volatile emotions. It is important for them to have someone who understands what they have been through," said Paul Yin, a psychologist who lives near the Lido hotel and has been counselling the families since last Sunday.

Another volunteer psychologist, Sun Yuzhong, said relatives who had approached him for help were faced with making rational decisions while coping with stress on several fronts.

"They are forced to stay strong and rational because they still need to support the rest of the family," Sun said.

"For them, there are two sources of stress, the incident itself and the fact they have to keep repressing their emotions."

But local volunteers are not permitted inside the meeting room where the airline holds its daily meetings with the families. Only the caregivers and Buddhist volunteers Malaysia Airlines brought to Beijing are allowed to accompany the relatives.

Hu said Ciming hospital as well as several other local institutions had already approached the airline with offers of counselling, but it had been slow to respond.

Legal experts who want to offer help to the families say they face the same difficulty.

A law professor from Peking University said she visited the hotel on Tuesday, and was told by the airline to "leave our contact details and they said they would pass the message to the relatives".

"But as of Friday we had heard nothing from the airline or the relatives. We really don't know if the families know we are there to help," she said.

Yin questioned if families would truly open themselves up to the volunteers brought by Malaysia Airlines. "They have lots of complaints against the airline. Though the volunteers have tried their best, there may be emotional barriers," he said.

Yin suggested organising a team of local professional therapists to help Chinese families facing similar experiences in the future.

Although the government had become more efficient in marshalling resources and manpower when such events occur, a group of volunteers might be better suited to help families as they were "not representing a country" and "have fewer concerns".

Sun said that with the help of the Chinese government, local volunteers would have a better chance of entering the meeting room and working with the Malaysian volunteers.

 

[InformationSociety]

11 more countries join the search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane

Investigators now looking at all the people on board the missing plane

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 16 March, 2014, 3:39pm
UPDATED : Monday, 17 March, 2014, 5:33am

Adrian Wan in Kuala Lumpur

Investigators dismantled and reassembled the flight simulator captain Zaharie Shah had built at his home. Photo: SCMP

Eleven more countries joined the search for the missing airliner yesterday as investigators intensified the probe of passengers on board the flight, with the pilots under particular scrutiny.

The number of countries involved in the search operation increased from 14 to 25 after Saturday's announcement that investigators believed the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8 was deliberately diverted from its flight path.

The vast search area was focusing on two corridors: one stretching from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and the other from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

Pilots Zaharie Ahmad Shah (left) and Fariq Abdul Hamid were described as respectable, community-minded men.

Countries assisting in the search range from the former Soviet central Asian republics in the north to Australia in the south, along with France, which administers a scattering of islands.

Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia had requested further satellite data from the United States, China, France and other countries.

"We are asking countries that have satellite assets ... to provide further satellite data. And we are contacting additional countries who may be able to contribute specific assets relevant to the search and rescue operation," he said.

He said the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (Acars) was switched off before the last message from one of the pilots to air traffic control: "All right, good night."

The latest revelation suggests that the person who delivered the message was aware that Acars had been manually shut down.

Experts said it would have taken specialist knowledge to disable the communications system, intensifying scrutiny of captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and his first officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid.

Journalists stand outside the home of Fariq Abdul Hamid, the co-pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, in Shah Alam, outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: AP

Police searched the homes of the pilots on Saturday and dismantled and reassembled a flight simulator belonging to the captain, the country's police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, said.

Khalid stressed the probe was covering "all" the 239 passengers and crew, as well as engineers who may have had contact with the aircraft before take-off.

With no clear motive established as to why someone diverted the plane, all possibilities - hijack, sabotage or personal or psychological problems of someone on board - were being investigated.

Hishammuddin said authorities had not received any ransom or other demand.

Background checks of passengers on the flight have not found anything suspicious, but not every country whose nationals were on board has responded to requests for information, Khalid said.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

 

[InformationSociety]

Pilot suicide a taboo topic in past crash probes

Associated Press By NICK PERRY and ROD McGUIRK
Sunday, 16 March, 2014

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — As police investigate the two pilots of a Malaysian passenger jet that disappeared more than a week ago, a possibility they must consider — however remote and improbable — is that one of them committed suicide.

While such incidents have happened before, the topic remains almost taboo, with investigators and officials reluctant to conclude that a pilot purposely crashed a plane in order to commit suicide even when the evidence appears compelling.

A dozen years ago, U.S. investigators filed a final report into the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 aboard. They concluded that when co-pilot Gameel El-Batouty found himself alone on the flight deck, he switched off the auto-pilot, pointed the plane downward, and calmly repeated the phrase "I rely on God" over and over, 11 times in total.

Yet while the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the co-pilot's actions caused the crash, they didn't use the word "suicide" in the main findings of their 160-page report, instead saying the reason for his actions "was not determined." Egyptian officials, meanwhile, rejected the notion of suicide altogether, insisting instead there was some mechanical reason for the crash.

There was also disagreement over the cause of the crash of SilkAir Flight 185, which plunged into a river in 1997 during a flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Singapore, killing all 104 passengers and crew. A U.S. investigation found that the Boeing 737 had been deliberately crashed, but an Indonesian investigation was inconclusive.

Mozambique officials have been investigating a crash that killed 33 people in November. They say preliminary investigations indicate that the pilot of the Mozambican Airline plane bound for Angola intentionally brought it down, and they're continuing to look into his possible motives.

A 2014 study by the Federal Aviation Administration indicates that in the U.S. at least, flying remains a remarkably safe mode of transport and pilot suicide is a rare occurrence.

The study found that during the 10 years ending in 2012, just eight of 2,758 fatal aviation accidents in the U.S. were caused by pilot suicide, a rate of 0.3 percent. The report found that all eight suicides were men, with four of them testing positive for alcohol and two for antidepressants.

The cases ranged from a pilot celebrating his 21st birthday who realized a woman didn't want a relationship with him, to a 69-year-old pilot with a history of drinking and threatening suicide by plane. Seven of the cases involved the death of only the pilot; in the eighth case, a passenger also died.

"Aircraft-assisted suicides are tragic, intentional events that are hard to predict and difficult to prevent," the FAA's report found, adding that such suicides "are most likely under-reported and under-recognized."

In at least one case, a major international airline allowed a pilot who had expressed suicidal thoughts to continue flying. He flew nearly three more years, without incident, before he resigned in 1982 with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression.

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported that the Workers Compensation Commission heard that the Qantas pilot struggled several times to resist an overwhelming urge to switch off the plane's engines. Once during a flight to Singapore, the pilot's hand moved "involuntarily" toward the start levers and he was forced to "immobilize his left arm in order not to act on the compulsion."

"He left the flight deck and, once he felt calm enough, returned to his seat," the newspaper reported.

After telling his colleagues of his urges, the newspaper said, the pilot was examined by several doctors and ultimately declared fit to fly.

Malaysia's government said police on Saturday searched the homes of both the pilot and the co-pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. It said police were examining an elaborate flight simulator taken from the home of 53-year-old pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

Police also are investigating engineers who may have had contact with the plane before it took off.

Mike Glynn, a committee member of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said a pilot rather than a hijacker is more likely to be able to switch off the communications equipment, adding that he thinks suicide was to blame in the EgyptAir and SilkAir crashes.

"The last thing that I, as a pilot, want is suspicion to fall on the crew, but it's happened twice before," Glynn said.

Still, there is no explanation why the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane would spirit the jet away to an unknown location and not crash it soon after taking off if he had wanted to commit suicide.

___

Perry reported from Wellington, New Zealand.