Malaysian Airlines missing jet flew for 6+ hours after cutting contact
Saturday, March 15, 2014
This photo provided by Laurent Errera taken Dec. 26, 2011,
shows the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER that disappeared from air
traffic control screens Saturday, taking off from Roissy-Charles de
Gaulle Airport in France.
(AP Photo / Laurent Errera)
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia --
The Malaysian jetliner missing for more than a week was deliberately
diverted and continued flying for more than six hours after severing
contact with the ground, meaning it could have gone as far northwest as
Kazakhstan or into the Indian Ocean's southern reaches, Malaysia's
leader said Saturday.
Prime Minister Najib Razak's statement confirmed days of
mounting speculation that the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight
370 to Beijing was not accidental. It also refocused the investigation
into the flight's 12-person crew and 227 passengers, and underlined the
complicated task for searchers who already have been scouring vast areas
of ocean.
"Clearly the search for MH370 has entered a new phase," Najib said at a televised news conference.
Najib
stressed that investigators were looking into all possibilities as to
why the Boeing 777 deviated so drastically from its original flight
path, saying authorities could not confirm whether it was a hijacking.
Earlier Saturday, a Malaysian official said the plane had been hijacked,
though he added that no motive had been established and no demands had
been made known.
"In view of this latest development, the
Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew
and passengers on board," Najib told reporters, reading from a written
statement but not taking any questions.
Police on Saturday went
to the Kuala Lumpur homes of both the pilot and co-pilot of the missing
plane, according to a guard and several local reporters. Authorities
have said they will investigate the pilots as part of their probe, but
have released no information about how they are progressing.
Experts
have previously said that whoever disabled the plane's communication
systems and then flew the jet must have had a high degree of technical
knowledge and flying experience. One possibility they have raised was
that one of the pilots wanted to commit suicide.
The plane
departed for an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing at 12:40
a.m. on March 8. Its communications with civilian air controllers were
severed at about 1:20 a.m., and the jet went missing - heralding one of
the most puzzling mysteries in modern aviation history.
China,
where the bulk of the passengers were from, expressed irritation over
what it described as Malaysia's foot-dragging in releasing information
about the search.
Investigators now have a high degree of
certainty that one of the plane's communications systems - the Aircraft
and Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) - was
partially disabled before the aircraft reached the east coast of
Malaysia, Najib said. Shortly afterward, someone on board switched off
the aircraft's transponder, which communicates with civilian air traffic
controllers.
Najib confirmed that Malaysian air force defense
radar picked up traces of the plane turning back westward, crossing over
Peninsular Malaysia into the northern stretches of the Strait of
Malacca. Authorities previously had said this radar data could not be
verified.
"These movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," Najib said.
Although
the aircraft was flying virtually blind to air traffic controllers at
this point, onboard equipment continued to send "pings" to satellites.
U.S.
aviation safety experts say the shutdown of communications systems
makes it clear the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was taken over by
someone who knew how the plane worked.
To turn off the
transponder, 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 U.S. National
Transportation Safety Board. That's something a pilot would know, but it
could also be learned by someone who researched the plane on the
Internet, he said.
The Aircraft Communications Addressing and
Reporting System (ACARS) has two aspects, Goglia said. The information
part of the system was shut down, but not the transmission part. In most
planes, the information section 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 transmission portion 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. The
Malaysia plane's ACARS transmitter continued to send out blips that were
recorded by 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.
Malaysia's prime minister said the last
confirmed signal between the plane and a satellite came at 8:11 a.m. - 7
hours and 31 minutes after takeoff. This was more than five hours later
than the previous time given by Malaysian authorities as the possible
last contact.
Airline officials have said the plane had enough fuel to fly for up to about eight hours.
"The
investigations team is making further calculations which will indicate
how far the aircraft may have flown after this last point of contact,"
Najib said.
He said authorities had determined that the plane's
last communication with a satellite was in one of two possible arcs, or
"corridors" - a northern one from northern Thailand through to the
border of the Central Asian countries Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and a
southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
The
northern route might theoretically have taken the plane through China,
India, Pakistan, Afghanistan - which hosts U.S. military bases - and
Central Asia, and it is unclear how it might have gone undetected. The
region is also home to extremist Islamist groups, unstable governments
and remote, sparsely populated areas.
Flying south would have
put the plane over the Indian Ocean, with an average depth of 3,890
meters (12,762 feet) and thousands of kilometers (miles) from the
nearest land mass.
Britain-based aviation security consultant
Chris Yates thought it was highly unlikely the plane would have taken
the northern route across land in Asia.
"In theory, any country
that sees a strange blip is going to get fighter planes up to have a
look," he said. "And if those fighter planes can't make head or tail of
what it is, they will shoot it down."
Najib said search efforts in the South China Sea, where the plane first lost contact, had ended.
Indian
officials said navy ships supported by long-range surveillance planes
and helicopters scoured Andaman Sea islands for a third day Saturday
without any success in finding evidence of the missing jet.
Two-thirds
of the plane's passengers were Chinese, and China's government has been
under pressure to give relatives firm news of the aircraft's fate.
In
a stinging commentary on Saturday, the Chinese government's Xinhua News
Agency said the Malaysian information was "painfully belated,"
resulting in wasted efforts and straining the nerves of relatives.
"Given
today's technology, the delay smacks of either dereliction of duty or
reluctance to share information in a full and timely manner," Xinhua
said. "That would be intolerable."
Najib said he understood the
need for families to receive information, but that his government
wanted to release only fully corroborated reports. He said his country
has been sharing information with international investigators, even when
it meant placing "national security concerns" second to the search.
U.S., British and Malaysian air safety investigators have been on the
ground in Malaysia to assist with the investigation.
In the
Chinese capital, relatives of passengers who have anxiously awaited news
at a hotel near Beijing's airport said they felt deceived at not being
told earlier about the plane's last signal. "We are going through a
roller coaster, and we feel helpless and powerless," said a woman, who
declined to give her name.
At least one of the relatives saw a
glimmer of hope in word that the plane's disappearance was a deliberate
act, rather than a crash. "It's very good," said a woman, who gave only
her surname, Wen.
Malaysian police have already said they are
looking at the psychological state, family life and connections of pilot
Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. Both have
been described as respectable, community-minded men.
Zaharie
joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and had more than 18,000 hours of
flying 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.
Fariq was contemplating marriage after having
just
graduated to the cockpit of a Boeing 777. He has drawn scrutiny after
the revelation that in 2011, he and another pilot invited two women
aboard their aircraft to sit in the cockpit for a flight from Phuket,
Thailand, to Kuala Lumpur.
Fourteen countries are involved in the search for the plane, using 43 ships and 58 aircraft.
A
U.S. P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced long-range anti-submarine and
anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world, was to arrive over the
weekend and sweep parts of the Indian Ocean, the U.S. Defense Department
said in a statement.
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Malaysian Airlines missing jet flew for 6+ hours after cutting contact
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