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Wills Robinson
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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.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Saturday refused to confirm reports the plane was ‘hijacked’
He did, however suggest that actions on the plane could have resulted in the flight’s communication’s being cut off
Conclusion: Malaysian officials say flight MH370 could have been hijacked by one or several people with flying experience and deliberately
diverted
Changing course: Officials said radar data suggests the plane may have turned back and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula after setting out
Re-routed: Malaysian officials have said radar data suggests the plane may have turned back and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula toward the Andaman Islands after setting out on a northeastern path toward the Chinese capital
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.
Gone: The Malaysian Airways jet (not pictured) vanished on March 8 after communication was severed just one hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing
Search effort: Colonel Do Duc Minh (far left) Vietnam Air Force’s 370 Division’s Chief of Staff, points at a map as he speaks to reporters about search flights aimed at finding the missing Malaysia Airlines plane
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.
The USS Kidd arrived in the Strait of Malacca late Friday afternoon and will be searching in the Andaman Sea, and into the Bay of Bengal
Expanded search: A Royal Malaysian Air Force Navigator captain Izam Fareq Hassan (right) talks with his team members onboard a Malaysian Air Force CN235 aircraft during a search and rescue (SAR) operation
Expanded search: Indonesian Search And Rescue personnel keep a lookout on a rescue ship heading to the Andaman sea
Wanting answers: Relatives of passengers of a missing Malaysia Airlines plane attend a conference with airline representatives at a hotel in Beijing, China on Saturday
Exhausted: Relatives of Chinese passengers aboard missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 rests in a room reserved for relatives awaiting news of the search for the plane
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.
Under investigation: Pilots Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53 (left) and Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27 (right) are being investigated and could have their homes searched
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.
Support: Thousands of people have written messages of support on a wall at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, for passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines plane
Hope: Paper cranes are pasted on a message board for passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur
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 forests.
Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein attended prayers for passengers and crew of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at a mosque near Kuala Lumpur International Airport
India today began searching hundreds of uninhabited islands in the Andaman Sea, using heat-seeking devices, officials said
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.
Its only previous fatal crash came on July 6 last year when
Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck a sea wall with its undercarriage on
landing in San Francisco. Three people died in the incident.
THREE TYPES OF SIGNALS GIVEN OFF BY PLANES, AND HOW THEY RELATE TO MISSING MH370
The missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing, an indication that it was still flying for hundreds of miles or more, according to a U.S. official briefed on the search for the jet.
This raises the possibility that the plane may have flown far from the current search areas.
Here is a look at three types of signals planes give off, and how they relate to the missing jetliner:
TRANSPONDERS
Transponders are electronic devices that automatically identify commercial aircraft within air traffic control radar range and transmit information on the plane’s identity, location and altitude to ground radar stations. Beyond radar range, they enable planes to be identified and tracked anywhere in the world by satellite. Transponders can be turned off by pilots.
The missing jet’s transponder last communicated with Malaysian civilian radar about an hour after takeoff, when the plane was above the Gulf of Thailand between Malaysia and southern Vietnam.
ACARS
ACARS – or Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System – is a data link system used to transmit short messages such as weather updates and status reports between aircraft and ground stations via radio or satellite.
According to the U.S. official, ACARS messages sent by the missing plane continued after its transponder went silent, although he wasn’t certain for how long.
OPERATING DATA SENT VIA SATELLITE
Boeing offers a satellite service that can receive data during a flight on how the aircraft is functioning and relay the information to the plane’s home base. The idea is to provide information before the plane lands on whether maintenance work or repairs are needed. Even if an airline does not subscribe to the service, planes still periodically send automated signals – or pings – to the satellite seeking to establish contact.
Malaysia Airlines did not subscribe to the satellite service. The U.S. official said automated pings were received from the jetliner for four hours after it went missing, indicating it probably flew for hundreds of miles beyond its last confirmed sighting on radar.
Comments (590)
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afarce,
London UK,
moments ago
The Malaysian President was speaking live on BBC news this am the only conclusion he said was someone on board that plane had been involved either crew or passenger they have no idea – but will probably I expect check Interpol lists for stolen passports in future!
original,
Up North, United Kingdom,
moments ago
If it was hijacked would the passengers not know about it?
Mobile phone messages to loved ones??
Petere,
Delhi,
moments ago
Where are these so called experts who said the plane exploded ??
optimist68,
Suffolk, United Kingdom,
moments ago
As soon as I read about the pilot’s enthusiasms, flight sim, models of the airplane, and other passengers working for an electronic chip company who supply to defense industry, a little voice told me that they should at least be investigated. Having planned this well for many years, I can imagine, they’ll have planned the fact that people will be looking for the plane and also planned where it could be landed and hid, etc. others on land will be involved. This theory made sense last Sunday but was referred to as a wild conspiracy theory. The gang will have known that too. Bought them time. Just wondering what and who their final target is. I hope the passengers are ok and will be released safe and as well as can be.
Peabody75,
Essex, United Kingdom,
moments ago
I don’t see how you can hijack a plane and land it without it one of the passengers sending a text before they were overcome by the hijackers. The mobile phones are the most disturbing thing about this and makes me worry for the passengers. Even as a hijacking this doesn’t make sense. Surely the pilots are involved I mean someone else on the plane would have to get in the cockpit without alerting anyone else on the plane. I am surprised that there aren’t more tracking devices on the planes that are independent of the cockpit and that satellites didn’t track its path. I didn’t think there were many areas of the earth that are not monitored these days. Time for a review of airplane tracking.
MD,
Pandora,
moments ago
Be responsible for killing American citizens???? We have been attacking and killing these countries for years long before they started doing it BACK that is why we have terrorism. Are you really that dense??? I pray for your brain.
emma,
Exeter,
moments ago
so where are your headlines about Ukraine and Russia now that this story is covering it up?
Frustrated Reader,
Birmingham,
moments ago
You shouldn’t be able to turn off anything that gives the planes location.
Surely that should be hidden like a tracker on a car.
Topsmiles,
Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom,
moments ago
to me as in previous comments there’s just something not right about this,ive honestly believed right from the beginning this has been hijacked,they surely would of found some kind of debris,having worked on these aircraft as crew there are lots of equipment onboard that can be used in survival needs,to me they need to start looking at some baron land where this could of been taken and landed,which in time the aircraft is going to be used later for what i really dont know, but for it to just disappear like this something is not ringing true!!
drm26,
Birmingham UK,
5 minutes ago
a Find my iPlane app would be useful
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It WAS hijacked: Malaysian official says it"s CONCLUSIVE jet carrying 239 was seized at 35,000 ft by individual or group "with significant flying experience" as Prime Minister admits "deliberate action" on plane led to disappearance
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