Malaysia Expand Fruitless Jet Search Investigators Focus on Foul Play Behind Missing Plane

SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 2014 UK’s socialist stalwart Wanted Islamist ‘Red Mumbai building Tony Benn dies at 88 10 Beard’ killed in Mali 11 collapse kills six 12 Perak Island is seen from a Malaysian Air Force CN235 aircraft during a search and rescue (SAR) operation to find the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 plane over the Strait of Malacca yesterday. — AFP Malaysia expand fruitless jet search Investigators focus on foul play behind missing plane KUALA LUMPUR: An investigation into the disappearance of a rents could shift any surface debris tens of nautical miles within in that part of the country, a fourth source familiar with the investi- Malaysia Airlines jetliner is focusing more on a suspicion of foul play, hours, dramatically widening the search area with each passing day. gation said. Malaysia says it has asked neighboring countries for as evidence suggests it was diverted hundreds of miles off course, “Ships alone are not going to get you that coverage, helicopters are their radar data, but has not confirmed receiving the information. sources familiar with the Malaysian probe said. In a far more detailed barely going to make a dent in it and only a few countries fly P-3s Indonesian and Thai authorities said yesterday they had not description of military radar plotting than has been publicly (long-range search aircraft),” William Marks, spokesman for the U.S. received an official request for such data from Malaysia. The fact that revealed, two sources told Reuters an unidentified aircraft that Seventh Fleet said. “So this massive expanse of water space will be the plane - if it was MH370 - had lost contact with air traffic control investigators suspect was missing Flight MH370 appeared to be fol- the biggest challenge.” The US Navy was sending an advanced P-8A and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone on board had lowing a commonly used navigational route when it was last spot- Poseidon plane to help search the Strait of Malacca, a busy sealane turned off its communication systems, the first two sources said. ted early on Saturday, northwest of Malaysia. That course - headed separating the Malay Peninsula from the Indonesian island of They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidenti- into the Andaman Sea and towards the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Sumatra. It had already deployed a Navy P-3 Orion aircraft to those fied aircraft was heading - following aviation corridors identified on Ocean - could only have been set deliberately, either by flying the waters. US defense officials told Reuters that the US Navy guided- maps used by pilots as N571 and P628 - routes taken by commercial Boeing 777-200ER jet manually or by programming the auto-pilot. missile destroyer, USS Kidd, was heading to the Strait of Malacca, planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe. A third investigative source said inquiries were focusing more on answering a request from the Malaysian government. The Kidd had Hishammuddin said it remained unclear if that aircraft was MH370. the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately been searching the areas south of the Gulf of Thailand, along with “We need to get verification and we are working very closely with diverted the flight hundreds of miles off its scheduled course from the destroyer USS Pinckney. “It’s my understanding that based on the experts,” he said. Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. “What we can say is we are looking at sabo- some new information that’s not necessarily conclusive - but new tage, with hijack still on the cards,” said the source, a senior information - an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Military deployment Malaysian police official. One of the most baffling mysteries in the Ocean,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters in Ships and aircraft are now combing a vast area that had already history of modern aviation remains unsolved after nearly a week. Washington. been widened to cover both sides of the Malay Peninsula and the The latest radar evidence is consistent with the expansion of the Carney did not specify the nature of the new information. Andaman Sea. An already difficult search task has been complicated search for the aircraft to the west of Malaysia, possibly as far as the Satellites picked up faint electronic pulses from the aircraft after it in some areas by a choking haze caused by burning forest and farm- Indian Ocean. There has been no trace of the plane nor any sign of went missing on Saturday, but the signals gave no immediate infor- land that has enveloped much of Malaysia and spilled into the Strait wreckage as the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen mation about where the jet was heading and little else about its of Malacca. The haze, exacerbated by a prolonged dry spell, has countries scour the seas across Southeast Asia. fate, two sources close to the investigation said on Thursday. US reached hazardous levels in several spots. “The haze will affect the Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he experts are still examining the data to see if any information about search and rescue operations for sure. The visibility at the ground could not confirm the last heading of the plane or if investigators its last location could be extracted, a source close to the investiga- level has dropped to less than 3 km,” Amirzudi Hashim, a senior were focusing on sabotage. “A normal investigation becomes nar- tion said. Malaysia’s civil aviation chief confirmed yesterday the gov- meteorologist at the National Weather Center, told Reuters. India rower with time ... as new information focuses the search, but this is ernment was working with US investigators to establish if there was had deployed ships, planes and helicopters from the remote not a normal investigation,” he told a news conference. “In this case, any satellite information that could help locate the airliner. Andaman and Nicobar Islands, at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal the information has forced us to look further and further afield.” and the Andaman Sea, an Indian military spokesman, Harmeet Investigators were still looking at “four or five” possibilities, including Last radar sighting Singh, said yesterday. a diversion that was intentional or under duress, or an explosion, he The last sighting of the aircraft on civilian radar screens came Two Dornier aircraft were searching the land mass of the said. Police would search the pilot’s home if necessary and were still shortly before 1:30 am on Saturday, less than an hour after take-off. Andaman and Nicobar islands, a total area of 720 km by 52 km, investigating all 239 passengers and crew on the plane, he added. It was flying as scheduled across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand Singh said. China, which had more than 150 citizens on board the on the eastern side of peninsular Malaysia, heading towards Beijing. missing plane, has deployed four warships, four coastguard vessels, Biggest challenge However, Malaysia’s air force chief said on Wednesday that an air- eight aircraft and trained 10 satellites on a wide search area. If the jetliner did stray into the Indian Ocean, a vast expanse with craft that could have been the missing plane was plotted on military Chinese media have described the ship deployment as the largest depths of more than 7,000 meters (23,000 feet), the task faced by radar at 2:15 am, 200 miles northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia’s Chinese rescue fleet ever assembled. The Boeing 777 has one of the searchers would become dramatically more difficult. Winds and cur- west coast. This position marks the limit of Malaysia’s military radar best safety records of any commercial aircraft in service.—Reuters.

Load more