FLIGHT 370: Did missing plane flyon for hours? !!! US INVESTIGATORS suspect that the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 stayed in the air for another four hours after it lost contact with air-traffic control, according to the Wall StreetJournal.The plane disappeared from radar screens on 8 March at 1.30am, aboutone hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board.A massive international air and watersearch has not produced any results so far, despite authorities radically expanding the size of the search zoneyesterday. China, which has pledged to continue the search efforts as long as there is a glimmer of hope, released satellite images appearing to show possible wreckage in the South China Sea – but authorities were unable to find debris at the same location.US aviation investigators and national security officials are now looking at the possibility that the plane flew on for hundreds of miles, reports theWSJ.The theory is based on live data thatwas automatically transmitted from the planes engines to a routine maintenance and monitoring system set up by the engines manufacturer Rolls-Royce. The system allows Rolls-Royce to analyse its engines performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet.The data from Flight MH370 apparently suggests that the engines kept running for around four hours after its last known moment of contact. Based on the planes cruisingspeed, this means it could have travelled an additional 2,200 nautical miles, reaching points as far as the Indian Ocean, the border of Pakistan or even the Arabian Sea.US counter-terrorism officials are reportedly pursuing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board the plane may have diverted ittoward an undisclosed location after intentionally turning off the planes transponders to avoid radar detection.Another possibility under consideration is that the plane was diverted with the intention of using it later for another purpose, an insider told the WSJ.However, Malaysia’s defence and acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, this morning dismissed claims that the aircraft mayhave been flying for some time after the last contact. He added that as far as Rolls-Royce and Boeing are concerned those reports are inaccurate.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:02:58 +0000
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