Was Malaysia Airlines Flight 370hijacked with the chillingly murderousintent of crashing it into a high-valuebuilding in an Indian city in a re-run ofal-Qaidas 9/11 attack on the US? And ifthe plane didnt crash, where is it now?A week after the plane was thought tohave crashed, its disappearance hasturned from increasingly mysterious todeadly sinister.Malaysia turned the search into acriminal investigation on Saturday,after its prime minister declared thatthe plane had been deliberatelydiverted from its planned route fromKuala Lumpur to Beijing. The planethen flew as much as seven hours to anunknown destination.Later in the day, Strobe Talbott, whowas deputy secretary of state in the BillClinton administration and remains aninformed and influential voice in the UScapital, tweeted: Malaysia planemystery: Direction, fuel load & rangenow lead some to suspect hijackersplanned a 9/11-type attack on anIndian city.At a news conference, Malaysias PMNajib Razak said his government wouldseek the help of other governmentsacross a large region of Asia in trying tofind the plane. Malaysian authoritieslater released a map showing that thelast satellite signal received from theplane had been sent from a pointsomewhere along one of two arcsspanning large distances across Asia.This map shows two red linesrepresenting the possible locations fromwhich Flight 370 sent its last hourlytransmission to a satellite at 8.11am onMarch 8 — more than seven hours afterit took off from KL and when the planewould most likely have been runninglow on fuel.Najib said a satellite orbiting 35,800kmover the middle of the Indian Oceanreceived a transmission that, based onthe angle of transmission from theplane, came from a location somewherealong one of two arcs. One arc runsfrom the southern border of Kazakhstanin Central Asia to northern Thailand.The other runs from near Jakarta,Indonesia, to the Indian Ocean.These movements are consistent withdeliberate action by someone on theplane, Najib said. He noted that onecommunications system had beendisabled as the plane flew over thenortheast coast of Malaysia. A secondsystem, a transponder aboard theaircraft, abruptly stopped broadcastingits location, altitude, speed and otherinformation a few minutes later, at1.21am, while the plane was one-thirdof the way across the Gulf of Thailandfrom Malaysia to Vietnam.The information came a day afterAmerican officials and others familiarwith the investigation told The NewYork Times that Flight 370 hadexperienced significant changes inaltitude after it lost contact with groundcontrol, and altered its course morethan once as if still under the commandof a pilot.Military radar data subsequentlyshowed that the aircraft turned andflew west across northern Malaysiabefore arching out over the widenorthern end of the Strait of Malacca,headed at cruising altitude for theIndian Ocean. The disappearance of thejet has worried China, partly becausenearly two-thirds of the 239 peopleaboard were Chinese citizens. OnSaturday, the Chinese ministry offoreign affairs demanded to know more,and said that China was sendingtechnical experts to Malaysia.The flight had been scheduled to land at6.30am in Beijing, so the time of thelast satellite signal as given by Najib —8.11am— could have been as the planewas nearing the end of its fuel supply.The investigation team is makingfurther calculations, which will indicatehow far the aircraft may have flownafter the last point of contact, Najibsaid. Due to the type of satellite data,we are unable to confirm the preciselocation of the plane when it last madecontact with a satellite.The northern arc described by Najibpasses through or close to some of theworlds most volatile countries, home toinsurgent groups, but also over highlymilitarized areas with robust air-defence networks, some run by theAmerican military. The arc passes closeto northern Iran, through Afghanistanand northern Pakistan, and throughnorthern India and the Himalayanmountains and Myanmar. An aircraftflying on that arc would have to passthrough air-defence networks in Indiaand Pakistan, whose mutual border isheavily militarized, as well as throughAfghanistan, where the US and otherNato countries have operated air basesfor more than a decade. These includeBagram Airfield in Afghanistan and alarge Indian air base, Hindon Air ForceStation.The Indian Ocean, the third-largest inthe world, has an average depth of morethan 12,000 feet.Mikael Robertsson, a founder ofFlightradar24, a global aviation trackingservice, said the way the planescommunications were shut downpointed to the involvement of someonewith considerable aviation expertiseand knowledge of the air route, possiblya crew member, willing or unwilling.The Boeings transponder was switchedoff just as the plane passed fromMalaysian to Vietnamese air trafficcontrol space, thus making it more likelythat the planes absence fromcommunications would not arouseattention, Robertsson said by telephonefrom Sweden.Always when you fly, you are incontact with air traffic control in somecountry, he said. Instead of contactingthe Vietnam air traffic control, thetransponder signal was turned off, so Ithink the timing of turning off thesignal just after you have left Malaysianair traffic control indicates someone didthis on purpose, and he found theperfect moment when he wasnt incontrol by Malaysia or Vietnam. He was,like, in no-mans country.Xu Ke, a former commercial pilot andnow lecturer at the Zhejiang Academyof Police in eastern China who studiesaviation security, said the detailssuggested that at least one member ofthe crew, most likely one of the pilots,was involved in seizing control of theaircraft, either willingly or undercoercion. The timing of turning off thetransponder suggests that this involvedsomeone with knowledge of how toavoid air traffic control withoutattracting attention, Xu said in atelephone interview. You needed toknow this plane, and you also needed toknow this route.Especially since the September 11attacks, Xu said, security on cockpitdoors has been reinforced so that itwould be difficult for anyone to forcetheir way in without giving the pilotsample time to send a warning signal.We have to be careful about our wordsand conclusions, and examine all thepossibilities, but the likelihood that apilot was involved appears very likely,said Xu. The Boeing 777 is a relativelynew and big plane, so it wouldnt beanyone who could do this, not evensomeone who has flown smallerpassenger planes, even smallerBoeings.According to a person who has beenbriefed on the progress of theinvestigation, the two corridorsdescribed by Mr. Najib were derivedfrom calculations made by engineersfrom the satellite communicationscompany Inmarsat, which wereprovided to investigators. The personspoke on the condition of anonymitybecause details of the search operationremain confidential.But based on what is already knownabout the flights trajectory,investigators are strongly favouring thesouthern corridor as the likely flightpath, the person said. The US Navywould not be heading towardKazakhstan, the person said.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 06:13:00 +0000
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