The Observer,
The hunt for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has taken a
dramatic turn after the country's prime minister confirmed that
communications on board had been deliberately disabled and that the jet
had flown off course for more than six hours after it lost contact with
air traffic control.
The revelation came as police raided the home
of the missing flight's pilot, sparking intense speculation that
someone on the plane had been responsible for its disappearance or
hijack.
No group has claimed responsibility, but the Malaysian
authorities confirmed foul play was now the most likely theory to
explain the plane's fate.
The Malaysian prime minister, Najib
Razak, said his country's air force defence radar had picked up traces
of the plane turning back westward, crossing over Peninsular Malaysia before heading into the northern stretches of the Strait of Malacca.
He
said investigators had a "high degree of certainty" that the plane's
Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System (Acars), had
been disabled before the aircraft reached the east coast of Malaysia.
Soon after, someone on board switched off the aircraft's transponder,
the device that communicates the plane's location to the civilian air
traffic controllers.
"These movements are consistent with
deliberate action by someone on the plane," Najib said. "In view of this
latest development, the Malaysian authorities have refocused their
investigation into the crew and passengers on board."
Tracing what
happened to the Boeing 777, which disappeared from civilian radar last
Saturday with 239 passengers and crew on board as it flew from Kuala
Lumpur to Beijing, has now become an international effort. Fourteen
countries, 43 ships and 58 aircraft are already involved in the search,
which is expanding rapidly as information on the plane's potential
routes emerges.
On Saturday the UK-based satellite operator,
Inmarsat, whose technology has helped to identify possible routes taken
by the plane, confirmed that it was now working with the UK authorities
in the search.
"Inmarsat has been appointed as a technical adviser to the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 so that we may fully support the Malaysia investigation," the company said in a short statement.
The
Malaysian authorities said satellite data indicated that the aircraft
had last made contact with a satellite more than seven hours after it
took off. They said the signals had indicated that it was flown along
one of two standard flight corridors: either north, towards an area
stretching from northern Thailand to Kazakhstan, or south, towards
airspace over Indonesia, out towards the southern Indian Ocean.
A
source familiar with US assessments of the plane's electronic signals
said the most likely explanation was that it had turned south over the
Indian Ocean, where it is likely to have run out of fuel and crashed
into the sea.
There are claims that Malaysian military radar last
identified the plane in the Strait of Malacca, 1,000 miles west of Perth
in Australia. There were reports on Saturday that, after Malaysia air
traffic control had recognised it had lost the flight, it had repeatedly
tried to contact the jet for more than two hours before issuing a red
alert.
If the plane continued north towards Central Asia, it is
unclear how it would have avoided detection by Indian air control or by
other radars in the vicinity, including the US military airbase in
Bagram, Afghanistan.
Investigators are combing passenger and crew
records but American authorities have said they do not believe that
anyone on board had links to extremist groups.
Experts 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 is that one of the pilots was intent on
suicide.
On Saturday police began searching 53-year-old captain
Zaharie Ahmad Shah's home on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. It was not
clear if the home of co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, was also being
investigated. Shah joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and was considered
by colleagues to be an "aviation tech geek" who had clocked in 18,365
flight hours. The grandfather was considered "very friendly and
safety-conscious" and enjoyed flying miniature planes and playing with a
flight simulator he had built in his home.
The hunt for the plane
has led to tensions between Malaysia and China, which had 153 of its
citizens on board. The Chinese government's Xinhua news agency accused
Malaysia of dragging its feet in releasing information. "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.
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