A baffling turn in MH370 mystery: Military radar detects flight far off course from last point of radio contact
How Foo Yeen/Getty ImagesCCTV
imagery released by police of an Iranian suspect, Pouria Nour Mohammad
Mehrdad, who was travelling on Flight MH370 with a stolen Austrian
passport, (L) and Delavar Seyedmohammaderza, 29, who was travelling on
Flight MH370 with a stolen Italian passport (R), on March 11, 2014 in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia’s military believes it tracked a missing
jetliner by radar over the Strait of Malacca, far from where it last
made contact with civilian air traffic control off the country’s east
coast, a military source told Reuters.
In one of the most baffling mysteries in recent aviation history, a massive search operation for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, now in its fourth day, has so far found no trace of the aircraft or the 239 passengers and crew.
“It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait,” the military official, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.
The Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest shipping channels, runs along Malaysia’s west coast. The airline said on Saturday that radio and radar contact with Flight MH370 was lost off the east coast Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.
Police had earlier said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that might explain its disappearance, along with the possibility of a hijack, sabotage or mechanical failure.
The plane left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early on Saturday morning, vanishing from civilian radar screens about an hour after take-off over the sea separating eastern Malaysia from the southern tip of Vietnam.
There was no distress signal or radio contact indicating a problem and, in the absence of any wreckage or flight data, police have been left trawling through passenger and crew lists for potential leads.
“Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities,” Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference.
“We are looking very closely at the video footage taken at the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport), we are studying the behavioural pattern of all the passengers.”
The fact that at least two passengers on board had used stolen
passports, confirmed by Interpol, has raised suspicions of foul play.
But Southeast Asia is known as a hub for false documents that are also
used by smugglers, illegal migrants and asylum seekers.
Police chief Khalid said one of the men had been identified as a 19-year-old Iranian, Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, who appeared to be an illegal immigrant.
“We believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group, and we believe he was trying to migrate to Germany,” Khalid said of the teenager. His mother was waiting for him in Frankfurt and had been in contact with authorities, he said.
Asked if that meant he ruled out a hijack, Khalid said: “(We are
giving) same weightage to all (possibilities) until we complete our
investigations.”
He also said there was no truth to a statement by at least one other government official that five passengers had checked in for the flight but never boarded the airplane.
Both men entered Malaysia on Feb 28, at least one from Phuket, in Thailand, eight days before boarding the flight to Beijing, Malaysian immigration chief Aloyah Mamat told the news conference. Both held onward reservations to Western Europe.
Police in Thailand, where the passports were stolen and the tickets
used by the two men were booked, said they did not think they were
linked to the disappearance of the plane.
“We haven’t ruled it out, but the weight of evidence we’re getting swings against the idea that these men are or were involved in terrorism,” Supachai Puikaewcome, chief of police in the Thai resort city of Pattaya, told Reuters.
Interpol released an image of two Iranians who were travelling with stolen passports on a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner.
The image showed the two Iranian men boarding a plane at the same
time. Interpol secretary general Ronald K. Noble said Tuesday the two
men travelled to Malaysia on their Iranian passports, then apparently
switched to the stolen Austrian and Italian documents.
He identified the men as Pouri Nourmohammadi, 19, and Delavar Seyedmohammaderza, 29.
The massive search for the plane has drawn in navies, military aircraft, coastguard and civilian vessels from 10 nations.
The search was widened on Tuesday to cover a larger swathe of the shallow waters of the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea around the last known position of the plane.
But searches were also being conducted on the western coast of
Malaysia and northwest towards the much deeper Andaman Sea – based on a
theory that the plane may have flown on for some time after deviating
from its flight path.
“This will be a long search. We need a long-term search plan,” Do Ba Ty, Vietnam’s army chief of staff and deputy defence minister, told reporters.
“We will expand search to the east in the sea and to the west on land and ask for Cambodia help…we will go where our friends go and make sure we inform our citizens and fishermen to request their help in the search.”
Neither Malaysia’s Special Branch, the agency leading the investigation, nor spy agencies in the United States and Europe, have ruled out the possibility of a hijack or bombing.
But Malaysian authorities have indicated the evidence so far does not
strongly back an attack as a cause for the aircraft’s disappearance,
and that mechanical or pilot problems could have led to the apparent
crash, U.S. government sources said.
“There is no evidence to suggest an act of terror,” said a European security source, who added that there was also “no explanation what’s happened to it or where it is”.
The United States extensively reviewed imagery taken by spy satellites for evidence of a mid-air explosion, but saw none, a U.S. government source said.
Vietnam said it was allowing ships and planes from Malaysia, Singapore, China and the United States to enter its waters to search for the plane.
About two-thirds of the 227 passengers and 12 crew now presumed to
have died aboard the plane were Chinese. Other nationalities included 38
Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four
French and three Americans.
China has deployed 10 satellites using high-resolution earth imaging capabilities, visible light imaging and other technologies to “support and assist in the search and rescue operations”, the People’s Liberation Army Daily said on Tuesday.
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 seawall on landing in San Francisco, killing three people.
U.S. planemaker Boeing has declined to comment beyond a brief statement saying it was monitoring the situation.
In one of the most baffling mysteries in recent aviation history, a massive search operation for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, now in its fourth day, has so far found no trace of the aircraft or the 239 passengers and crew.
“It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait,” the military official, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.
The Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest shipping channels, runs along Malaysia’s west coast. The airline said on Saturday that radio and radar contact with Flight MH370 was lost off the east coast Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.
Police had earlier said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that might explain its disappearance, along with the possibility of a hijack, sabotage or mechanical failure.
The plane left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early on Saturday morning, vanishing from civilian radar screens about an hour after take-off over the sea separating eastern Malaysia from the southern tip of Vietnam.
There was no distress signal or radio contact indicating a problem and, in the absence of any wreckage or flight data, police have been left trawling through passenger and crew lists for potential leads.
“Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities,” Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference.
“We are looking very closely at the video footage taken at the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport), we are studying the behavioural pattern of all the passengers.”
AFP PHOTO / LE QUANG NHATGround
staff signal as a Vietnamese Air Force seaplane
lands upon return from a
search and rescue mission for the missing Malaysia Airlines
(MAS)
flight MH370 off Vietnam's southern coastline, at a military base on the
southern
island of Phu Quoc on March 10, 2014.
Police chief Khalid said one of the men had been identified as a 19-year-old Iranian, Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, who appeared to be an illegal immigrant.
“We believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group, and we believe he was trying to migrate to Germany,” Khalid said of the teenager. His mother was waiting for him in Frankfurt and had been in contact with authorities, he said.
AFP PHOTO / HOANG DINH NAMThis
picture taken aboard a Vietnamese Air Force
Russian-made MI-171
helicopter shows a crew member checking a map during a search
flight
some 200 km over the southern Vietnamese waters off Vietnam's island Phu
Quoc
on March 11, 2014 as part of continued efforts aimed at finding
traces of the missing
Malaysia Airlines MH370.
He also said there was no truth to a statement by at least one other government official that five passengers had checked in for the flight but never boarded the airplane.
Both men entered Malaysia on Feb 28, at least one from Phuket, in Thailand, eight days before boarding the flight to Beijing, Malaysian immigration chief Aloyah Mamat told the news conference. Both held onward reservations to Western Europe.
AFP PHOTO/HOANG DINH NAMA
Vietnamese Air Force technician inspects a
Russian-made MI-171
helicopter at Phu Quoc airport which has come back from
a search flight
over the southern waters of the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc
on March
11, 2014.
“We haven’t ruled it out, but the weight of evidence we’re getting swings against the idea that these men are or were involved in terrorism,” Supachai Puikaewcome, chief of police in the Thai resort city of Pattaya, told Reuters.
Interpol released an image of two Iranians who were travelling with stolen passports on a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner.
AP Photo/Wong Maye-EMalaysia's
Director General of immigration, Aloyah Mamat
briefs the media about
the entry and exit details of the two men onboard Malaysia
Airlines jet
MH370, who entered and left Malaysia with stolen passports, Tuesday,
March 11, 2014 in Sepang, Malaysia.
He identified the men as Pouri Nourmohammadi, 19, and Delavar Seyedmohammaderza, 29.
The massive search for the plane has drawn in navies, military aircraft, coastguard and civilian vessels from 10 nations.
The search was widened on Tuesday to cover a larger swathe of the shallow waters of the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea around the last known position of the plane.
AP Photo/Na Son NguyenCabin
crew of Vietnam Air Force's AN26 aircraft waits at a
base near Tan Son
Nhat airport, Hochiminh city before a search operation for the
missing
Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 over the seas between Malaysia and Vietnam
Tuesday, March 11, 2014.
“This will be a long search. We need a long-term search plan,” Do Ba Ty, Vietnam’s army chief of staff and deputy defence minister, told reporters.
“We will expand search to the east in the sea and to the west on land and ask for Cambodia help…we will go where our friends go and make sure we inform our citizens and fishermen to request their help in the search.”
Neither Malaysia’s Special Branch, the agency leading the investigation, nor spy agencies in the United States and Europe, have ruled out the possibility of a hijack or bombing.
AP Photo / Hau Dinh)Vietnam
air force Col. Duong Van Lanh looks at the
control panel
aboard aircraft Antonov An-26 during a search mission for the missing
Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 over water between Malaysia and Vietnam on
Tuesday,
March 11, 2014.
“There is no evidence to suggest an act of terror,” said a European security source, who added that there was also “no explanation what’s happened to it or where it is”.
The United States extensively reviewed imagery taken by spy satellites for evidence of a mid-air explosion, but saw none, a U.S. government source said.
Vietnam said it was allowing ships and planes from Malaysia, Singapore, China and the United States to enter its waters to search for the plane.
AFP PHOTO / LE QUANG NHATA
Vietnamese official looks at a map with details of the
ongoing search
and rescue missions during a press briefing held at the Relief and
Rescue Center, on the southern island of Phu Quoc on March 11, 2014.
China has deployed 10 satellites using high-resolution earth imaging capabilities, visible light imaging and other technologies to “support and assist in the search and rescue operations”, the People’s Liberation Army Daily said on Tuesday.
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 seawall on landing in San Francisco, killing three people.
U.S. planemaker Boeing has declined to comment beyond a brief statement saying it was monitoring the situation.
AP Photo/Binsar BakkaraIndonesian
air force crewmen prepare a Boeing 737
"Surveiller" maritime patrol
aircraft of the 5th Air Squadron "Black Mermaids" for a
search
operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that will be
conducted
over Malacca Straits, at Suwondo air base in Medan, North
Sumatra, Indonesia,
Tuesday, March 11, 2014.
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