Debris spotted may be from missing Malaysian Airline flight
Debris may be from missing Malaysia Airlines flight
(about 3 hours later)
BEIJING — Vietnamese aircraft located possible debris from the vanished Malaysia Airlines plane late Sunday, including a rectangular object that could have been a door, but officials said it was too dark to confirm if they came from the airliner.
BEIJING — The two-day, multination search for a vanished Malaysia Airlines passenger jet has turned up an unconfirmed fragment of debris but delivered few other clues about one of the most confounding aviation disasters in recent memory.
Experts had been puzzled by the failure to find debris from the airliner nearly two days after it disappeared from radar screens in the Gulf of Thailand and was presumed to have crashed with 239 people on board.
Malaysian authorities said Sunday that the plane might have turned around before disappearing from radar without a distress call. But other aviation experts said the aircraft probably plummeted suddenly or disintegrated at cruising altitude. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said there were no indications of an act of terrorism, although nothing had been ruled out. At least two of the 227 passengers had boarded with stolen passports.
Two large oil slicks, between six and nine miles long, consistent with a downed jetliner were found on Saturday, and the following day Vietnam’s Civil Aviation Authority published a picture of what could have been an aircraft door on its Web site, found in roughly the right area, between Malaysia and Vietnam.
Some 40 ships and 34 aircraft from eight countries have combed Southeast Asian waters for any sign of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, and Sunday the search expanded into areas well beyond the plane’s intended flight path. In the late evening, a Vietnamese aircraft located possible debris from the plane — a rectangular object that might be a door — but there was no confirmation.
But it said it was too dark to be sure and that more aircraft and planes from both countries would be dispatched to investigate in the morning. Vietnamese media also reported that another piece of debris had been found that might have been part of the plane’s tail.
The possible debris was found in an area near two large oil slicks, between six and nine miles long, consistent with fuel left by a downed jetliner. If emergency workers can determine that the flotsam came from the plane, it would mark the first break in an investigation that has left despairing relatives frustrated about the lack of news. On Sunday in Beijing, where the flight was to have landed, some threw water bottles at a Malaysia Airlines team as they arrived to share information.
Some 40 ships and 34 planes from eight nations, including the United States, expanded their search for the plane on Sunday over a vast area of the ocean. After insisting for 24 hours that investigations were continuing, Malaysia Airlines acknowledged on Sunday that it was “fearing the worst.”
“Every minute counts, as the plane has lost contact for about 40 hours,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Malaysian counterpart in a phone conversation described early Monday by Chinese state media.
The mystery surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 deepened Sunday after investigators said the plane appeared to turn around before vanishing from radar screens, and as authorities examined closed-circuit television footage of at least two passengers, apparently traveling together with stolen passports.
Passengers with stolen passports
The information about the suspect passengers has led to speculation that terrorists might have downed the flight , a red-eye carrying passengers from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing that vanished from radar after midnight Saturday (Friday afternoon Eastern time).
Investigators focused Sunday on two men who boarded the plane with stolen passports, one of the only leads that has been made public. Malaysian authorities examined closed-circuit television footage of the men at the airport. International police agency Interpol said in a statement that the passports — Austrian and Italian — had been stolen in Thailand within the past two years and were not checked against an Interpol database as the passengers boarded the red-eye from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The fact that the plane was cruising at steady altitude in decent weather, and apparently did not emit a distress signal before disappearing, also were possible indications of a sudden catastrophic event striking the plane.
“I think this is a criminal act of some kind,” said Scott Hamilton, an aviation expert and founder of Leeham News in Seattle. “If both engines had failed, the pilots would have had plenty of time to call and say, ‘We have a problem.’ ”
Malaysian investigators narrowed their focus Sunday on the possibility that the plane may have disintegrated in mid-flight, according to the Reuters news agency.
If the plane had broken up on impact with water, search teams would have been expected to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris, officials said. But they said an explosion was not the only possible cause: The plane, a Boeing 777-200, could have broken up due to mechanical issues.
The plane, which was more than 11 years old, had suffered damage to its wing after a minor collision with another aircraft in 2012 but had been fully repaired.
Hamilton said possibilities included a bomb, passengers penetrating the cockpit and seizing control of the plane or pilot suicide.
But Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken told CNN that it was too early to say if foul play was involved and premature to speculate on whether the passengers with stolen passports had a role to play.
European officials indicated on Saturday that two of the people on board were using passports that had been stolen in Thailand within the past two years.
Luigi Maraldi, 37, from Italy and Christian Kozel, 30, from Austria had initially been listed as among the plane’s passengers, but both men were subsequently found to be safe.
Flight booking information accessed through the KLM Web site showed the passengers had adjacent ticket numbers, and were both booked on a subsequent flight from Beijing to Amsterdam. One, traveling under Maraldi’s name, was due to proceed to Copenhagen, and the other to Frankfurt, Germany.
Their itinerary was separately confirmed by an employee of China Southern Airlines, which was a codeshare partner on the flights and had sold them the tickets.
Reuters reported that people presenting themselves as the two men had booked their tickets together at a travel agency in Pattaya, Thailand. Thai media reported that Maraldi had lost his passport in Phuket last year; he surrendered it at a motorcycle rental shop and another man had collected it.
On Sunday, Malaysia’s transportation minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that Malaysian intelligence officials also were checking the identities of two other passengers, according to the Associated Press.
“All the four names are with me and have been given to our intelligence agencies,” Hishammuddin said, according to AP. “We do not want to target only the four; we are investigating the whole passenger manifest. We are looking at all possibilities.”
Later, however, the director of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation said there were only two men with false passports and that authorities were checking closed-circuit television footage of them. “We have the CCTV recordings of those passengers from check-in right through the departure point,” he said, according to Bloomberg News. “These records of CCTV are now being used for investigation of this matter.”
Adding to the confusion, Malaysia said on Sunday that the flight might have turned back from its scheduled route to Beijing before disappearing.
“What we have done is actually look into the recording on the radar that we have and we realized there is a possibility the aircraft did make a turnback,” Rodzali Daud, the Royal Malaysian Air Force chief, told reporters at a news conference, according to Reuters.
Malaysia said it had now expanded its search to the country’s western coast, the opposite side of the peninsula from the plane’s last sighting.
“The outcome so far is there is no sign of the aircraft,” Malaysian civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said, according to Reuters.
“On the possibility of hijack, we are not ruling out any possibility,” he told reporters.
But it nevertheless appeared implausible that a passenger plane could simply disappear from radar screens over the ocean unless it had crashed, experts said.
“It can’t vanish from primary radar unless it is a stealth bomber,” said Mikael Robertsson of FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking service.
The airline’s own transponder, which broadcasts the plane’s position and location, went completely dark while the plane was cruising at a steady 35,000 feet. “Everything indicates it must have lost altitude suddenly,” he said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday night in Washington that a team of investigators was en route from the United States to Asia to assist with the investigation. U.S. officials said Sunday that intelligence agencies were examining the possibility of a connection to terrorism.
Asked earlier whether terrorism was suspected in the plane’s disappearance, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said authorities were “looking at all possibilities, but it is too early to make any conclusive remarks.”
Nevertheless, he said airport security procedures were being reviewed.
“We will enhance them if necessary, because we still do not know the cause of the incident,” he told reporters, according to Reuters.
International police agency Interpol confirmed Sunday that the two stolen passports were on its database, but said no country had made what should be routine checks about them.
“Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol’s databases,” Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said in a statement.
“Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol’s databases,” Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said in a statement.
Noble expressed frustration that few of Interpol’s 190 member countries “systematically” search the database to determine whether documents being used to board a plane are registered as lost or stolen.
Noble expressed frustration that few of Interpol’s 190 member countries “systematically” search the database to determine whether documents being used to board a plane are registered as lost or stolen.
“This is a situation we had hoped never to see. For years Interpol has asked why should countries wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates,” he said.
Luigi Maraldi, 37, of Italy and Christian Kozel, 30, of Austria had initially been listed as among the plane’s passengers, but both men were subsequently found to be safe — and to have had their passports stolen.
Nevertheless, Clive Williams, a counter-terrorism expert at Australia’s Macquarie University, said it seemed unlikely that terrorists would target a Malaysia Airlines flight. Data from Interpol data shows there were 39 million lost or stolen passports as at the end of last year.
Flight booking information accessed through the KLM Web site showed that the passengers using those passports had adjacent ticket numbers and that both were booked on a subsequent flight from Beijing to Amsterdam. One, traveling under Maraldi’s name, was due to continue on to Copenhagen and the other to Frankfurt, Germany. Their itineraries were separately confirmed by an employee of China Southern Airlines, which was a code-share partner on the flights and had sold them the tickets.
“The stolen passports may or may not be related but more likely not,” he wrote in an email. “I think it likely that most Asian flights have passengers with stolen passports on board.”
Nevertheless, Clive Williams, a counterterrorism expert at Australia’s Macquarie University, said it seemed unlikely that terrorists would target a Malaysia Airlines flight. Data from Interpol show that there were 39 million lost or stolen passports as of the end of last year.
The plane carried passengers from 14 countries, including three Americans, according to the manifest posted on the airline’s Web site. They were identified as Philip Wood, 51, an IBM employee working in Malaysia; Nicole Meng, 4; and Yan Zhang, 2.
“The stolen passports may or may not be related, but more likely not,” he wrote in an e-mail. “I think it likely that most Asian flights have passengers with stolen passports on board.”
Austin-based Freescale Semiconductor confirmed Saturday that 20 of its employees were aboard the plane. Twelve are from Malaysia and eight are from China, the firm’s president and chief executive, Gregg Lowe, said in a statement.
Asked earlier whether terrorism was suspected in the plane’s disappearance, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said authorities were “looking at all possibilities, but it is too early to make any conclusive remarks.” Airport security procedures were being reviewed, he said, according to the Reuters news agency.
“At present, we are solely focused on our employees and their families,” Lowe said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this tragic event.”
The National Transportation Safety Board in Washington said that a team of investigators was en route from the United States to Asia to assist with the investigation. U.S. officials said intelligence agencies were examining the possibility of a connection to terrorism.
Flight MH370 lost contact with Malaysian air traffic control at 1:20 a.m. Saturday (12:20 p.m. EST Friday), less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur and as it was completing its ascent. It vanished on the border of the territorial waters of Malaysia and Vietnam, where the Gulf of Thailand meets the South China Sea. It had been due to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. Saturday (5:30 p.m. Eastern time Friday).
Transponder went dark
The airline said it would establish a command center either in Kota Bharu, Malaysia, or Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as soon as the location of the aircraft is established. A 94-person caregiver team was providing emotional support for families in Malaysia and a similar size team had arrived in Beijing, the airline said.
The incident has been hard to piece together in large part because the airliner’s transponder, which broadcasts the plane’s position and location, went dark while the plane was cruising at a steady 35,000 feet. The flight lost contact with Malaysian air traffic control at 1:20 a.m. Saturday, less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur and as it was completing its ascent. It vanished on the border of the territorial waters of Malaysia and Vietnam, where the Gulf of Thailand meets the South China Sea.
But in China, frustration has steadily grown among relatives at the lack of news; on Sunday, some threw water bottles at the airline team when they arrived to share information on the flight.
It had been due to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. Saturday.
The plane’s sudden disappearance without a call for help brought back memories of an Air France flight that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009.
“It can’t vanish from primary radar unless it is a stealth bomber,” said Mikael Robertsson of Flightradar24, a flight-tracking service. “Everything indicates it must have lost altitude suddenly.”
While some wreckage and bodies were found in subsequent weeks, it took nearly two years for the main wreckage and the plane’s flight recorders to be recovered. The final report said that pilot errors in responding to technical problems led to the crash.
The fact that the plane was cruising at a steady altitude in decent weather and apparently did not emit a distress signal before disappearing also were possible indications of a sudden catastrophic event.
Harlan reported from Seoul. Liu Liu, Gu Jinglu and Xu Jing in Beijing and Robert Barnes, Karen DeYoung, Ian R. Shapira and Sean Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.
“I think this is a criminal act of some kind,” said Scott Hamilton, an aviation expert and founder of Leeham News and Comment in Seattle. “If both engines had failed, the pilots would have had plenty of time to call and say, ‘We have a problem.’ ”
If the plane had broken up on impact with water, search teams would have been likely to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris, officials said. But they said an explosion was not the only possible cause: The plane, a Boeing 777-200, could have broken up because of mechanical issues.
The plane, which was more than 11 years old, had suffered damage to its wing after a minor collision with another aircraft in 2012 but had been fully repaired.
Hamilton said possibilities included a bomb, passengers penetrating the cockpit and seizing control of the plane, or pilot suicide.
But the U.S. deputy national security adviser, Tony Blinken, told CNN that it was too early to say whether foul play was involved and premature to speculate on whether the passengers with stolen passports had played any role.
Harlan reported from Seoul. Liu Liu, Gu Jinglu and Xu Jing in Beijing and Adam Taylor, Robert Barnes, Karen DeYoung, Ian R. Shapira and Sean Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.
