Fuel, debris determined not from missing Malaysia Airlines flight, as search expands
Massive search for Malaysia plane yields no evidence; experts speculate on pilot suicide
(about 9 hours later)
BEIJING — Frustration mounted Monday over what has become one of the most perplexing aviation disasters in history, as the search for a vanished Malaysia Airlines passenger jet dramatically expanded in its third day.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA — An international hunt for clues in the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet intensified Monday, with dozens of ships searching a vast expanse of sea and investigators chasing down leads. But authorities acknowledged that they were stymied.
Hopes for a breakthrough were dashed when Malaysian authorities said oil found on the ocean surface had been tested and found not to have come from the jetliner. Various pieces of flotsam picked up in the vicinity of the plane’s last known location were also found to be unconnected.
“This unprecedented missing aircraft mystery — as you can put it — it is mystifying,” Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, said at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.
“This unprecedented missing aircraft mystery — as you can put it — it is mystifying,” Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, said at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.
“To confirm what happened that day on this ill-fated aircraft, we need hard evidence,” he said. “We need concrete evidence. We need parts of the aircraft for us to analyze, for us to do forensic studies.” He added, “We are every hour, every minute, every second, looking at every inch of the sea.”
The U.S. Navy dispatched a second ship Monday to assist an emergency operation in the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea that has grown to involve at least 40 other vessels and 34 aircraft from 10 countries. But as in the previous two days of searching, no wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 appeared.
About 40 ships and 34 aircraft from nine countries are combing a vast area of ocean in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, northeast of Malaysia toward Vietnam. The search expanded Sunday into areas well beyond the plane’s intended northeasterly flight path toward China. Authorities are now looking even at areas in the Andaman Sea, on the western side of the Malaysian peninsula.
China, which has expressed mounting frustration with the Malaysia-led investigation, said Monday night on its Defense Ministry Web site that it has deployed 10 satellites to help in the search, purging them of their original commands.
For the plane to have crashed into the Andaman Sea would imply that it had somehow turned back and crossed the entire Malaysian peninsula without being detected by radar operators.
The Malaysian government said search areas had been significantly expanded to include a larger square of the Gulf of Thailand and, to the west, a swath that reached farther north, toward the Andaman Sea.
Malaysian authorities said Sunday that the plane may have turned around before disappearing from radar without a distress call. If true, aviation experts said this could offer a clue as to why no debris had yet been found.
In Thailand, officials interviewed travel agents in the beach resort of Pattaya, where tickets were apparently issued for two men who later boarded the flight with stolen passports, according to the Associated Press. The two men’s fake identities had raised the possibility that a terrorist attack brought down the Boeing 777, which was carrying 227 passengers from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it vanished Saturday.
“Was this turn under pilot command, hijacker command, or induced by a structural failure of some kind — either by an airplane fault or by a bomb?” wrote Scott Hamilton, an aviation expert and founder of Leeham News and Comment, in an e-mail from Seattle.
But U.S. and other officials say they have found no evidence of terrorist involvement.
“If the airplane deviated from its planned flight path (as a turn might indicate), they are looking in the wrong place. Also, the fact that no debris whatsoever has emerged from where they are looking, this certainly suggests to me they are looking in the wrong place, whatever the reason.”
Senior American officials dismissed reports that a group called the Chinese Martyrs’ Brigade had asserted responsibility for the plane’s disappearance. “No group by that name has been previously identified, and it is not clear who is behind the claim,” said a U.S. intelligence official who was not authorized to be quoted by name.
In a vacuum of hard evidence about what went wrong aboard the flight, speculation turned to the possibility of pilot suicide, an extraordinarily rare occurrence that has taken down two commercial airliners in recent years.
Numerous scenarios
“You have to ask the question,” said one U.S. aviation official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
In a vacuum of evidence about what went wrong aboard the flight, speculation turned to the possibility of pilot suicide, an extraordinarily rare occurrence.
The Malaysia Airlines flight reportedly was being tracked by radar when its transponder went dark. There were no radio transmissions to indicate that anything was amiss aboard the plane. Both the transponder signals and radio communication are controlled by the pilot.
“You have to ask the question,” said a U.S. aviation official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
“They need to be able to control the electronics from the cockpit in case there is a short-circuit,” the U.S. official said. “The pilot also can turn off the voice recorder.”
The Malaysia Airlines flight reportedly was being tracked by radar when its transponder went dark. There were no radio transmissions to indicate that anything was amiss aboard the plane. The transponder signals and radio communication are controlled by the pilot.
That’s what investigators believe happened aboard SilkAir Flight 185 before it spiraled to the ground in Indonesia in 1997, killing 97 passengers and seven crew members.
There have been two cases in recent years in which a pilot or crew member is believed to have intentionally caused a plane to crash: the disaster involving SilkAir Flight 185, which spiraled into the ground in Indonesia in 1997, killing 97 passengers and seven crew members; and the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, which plunged into the Atlantic south of Nantucket in 1999, killing 217 people.
While Indonesian investigators said they could not determine what caused the crash, a team of U.S. investigators said someone in the cockpit — most likely the captain — turned off the transponder and cockpit recorder and took the plane into a fatal dive.
But Steve Marks, a Miami aviation lawyer who represented families in two instances in which an airliner plummeted from cruising altitude, pointed to a mechanical failure as the most likely cause of the Malaysia tragedy.
Asked how a pilot or co-pilot would let his colleague intentionally crash the plane, the U.S. official said: “It’s easy. You wait until the other guy leaves to use the bathroom. Even though he has a key [to the cockpit], you have time.”
“There can be a mechanical problem that can occur at altitude, where the pilots are unable to report the failure and the aircraft is lost on radar,” he said.
Or, he said, there may have been a struggle between crew members that went unrecorded because the cockpit recorder had been turned off.
Nonetheless, he said, the failure of all communications from the Malaysia Air flight made it “the most mysterious” crash in his recollection.
That’s what happened aboard the EgyptAir Flight 990, which has received renewed attention after the Malaysia Airlines flight went missing.
A ‘creeping line’
The 1999 Egyptian flight crashed into the Atlantic south of Nantucket, killing 217 people.
On Monday, the USS Kidd joined the USS Pinckney in surveying the area where the plane is presumed to have crashed, officials said. The ships and their Seahawk helicopters were searching in a zigzag pattern known as a “creeping line,” Navy officials said.
U.S. investigators concluded that the crash was caused by crew member Gameel Al-Batouti.
“Just from the air, we can see things as small as almost the size of your hand or a basketball. It’s not a matter of if we can see it. It’s an extremely large area,” a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, Cmdr. William Marks, said in an interview with the BBC.
The cockpit recorder on that flight was activated, and it recorded the flight’s captain departing for the rest room. Thirty seconds later, Al-Batouti said in Arabic, “I rely on God.” The autopilot was disengaged and the plane began an erratic pattern that investigators said could not have been caused by a mechanical malfunction. When the captain rushed back to the cockpit to confront Al-Batouti, both engines had been shut down.
On Monday, hopes briefly centered on a rectangular orange object that authorities said might have been a life raft. But when a Vietnamese helicopter recovered the piece of flotsam, it was identified as “a moss-covered cap of a cable reel,” the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said on its Web site.
While the captain struggled to bring the plane’s nose up again, Al-Batouti was on his own set of controls, working to keep the plane in a dive.
It was not the first time hopes have been dashed in the search.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the crash was “a result of the relief first officer’s flight control inputs. The reason for the relief first officer’s actions was not determined.”
Late Sunday, Vietnamese authorities said one of their aircraft had spotted a rectangular object that could have been an inner door from the plane. By Monday, ships and planes could not locate the object. Meanwhile, sightings of what had resembled a piece of the plane’s tail turned out to be logs tied together, Malaysian authorities said.
In a phone interview Monday, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, Navy Cmdr. William Marks, confirmed that the USS Pinckney has joined the search for the Malaysia Airlines jet. Marks told the BBC that the destroyer and the helicopters it carries have infrared, sonar and other search capabilities and can also listen for any signal emitted from the plane’s black box.
Two oil slicks, between six and nine miles long, consistent with fuel left by a downed jetliner, were tested and found to not be connected to the plane.
“Just from the air, we can see things as small as almost the size of your hand or a basketball. It’s not a matter of if we can see it. It’s an extremely large area,” he said. As more time passes, currents and wind as well as the expanding size of the search area are making the task more difficult.
In Thailand, police Lt. Col. Ratchthapong Tia-sood said an Iranian man known only as “Mr. Ali” had contacted the Grand Horizon travel agency in Pattaya to book flight tickets for the two men using stolen passports, according to the AP. Grand Horizon asked another agency in the resort town to issue the one-way tickets, the AP reported.
On Monday, hopes briefly centered on a rectangular orange object that authorities said might have been a lifejacket. But when a Vietnamese helicopter recovered the piece of flotsam, it was identified as “a moss-covered cap of a cable reel,” the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said on its Web site.
“We have to look further into this Mr. Ali’s identity, because it’s almost a tradition to use an alias when doing business around here,” the police officer told the AP.
This was not the first time hopes have been dashed in the past two days.
On Monday, Azharuddin said closed-circuit television footage showed that the two men passed through normal security checks at the airport. He suggested they were dark-skinned and not of Asian appearance. Officials also said they have shared “biometric and visual” information about the men with U.S. intelligence agents.
Late Sunday afternoon, Vietnamese authorities said one of their aircraft had spotted a rectangular object that could have been an inner door from the missing plane, but it was too dark to be sure. By Monday, ships and planes had returned to the area, but could not locate the object. Meanwhile, sightings of what had resembled a piece of the plane’s tail turned out to be logs tied together to form a pontoon, Malaysian authorities said.
The men were using passports stolen in Thailand in 2012 that belonged to Luigi Maraldi, 37, of Italy and Christian Kozel, 30, of Austria.
Two oil slicks, between six and nine miles long, consistent with fuel left by a downed jetliner, were located Saturday in the region where the plane vanished. But tests Monday concluded that they were not connected to the plane.
Azharuddin said five other passengers checked in for the flight but never boarded. He said their baggage was removed before the plane took off.
Speculation that terrorists could have brought down the plane were fueled by reports that two men boarded using stolen passports, but experts said this could easily have been a coincidence.
For many relatives of passengers, who have grown increasingly angry awaiting news at a Beijing hotel, the conversation Monday night centered on “consolation money” they said Malaysia Airlines had begun offering in return for signing a written agreement.
On Monday, Azharuddin said closed-circuit television footage showed that the men passed through normal security checks at the airport and were not of Asian appearance. Officials also said they have shared “biometric and visual” information about the men with U.S. intelligence agents.
One relative said that the airline had offered $5,000 but that he was hesitant to take it because he could not read the entire agreement, which was written in English.
“We looked at the video and the photograph,” Azharuddin said. “It is confirmed now that they are not Asian-looking men.”
“Until I can read it word for word in Chinese, I won’t sign anything,” he said. “They may use it shake off all responsibility.”
Luigi Maraldi, 37, of Italy and Christian Kozel, 30, of Austria were initially listed among the plane’s passengers, but both were subsequently found to be safe — and to have reported their passports stolen.
Wan reported from Beijing. Ashley Halsey, Ernesto Londoño and Adam Taylor in Washington, and Simon Denyer, Liu Liu, Gu Jinglu and Xu Jing in Beijing contributed to this report.
Booking information accessed through the KLM Web site showed that the passengers using the passports had adjacent ticket numbers and were both booked on a subsequent flight from Beijing to Amsterdam. One, traveling under Maraldi’s name, was to continue 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 sold them the tickets.
Azharuddin said investigators were looking at whether the two men were linked to a “stolen passports syndicate.”
Earlier, he said five other passengers checked in for the flight but never boarded. He insisted that their baggage was removed before the plane took off.
Chinese officials have expressed increasing impatience with Malaysia’s handling of the investigation.
China has sent two ships to help in the search as well as dispatching Foreign Ministry, public security and civil aviation officials to Malaysia. More ships were on their way, officials said, while Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang urged Malaysia to “step up their efforts and speed up their investigation” and to make sure that China and Chinese passengers’ families “find out the truth of things as soon as possible.”
In the absence of physical evidence about what happened to Flight MH370, sketchy claims emerged of a possible link to Muslim extremists from China’s Uighur ethnic minority, but they were downplayed by authorities.
In Taiwan, the head of national intelligence said a telephone call was received March 4 suggesting that an extremist Muslim group from China’s ethnic Uighur minority would mount a terrorist attack on Beijing International Airport. But he added that he did not believe the call was linked to the vanished airliner.
Police told local media that the person called from the southern Chinese city of Guangdong. He had spoken first in French, claiming to be an antiterrorism official from France, and then switched to Chinese with a southern accent. But Tsai De-sheng, head of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, said he did not believe the warning was “highly correlated” with the vanished airliner, according to state media.
Similarly, a Chinese Internet activist and journalist based in New York said he received an e-mail claiming the plane had been attacked to protest Chinese “oppression and persecution” of its Uighur minority, as well as persecution by the Malaysian government, which has repatriated Uighur refugees to China in the past.
The Chinese government warned the public against jumping to conclusions and circulating rumors.
On Sunday, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said there were no indications of terrorism, although nothing had been ruled out.
Asked about the possibility of a terrorist attack, Azharuddin said: “There is talk of possible hijack. And this is not discounted by us. We are looking at every angle. We are looking at every aspect of what could have happened on this ill-fated aircraft on the morning of Saturday.”
Halsey reported from Washington. Chico Harlan in Seoul and Liu Liu, Gu Jinglu and Xu Jing in Beijing contributed to this report.
