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Radar Blips Baffle Officials in Malaysian Jet Inquiry Radar Signals Baffle Officials In Hunt for Jet
(about 5 hours later)
SEPANG, Malaysia — The authorities in Malaysia acknowledged on Wednesday that they had detected radar signals that might have been from the missing jetliner, flying far off course and hundreds of miles away from its last reported position, but had failed to disclose the data for four days while they struggled to interpret it. SEPANG, Malaysia — After four days of reticence and evasive answers, the Malaysian military acknowledged on Wednesday that it had recorded, but initially ignored, radar signals that could have prompted a mission to intercept and track a missing jetliner — data that vastly expands the area where the plane might have traveled.
Officials said they had given the radar data to American investigators who would help them assess whether the radar blips were likely to have come from the missing Boeing 777. Radar signals from the location where the missing aircraft, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, was last contacted by ground controllers suggested that the plane may have turned away from its northeastward course toward Beijing, officials said. Military radar then detected an unidentified aircraft at several points, apparently headed west across the Malay Peninsula and out into the Indian Ocean, the head of the country’s air force told reporters. The last detected location was hundreds of miles to the west of where search and rescue efforts were initially focused.
“Today we are still not sure that it is the same aircraft,” Hishammuddin Hussein, the country’s defense minister and acting transportation minister, told reporters. “That is why we are searching in two areas.” The military took no immediate action on Saturday to investigate the unidentified blips, whose path appeared to take the aircraft near the heavily populated island of Penang, and only later realized the significance of the radar readings. The search area was then expanded to take in waters west of the peninsula as well as east — encompassing almost 27,000 square nautical miles, an area bigger than South Carolina — but officials did not give a full explanation for the move.
The radar signals apparently showed an aircraft flying at cruising altitude westward toward the Indian Ocean. If it was the missing jet, that would vastly increase the potential search area. The plane, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, was originally bound for Beijing, a six-hour flight, and presumably could have flown for more than 2,500 miles without running short of fuel. Gen. Rodzali Daud, the air force chief, said the military was still not certain that the radar had detected the missing jetliner heading west. He declined to offer any other explanation for the coincidence of an unidentified blip suddenly appearing on military radar screens after Flight 370 stopped transmitting its identification signal to civilian ground controllers, 40 minutes into its flight.
Malaysian officials said on Tuesday that they had evidence that the plane may have tried to “turn back” from its scheduled course northeastward across the Gulf of Thailand, but they did not detail the extent of the military radar records until Wednesday. “Today we are still not sure that it is the same aircraft,” Hishammuddin Hussein, the country’s defense minister, told reporters. “That is why we are searching in two areas.”
The head of the Malaysian air force, Gen. Rodzali Daud, said at a news conference that the military radar detected several blips that might have been from the missing aircraft, the last of them at 2:15 a.m. Saturday, about 90 minutes after Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur. That last blip, or “plot,” indicated that the aircraft was about 200 miles northwest of the Malaysian island of Penang, General Rodzali said, and that it was flying at “flight level 295,” aeronautical jargon for an altitude of 29,500 feet. When the plane’s pilots were last in touch with ground controllers, about 1:30 a.m., it was cruising at 35,000 feet. Malaysia is sharing the radar data with officials from American agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. Spokesmen for those agencies declined to comment on Wednesday, referring inquiries to the Malaysian authorities.
“I’m not saying this is MH370,” General Rodzali said of the radar traces. “We are still working with experts. It’s a plot. An unidentified plot.” If experts determine that the radar signals probably did reflect the movements of Flight 370, the search for the plane is likely to be expanded to vast new areas of the Indian Ocean. The final blip came from about 200 miles northwest of Penang at 2:15 a.m. local time on Saturday, General Rodzali said, adding that the data showed the aircraft at an altitude of 29,500 feet. That is near the missing plane’s usual cruising altitude: When its pilots were last heard from around 1:30 a.m., it was cruising at 35,000 feet. The jet, a Boeing 777, was fueled for a six-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, a journey of more than 2,500 miles.
Despite the radar evidence suggesting that the plane flew westward for hundreds of miles from its last previously known location, ships and aircraft continued to search on Wednesday in the Gulf of Thailand, east of the Malaysian Peninsula, underlining the uncertainty over what might have become of the plane. Two United States Navy destroyers, the Kidd and the Pinckney, continued to patrol the area along with ships from China, Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries. “I have no feeling for what happened to this plane,” said David Learmount, operations and safety editor at Flightglobal, a Britain-based aviation news and data service. “The number of possibilities is so massive that it’s completely pointless.”
With so many ships and aircraft combing those waters along the plane’s original flight path, “the Gulf of Thailand is pretty much saturated at this point,” said Cmdr. William Marks, the spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet. “We’re now going over the same areas.” The existence of the radar data suggests that the Malaysian authorities may have missed a chance to dispatch military jets to intercept, identify and track the plane as it passed over the country. General Rodzali said interceptors were not scrambled because the unidentified plane was coming from civilian airspace.
The Malaysian authorities expanded the search to include the Strait of Malacca and other waters west of the peninsula on Monday, initially without offering a full explanation. For days, official statements had put the last known contact with Flight 370 almost an hour earlier, at about 1:30 a.m. The aircraft’s transponders, which automatically transmit identifying information and some other data about the plane, including altitude, apparently ceased to function at 1:21 a.m.; after that, radar screens would show the plane only as an unidentified blip. Certain weather conditions, and even flocks of birds, can occasionally cause radar blips that may be mistaken for unidentified aircraft.
An American aviation official noted on Wednesday that the statement by the Malaysians indicated that they were still searching on both sides of the peninsula. But if the plane actually turned west, the official said, there would be no reason to search on the eastern side, raising questions about the level of confidence that the Malaysians have in the military radar data. Certain weather conditions, and even flocks of birds, occasionally cause radar blips that can be mistaken for those of aircraft. An American aviation official noted that the statement from Malaysian officials on Wednesday indicated that they were still searching for the plane on both sides of the peninsula. If the plane did turn west as the radar blips suggest, the official said, there would be no reason to keep searching on the eastern side.
As criticism has mounted of the Malaysian authorities’ inability to find any trace of the jet, the officials have repeatedly insisted that they are doing their best to solve the mystery of the flight, with scarce data and almost no precedent. Yet the government and the airline have also released imprecise, incomplete and sometimes inaccurate information, with civilian officials sometimes contradicting military leaders. When a Malaysian newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing General Rodzali, that there was radar data that might show the missing jet headed west, other officials initially denied the report. Even so, two United States destroyers, the Kidd and the Pinckney, continued to patrol the eastern waters, along with ships from China, Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries. In all, 42 ships and 39 aircraft from at least 12 countries are taking part in the search operations, according to Mr. Hishammuddin, who is also Malaysia’s acting transportation minister.
In China, where most of the plane’s passengers were from, tempers have been rising over the way the situation has been handled by Malaysia, a country whose ties with China are generally friendly. The Global Times, a newspaper with a nationalist bent that is owned by the Communist Party paper People’s Daily, published a commentary on Wednesday assailing Malaysia for failing to release information in a timely and reliable manner. “The Gulf of Thailand is pretty much saturated at this point,” said Cmdr. William Marks, the spokesman for the United States Seventh Fleet. “We’re now going over the same areas.”
“We’re not sure, among all the information released by Malaysia, which is true and which is not, or if Malaysia has released all the information that it has got,” the Global Times commentary said. “Malaysia’s grave inconsistencies on this vital information cannot but be a devastating blow to outside world’s confidence in its core role in search and rescue.” A Chinese state science agency posted satellite photographs on its website on Wednesday that appeared to show three large objects floating in the South China Sea off Vietnam, not far from the aircraft’s planned flight path; the agency said the images were taken on Sunday. It was not clear whether they had any significance for the search. In recent days, a number of reports have emerged of possible debris from the plane in the Gulf of Thailand or the South China Sea, but on closer inspection, the objects — including an oil slick, a wooden raft and the lid of a large crate — have been found to be unrelated.
Dozens of Chinese reporters are now in Kuala Lumpur pursuing information about the flight, as are many relatives of passengers. The Malaysian government has come under fire for releasing incomplete and sometimes inaccurate or contradictory information about the aircraft and the progress of the search. When news of the military radar traces surfaced on Tuesday in a Malaysian newspaper article quoting General Rodzali, other senior officials denied the report.
Mr. Hishammuddin, the government minister, and the other officials who spoke to reporters on Wednesday at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur’s international airport said they were working with the United States Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board to analyze the military radar data, which indicates the presence of an aircraft but not which aircraft it was. That kind of identifying information normally comes from a plane’s onboard transponder, but none was recorded coming from the aircraft picked up by the military radar. Though Malaysia generally has good relations with China, the home country of most of the passengers on the missing plane, the confusion and crossed signals are drawing increasing criticism from there. The Global Times, a nationalist-leaning Chinese newspaper controlled by the Communist Party, published a commentary on Wednesday taking Malaysia to task for failing to release information in a timely and reliable manner. Dozens of Chinese reporters are in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, looking for answers, as are many relatives of passengers.
“It might not have known — the military, that is — what the identification was of the aircraft,” said David Learmount, operations and safety editor for Flightglobal, a news and data service for the aviation industry. “But I can’t imagine that they didn’t wonder what it was.” “We’re not sure, among all the information released by Malaysia, which is true and which is not, or if Malaysia has released all the information that it has got,” the Global Times commentary said. “Malaysia’s grave inconsistencies on this vital information cannot but be a devastating blow to the outside world’s confidence in its core role in search and rescue.”
The transponder on Flight 370 apparently stopped functioning about 40 minutes after the plane took off. Mr. Hishammuddin, the Malaysian defense minister, maintained that the government had been open and transparent. “It’s only confusion if you want it to be seen as confusion,” he said.