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Confusion Over Radar Recasts Theories in Jet Disappearance
Search for Missing Jet Shifts to Indian Ocean Amid Confusion Over Radar
(about 1 hour later)
SEPANG, Malaysia — The Malaysian authorities denied on Thursday a widely circulated report that a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner had transmitted technical data after contact with the cockpit was lost.
SEPANG, Malaysia — The focus of the search for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner shifted westward on Thursday, toward the vastness of the Indian Ocean, as Malaysian authorities denied a variety of reports related to the jet’s disappearance and experts pored over military radar data that seemed to indicate that the flight had turned west and remained airborne long after its last contact with ground controllers.
The head of Malaysia Airlines said the last technical data received from Flight 370 was less than half an hour after takeoff and indicated no trouble with the plane.
Yet in a measure of the continued caution and bafflement among the authorities here, Malaysia’s defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said the main search effort continued to be east of the Malaysian peninsula, in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea.
“That was the last transmission,” Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, the chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, said at a news conference in Sepang, the location of Kuala Lumpur International Airport. “It did not run beyond that.”
Even so, American naval aircraft were redeployed to the Strait of Malacca, west of Malaysia, one of several indications that the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was turning away from the eastern waters that have been combed by dozens of ships and airplanes for days, and toward the Andaman Sea and the wider Indian Ocean.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Rolls-Royce, the maker of the aircraft’s engines, had received data transmissions from those engines under a routine maintenance schedule, suggesting that the plane was aloft for several hours after contact was lost.
In a news briefing that was more structured and organized than those of earlier days, the Malaysian authorities denied a widely circulated report that the jetliner, a Boeing 777, had transmitted technical data after contact with the cockpit was lost around 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning, when the airplane was on course toward Beijing, its scheduled destination.
The plane’s Trent 800 engines were manufactured at the Rolls-Royce plant at Derby, in central England, according to Richard Wray, the company’s director of external communications. But the company had no immediate comment on the Wall Street Journal report.
The report, by The Wall Street Journal, asserted that Rolls-Royce, the maker of the aircraft’s engines, had received routine data transmissions from those engines on schedule after contact with the cockpit was lost, suggesting that the plane remained aloft for several more hours.
If confirmed, the report could mean that the plane flew more than 2,000 miles beyond the point at which it was last tracked by the civil aviation authorities.
But the chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, said that the last technical data received from Flight 370 came at 1:07 a.m. Saturday, when the aircraft was still in touch with ground controllers, and that it indicated no trouble with the plane.
Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s defense minister, said on Thursday at a news conference that the report was inaccurate.
“That was the last transmission,” Mr. Ahmad Jauhari said at a news conference in Sepang, the location of the international airport serving Kuala Lumpur. “It did not run beyond that.”
While the company had been cooperating with the Malaysian authorities since the plane disappeared, Rolls-Royce said, international aviation rules left it to investigators to determine what information was released about their findings.
Malaysian authorities said that both Rolls-Royce and Boeing had told them they did not receive any further data from the airplane after the transmission at 1:07 a.m.
An aviation official, speaking on the condition of anonymity as the investigation is continuing, said the engines do not usually transmit a continuous stream of data to the manufacturers. The data is usually transmitted on takeoff and landing, and possibly when an airplane settles at its cruising speed and altitude, the official said.
The authorities said separately that nothing had come of images recorded by Chinese satellites on Sunday and posted online on Wednesday, which appeared to show large objects floating in the South China Sea. Vessels dispatched to the area found nothing, they said, and Mr. Hishammuddin said he was told by Chinese officials that “the images were released by mistake and did not show any debris.”
The Malaysian authorities also said that debris Chinese satellites were said to have spotted in the South China Sea was not found by vessels dispatched to the area.
The government also denied Malaysian news reports that the police had searched the house of the missing flight’s pilot.
Mr. Hishammuddin, who is also the country’s acting transport minister, said officials had contacted counterparts in the Chinese government who told them, “The images were released by mistake and did not show any debris.”
There were increasing indications that the aircraft did turn radically off course after contact was lost. Malaysian authorities said they were setting aside national security considerations and sharing military radar readings with the United States and China to help determine whether they show the missing jet. They said the data appear to show an unidentified plane flying westward across the Malaysian peninsula and toward the Andaman Sea, with the last reading placing it 200 miles northwest of the island of Penang, cruising at 29,500 feet. The military took no immediate action on Saturday to investigate the unidentified blips, whose path appeared to take the aircraft near Penang, and only later realized the significance of the readings.
On Wednesday, after four days of reticence and evasive answers, the Malaysian military acknowledged that it had recorded, but initially ignored, radar signals that could have prompted a mission to intercept and track the missing jetliner. The radar data vastly expanded the area where the plane, which took off early Saturday from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, might have traveled.
Mr. Hishammuddin, who is also the country’s acting transport minister, told reporters on Thursday that Malaysia had asked neighboring countries, including India, for any radar data they might have that could help establish what became of the aircraft seen on Malaysian military screens.
Radar signals from the location where the missing aircraft 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 Malaysian Peninsula and out into the Indian Ocean, the head of the country’s air force told reporters. That last detected location was hundreds of miles to the west of where search and rescue efforts were initially focused.
Gen. Rodzali Daud, the Malaysian air force chief, said on Wednesday that the military was still not certain that the aircraft its radar had detected was the missing jetliner.
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.
Gen. Rodzali Daud, the Malaysian air force chief, said Wednesday that the military was not certain that its radar had detected the jetliner heading west across the peninsula. He declined to offer another 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.
“Today we are still not sure that it is the same aircraft,” Mr. Hishammuddin, the defense minister, told reporters on Wednesday. “That is why we are searching in two areas.”
Malaysia is sharing the radar data with officials from American agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
