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Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Net widens after claims final satellite signal of stricken jetliner could have been sent from the ground Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Did jetliner fly into area controlled by Taliban? Net widens after claims final satellite signal could have been sent from the ground
(about 4 hours later)
The search for the missing Malaysia airlines flight MH370 has been significantly expanded, with officials admitting they are now scouring land as well as the sea for the stricken jetliner. Eight days after Flight MH370 vanished, Malaysian authorities are seeking diplomatic permission to investigate a theory that the Boeing 777 may have been flown under the radar to Taliban-controlled bases on the border of Afghanistan and North West Pakistan, The Independent has learnt.
Malaysian officials said today they have sought extra help from other countries to try and cover a vast search area which stretches from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean. The latest revelation came as it was revealed that 25 countries are assisting in the search for the plane, intensifying challenges of co-ordinating ground, sea and aerial efforts. Countries known to be involved include Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia, with special assistance regarding satellite data requested from the US, China and France.
The number of countries now looking for the plane has increased from 14 to 25. On Sunday Malaysian officials examined a sophisticated flight simulator belonging to the chief pilot of the missing jet, after experts said only a trained person could have turned off the plane’s communication equipment and flown it off course without being detected.
An official has said the aircraft could have been on the ground when it sent its satellite signals. Working on the theory that the plane was intentionally flown off course, police have delved into the backgrounds of captain Zaharie Ahmed Shah, 53, and 27-year-old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid. Their homes were searched on Saturday, and on Sunday, experts examined the simulator Mr Shah kept in his home which he had built himself.
The pilots and the engineers have also become the focus of a criminal investigation into the plane’s disappearance, as police revealed they are now looking into the backgrounds of the plane’s passengers and crew. Officials have said they believe the plane’s communications systems were intentionally switched off by one of the 239 passengers and crew on board MH370. On Sunday, they revealed that the last verbal communication with the plane took place after the first set of aircraft communications was disabled.
At a press conference today, Malaysian transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the search had entered a new phase: "Every day brings new angles, especially as we are focusing and expanding the search area. "The search was already a highly complex, multi-national effort. It has now become more difficult," he said. There have been no reported sightings or concrete leads on the whereabouts of the jet, which vanished from radar screens shortly after it took off in Kuala Lumpur at 00.40am on the morning of 8 March, destination Beijing.
"The search area has been significantly expanded, and the search area has changed. We are now looking at large tracts of land, crossing 11 countries as well as deep and remote oceans. The final confirmed location for MH370 on civilian radar was at 1.21am, but it was spotted less than an hour later on military radar, far to the west of that position. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak revealed that “ping” signals from the plane was last received at 8.11am.
Malaysian police have searched the homes of both Captain Zaharie Shah, 53, and co-pilot Fariq Hamid, 27, with a focus on uncovering any personal, political or religious background information that could help the investigation. Zaharie Shah, left, and Fariq Hamid
Hussein said police had just searched the home of co-pilot Hamid, and that Shah and Hamid had not requested to fly together. Based on data collated by the British company Inmarsat’s satellite network, at that point the plane was on one of two possible arcs – one stretching north from Thailand to Kazakhstan and crossing more than 10 countries, and one to the south over Indonesia and out across the southern Indian ocean. Experts have said the aircraft could have been on the ground when it sent its satellite signals.
Zaharie Shah, left, and Fariq Hamid Malaysian police are also examining a three-screen flight simulator found in Captain Shah’s home. The police have dismantled and reassembled the simulator as part of their investigation. Boeing 777s need a runway of at least 5,000ft long, limiting the number of possible sites within the 2,200 nautical mile-radius it is believed the plane could have flown from its last known position.
Captain Shah was known for his enthusiasm for flying and was a member of a forum for fans of flight simulation. Reports have also emerged of Hamid having once invited two women to spend an entire flight with him in the cockpit. Last night sources in Kuala Lumpur assisting with the investigation told The Independent that full diplomatic permissions were being sought in order to rule out the theory that the plane could have flown to areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan that are not under government control.
It was claimed yesterday that Captain Shah was a supporter of Anwar Ibrahim, the controversial opposition leader of Malaysia who had been jailed for sodomy the day before Flight MH370 disappeared and that the pilot may have hijacked the plane in a form of political protest. Large areas of the southern half of Afghanistan are ruled by the Afghan Taliban, while some areas of north-west Pakistan, adjacent to or near to the Afghan border, are controlled by the Pakistani Taliban.
But the Malaysian coalition Pakaten Rakyat dismissed the reports that Shah was a “political fanatic”, calling the report “wild speculation”. A spokesman for Malaysian Airlines said: “These are matters for the jurisdiction of those regions and Malaysia’s armed forces and department of civil aviation. In regard to Pakistan and Afghanistan, we cannot explore those theories without permission. We hope to have that soon.”
A Malaysia Airlines pilot who is close to Shah also told Reuters. "Is it wrong for anyone to have an opinion about politics?" For a commercial plane to pass undetected through these regions, which are highly militarised with robust air defence networks, many run by the US military, would require a combination of extremely sophisticated navigation, brazen audacity and security failure by those monitoring international airspace. However, with so little known about the fate of the plane, and the investigation growing in scale every day, it is yet another line of enquiry that remains impossible to rule out. On Sunday Pakistani civil aviation officials said they had checked their radar recordings and found no sign of the missing jet.
"Please, let them find the aircraft first. Zaharie is not suicidal, not a political fanatic." Malaysian officials said they had requested help from a dozen Asian countries and had asked them to provide radar data. They have also asked for assistance from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and France, which administers a handful of islands deep in the southern Indian Ocean.
The investigation is now covering ground staff as well as the 239 passengers and on-board crew, and the engineers that had come into contact with the plane before it took off.  Police said the results of background checks on the passengers have yet to be received.
  
Click here for enlarged view of graphicClick here for enlarged view of graphic
The number of countries involved in the flight has now risen from 14 to 25, despite India having been told to pause their search yesterday. The Malaysian authorities are now looking at areas of land in 11 countries. “The search area has been significantly expanded, and the search area has changed. We are now looking at large tracts of land, crossing 11 countries as well as deep and remote oceans,” said Malaysia’s Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.
The Malaysian government has asked France, China and the USA to provide further satellite data, while the search corridor for the plane has been widened to countries as far as Kazakhstan and Indonesia. Khalid Abu Bakar, Malaysia’s police chief, said investigators researching the backgrounds of the people who boarded Flight MH370 had found no passengers with aviation expertise. He said a number of foreign intelligence agencies had been working with the Malaysians, though he said information was still pending from some countries with nationals on the flight.
Police are looking at the personal, political and religious backgrounds of all crew members. A number of ground support staff who might have worked on the plane are also being investigated.
Officials urged reporters not to jump to conclusions on the pilot and co-pilot, who they said had not asked to work together that day, and had not requested additional fuel for the aircraft.
Reuters reported police had said their inquiries had found no links between Captain Shah and any militant group.