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Beijing Says No Chinese Passengers Were Involved in Jet’s Disappearance Beijing Says No Chinese Passengers Were Involved in Jet’s Disappearance
(about 5 hours later)
SEPANG, Malaysia — The Chinese government said Tuesday it had ruled out the possibility that any of its nationals on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight were terrorists or malcontents who tried to seize the plane. SEPANG, Malaysia — As the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner spread out across an expanded search area nearly the size of the continental United States, the Chinese government said on Tuesday that it had ruled out the possibility that any of the Chinese citizens on the plane — about two-thirds of the 227 passengers — were terrorists, separatists or malcontents who might have tried to hijack or destroy the plane.
The announcement came as Australia said it was focusing its search for the missing airliner in the southern Indian Ocean using new computer models of the plane’s possible flight path. But the calculations still left a vast area of about 175,000 nautical square miles. Searching one possible flight path, Australia said it would focus its efforts in a specific stretch of the southern Indian Ocean, using computer models of the plane’s possible flight path that take into account undisclosed satellite data, wind conditions and ocean currents and some assumptions about how fast it was flying and how much fuel it had left.
Speaking in Kuala Lumpur, the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia indicated that Beijing had not received any relevant threats from Uighur separatist groups seeking independence for Xinjiang, an ethnically divided region in far western China, and he cleared the sole Uighur passenger on the missing plane of suspicion. “What we’re doing is producing our best estimate of the most likely place to search, but I would hasten to add it is very far from precise,” said John Young, general manager for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s emergency response division. “Every attempt will be made to further refine the search area,” Mr. Young told reporters at a news conference in Canberra on Tuesday.
The Chinese findings, announced by Ambassador Huang Huikang, appear likely to increase pressure on investigators to establish whether the Malaysian captain of the plane, his junior officer or any other people on board with flying experience were involved in the disappearance of the Boeing 777. Officials have said that the plane’s abrupt deviation from its original route on March 8 most likely involved deliberate intervention by an experienced aviator, making the captain and junior officer in the cockpit focal points of attention. China’s public effort to narrow the range of possible suspects in the plane’s disappearance included a specific look at one Chinese citizen who belongs to the Uighur ethnic minority, a Turkic people living mostly in Xinjiang, a restive region in far western China. Part of Xinjiang is included in the expanded search area for the missing plane. But the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, Huang Huikang, said in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday that Beijing had not received any relevant threats from Uighur separatist groups, and that the Uighur passenger had been cleared of suspicion.
“China has conducted a thorough investigation, and to date we have not found any signs that any passengers on board the plane participated in destruction or terror attacks,” Mr. Huang said at a news briefing in Kuala Lumpur for Chinese reporters, according to a summary on the website of the state-run People’s Daily newspaper. “China has conducted a thorough investigation, and to date we have not found any signs that any passengers onboard the plane participated in destruction or terror attacks,” Mr. Huang said at a news briefing for Chinese reporters, according to a summary published online by a state-run newspaper, The People’s Daily.
“We can say that we have generally ruled out the possibility of Chinese passengers engaging in destruction or a terrorist attack,” he was quoted as saying. “We can say that we have generally ruled out the possibility of Chinese passengers engaging in destruction or a terrorist attack,” Mr. Huang was quoted as saying.
China has often alleged that Uighur groups seeking an independent Xinjiang homeland have orchestrated acts of terrorism, including attempted attacks aboard domestic flights. The ambassador’s denial of any possible link to the plane’s disappearance was thus all the more striking. Chinese nationals made up about two-thirds of the 227 passengers on the jet, which disappeared while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. One of them was an artist of Uighur ethnicity, Maimaitijiang Abula. The ambassador’s remarks were all the more striking because the Chinese government has often claimed that Uighur groups seeking autonomy or an independent homeland in Xinjiang have orchestrated acts of terrorism, including attempted attacks aboard domestic flights.
Mr. Huang explicitly ruled out suspicions about Mr. Abula, who was part of a Chinese government-approved delegation of artists to Malaysia. Mr. Abula, 35, was the subject of speculation on the Internet in China, as well as in some Western news outlets. Mr. Huang’s announcement seemed likely to increase the pressure on investigators to determine whether the pilot or co-pilot of the missing jet, both Malaysians, or anyone else onboard was involved in its disappearance. Officials have said that the plane’s abrupt deviation from its normal flight path on March 8 most likely involved deliberate intervention by an experienced aviator, making the two men assigned to the cockpit — Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and his junior officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27 — focal points of attention.
“Currently, there is no evidence to prove that he engaged in any terrorist or destructive activities,” Mr. Huang said, according to Chinese television news. “And nor has any organization or individual made political demands to the government concerning this incident.” Mr. Huang explicitly ruled out suspicions about Maimaitijiang Abula, an artist of Uighur ethnicity who was part of a Chinese government-approved delegation of artists who visited Malaysia. “Currently, there is no evidence to prove that he engaged in any terrorist or destructive activities,” Mr. Huang said, according to Chinese television news. “And nor has any organization or individual made political demands to the government concerning this incident.”
The Chinese Communist Party-run government maintains abundant records and surveillance on citizens, especially anyone with a reputation for discontent, and would have used that information as the starting point for police inquiries into any potential suspects on the plane, said Pan Zhiping, a professor at Xinjiang University who studies unrest in the region. He said he saw “no signs of Uighur involvement.” The Chinese government maintains extensive records and surveillance on its citizens, especially anyone with a reputation for discontent, and it would have used that information as the starting point for police inquiries into any potential suspects on the plane, according to Pan Zhiping, a professor at Xinjiang University who studies unrest in the region. Mr. Zhiping said he saw “no signs of Uighur involvement.”
“These background checks are relatively easy in China,” he said. “I think that the government felt that this search is already so large and so complicated that it would be helpful to publicly exclude at least one aspect, especially when there have been many rumors and media speculation about a connection to Xinjiang.”“These background checks are relatively easy in China,” he said. “I think that the government felt that this search is already so large and so complicated that it would be helpful to publicly exclude at least one aspect, especially when there have been many rumors and media speculation about a connection to Xinjiang.”
The Chinese ambassador’s statement came after U.S. officials disclosed that the sharp turn to the west that took the plane from its planned flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was achieved using a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the cockpit knowledgeable about airplane systems. Breaking from its usual reluctance to criticize friendly neighbors, the Chinese government has chided the Malaysian authorities and demanded more prompt and more accurate information about the investigation. “Currently, there’s no lack of information,” Mr. Huang, the ambassador, said Tuesday. “The main problem we confront is chaotic information, with all manner of speculation, even rumors, filling the heavens. It makes it impossible to think.”
Malaysian officials have not publicly disclosed that information, and on Monday they recast important details of their account of what happened in the crucial minutes before the plane vanished from air traffic control communications over the Gulf of Thailand. American officials said on Tuesday that the sharp turn to the west that took the plane from its planned northeastward flight path was achieved using a computer system on the plane, and that the turn was most likely programmed into it by someone in the cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems.
Aviation officials implicitly contradicted an assertion, given by Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein on Sunday, that the last verbal radio signoff from the cockpit had come after a separate communication system that monitors the plane’s equipment — the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or Acars — was disabled. Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, also said on Saturday that the communications system had been disabled early. Malaysian officials have not publicly confirmed that information, but they have revised their account of events around the time the plane vanished from air traffic control communications.
Mr. Hishammuddin had said that the communications system was disabled at 1:07 a.m. on March 8, before someone in the cockpit gave a verbal signoff to air traffic controllers on the edge of Kuala Lumpur. But Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, the chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, said Monday that Acars had functioned normally at 1:07 but failed to send its next scheduled signal at 1:37 a.m. Hishammuddin Hussein, the Malaysian defense minister and acting transportation minister, said on Tuesday that despite the revisions to the details of the chronology, investigators continued to think that the plane probably went off course because of something someone did intentionally, rather than mechanical failure or an accident.
“We don’t know when the Acars system was switched off,” he said. Acars is used for airplane maintenance, and its signals usually go to airline engineers and equipment providers, not air traffic controllers. “It has not changed our belief, as stated, that up until the point which it left primary radar coverage, the aircraft’s movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane,” Mr. Hishammuddin said at a news conference.
Breaking from its usual reluctance to criticize friendly neighbors, the Chinese government has chided the Malaysian authorities and demanded prompter, more accurate information about the investigation. The ambassador, Mr. Huang, said Tuesday that Malaysia had not concealed information from China. When the chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, was asked about the possibility that the turn off course was programmed by someone in the cockpit, he did not give a definitive answer. “As far as we’re concerned, the aircraft was programmed to fly to Beijing,” he said. “Once you’re in the aircraft, anything is possible.”
“Currently, there’s no lack of information,” he said. “The main problem we confront is chaotic information, with all manner of speculation, even rumors, filling the heavens. It makes it impossible to think.” A satellite over the Indian Ocean received a final transmission from an automatic data system on the plane hours after the last radio or radar contact, leading investigators to deduce that the plane sent it from somewhere along one of two long, arcing corridors that together encompass 2.24 million square nautical miles, or 2.97 million square miles, Mr. Hishammuddin said at a news briefing on Tuesday. That is an area the size of the continental United States, excluding California.
Mr. Huang warned that the areas where the plane could have ended up “have expanded, and the search and rescue effort is difficult.” One of the two arcs reaches from northern Laos to Central Asia. The plane would be at the Laotian end of the arc if it traveled at the slow end of its possible speed, or in Kazakhstan near the Caspian Sea if it traveled at top speed. Any speed in between would have put the plane somewhere in western or southwestern China, including remote, mountainous terrain in Tibet.
A satellite over the Indian Ocean received a final transmission from the plane that, extrapolating from the angle from which the plane sent it, came from somewhere along one of the two corridors that searchers have been preparing to investigate. Together, the two corridors encompass an area of 2.97 million square miles, or 2.24 million square nautical miles, Mr. Hishammuddin said at a news briefing Tuesday. That is an area the size of the continental United States, excluding California. China carefully watches its frontiers, however, and has given no indication that its radar picked up any signs of the plane. Even so, Mr. Huang said, the Chinese authorities have begun searching the large section of the northern corridor that crosses the nation’s land territory. The Chinese Navy will also send ships to search the seas west of India’s Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal and to the seas southwest of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a spokesman for the navy said, according to the China News Service, a state-run agency.
At the time of the last satellite transmission, the plane may been somewhere along an arc starting in northern Laos and reaching across China into Central Asia. That arc cuts through western and southwestern China, including remote, mountainous terrain in Tibet. China carefully watches its frontiers, however, and has given no indication that its radar picked up any signs of the plane. If the plane had instead traveled on the southern arc, it may have been anywhere from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, west of Australia, when it was last in contact with a satellite.
China has begun searching the large section of the northern corridor that crosses its land territory, said Mr. Huang, the ambassador. The Chinese Navy will also send search ships to seas west of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, and to seas southwest of Sumatra, a spokesman for the navy said, according to the China News Service, a state-run agency. On Monday, the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said his government would coordinate the search in the southern Indian Ocean. That search would start from about 1,500 nautical miles southwest of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, and could cover about 175,000 square nautical miles using ships and aircraft from Australia, the United States and New Zealand, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said on Tuesday. That area of initial focus does not include other, less likely parts of the ocean that may also be searched.
If the plane was on the other, southern corridor, it may have been anywhere from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, west of Australia, when it was last in contact with a satellite. “The sheer size of the search area poses a huge challenge,” said Mr. Young, the general manager of the safety authority.
On Monday, the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said his government would coordinate the search in the southern Indian Ocean. That search would start from about 1,500 nautical miles southwest of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, and cover about 175,000 square nautical miles using ships and aircraft from Australia, the United States and New Zealand, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said on Tuesday. Cmdr. William Marks, a spokesman for the United States Seventh Fleet, said the navy had sent a Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft to Australia to help in the daunting task. The American destroyer Kidd withdrew from the search on Monday, Commander Marks said in an email, because the new search area is so vast that searching it with relatively slow-moving surface ships and their onboard helicopters would take much too long. The Poseidon aircraft, which Boeing says has a range of about 1,200 nautical miles, can cover territory much faster.
The search area was determined using new computer models of the plane’s possible flight path built on undisclosed satellite data, a range of assumptions on how much fuel the jet had left and how fast it might have been flying, and estimates of wind conditions and water currents. “The sheer size of the search area poses a huge challenge,” John Young, general manager for the authority’s emergency response division, based in the Australian capital, Canberra, said at a news conference where that information was presented.
Cmdr. William Marks, a spokesman for the United States Navy Seventh Fleet, said the United States would send a Boeing P-8A Poseidon to Australia to help in the daunting task. The Kidd, a U.S. Navy destroyer, pulled out of the search on Monday, Commander Marks said in an email. He and other officials have said that the new search area is so large that sending out ships to investigate each section of it would be virtually impossible. Boeing says the P-8A Poseidon aircraft has a range of nearly 1,400 miles, or 1,217 nautical miles.
“Every attempt will be made to further refine the search area,” Mr. Young said. “But with the passage of significant time, since the eighth of March, and with the constant movement of water, the search will be difficult.”