Day: March 16, 2014

The Malay Mail Online
March 16, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — A Pakistani official today dismissed reports suggesting that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have landed in the South Asian country.

Pakistan’s Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Aviation Shujaat Azeem told news portal Dawn.com that the country’s military did not observe the Boeing 777-200ER approach or enter its airspace.

“It’s wrong, (the) plane never came towards Pakistan,” he was quoted as saying in the report.

India today similarly discounted the possibility of the plane entering its airspace.

Yesterday, Malaysia revealed that satellite data has allowed investigators to arrive at two “corridors” where the plane could possibly be located: a northern arc from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in central Asia, or a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

The northern corridor would have brought the plane towards South Asia. Continue reading “Pakistan says MH370 did not land there”

The Malaysian Insider
March 16, 2014

Investigators are puzzled over Malaysian military’s inaction in responding to an unidentified blip on their radar screens that was later said to be the missing flight MH370, the New York Times reported today.

It reported that the plane flew past three military radars and over Penang but nothing was done to identify it, which would have helped prevent its disappearance.

“The watch team never noticed the blip, it was as though the airspace was his,” a person with detailed knowledge of the investigation reportedly told the NYT.

Still, the report said that this was not the first, nor would it be the last of the long series of errors the Malaysian government has made, which complicated the task of finding the missing Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO) with239 onboard.

Today is the eight day since the plane disappeared from radar and the trail had gotten weaker as the search expands to Kazakhstan to the vast Indian Ocean. Continue reading “Why didn’t Malaysian military react to MH370 blip on radar screens, ask investigators”

The Malaysian Insider
March 16, 2014

Indian military authorities have dismissed the possibility that the Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370, which mysteriously disappeared eight days ago en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, could have flown over India on its way to Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan in Central Asia, the Times of India reported.

“If the jetliner had tried to cross the Indian mainland, our primary radars (which bounce radio signals off targets) would have picked it up despite its transponders being switched off (secondary radars beam signals that request information from a plane’s transponders),” said a top Indian Air Force (IAF) officer.

If an “unidentified” plane had been picked up flouting prescribed procedures or with switched-off transponders or not “squawking” IFF (identification, friend or foe) codes, a series of “air defence measures” would have kicked in – including the scrambling of fighters – to “detect, identify, intercept and destroy” the intruder, the newspaper reported. Continue reading “MAS jet couldn’t have flown over our airspace, says India’s military”

The Malaysian Insider
March 15, 2014

The week-long search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 took a major new turn today as evidence indicated that its communication systems were manually switched off and the airliner was deliberately diverted.

The first concrete, verified lead as to the possible reason behind the disappearance has fuelled speculation over how and why MH370 might have been commandeered – and its likely fate.

Here are some of the possible scenarios being weighed up by experts.

Theory: Terror attack

Why: As the theory that the plane was deliberately taken over gains traction, questions over the involvement of terrorist organisations have come back to the fore. Continue reading “What could have happened to flight MH370?”

The Malay Mail Online
March 16, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — Malaysia repeatedly rejected Interpol’s offers to help investigate Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 even as the government now believes the plane went missing due to “deliberate action”, a Western law enforcement agent has alleged.

Speaking to ABC News in the United States, the official who went unnamed accused Malaysia of jealously guarding its information to the point of turning away the aid offered by the intergovernmental police agency.

“It’s the old pre-9/11 approach: close-hold information, don’t share anything,” the anonymous official was quoted as saying by ABC News on its website yesterday, referring to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

ABC News quoted other unidentified law enforcement officials who expressed concern that the alleged refusal by Malaysia to take up Interpol’s offer may have caused leads into the mysterious disappearance of MH370 to grow cold.

The allegations raised the ABC News report that Malaysia was unwilling to share information appeared at odds, however, with Putrajaya’s action in releasing highly-confidential raw data from its military radars to countries assisting in the search, including China and the US.

Such data is often among a country’s most closely-guarded secrets as it can be used to ascertain its defensive strengths and vulnerabilities; no country willingly divulges such information if it can be avoided. Continue reading “Official: Interpol snubbed even as foul play seen in MH370”