Four names on manifest considered suspect on plane disappearance
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Military radar indicates that the missing Boeing 777 jet turned back before vanishing, Malaysia's air force chief said Sunday as authorities were investigating up to four passengers with suspicious identifications who may have boarded the flight.
Malaysia
Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said pilots were supposed
to inform the airline and traffic control authorities if the plane does a
U-turn. "From what we have, there was no such distress signal or
distress call per se, so we are equally puzzled," he said.
Authorities
were checking on the suspect identities of at least two passengers who
appear to have boarded with stolen passports. On Saturday, the foreign
ministries in Italy and Austria said the names of two citizens listed on
the flight's manifest matched the names on two passports reported
stolen in Thailand.
Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that authorities were looking at two more possible cases of suspicious identities. He said Malaysian intelligence agencies were in contact with their international counterparts, including the FBI. He gave no more details.
Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, as does the 777, which had not had a fatal crash in its 19-year history until an Asiana Airlines plane crashed last July in San Francisco, killing three passengers, all Chinese teenagers.
Just 9 percent of fatal accidents happen when a plane is at cruising altitude, according to a statistical summary of commercial jet accidents done by Boeing. Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said Saturday there was no indication the pilots had sent a distress signal.
By EILEEN NG and CHRIS BRUMMITT
- Brummitt reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Military radar indicates that the missing Boeing 777 jet turned back before vanishing, Malaysia's air force chief said Sunday as authorities were investigating up to four passengers with suspicious identifications who may have boarded the flight.
The revelations
add to the uncertainties surrounding the final minutes of flight MH370,
which was carrying 239 people when it lost contact with ground
controllers somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam after leaving Kuala
Lumpur early Saturday morning bound for Beijing.
A
massive international sea has so far turned up no trace of the plane,
which lost contact with the ground when the weather was fine, the plane
was already cruising and the pilots didn't send a distress signal —
unusual circumstance for a modern jetliner operated by a professional
airline to crash.
Air force
chief Rodzali Daud didn't say which direction the plane might have taken
or how long for when it apparently went off route.
"We
are trying to make sense of this," he told a media conference. "The
military radar indicated that the aircraft may have made a turn back and
in some parts, this was corroborated by civilian radar."
Malaysia
Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said pilots were supposed
to inform the airline and traffic control authorities if the plane does a
U-turn. "From what we have, there was no such distress signal or
distress call per se, so we are equally puzzled," he said.Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that authorities were looking at two more possible cases of suspicious identities. He said Malaysian intelligence agencies were in contact with their international counterparts, including the FBI. He gave no more details.
"All the four names are with me
and have been given to our intelligence agencies," he said. "We are
looking at all possibilities."
A total of 22 aircraft and
40 ships have been deployed to the area by Malaysia, Thailand,
Singapore, Indonesia, China and the United States, not counting
Vietnam's fleet.
Two-thirds of the jet's passengers were Chinese. The rest were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.
After
more than 30 hours without contact with the aircraft, Malaysia Airlines
told family members they should "prepare themselves for the worst,"
Hugh Dunleavy, the commercial director for the airline told reporters.
Finding
traces of an aircraft that disappears over sea can take days or longer,
even with a sustained search effort. Depending on the circumstances of
the crash, wreckage can be scattered over many square kilometers
(miles). If the plane enters the water before breaking up, there can be
relatively little debris.
A
team of American experts was en route to Asia to be ready to assist in
the investigation into the crash. The team includes accident
investigators from National Transportation Safety Board, as well as
technical experts from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing,
the safety board said in a statement.
Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, as does the 777, which had not had a fatal crash in its 19-year history until an Asiana Airlines plane crashed last July in San Francisco, killing three passengers, all Chinese teenagers.
Investigators will need access to the flight data recorders to determine what happened.
Aviation
and terrorism experts said revelations about stolen passports would
strengthen speculation of foul play. They also acknowledged other
scenarios, including some catastrophic failure of the engines or
structure of the plane, extreme turbulence or pilot error or even
suicide, were also possible.
Jason
Middleton, the head of the Sydney-based University of New South Wales'
School of Aviation, said terrorism or some other form of foul play
seemed a likely explanation.
"You're
looking at some highly unexpected thing, and the only ones people can
think of are basically foul play, being either a bomb or some immediate
incapacitating of the pilots by someone doing the wrong thing and that
might lead to an airplane going straight into the ocean," Middleton
said. "With two stolen passports (on board), you'd have to suspect that
that's one of the likely options."
Just 9 percent of fatal accidents happen when a plane is at cruising altitude, according to a statistical summary of commercial jet accidents done by Boeing. Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said Saturday there was no indication the pilots had sent a distress signal.
The
plane was last inspected 10 days ago and found to be "in proper
condition," Ignatius Ong, CEO of Malaysia Airlines subsidiary Firefly
airlines, said at a news conference.
By EILEEN NG and CHRIS BRUMMITT
- Brummitt reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.
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