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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

If MH370 was a hijack bid, it was a terrorism motivated; China deploys 21 satellites and 11 ships search aid

It is increasingly common for terrorist groups not to claim responsibility for their actions, a leading expert says, amid heightened speculation one or both of the pilots may have been involved in diverting Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Greg Barton, the international director of the global terrorism research centre at Monash University, said there were several reasons a terrorist group might remain silent about hijacking the flight.

''Perhaps this operation was only partially successful, and that the plan had been to turn back and crash into the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur,'' Professor Barton said. ''Perhaps the pilots foiled the plan, we will never know.

''But that would be a motive for a group not to claim it, as they may want to try it again,'' he said.
Conjecture over pilot involvement in the plane's disappearance was fuelled on Sunday by a new timeline suggesting the flight's signalling system was disabled before a pilot spoke to air traffic control without mentioning any trouble.

But whether it was an act of terrorism remains a question that may not be answered unless the black box flight recorders are found.

Professor Barton cited the 1988 Lockerbie disaster, in which Pan Am flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb over a Scottish town, killing 270 people, as an example of an attack no one admitted ordering.

''It also took quite a while for al-Qaeda to claim responsibility for 9/11,'' Professor Barton said. ''And in the November 2008 attacks at several Mumbai hotels, Lashkar- e- Taiba was blamed but never actually claimed it,'' he said.

Clive Williams, a visiting professor at the Australian National University's centre for military and security law and an adjunct professor at Macquarie University's centre for policing, intelligence and counter terrorism said while terrorism could not be ruled out, it seemed less likely than other possibilities.

''Terrorism is by definition politically motivated with a strategic outcome in mind. If terrorism was the motivation you would expect that the perpetrators would have already used the plane as a weapon against a possible target, such as Mumbai or Colombo, would have made political demands, or would have tried to put pressure on a target government.''

Since 2000 there have been only 18 hijacks or attempted hijacks of large passenger aircraft. Of these, seven were by passengers wanting to get to a destination to seek asylum, one was criminally motivated to steal the cargo, six were by mentally ill persons, and four were politically motivated (counting September 11 as one incident), Professor Williams said.

By Anne Davies The Sydney Morning Herald

11 Chinese ships team up in Singapore for search mission

It has been 11 days since the Malaysian flight MH370 went missing. 239 passengers were on board the ...

China deploys 21 satellites to assist hunt for MH370

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Sunday, March 16, 2014

MH370 pilot was political fanatic?

Police are investigating the possibility that the pilot of missing Flight MH370 hijacked his own aircraft in a bizarre political protest.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was an ‘obsessive’ supporter of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur it is understood 53-year-old Shah attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was jailed for five years.

Campaigners say the politician, the key challenger to Malaysia’s ruling party, was the victim of a long-running smear campaign and had faced trumped-up charges.

Police sources have confirmed that Shah was a vocal political activist – and fear that the court decision left him profoundly upset. It was against this background that, seven hours later, he took control of a Boeing 777-200 bound for Beijing and carrying 238 passengers and crew.

Scroll down for video

Sudden ascent and dive points to cockpit takeover

The final picture: The missing jet is pictured here in February this year above Polish airspace

Yesterday, Malaysian police searched his house in the upmarket Kuala Lumpur suburb of Shah Alam, where he had installed a home-made flight simulator. But this newspaper can reveal that investigators had already spent much of last week examining two laptops removed from Shah’s home. One is believed to contain data from the simulator

Confirming rising fears, Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak announced yesterday that MH370 was deliberately steered off course after its communication system was switched off. He said it headed west over the Malaysian seaboard and could have flown for another seven hours on its fuel reserves.

It is not yet clear where the plane was taken, however Mr Razak said the most recent satellite data suggests the plane could have been making for one of two possible flight corridors. The search, involving 43 ships and 58 aircraft from 15 countries, switched from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean.

In another dramatic twist early Sunday Indian officials however, said the search was on hold until 'fresh search areas' were defined by Malaysia. It is unclear what the reason was for the delay.

Data showing the number of plausible runways where the plane could have touched down - which need to be at least 5,000ft - offer a baffling number of potential locations.

More...

According to a map drawn up by U.S. radio station WNYC, there are 634 locations which could fit, from Australia to the Maldives to Pakistan.

However, the true number is likely to be even higher, as estimates of how far the plane could have travelled have been increased since the calculations were carried out.

US investigators say faint ‘pings’ were being transmitted for several hours after the flight lost contact with the ground.

Meanwhile, military radar showed the jet climbed to 45,000ft – above its service limit – which could have been a deliberate attempt to knock out the passengers and crew.

Anwar Ibrahim is a broadly popular democracy icon and former deputy prime minister whose prosecution on a charge of sodomy is seen by many Malaysians as political persecution.

Investigation: Pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, left, was a political activist who attended a tense trial on the day of the flight, investigators believe. He was flying service MH370 alongside Fariq Abdul Hamid, right, from whom investigators have been keen to deflect suspicion

Jailed: Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim leaving court in Putrajaya on March 7

Hunt: Investigators have riaded the houses of both pilots. Pictured is where co-pilot Hamid lives in an upmarket Kuala Lumpur suburb

The raids on Captain Shah’s home appeared stage-managed as a display of intent after the Prime Minister said the focus of the investigation was now on ‘crew and passengers’ as a result of the latest leads.

But investigators have told the Mail on Sunday inquiries into the background of the pilot actually began days earlier.

Malaysian police, helped by FBI agents from the US, are looking into the political and religious backgrounds of both Zaharie and his co-pilot. Zaharie’s home was sealed off yesterday as police spent an hour inside.

However, a senior investigation source said two laptops were taken from the property in low-key visits by police early last week despite a series of denials by officials that his home had been searched or raided.

One laptop taken away is thought to contain data from the flight simulator while a second contained little information. Zaharie’s personal laptop was not found, and is thought to have been with him in the cockpit of the plane, the source said.

Zaharie’s co-workers have told investigators the veteran pilot was a social activist who was vocal and fervent in his support of Ibrahim.

‘Colleagues made it clear to us that he was someone who held strong political beliefs and was strident in his support for Anwar Ibrahim,’ another investigation source said. ‘We were told by one colleague he was obsessed with politics.’

In their interviews, colleagues said Zaharie told them he planned to attend the court case involving Anwar on March 7, just hours before the Beijing flight, but investigators had not yet been able to confirm if he was among the crowd of Anwar supporters at court.

Zaharie is believed to be separated or divorced from his wife although they share the same house, close to Kuala Lumpur’s international airport. They have three children, but no family members were at home yesterday: only the maid has remained there.

JAILED FOR FIVE YEARS: MALAYSIA'S OPPOSITION LEADER

Anwar Ibrahim is a broadly popular democracy icon and former deputy prime minister whose prosecution on a charge of sodomy is seen by many Malaysians as political persecution.

Campaigners say the politician, the key challenger to Malaysia’s ruling party, was the victim of a long-running smear campaign and had faced trumped-up charges.

Captain Shah, who is thought to have attended the trial in Putrajaya hours before flying, is thought to be incensed by the verdict.

Co-workers have told investigators the veteran pilot was a social activist who was vocal and fervent in his support of Ibrahim.

Investigators said: ‘We are looking into the theory that Zaharie’s political beliefs may be a factor. There are huge sensitivities surrounding this but we cannot afford not to pursue any angle brought to our attention.’

In the days after Flight MH370 disappeared, Zaharie was affectionately described as a good neighbour and an eccentric ‘geek’ who had a flight simulator at home simply because he loved his work so much.

Malaysian officials initially appeared keen not to direct any suspicion towards Zaharie or his co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid, who was last week revealed to have invited two women passengers into the cockpit and smoked on an earlier flight to Phuket.

But evidence of the way the plane’s transponder and communication systems were disabled and the way the plane was expertly flown over the Indian Ocean apparently using navigational waypoints meant only a skilled aviator could have been at the controls. Investigators were also baffled by why, if hijackers took over the plane, there was no Mayday call or signal from the two pilots to say the cockpit had been breached.

At yesterday’s press conference, the suspicion over the pilot’s involvement mounted as prime minister Najib Razak said that investigators had found ‘deliberate action’ on board the plane resulted in it changing course and losing contact with ground crews.

As a result of the new information, Malaysian authorities had ‘refocused their investigation on crew and passengers aboard’, he said. Police sealed off the area surrounding Zaharie’s home and searched the house shortly after the press conference.

Mr Razak said the new satellite evidence shows ‘with a high degree of certainty’ that the one of the jet’s communications devices – the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System was disabled just before it had reached the east coast of Malaysia. ACARS is a service that allows computers aboard the plane to relay in-flight information about the health of its systems back to the ground.

Shortly afterwards, near the cross-over point between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic controllers, the plane’s transponder, which emits an identifying signal, was switched off or, less likely, failed.

According to a military radar, the aircraft then turned and flew back over Malaysia before heading in a north-west direction.

On board: Student Firman Siregar, pictured centre with his family, was one of the 239 aboard Flight MH370

Multinational: Indonesian rescue personnel join in the search for the missing plane

Search: Investigators from countries around the world have been scouring the oceans

A satellite was able to pick up a ‘ping’ from the plane until 08:11 local time, more than seven hours after it lost radar contact, although it was unable to give a precise location. Mr Razak went on to say that based on this new data, investigators ‘have determined the plane’s last communication with a satellite was in one of two possible corridors – north from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan through to northern Thailand, and south from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

If as suspected the plane was diverted into the Indian Ocean, the task of the search teams becomes more difficult, as there are hundreds of uninhabited islands and the water reaches depths of around 23,000ft.

Countries in the plane’s potential flightpath have now joined a huge effort to locate the missing passengers, but China described the revelation as ‘painfully belated’. And FBI investigators say the disappearance of MH370 may have been ‘an act of piracy’ and that the possibility that its hundreds of passengers are being held at an unknown location has not been ruled out.

Meanwhile, leading aviation lawyer James Healy–Pratt, who is helping relatives, said Malaysian Airlines had declined to buy Boeing’s Airplane Health Management system, which monitors systems in real time and could have alerted it to any potential problems, rather than having to recover a black box.

‘If the transponder was manually disabled then one can only hope that the black boxes were not also manually disabled,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, the truth will never be known.’

The revelations about Zaharie’s political affiliations are highly sensitive in a country where political dirty tricks are widespread.

One of the investigation sources said: ‘We are looking into the theory that Zaharie’s political beliefs may be a factor. There are huge sensitivities surrounding this but we cannot afford not to pursue any angle brought to our attention.’

Separately, a police source told the Mail on Sunday: ‘I can confirm our investigations include the political and religious leanings of both pilots.’

Zaharie joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981. He became a captain about ten years later and has clocked up 18,360 hours of flying experience.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581817/Doomed-airliner-pilot-political-fanatic-Hours-taking-control-flight-MH370-attended-trial-jailed-opposition-leader-sodomite.html#ixzz2w7YgUEpc
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

- Sources: The Daily Mail UK

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MH370 flight confirms: “deliberate acts”, suggest hijacking and terrorism planning, crew under scrutiny

MH370 flight confirms: “deliberate acts”, suggest hijacking and terrorism planning, crew under scrutiny

Malaysian PM confirms that deliberate acts were involved in the plane’s disappearance

Any terrorist seizure of the plane ‘would have required one hell of a piece of planning

Flight MH370 weighs 250 tonnes, spans more than 60 metres and has been hunted by search teams from more than a dozen countries, but after more than a week the search for missing Malaysian Airlines jet is becoming vastly bigger. And vastly more complicated, amid suggestions of a “deliberate act” to take it off course.

The expansion came after leaked reports from US officials, suggestions of terrorism and the revelation from Malaysia's Prime Minister that investigators believed new satellite data showed “deliberate action by someone on the plane” had flown the aircraft and it's 239 passengers and crew of course for up to seven hours.

Speaking at a press conference in the Malaysian capital, Najib Razak said: “Clearly, the search for MH370 has entered a new phase. Over the last seven days, we have followed every lead and looked into every possibility… we hope this new information brings us one step closer to finding the plane.”

He added that, based on the data, investigators were now pursuing the belief that the plane's last location was along one of two possible corridors or arcs - a northern route stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern one stretching from Indonesia to the vast emptiness of the Indian ocean.

Click here for enlarged view of graphic

And as police raided homes of the pilot and co-pilot, the Prime Minister said that, while investigators were still exploring “all possibilities”, attention was increasingly being focused on the possible role of the passengers or crew of the plane

This weekend Malaysian officials, along with experts from the US National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, continue to refine the new data, which originated from signals sent by the plane via the British company Inmarsat's satellite network over the Indian Ocean. The Independent on Sunday understands that these signals came from a “failsafe” function of an Inmarsat Swift 64 communications system fitted to the ill-fated aircraft.

The announcement by Mr Najib was the most definitive suggestion that investigators were exploring a possible hijacking or terrorism.

Aviation consultant Chris Yates said: “It's increasingly clear that the hand of some form of terrorism is at play here, whether from a group or one skilled individual. The levels of specialist aviation knowledge on display here cause me to cast my mind back to 9/11 when hijackers had acquired a level of technical and flight training.”

David Gleave, a former air crash investigator, added that any terrorist seizure of the plane “would have required one hell of a piece of planning”.

The home of Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, the first officer on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, about 15 miles west of Kuala Lumpur. Credit Lai Seng Sin/Associated Press

Police drove to the residential compound in Kuala Lumpur where the missing plane's pilot Fariq Abdul Hami lives, according a guard and local reporters

Phil Giles, a former air safety investigator who worked on the Lockerbie Bombing, said: “Taking over a Boeing 777 without experience or skill is akin to some Somalian bloke in a tiny boat trying to take over a super tanker and captain it. Unless the hijacker has a fair amount of technical and aviation knowledge he would have to rely on putting a gun to the pilot's head.”

In Malaysia this new information meant an end to the search in the South China Sea and a renewed focus on the Indian Ocean. At the same time officials were continuing to get radar data and other relevant information from the countries whose air space the two routes being examined pass through. The northern corridor would trace a busy route, passing northern Thailand and Burma and entering into China on the way towards central Asia.

The southern route, meanwhile, would pass over Indonesia and then the open waters of the southern Indian Ocean. The New York Times reported that officials believed the southern corridor to be the most likely to have been taken by the plane. “The US Navy would not be heading toward Kazakhstan,” a person briefed on the investigation told the paper.

Other have suggested the complexity of the search and sensitivity of military radar and satellite information may have been a cause of delay, pointing to the fact that American newspapers have been briefed by the Pentagon and that the destroyer USS Kidd and a P-8 Poseidon search plane moved into the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal prior the Malaysian government's announcement on Saturday.

Tony Cable, an investigator who worked for the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch for 32 years, said: “The sensitivity of some of the military radar and satellite information here is clearly posing a problem for the investigation…. I suspect there is an awful lot more information that is known that is not being released.”

The last confirmed location of MH370 on civilian radar off Malaysia was at 1.31am last Saturday, about 40 minutes after it took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. At that point it was heading north-east across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand on what should have been a six-hour flight to Beijing.

After that it seemed the plane disappeared from civilian radar but showed up - as a blip - on radar used by the Malaysian military. The latest revelation shows that the Boeing 777 continued to leave the faintest traces, in a series of “pings” from its Inmarsat Swift 64 system.

This 20-year-old communications is device fitted to 90 per cent of the world's wide body jet aircraft and in the case of MH370 enhanced the operation of the aircraft's flight transponder and Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), both of which were deliberately deactivated early in the flight.

The IoS understands that the disabling of the ACARS system enabled a failsafe “ping” mode in the Swift 64 system, which has been compared to an “I'm here” announcement. The last of these messages came at 8.11am local time last Saturday, more than seven-and-a-half hours after it took off.

When fully operational Flight MH370's ACARS and Swift 64 only offer very basic altitude and location information and The IoS understands the aircraft wasn't fitted with more sophisticated equipment on sale, which would have allowed investigators to gain a full GPS fix.

Communication between the aircraft and satellites is only possible when the plane is airborne and the final transmission however would have come towards the very end of flight MH370's endurance - officials in Kuala Lumpur said the plane was carrying sufficient fuel for 8 hours.

However through analysis of the position and view of the receiving geostationary Inmarsat satellite over the Indian Ocean has allowed officials to plot a “rough calculation” of the two “arcs” the plane may have taken, which has led to increased search emphasis on the Indian Ocean and wild speculation the aircraft may have travelled as far as Kazakhstan.

The revelations were reportedly welcomed by relatives of the passengers in China, who believe the development keeps alive the hope they may somehow be reunited with their loved ones. However the government in Beijing - which has 153 citizens on board the flight - urged Malaysia to continue providing it with “thorough and exact information” on the search, state news agency Xinhua said.

- The Independence

Passengers and Crew of Missing Plane Scrutinized for Aviation Skills - Missing MH370: Crew and passengers under scrutiny

Heavily guarded: Security personnel keeping a strict watch over the gated community in Laman Seri where Capt Zaharie resides. - Bernama

PETALING JAYA: As investigators search for clues about the person who turned off MH370’s communications system, police are looking into the crew and passengers again, this time paying close attention to those with aviation expertise.

Intelligence sources said investigations would include political and religious leanings, as well as travel patterns of those on board.

Minute details, such as hobbies and behavioural patterns, will also be put under the microscope as the investigations now focused on hijack.

Yesterday afternoon, a group of policemen conducted a search at Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s house in Shah Alam.

Three policemen in an MPV were seen at the gated community in Section 13 at around 2.40pm. They left at 4.45pm.

It was unclear if they took away a flight simulator from the house.

Malaysia Airlines employees said a few pilots did have flight simulators in their homes but claimed that Capt Zaharie’s was one of the most impressive sets.

Capt Zaharie had previously posted on German online forum X-Sim.de that he had built a flight simulator himself.

“About a month ago I finished assembly of FSX and FS9 with 6 monitors,” read his message, which was signed off as Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah Boeing 777 Malaysia Airlines in November 2012.

Checks revealed that FSX and FS9 are over-the-counter flight simulator games made by Microsoft. These can easily be bought online.

According to some family friends, Capt Zaharie’s family had moved out a few days ago after MH370 went missing.

According to MAS employees, a driver had told them that Capt Zaharie kept to himself while being driven to the KLIA for the flight.

He had studied aviation at the Philippine Airlines Aviation School in Pasay City in 1980.

He joined Malaysia Airlines a year later.

The Penangite became a captain in the early 1990s and has 18,360 flying hours under his belt.

His colleagues described him as a jovial and professional “aviation geek” who collected remote-controlled miniature aircraft, light twin engine helicopters and amphibious aircraft.

Outside of aviation, he runs a YouTube channel dedicated to DIY projects, where he teaches viewers how to fix home appliances like air-conditioners.

The same group of policemen also conducted a search at MH370 co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid’s house a few hours after searching Capt Zaharie’s house.

Police arrived at Fariq’s house at Section 7 here around 8.05pm and left about an hour later.
It was unclear if anything was taken from the house.

- The Star/Asia News Network

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Friday, March 14, 2014

US, UK, India among 'Free World' Governments Worst for online spies

WASHINGTON: US' National Security Agency, India's Centre for Development of Telematics, and the UK's GCHQ have been named among the worst online spies by a non-profit group for implementing censorship and surveillance.

Three of the government bodies designated by Reporters Without Borders as 'Enemies of the Internet' are located in democracies that have traditionally claimed to respect fundamental freedoms, a report by the Reporters Without Borders said.

PARIS - Shady agencies at the service of democratically elected governments are among the worst online spies in the world, media watchdog RSF said Wednesda

In the latest instalment of the "Enemies of the Internet" report, wholesale spying by "free world" services -- much of it exposed by US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden --- is offered no distinction from the unabashed surveillance carried out by the world's worst dictatorships.

To RSF, agencies such as the US National Security Agency, Britain's GCHQ and the Centre for Development Telematics in India embrace the worst methods of snooping in the name of governments that purportedly hold freedom of speech as a national priority.

They have "hacked into the very heart of the Internet" and turned a collective resource "into a weapon in the service of special interests" that flout the "freedom of information, freedom of expression and the right to privacy".

"The NSA and GCHQ have spied on the communications of millions of citizens including many journalists," the report by Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, Reporters Without Borders) said.

The methods used, many of which NSA contractor Snowden revealed to the world last year before going into hiding in Russia, "are all the more intolerable" because they are then used by authoritarian countries such as Iran, China, Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia, the report said.

Also singled out by RSF are private companies that provide their most up-to-date powers of snooping at trade fairs that have become giant spying bazaars selling the best that technology can offer.

It is at these shows hosted regularly around the world that profit-driven spy-ware firms link up with government agents or nervous multinationals that are in search of the newest ways to observe and control the Internet.

RSF argued that the censorship carried out by the Enemies of the Internet "would not be possible without the tools developed by the private sector companies to be found at these trade fairs."

With these tools, spies can track journalists anywhere in the world, RSF said.

Governments keen to impose censorship also help one another.

Iran has asked China to help it develop a local version of the electronic Great Wall that cuts off billions of Chinese from the Internet as seen by the rest of the world. China is active in Africa and central Asia too.

To stop this proliferation of snooping, RSF said a whole new legal framework to govern surveillance was "essential" with states needing to embrace transparency regarding the methods being used.

The fight for human rights, it warned, "had spread to the Internet".

- The Economic Times-AFP

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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Chinese satellite images show possible MH370 floating objects

<<Video: Chinese officials have released satellite images of possible crash site of the missing images

Chinese officials have released satellite images of possible crash site of the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner. The State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence announced the discovery on Wednesday, saying pictures obtained on Sunday showed three suspected floating objects. They measured 13 by 18 meters, 14 by 19 meters and 24 by 22 meters.

The objects were observed in waters between Malaysia and Vietnam. All previous reports of debris since Flight MH-370 disappeared have proved to be unrelated to the plane. Some 10 Chinese satellites have been used to help the search and rescue operation.

Criticism mounts of 'chaotic' search for plane

A well-known Malaysian ëbomohí (shaman), Ibrahim Mat Zin offering to locate the missing plane using a spiritual method and prayers, arrives in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. Malaysia faced a storm of criticism over contradictions and information gaps in the hunt for a missing airliner. Photo: AFP

China urged Malaysia on Wednesday to release "authoritative and detailed" information about the missing Malaysian plane through a unified channel in a timely manner, amid criticism of Malaysia for their confused reaction.

Expressing appreciation for Malaysia's sincere attitude and active efforts, Guo Shaochun, leader of the Chinese government joint work team, urged Malaysia to listen seriously and respond quickly to the reasonable appeals of the missing passengers' relatives.

"China asks for a unified channel on the Malaysian side to release authoritative and detailed information on the issue in a timely manner," said Guo at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

Malaysian air force Chief General Rodzali Daud Wednesday denied a local media report that quoted him as saying that the missing MH370 was last detected at 2:40 am Saturday by the air force in the vicinity of Pulau Perak in the Strait of Malacca before the signal disappeared.

Rodzali said that the radar tracking was at 2:15 am and to the northwest of Penang Island on Malaysia's west coast, adding that it was an "unidentified object."

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang also said Wednesday that information about the missing plane was "chaotic."

He urged Malaysia to take primary responsibility in communication and coordination in the joint search efforts, and "give the passengers' relatives and the international community an answer as soon as possible."

The successful boarding of two Iranian citizens using stolen passports and the released photos showing them photoshopped on to the same lower body drew criticism of the Malaysian government.

"It has badly damaged its national image. Rumors could easily grow under such circumstances, as could fear. This may turn out to be a fiasco for Malaysia in handling the crisis at the present stage," Steven Dong, a professor from the Communication University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times. He added that the country's aviation management system was also flawed, with passengers reportedly allowed into the cockpit.

Uncertainty has allegedly halted Vietnam's search mission, which was then denied by Vo Van Tuan, deputy chief of staff of the Vietnamese army. The Vietnam Ministry of Transport on Wednesday also criticized the slack response of Malaysia.

Malaysia said 42 ships and 39 aircraft have been deployed so far in the search, with India, Japan and Brunei joining the multinational hunt for the missing plane.

China's third military aircraft arrived in the Gulf of Thailand on Wednesday to join its eight vessels in the black box signal probe, with more ships expected.

One of China's satellites detected objects suspected to be floating materials, Chinese authorities said.

Meanwhile, a badly damaged raft was found by local fishermen near the west coast of Malaysia and villagers on the east side of the country reported to police they heard a loud noise that sounded like the fan of a jet engine around 1:20 am on Saturday, according to local media.

Zhuang Guotu, dean of the Research School of Southeast Asian Studies at Xiamen University, told the Global Times that it may not be fair to overly blame Malaysia, whose administration efficiency is at the intermediate level within Asia.

"We have seen its immediate response to the search for the plane after it went missing. It is understandable that people get anxious when little progress has been made, but Malaysia is a developing country with limited manpower," Zhuang noted.

- Contributed by Jiang Jie Global Times

China forces to search 19,768 sq km for missing jet
(updated by 11:50 on March 13)

11:43 China forces to search 19,768 sq km for missing jet

11:22 [Photo]Chinese satellite finds debris at suspected missing plane site