CNN wipes guess which country off the map for its EgyptAir coverage
As I'm sure most of you have heard already, an EgyptAir jet flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked this morning to Cyprus. CNN published this helpful map as part of its coverage:
One of my neighbors just came by for something and invited us to a Kiddush (celebration) at his synagogue tomorrow morning. The Kiddush is to celebrate 45 years (on the Jewish calendar) since he was released from being a hostage at Dawson's field in Jordan.
By the way, the picture of Captain John Testrake with a gun to his head was 'faked.' When I first posted that in 2008, I got a comment from Captain Testrake's son (see the post) reminding me that there were other people on board with guns at the time.
Here's US Secretary of State John FN Kerry hamming it up with another terrorist. Don't recognize the terrorist? He's Nabih Berri and today he's known as the 'speaker of the Lebanese parliament.'
Did you know he was a terrorist? (I suppose given that he's part of the Hezbullah-dominated Lebanese government that's not surprising). Did you know that he played a role in the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847 in which a US marine was murdered and dumped on the tarmac at Beirut Airport?
An Australian company claims to have located the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 in the Bay of Bengal, in the north eastern part of the Indian Ocean. The flight disappeared while enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8. 239 people were on board.
In the Bay of Bengal, in the north-eastern part of the Indian
Ocean, the company found chemical elements on the ocean floor that are
consistent with a Boeing 777 crash, reports International Business Times.
Those findings were not present in imaging from before the day
of the crash, strengthening the argument for their being from the
disappeared plane.
GeoResonance spokesperson Pavel Kursa stated that at the at the
site "we identified chemical elements and materials that make up a
Boeing 777...these are aluminum, titanium, copper, steel alloys and
other materials."
David Pope, a fellow spokesperson of the company, added that
"the wreckage wasn't there prior to the disappearance of MH370. We're
not trying to say it definitely is MH370. However, it is a lead we feel
should be followed up."
Using various images and information, the company scanned an area of
2,000,000 square kilometers (nearly 800,000 square miles), and in the
end located the suspected crash site 5,000 kilometers (around 3,000
miles) away from the current focal point of the search.
Hmmm. (PS Could not find this story in International Business Times).
How to thwart a hijacking at 29,000 feet from the only man who has ever done it
On September 6, 1970, an El Al pilot thwarted the hijacking of his plane in a way that most commercial pilots would have no clue how to do. The pilot, who was supposed to fly from Amsterdam to New York, ended up landing the plane in London. What's most amazing about this story is the way the British authorities treated the El Al crew after the plane landed....
Before take-off, El Al’s security officer on
duty at the airport told the pilot that there were four suspicious
people seeking to board the flight. Two held Senegalese passports with
consecutive numbers; two others, a couple, carried less suspicious
looking Honduran passports, but all had ordered their tickets at the
last minute.
Bar-Lev, in consultation with the security
officer, barred the Senegalese passengers from boarding and demanded
that the local security officers closely inspect the two Honduran
nationals before allowing them to board.
Although at the time he did not know that no
such inspection had been performed, he stopped at seat 2C and had a chat
with Avihu Kol, one of the two armed security officers on the plane. “I
told him, I want you in the cockpit with me,” Bar-Lev said.
Kol was alone in first class. He might as well
have been wearing a sign that said air marshal. “Someone could just
come up behind him and shoot him in the head,” Bar-Lev said, recalling
that Kol had warned him about just such a scenario two weeks before.
At 29,000 feet, with the plane still climbing,
the emergency light flashed in the cockpit. False alarm, one of the
crew members said. It happened often. Flight attendants sometimes grazed
against the warning panels, sounding the alarm. “No,” Bar-Lev
responded, “we’re being hijacked.”
Seconds later a flight attendant’s voice came
through the intercom: two people, armed with a gun and two grenades,
wanted to enter the cockpit. If he didn’t open the door, they would blow
up the plane.
Bar-Lev sent flight engineer Uri Zach to look
through the peep hole. The “Honduran” man, Nicaraguan-American
Sandinista supporter Patrick Argüello, a former Fulbright scholar
operating on behalf of George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine (PFLP), was holding a gun to a female flight attendant’s
head. Uri, she said to the pilot through the locked door, they are going
to kill me if you don’t open up.
According to the International Air Transport
Association rules, Bar-Lev said, a pilot is responsible “for the welfare
of his passengers” and therefore must acquiesce to the demands of
terrorists. His thinking was just the opposite: acceding will only
further endanger the passengers. Giving voice to an unformed thought, he
said aloud, “We are not going to be taken hostage.”
Sitting in the right-hand seat, having let the
co-pilot handle the take-off from Amsterdam, Bar-Lev recalled his
mandatory training on the Boeing 707 at the company headquarters several
years earlier. The certification training was eight hours long. After
six hours, the company instructor told Bar-Lev he was cleared to fly and
wondered if he had any other questions. He did. He wanted to know the
outer limits of the plane’s capacity. The instructor, a Korean War vet,
walked him through some of the maneuvers and explained that the
passenger plane was very strong and could endure more than it would seem
at first glance.
Bar-Lev told Kol, the air marshal, to hold on
tight. He was going to throw the plane into a dive. The negative
g-force, akin to the feeling one gets on the downhill section of a
roller coaster ride, would accomplish two things: it would lower the
plane’s altitude, reducing the pressure difference between the inside
and outside of the plane, which would make a bullet hole or a grenade
explosion less dangerous; and it would throw the hijackers off their
feet. The passengers, he said, were all belted in and would be fine.
Bar-Lev lifted the nose of the aircraft,
dipped one of the wings, and then tilted the nose down to earth. The
plane began to plummet, dropping 10,000 feet in a minute. When he pulled
out of the dive, Kol charged through the door and killed Argüello.
The second terrorist, Leila Khaled, a
Palestinian veteran of previous skyjackings, rolled a grenade forward
but it didn’t explode. In her memoir, Bar-Lev said, Khaled claimed to
have been violently subdued, but the air marshals found her passed out
from the dive and quickly arrested her.
“The whole thing took two and a half minutes,” Bar-Lev said.
Why did the plane land in London? What did the British authorities do (aside from releasing Khaled)? Read the whole thing.
Obviously, this story was published now due to Malaysia Airlines flight 370. I don't believe that plane was hijacked. I believe that one or both of the pilots decided to crash the plane like EgyptAir 990. But that won't be proven unless and until the black box is found.
The captain of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 received a two-minute call shortly before take-off from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity.
It was one of the last calls made to or from the mobile of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah in the hours before his Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur 16 days ago.
Investigators are treating it as potentially significant because anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card in Malaysia has to fill out a form giving their identity card or passport number.
Introduced as an anti-terrorism measure following 9/11, this ensures that every number is registered to a traceable person.
But in this case police traced the number to a shop selling SIM cards in Kuala Lumpur.
They found that it had been bought ‘very recently’ by someone who gave a woman’s name – but was using a false identity.
The discovery raises fears of a possible link between Captain Zaharie, 53, and terror groups whose members routinely use untraceable SIM cards.
Everyone else who spoke to the pilot on his phone in the hours before the flight took off has already been interviewed.
...
In a separate development, The Mail on Sunday has learned that investigators are now poised to question Captain Shah’s estranged wife in detail.
They have waited two weeks out of respect, but will now begin formally interviewing Faizah Khan following pressure from FBI agents assisting the inquiry.
Although the couple – who have three children – were separated, they had been living under the same roof.
A source said: ‘Faizah has been spoken to gently by officers but she has not been questioned in detail to establish her husband’s behaviour and state of mind in the days leading to the incident.
‘This is partly for cultural reasons. It is not considered appropriate in Malaysia to subject people in situations of terrible bereavement to the stress of intensive questioning.’
The softly-softly approach has been challenged by the team of FBI agents working with Malaysian police. They have pointed out that she may hold ‘vital clues and information’ to Zaharie’s mental state.
‘The whole world is looking for this missing plane and the person who arguably knows most about the state of mind of the man who captained the plane is being left alone,’ said a source close to the FBI team.
The source added: ‘If we want to eliminate the chief pilot from the inquiry, we must interview her in detail to find out what his state of mind was.’
The mystery caller emerged when Malaysian investigators examined the phone records of both Zaharie and his co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid.
Investigators were keen to trace the caller and interview them, although they have stressed that the fact the SIM card was registered to a non-existent ID card does not necessarily indicate a criminal or terrorist connection.
Political activists in Malaysia sometimes use SIM cards bought with bogus identity cards if they fear that their phones may be bugged by the country’s authoritarian ruling party.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that Zaharie is an avid supporter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, a distant relative, and may have attended a controversial court hearing where Anwar was jailed for five years. It took place only a few hours before the flight.
It's nearly two weeks since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lampur to Beijing. The flight still has not been found, and while theories of what happened to it abound, no one really knows for sure what happened. Here are some of the theories.
The
Malaysian government reportedly is investigating the possibility that
missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 avoided radar detection and
landed in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border inside Taliban-controlled
territory, according to the UK Independent . . . investigators
confiscated a homemade flight simulator from the pilot’s home to see if
it reveals any useful information . . . the Malaysian foreign minister
told reporters that Malaysia asked several Asian countries for
assistance in its investigation, including Pakistan . . . Pakistan
dismissed the idea that a Boeing 777 could land undetected inside the
country but promised to work with the Malaysian government in its search
for the missing plane . . . a
LIGNET analyst received information from a source at Boeing that the
company believes the plane did land in Pakistan . . . Israel is taking
the possibility of a terrorist attack seriously by mobilizing air
defenses and scrutinizing approaching civilian aircraft, according to
the Times of Israel . . . a Boeing 777 requires a lengthy, 7,500-foot
runway, and Pakistan has many of them, meaning Flight 370 could
conceivably be hidden in a hangar inside the country . . . U.S.
surveillance of the area may be able to shed light on the theory through
satellite imagery or signals intelligence.
It became apparent as I inspected SIA68’s flight path history that
MH370 had maneuvered itself directly behind SIA68 at approximately
18:00UTC and over the next 15 minutes had been following SIA68. All
the pieces of my theory had been fitting together with the facts that
have been publically released and I began to feel a little uneasy.
Singapore Airlines Flight 68 proceeded across the Andaman Sea into
the Bay of Bengal and finally into India’s airspace. From there it
appears to have proceeded across India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and
finally Turkmenistan before proceeding onward across Europe to its final
destination of Barcelona, Spain.
...
So by now, you may have caught on or you may be scratching your head
and wondering if I’ve gone insane! How does SIA68 have anything to do
with MH370 disappearing? Remember the one challenge that is currently
making everyone doubt that MH370 actually flew to Turkmenistan, Iran,
China, or Kyrgyzstan? That challenge is the thought that MH370 couldn’t
make it through several key airspaces such as India or Afghanistan
without being detected by the military.
It is my belief that MH370 likely flew in the shadow of SIA68 through
India and Afghanistan airspace. As MH370 was flying “dark” without
transponder / ADS-B output, SIA68 would have had no knowledge that MH370
was anywhere around and as it entered Indian airspace, it would have
shown up as one single blip on the radar with only the transponder
information of SIA68 lighting up ATC and military radar screens.
Wouldn’t the SIA68 flight have detected MH370? NO!
The Boeing 777 utilizes a TCAS system for traffic avoidance; the system
would ordinarily provide alerts and visualization to pilots if another
airplane was too close. However that system only operates by receiving
the transponder information from other planes and displaying it for the
pilot. If MH370 was flying without the transponder, it would have been
invisible to SIA68.
In addition, the TCAS system onboard MH370 would have enabled the
pilot(s) to easily locate and approach SIA68 over the Straits of Malacca
as they appeared to have done. The system would have shown them the
flight’s direction of travel and the altitude it was traveling which
would have enabled them to perfectly time an intercept right behind the
other Boeing 777.
...
How does this solve the mystery??? We know MH370 didn’t fly to Spain! Once
MH370 had cleared the volatile airspaces and was safe from being
detected by military radar sites in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan it
would have been free to break off from the shadow of SIA68 and could
have then flown a path to its final landing site. There are several
locations along the flight path of SIA68 where it could have easily
broken contact and flown and landed in Xingjian province, Kyrgyzstan, or
Turkmenistan. Each of these final locations would match up almost
perfectly with the 7.5 hours of total flight time and trailing SIA68.
In addition, these locations are all possibilities that are on the “ARC”
and fit with the data provided by Inmarsat from the SATCOM’s last known
ping at 01:11UTC.
There are two other theories of how the plane disappeared here and here.
Isaac Yeffet, who served as head of global
security for Israel’s national carrier in the 1980s and now works as an
aviation security consultant in New Jersey, said investigators were
correct in homing in on the two fake-passport carrying Iranian
passengers on the doomed flight, and they have wasted valuable time by
exploring other leads.
“What happened to this aircraft, nobody knows.
My guess is based upon the stolen passports, and I believe Iran was
involved,” he said. “They hijacked the aircraft and they landed it in a
place that nobody can see or find it.”
...
[B]ased upon the tried-and-true Israeli intelligence strategy of profiling, the pilots, he said, are unlikely suspects.
“We are talking about a captain who is 53
years old, who has worked for Malaysia Airlines for 30 years, and
suddenly he became a terrorist? He wanted to commit suicide? If he
committed suicide, where is the debris?”
Adding that the captain in question, Zaharie
Ahmad Shah, was known to be happily married and comfortably well-off,
Yeffet said the profile simply does not fit. “From the United States to
China to Japan, everybody is searching for this aircraft or piece of it.
And there is no sign. So in my opinion, the aircraft was hijacked. And
it was an excellent plan from the terrorists, to land in a place where
they can hide the plane and no one can find it.”
And one more theory from the same post:
Lt. Col. (Res.) Eran Ramot, a former IAF
fighter pilot and the head of aviation research at Israel’s Fisher
Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, however, drew other
conclusions.
“It would be very complicated [for someone
other than the pilot to have flown the plane],” Ramot said, based on the
stunning revelations that the flight not only made a total U-turn from
its planned route but also dipped in between radar points for hours and
had all of its tracking systems manually turned off. “It takes somebody
that knows how to operate an airplane like this.”
Like Yeffet, Ramot believes the plane was
being intentionally flown to a secret location, and he went as far as to
say he is holding out hope that the 239 passengers and crew who were on
board are still alive.
“We don’t know any better yet,” he said. “One
of my theories is that the airplane landed in Bangladesh. It could reach
there, it’s very close to Afghanistan. It could have landed on airstrip
there, and everybody on board is still alive. It could be done.”
What a surprise: Pilot of missing Malaysian plane known as a political fanatic
In an earlier post, I reported that the main suspects in the disappearance of a Malaysian commercial jet last Friday night are the pilot and the co-pilot. Now comes the unsurprising news that the pilot was known as a political fanatic.
The Mail on Sunday has learned that Zaharie was an ‘obsessive’ supporter of Malaysia’s opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur it is understood
53-year-old Zaharie attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was
jailed for five years, it said.
Police sources confirmed to the daily that Zaharie 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.
Police on Saturday searched Zaharie's 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 Zaharie’s home. One is
believed to contain data from the simulator.
...
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.
The raids on Zaharie’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 Daily 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 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 Anwar.
"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: only the maid has remained there.
Read the whole thing. I wonder what the airlines' security procedures are for pilots and crew. I don't recall ever hearing much about that.
Oh my... Main suspects in Malaysia Airlines disappearance are... the pilots!
My post about EgyptAir 990 last week was apparently prescient. CNN is reporting that US intelligence officials believe that the pilots are the primary suspects in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 last Friday night.
As I already reported last night, Malaysian officials have searched the home of the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and now it turns out they've searched the home of the co-pilot too.
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.
As the video reports, the pilots apparently turned the jet at the perfect spot - at the point where the jet was handed off from Malaysian to Vietnamese controllers. But if the Malaysian authorities found anything in their homes, they're not saying.
The Malaysian government
had been looking for a reason to search the home of the pilot and the
co-pilot for several days. But it was only in the last 24 to 36 hours,
when radar and satellite data came to light, that authorities believed
they had sufficient reason to go through the residences, according to
the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The Malaysians don't do
this lightly," the official said. It's not clear whether the Malaysian
government believes one or both the men could be responsible for what
happened when the Boeing 777-200 ER disappeared March 8 en route from
Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The officials emphasize that they don't know yet what really happened to the plane. But here's the best theory. To those of you who have been following it should sound familiar. It's the southern corridor theory.
Flight 370 took off from
Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. on March 8. The last satellite communication
from the plane occurred at 8:11 a.m., Najib said, well past the
scheduled arrival time in Beijing.
That last communication,
Najib said, was in one of two possible traffic corridors shown on a map
released to the press. A northern arc stretches from the border of
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, and a southern arc
spans from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
"Due to the type of
satellite data, we are unable to confirm the precise location of the
plane when it last made contact with the satellite," Najib said.
Because the northern
parts of the traffic corridor include some tightly guarded airspace over
India, Pakistan, and even some U.S. installations in Afghanistan, U.S.
authorities believe it more likely the aircraft crashed into waters
outside of the reach of radar south of India, a U.S. official told CNN.
If it had flown farther north, it's likely it would have been detected
by radar.
Nonetheless for the last
36 hours, the U.S. military and intelligence community has been
reviewing all satellite imagery and electronic data it collects from the
region for any sign of an explosion or crash, according to another U.S.
official directly familiar with that effort.
Najib said authorities were ending search operations in the South China Sea and reassessing the deployment of assets.
"This new satellite information has a significant impact on the nature and scope of the search operation," he said.
Investigators, he said,
have confirmed by looking at the raw satellite data that the plane in
question was the Malaysia Airlines jet.
The same conclusion was
reached by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. National
Transportation Safety Board, the British Air Accidents Investigation
Branch and the Malaysian authorities, all of whom were working
separately with the same data, he said.
Well, if it didn't crash it landed on some abandoned island somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean and we'll hear a ransom demand sometime soon. That appears unlikely. Given the level of satellite information available today, it seems really unlikely that there would be an airstrip in the middle of nowhere that could land a 777 that hasn't shown up on the satellite data.
If you're wondering how they flew out of the corridor undetected, this might have had something to do with it.
Hours before Najib's
announcement, U.S. officials told CNN the flight had made drastic
changes in altitude and direction after disappearing from civilian
radar.
Malaysian military radar
showed the plane climbing to 45,000 feet -- which is above its approved
altitude limit -- soon after disappearing from civilian radar screens
and then dropping to 23,000 feet before climbing again, a U.S. official
familiar with the investigation said.
The jetliner was flying "a strange path," the official said on condition of anonymity. The details of the radar readings were first reported by The New York Times on Friday.
What's unsaid in all this is that Malaysia is - you guessed it - a Muslimcountry. As is Egypt. I hear from Israelis all the time how it's 'safe' to fly Turkish Air and Royal Jordanian to the US and the Far East, and by the way it's 'cheaper.' Maybe this incident will make them rethink that assessment.
UPDATE 1:52 PM
I meant to add this to the post this morning and I forgot.
Can someone please explain to me why the ACRS and the transponder on a commercial jetliner can be shut off? This isn't a military plane flying stealth. Why shouldn't the ACRS and transponder be on at all times?
OMG: Malaysia Airlines jet was hijacked, flew for seven hours after last signal
Malaysia Airlines announced on Saturday afternoon that its flight to Beijing that disappeared last Friday night was hijacked after navigational equipment was shut off. The plane flew on for as long as seven hours according to satellite tracking services cited by the Washington Post (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
The new leads about the plane’s end point, though ambiguous, have
drastically changed a search operation involving more than a dozen
nations. Malaysia on Saturday said that efforts would be terminated in
the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, the spot where the plane
first disappeared from civilian radar.
Malaysian authorities are
now likely to look for help from other countries in Southeast and South
Asia, seeking mysterious or unidentified readings that their radar
systems might have picked up.
The plane, based on one potential
end point, could have spent nearly all its flight time over the Indian
Ocean as it headed to an area west of Australia. But if the plane
traveled in the direction of Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan, it would
present a more perplexing scenario in which it would have evaded
detection for hours while flying through a volatile region where
airspace is heavily monitored: Burma, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan
and western China are all in the neighborhood of that path, as is the
United States’ Bagram air base, which is in Afghanistan.
U.S.
officials in Afghanistan would not comment on the possibility that the
plane had flown over that country, but that scenario seems unlikely
given the tight western control over Afghan airspace.
Afghan
officials said they rely on Americans on such matters. “We do not know
what has happened to the plane or if it has overflown Afghan air space.
We do not have a radar. Go and ask the Americans,” said a senior Afghan
official.
A Pakistani official said his country has not yet been
asked by Malaysia to share its radar data, but will provide them if
asked.
“Given the strong radar system that we have, and also that
India and other countries in the region have, it’s very difficult for a
plane to fly undetected for so long,” said Abid Qaimkhan, a spokesman
for Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority.
Malaysia has confirmed
that a previously unknown radar trail picked up by its military was
indeed MH370. That blip suggests the plane had cut west, across the
Malaysian peninsula, after severing contact with the ground. Malaysia
received help in analyzing that radar data from the United States’
National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration,
and the British Air Accident Investigation Branch.
Malaysian
investigators now believe that the Boeing-777 airliner, bound for
Beijing with 227 passengers, deliberately cut a series of communications
systems as it headed toward the boundary of Malaysian airspace. U.S.
officials and aviation experts say the plane could have been hijacked by
somebody with aviation knowledge or sabotaged by a crew member.
Investigators
have not yet presented a clear scenario of what could have happened on
board.
Reuters reported that Malaysian police on Saturday searched the
home of the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, who had more than
three decades of commercial flight experience. A senior Malaysian police
official refused to confirm the search.
Zaharie had a flight
simulator at his home, something that appeared in a YouTube video posted
from his unconfirmed YouTube account. Malaysia Airlines chief executive
Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said Friday that “everyone is free to do their own
hobby” and that it isn’t unusual for pilots to have home simulators.
U.S.
officials have said that the plane, shortly after being diverted,
reached an altitude of 45,000 feet and “jumped around a lot.” But the
airplane otherwise appeared to operate normally. Significantly, the
transponder and a satellite-based communication system did not stop at
the same time, as they would if the plane had exploded, disintegrated or
crashed into the ocean.
Najib said Saturday that the Aircraft
Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS, was disabled
just as MH370 reached the eastern coast of Malaysia. The transponder was
then switched off, Najib said, as the aircraft neared the border
between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace.
According to the
Malaysian government, a satellite that tracked the aircraft was located
more than 22,000 miles above sea level. Even after the ACARS system was
disconnected, the satellite still received some basic signal from the
plane — what one U.S. official described as a “handshake.” Though no
data was being transmitted, the satellite continued to reach out to the
plane on an hourly basis and received confirmation that the plane was
still flying.
“There’s no circuit breaker that would allow you to shut off the handshake,” the official said.
That
satellite handshake took place on a system operated by Inmarsat, a
British satellite company that provides global mobile telecommunications
services.
U.S. officials declined to say how closely that
handshake allowed them to track the path of the missing plane. But one
U.S. official explained that the satellite wasn’t able to read the
plane’s exact location or even what direction it flew. Instead, the
satellite was able to determine how far the plane had traveled since the
last known spot where ACARS was transmitting data. That could explain
how Malaysia created two possible arcs where the plane might have
traveled.
Malaysia Air 370 starting to sound like EgyptAir 990
All week, we have been hearing comparisons between Malaysia Air 370, which disappeared over the South China Sea last Friday night, and Pan Am 103, Air India 182 (which both had bombs on board) and Air France 447 (which exploded suddenly in mid-air, but was apparently not bombed). But it's now being reported that the plane may have flown for 'hours' well off course, something none of those planes did.
Military radar-tracking evidence suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner
missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay
peninsula towards the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the
investigation told Reuters on Friday.
Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was
Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints -
indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training - when
it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.
The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was
flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the
Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.
Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude
and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.
A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were
focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a
plane deliberately diverted the flight, with 239 people on board,
hundreds of miles off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
"What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the
cards," said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.
...
Malaysian police have previously said they were investigating whether
any passengers or crew had personal or psychological problems that might
shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking,
sabotage or mechanical failure.
The comments by the three sources are the first clear indication that
foul play is the main focus of official suspicions in the Boeing 777's
disappearance.
As a result of the new evidence, the sources said, multinational search
efforts were being stepped up in the Andaman Sea and also the Indian
Ocean.
...
The fact that the aircraft - if it was MH370 - had lost contact with air
traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone
aboard had turned its communication systems off, the first two sources
said.
They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified
aircraft was heading - following aviation corridors identified on maps
used by pilots as N571 and P628. These routes are taken by commercial
planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe and can
be found in public documents issued by regional aviation authorities.
In a far more detailed description of the military radar plotting than
has been publicly revealed, the first two sources said the last
confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 90 miles (144 km)
off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a
navigational waypoint called "Igari". The time was 1:21 a.m.
The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading
towards a waypoint called "Vampi", northeast of Indonesia's Aceh
province and a navigational point used for planes following route N571
to the Middle East.
From there, the plot indicates the plane flew towards a waypoint called
"Gival", south of the Thai island of Phuket, and was last plotted
heading northwest towards another waypoint called "Igrex", on route P628
that would take it over the Andaman Islands and which carriers use to
fly towards Europe.
The time was then 2:15 a.m. That's the same time given by the air force
chief on Wednesday, who gave no information on that plane's possible
direction.
The sources said Malaysia was requesting raw radar data from neighbors
Thailand, Indonesia and India, which has a naval base in the Andaman
Islands.
To me, this is beginning to sound like EgyptAir 990.
At 0147:55, the relief first officer stated, "Look, here's the new first officer's pen. Give it to him please. God spare you,"9
and, at 0147:58, someone responded, "yeah." At 0148:03, the command
captain stated, "Excuse me, [nickname for relief first officer], while I
take a quick trip to the toilet...before it gets crowded. While they
are eating, and I'll be back to you." While the command captain was
speaking, the relief first officer responded, "Go ahead please," and the
CVR recorded the sound of an electric seat motor as the captain
maneuvered to leave his seat and the cockpit. At 0148:18.55, the CVR
recorded a sound similar to the cockpit door operating. At 0148:30, about 11 seconds after the captain left the cockpit, the CVR recorded an unintelligible comment.10 Ten seconds later (about 0148:40), the relief first officer stated quietly, "I rely on God."11
There were no sounds or events recorded by the flight recorders that
would indicate that an airplane anomaly or other unusual circumstance
preceded the relief first officer's statement, "I rely on God." At
0149:18, the CVR recorded the sound of an electric seat motor. FDR data
indicated that, at 0149:45 (27 seconds later), the autopilot was
disconnected.12
Aside from the very slight movement of both elevators (the left
elevator moved from about a 0.7° to about a 0.5° nose-up deflection, and
the right elevator moved from about a 0.35° nose-up to about a 0.3°
nose-down deflection)13
and the airplane's corresponding slight nose-down pitch change, which
were recorded within the first second after autopilot disconnect, and a
very slow (0.5° per second) left roll rate, the airplane remained
essentially in level flight about FL 330 for about 8 seconds after the
autopilot was disconnected. At 0149:48, the relief first officer again
stated quietly, "I rely on God." At 0149:53, the throttle levers were
moved from their cruise power setting to idle, and, at 0149:54, the FDR
recorded an abrupt nose-down elevator movement and a very slight
movement of the inboard ailerons. Subsequently, the airplane began to
rapidly pitch nose down and descend. Between 0149:57 and 0150:05, the relief first officer quietly repeated, "I rely on God," seven additional times.14 During this time, as a result of the nose-down elevator movement, the airplane's load factor15 decreased from about 1 to about 0.2 G.16
Between 0150:04 and 0150:05 (about 10 to 11 seconds after the initial
nose-down movement of the elevators), the FDR recorded additional,
slightly larger inboard aileron movements, and the elevators started
moving further in the nose-down direction. Immediately after the FDR
recorded the increased nose-down elevator movement, the CVR recorded the
sounds of the captain asking loudly (beginning at 0150:06), "What's
happening? What's happening?," as he returned to the cockpit. The
airplane's load factor decreased further as a result of the increased
nose-down elevator deflection, reaching negative G loads (about -0.2 G)
between 0150:06 and 0150:07. During this time (and while the captain was
still speaking [at 0150:07]), the relief first officer stated for the
tenth time, "I rely on God." Additionally, the CVR transcript indicated
that beginning at 0150:07, the CVR recorded the "sound of numerous
thumps and clinks," which continued for about 15 seconds. According
to the CVR and FDR data, at 0150:08, as the airplane exceeded its
maximum operating airspeed (0.86 Mach), a master warning alarm began to
sound. (The warning continued until the FDR and CVR stopped recording at
0150:36.64 and 0150:38.47, respectively.)17
Also at 0150:08, the relief first officer stated quietly for the
eleventh and final time, "I rely on God," and the captain repeated his
question, "What's happening?" At 0150:15, the captain again asked,
"What's happening, [relief first officer's first name]? What's
happening?" At this time, as the airplane was descending through about
27,300 feet msl, the FDR recorded both elevator surfaces beginning to
move in the nose-up direction. Shortly thereafter, the airplane's rate
of descent began to decrease.18
At 0150:21, about 6 seconds after the airplane's rate of descent began
to decrease, the left and right elevator surfaces began to move in
opposite directions; the left surface continued to move in the nose-up
direction, and the right surface reversed its motion and moved in the
nose-down direction. The FDR data
indicated that the engine start lever switches for both engines moved
from the run to the cutoff position between 0150:21 and 0150:23.19
Between 0150:24 and 0150:27, the throttle levers moved from their idle
position to full throttle, the speedbrake handle moved to its fully
deployed position, and the left elevator surface moved from a 3º nose-up
to a 1º nose-up position, then back to a 3º nose-up position.20
During this time, the CVR recorded the captain asking, "What is this?
What is this? Did you shut the engine(s)?" Also, at 0150:26.55, the
captain stated, "Get away in the engines,"21 and, at 0150:28.85, the captain stated, "shut the engines." At 0150:29.66, the relief first officer stated, "It's shut." Between
0150:31 and 0150:37, the captain repeatedly stated, "Pull with me."
However, the FDR data indicated that the elevator surfaces remained in a
split condition (with the left surface commanding nose up and the right
surface commanding nose down) until the FDR and CVR stopped recording
at 0150:36.64 and 0150:38.47, respectively. (The last transponder
[secondary radar] return from the accident airplane was received at the
radar site at Nantucket, Massachusetts, at 0150:34.)22[Footnote links may not work. CiJ]
As
some of you may recall, after the NTSB investigation, the Egyptians
continued to deny that the co-pilot had committed suicide and would not
accept the NTSB report.
Could it be - that someone commandeered Malaysia Air 370 and crashed it somewhere where there is no radar? (EgyptAir 990 at least crashed where there was radar so it was found relatively quickly).
A Malaysia Airlines 777-200 that disappeared off Vietnamese controllers radar screens on Friday night may have tried to turn back to Kuala Lampur over the South China Sea.
A missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner may have turned back from its
scheduled route before vanishing from radar screens, military officers
said on Sunday, deepening the mystery surrounding the fate of the plane
and the 239 people aboard.
More than 36 hours after the last contact with Flight MH370, officials
said they were widening the search to cover vast swathes of sea around
Malaysia and off Vietnam, and were investigating at least two passengers
who may have been using false identity documents.
Despite dozens of military and civilians vessels and aircraft
criss-crossing waters to the east and west of Malaysia, no wreckage has
been found, although oil slicks have been reported in the sea south of
Vietnam.
"What we have done is actually look into the recording on the radar that
we have and we realized there is a possibility the aircraft did make a
turnback," Rodzali Daud, the Royal Malaysian Air Force chief, told
reporters at a news conference.
There were no reports of bad weather and no sign of why the Boeing
777-200ER disappeared about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur
bound for Beijing early on Saturday.
The plane may also have had four people - not two - traveling with false identities.
European officials said it appeared two people on board were using
stolen passports and Malaysian Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein
said authorities were also checking the identities of two other
passengers.
"All the four names are with me," said Hishamuddin, who is also defense
minister. "I have indicated to our intelligence agencies and I have also
spoken to international intelligence agencies for assistance."
Malaysia Airlines recently joined OneWorld, the consortium where I have my frequent flier miles. But I'm about as likely to use them as I am to use Qatar Airlines, which also recently joined.... And of course, no one is mentioning that Malaysia is a mostly-Muslim country whose former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, was an open and virulent anti-Semite. Just sayin'....
It's hard to believe that it was 40 years ago today that Sabena 571 was hijacked on its way from Vienna to Tel Aviv (Hat Tip: MFS - The Other News).
Within ten minutes of boarding the plane, the squad of elite commandos managed to kill the two male terrorists, arrest the two female terrorists, and neutralize the threat to the passengers. Nearly all civilians on board were unharmed, except for three, one of whom later died from her injuries. Among the commandos were Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu–both of whom eventually became Israeli prime ministers.
The surviving female terrorists were sentenced to life in Israeli prison, but were later released in the prisoner exchange deal following the 1982 Lebanon War.
...
The same airplane that was victim to the hijacking was flown for an additional five years before being sold to the Israeli Air Force (IAF). The IAF ended up using it to carry out spy missions.
On a personal note, I flew Sabena 571 to Israel six weeks later on a summer tour for teenagers. In retrospect, I'm amazed that my parents let me do it (or maybe they didn't realize which flight it was).
Iran claims to have foiled an attempt to hijack an Iran Air flight going from Tehran to Damascus on Saturday with several Iranian legislators on board. I sure hope they were able to foil it: the 'hijacker' was unarmed.
A man attempting to hijack a Syria-bound flight carrying a number of Iranian lawmakers was arrested on board, Iran's state radio reported Saturday.
Security guards on the Teheran-Damascus flight thwarted the attempt and arrested the suspect, the report said. No one was hurt.
The radio report said an unspecified number of Iranian lawmakers were on the plane en route to a parliamentary conference in Damascus. It did not provide further details.
The semi-official Fars news agency said the incident happened minutes before the Iran Air flight landed in the Syrian capital.
Fars quoted Iran Air spokesman Shahrokh Nushabadi as saying the suspect, who appeared to be mentally unstable, said he was intending to hijack the Airbus plane but that security guards arrested the unarmed man.
Iran's most powerful military force, the Revolutionary Guard, which is also responsible for air security, claimed in a statement late Saturday that the suspect was affiliated with an unspecified Iranian opposition group. It did not provide further details.
With what did he intend to hijack the plane? His teeth?
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
