KUALA LUMPUR: Even as Putrajaya changed yesterday the final words of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 to “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”, local investigators say the plane’s deviation from its original path is considered a “criminal act” either by the pilots, or by someone else on board.
According to a report on CNN today, this was disclosed to the news channel by a “Malaysian government source” — which suggests a possible sinister reason behind the aircraft’s mysterious disappearance more than three weeks ago.
The CNN report also said that in a background briefing on the incident to the news channel, local investigators repeated that MH370 had been flown hundreds of miles off-course by someone with “good flying knowledge of the aircraft”.
It was concluded on March 15 — one week after MH370 left radar screens on March 8 — that the aircraft’s diverted flight path was the result of “deliberate action” by someone on board the plane with aviation knowledge and experience.
Since then, the final words that came from the cockpit, which are believed to have been uttered by co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid, has become the subject of much scrutiny. Fariq, and flight captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, became central to investigations surrounding the reason that MH370 was taken off its original flight path to Beijing.
But no leads have emerged to prove any criminal element behind MH370’s surprising air turnback. The plane was meant to fly to Beijing but turned in mid-air after flying for nearly an hour and headed in a westerly direction towards the Straits of Malacca before it headed south to the Indian Ocean, according to satellite and radar data.
Late last night, the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) was forced to clarify that the final words transmitted from MH370’s cockpit before the aircraft went missing was “Good night Malaysian three seven zero” instead of the “Alright, good night” as previously claimed.
According to CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo, the corrected words are standard aviation cockpit sign-offs — unlike the more ominous “Alright, good night” — and does not suggest that anything untoward occurred inside the aircraft before it disappeared.
A voice stress analysis of MH370’s final radio transmission has also indicated that the speaker was not under duress, according to a report by China-based CCTV yesterday.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe on Zaharie’s flight simulator and hard drives belonging to him and co-pilot Fariq has also not yielded anything suspicious so far.
According to CNN’s report today, a senior Malaysian government official told CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes last week that the authorities have found nothing about both pilots that points to any motive, be it extremist, suicidal or political.
Malaysia announced on March 15 that MH370 was diverted from its path to Beijing through deliberate action and that it was now focusing investigations on the 12 crew and 227 passengers on board.
The widebody plane carrying 239 people was originally meant to fly to Beijing when it left Kuala Lumpur on the morning of March 8 but according to satellite data and radar readings, MH370 veered westwards after it lost contact with ground control and is now believed to be in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Perth, Australia.
Investigators have so far said all 227 passengers were cleared by intelligence agencies from all countries whose nationals were on board, except for Russia that had yet to produce any information.
The international search for the missing Boeing 777-200ER jet is a race against time as its black box signal is due to die out on April 7, 30 days after the plane disappeared from civilian radar on March 8.
Searchers have yet to recover any plane debris since Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, citing satelite data, announced on March 24 that MH370 had ended somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia.
-The Malay Mail
boeing 777 Latest News malaysia airlines flight 370 Malaysia News MH370 Politik Putrajaya