Kuala Lumpur: The Chinese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur now says that the publication of satellite image was an ‘accident’ and was not endorsed by government, reports the Strait Times. Malaysian authorities now say that contact with the aircraft was lost after Malaysia air traffic control transferred control to their Vietnamese counterparts. Authorities also said that no distress signal was recorded at all from MH370.
Malaysia Airlines CEO has rubbished the report that the engines of MH37 continued to send data to Boeing even after it disappeared from the radar. No signals have been received from the missing MH370 aircraft since it disappeared, he said.
The Transport Minister says Malaysia has “nothing to hide” and all efforts are being made to find the missing aircraft, including sharing of raw radar data with the US and China. Hishammuddin also confirmed that police have not searched the homes of the pilots of MH370.
Malaysia Transport Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein terms reports of missing MH370 having flown for four hours from its last reports position as inaccurate. All leads are being investigated with the focus still remained South China Sea, adds Hishammuddin.3 Indian ships and one aircraft to join search for missing Malaysia Airlines MH370.
The WSJ report on the missing plane MH370 having flow close to four hours after it went off the radar has opened up new possibilities on its fate. A four hour journey – at air speed of 480 knots – from its last reported location over South China Sea, theoretically, can take the plane as far as 2,200 nautical miles or 4000 kilometres.
Perth in Australia, most locations in India including New Delhi, South Korea and Japan borders, even Pakistan can be reached within that distance. Also, the plane could have gone as far as Beijing – its scheduled destination – within mainland China. India’s defence ministry has instructed the joint command on the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands to deploy ships, aircraft and helicopters to search for MH370, a command spokesman Harmeet Singh said.
The Royal Malaysia Police has denied that it is focusing the probe on one of the MH370 crew members and a Chinese national of Uighur descent, Malaysian daily The Star reported. The Wall Street Journal has quoted US investigators as saying that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane flew for four hours after the Air Traffic Control lost contact with it. The reports says the Boeing 777 had continued to send data on engine performance to its maker Rolls-Royce long after the the plane went ‘missing’.
Malaysia’s civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman says no plane debris has been found at the spot identified in Chinese satellite images. Vietnamese authorities have also said that they too had thoroughly searched the area but found no trace of the missing plane. Five days have passed since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went off the radar over South China Sea and the world is yet to know the fate of the 236 souls on board the plane to Beijing.
While it’ is debatable whether China would remain unaware, this long, of the reasons behind a incident of such magnitude in its strategic backyard, Beijing has now put the onus on Malaysia to come clean on the issue and present “all information available”. China has reasons to be annoyed as 154 of the 227 passengers are Chinese, putting the government under pressure to seek answers from Malaysia.
We have send requests to the Malaysian side through diplomatic channels, asking them to check up on rumours right away and inform China of all information available,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement.
A Malaysian military official had said the missing flight may have changed route and turned back from its scheduled course before disappearing last Saturday. Later, Malaysia Air Force Chief Rodzali Daud confirmed the change in flight path and said a “blip” detected on the military radar over the Straits of Malacca may have been the missing flight MH370.
The big question is whether Malaysia is indeed suppressing information? If yes, then the bigger question is why it is doing so? Malaysia has so far denied presence of any clue to classify the disappearance as an act of terrorism and cleared two Iranians who travelled by stolen Italian and Austrian passports. The search area was extended to waters around Andaman Islands with tens of ships, aircraft and satellites on the lookout for any signs of the Malaysia Airlines plane.
Bureau Report
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