Tracking firm: Plane missing about 50min after departure
PETALING JAYA: Sweden-based flight tracking service FlightRadar24 was
the first to report that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had disappeared
from radar about 50 minutes of departure, and not two hours as
initially stated.
"Flight #MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur at 1641 UTC time (12.41am local time) and disappeared from
www.flightradar24.com
at 1720 UTC time (about 1.21am local time) between Malaysia and
Vietnam," said the company’s chief executive officer Fredrik Lindahl in
an e-mail response to The Star.
Flight MH370, on a B777-200 aircraft, departed Kuala Lumpur at
12.41am on March 8. It was expected to land in Beijing at 6.30am the
same day.
"Also, based on our data, there is no doubt that the last reported
position of MH370 is about 150km northeast of Kuala Terengganu.
"We have good radar coverage in the area the flight went missing and
the last signal was received from an altitude of 35,000 feet," said
Lindahl.
MAS group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya had initially
said at a press conference at 11am yesterday that the Subang Air Traffic
Control had lost contact with the plane around 2.40am.
However, Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Datuk
Azharuddin Abdul Rahman clarified later in the evening that contact was
lost at 1.30am.
Meanwhile, aviation website The Aviation Herald stated that the plane
was last regularly seen at 1.22am about halfway between Kuala Lumpur
and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.
"The aircraft was spotted over the Gulf of Thailand about 260
nautical miles north northeast of Kuala Lumpur and 120 nautical miles
northeast of Kota Baru 50 minutes into the flight.
"This was followed by anomalies in the radar data of the aircraft
over the next minute. Although these may be related to the aircraft, it
could also be caused by the flight leaving the receiver range," it
stated.
The website also reported aviation sources in China as saying that
radar data suggested a steep and sudden descent of the flight, during
which time the aircraft had changed track from 24 degrees to 333
degrees.
- The Star/Asia News Network
No sign of Malaysia Airline wreckage; questions over stolen passports
Traces of oil may be clue in plane search
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: "We have not been able to locate anything," an airline official says
- U.S. law enforcement sources say both passports were stolen in Thailand
- One of the two stolen passports is listed in Interpol's database, sources say
- Vietnamese searchers spot oil slicks in the South China Sea
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- There were few
answers Sunday about the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a day
after contact was lost with the commercial jetliner en route from Kuala
Lumpur to Beijing.
An aerial search resumed
at first light, with aircraft searching an area of the South China Sea
for any sign of where the flight may have gone down, Azharuddin Abdul
Rahman, the director general of civil aviation in Malaysia, told
reporters
"We have not been able to locate anything, see anything," Rahman said. "There's nothing new to report."
The closest things to
clues in the search for the missing jetliner are oil slicks in the Gulf
of Thailand, about 90 miles south of Vietnam's Tho Chu Island -- the
same area where the flight disappeared from radar early Saturday
morning. A Vietnamese reconnaissance plane, part of a massive,
multinational search effort, spotted the oil slicks that stretch between
six and nine miles, the Vietnam government's official news agency
reported.
Malaysian authorities have not yet confirmed the Vietnamese report, Rahman said.
The reported oil
discovery has only added to a growing list of questions about the fate
of the plane carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members: What happened
to the plane, why was no distress signal issued, and who exactly was
aboard?
Passenger manifest questioned
Bits and pieces of information have begun to form, but it remains unclear how they fit into the bigger picture, if at all.
Photos: Malaysia airliner loses contact
Map: Malaysia airliner lost contact
Traces of oil may be clue in search
Quest: I flew with missing first officer
Quest: Odd to lose contact while cruising
For instance, after the airline released a manifest,
Austria denied that one of its citizens was aboard
the flight. The Austrian citizen was safe and sound, and his passport
had been stolen two years ago, Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Martin Weiss said.
Similarly, Italy's
foreign ministry confirmed none of its citizens were on Flight 370, even
though an Italian was listed on the manifest.
On Saturday, Italian
police visited the home of the parents of Luigi Maraldi, the man whose
name appeared on the manifest, to inform them about the missing flight,
said a police official in Cesena, in northern Italy.
Maraldi's father,
Walter, told police he had just spoken to his son, who was fine and not
on the missing flight, said the official, who is not authorized to speak
to the media. Maraldi was vacationing in Thailand, his father said.
The police official said
Maraldi had reported his passport stolen in Malaysia last August and
had obtained a new one. But U.S. law enforcement sources told CNN that
both the Austrian and Italian passports were stolen in Thailand.
"No nexus to terrorism yet," a U.S. intelligence official said, "although that's by no means definitive. We're still tracking."
Rahman, Malaysia's top
civil aviation official, declined to answer questions Sunday about the
stolen passports, and how people using them managed to get past security
and on to the plane.
"This is part of the investigation," Rahman said at a news conference.
The U.S. government has
been briefed on the stolen passports and reviewed the names of the
passengers in question but found nothing at this point to indicate foul
play, said a U.S. law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Of the two passports in
question, the Italian one had been reported stolen and was in Interpol's
database, CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Tom Fuentes said, citing sources
at Interpol.
Additionally, no inquiry
was made by Malaysia Airlines to determine if any passengers on the
flight were traveling on stolen passports, he said. Many airlines do not
check the database, he said.
During the news
conference in Kuala Lumpur, Rahman declined to say whether the airline
or Malaysian authorities had checked the database.
Not ruling anything out
Malaysian authorities reiterated during a news conference that they are not ruling anything out regarding the missing aircraft.
The Boeing 777-200ER
departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41 a.m. Saturday in
good weather, and it was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m., a
2,300-mile (3,700-kilometer) trip.
Air traffic controllers
in Subang, outside Kuala Lumpur, lost contact with the plane about 1:30
a.m., Rahman said. Earlier, the airline said the jetliner lost contact
at 2:40 a.m.
The pilots did not indicate to the tower there may be a problem, and no distress signal was issued, the airline said.
It may be days, possibly weeks or months, before authorities can offer any firm answers.
It took five days for
authorities to locate the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 when it
crashed June 1, 2009, in the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 on board.
It took four searches
over the course of nearly two years to locate the bulk of Flight 447's
wreckage and the majority of the bodies in a mountain range deep under
the ocean.
If Malaysia Airlines
Flight 370 went down in the Gulf of Thailand, the recovery may be a bit
easier because it is a relatively shallow area of the South China Sea,
according to marine officials.
China, Vietnam,
Singapore and Malaysia were conducting search and rescue operations
south of Tho Chu island in the South China Sea, according to the airline
and reports from Xinhua, China's official news agency. Ships,
helicopters and airplanes are being utilized.
The USS Pinckney, a
destroyer conducting training in the South China Sea, is being routed to
the southern Vietnamese coast to aid in the search, the U.S. Navy said.
The United States is also sending a P-3C Orion surveillance plane from
Japan to provide long-range search, radar and communications
capabilities, the Navy said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese
Coast Guard has ordered on-duty vessels to aid in the search, Xinhua
reported, citing government officials. China also sent a diving and
salvage team to the area where the airplane is suspected to have gone
down, the news agency reported.
Because of the Americans
aboard the flight, the FBI has offered to send a team of agents to
Malaysia to support the investigation into the disappearance if asked, a
U.S. official familiar with the issue told CNN on condition of
anonymity. Earlier, an official had said FBI agents were heading to the
area.
The FBI is not ruling out terrorism or any other issue as a possible cause in the jetliner's disappearance, the official said.
Officials appeared resigned to accepting the worst outcome.
"I'd just like to say
our thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families," Malaysian
Prime Minister Najib Razak said during a news conference.
Grief, especially in China
The plane carried 227
passengers, including five children under 5 years old, and 12 crew
members, the airline said. At the time of its disappearance, the
Malaysia Airlines plane was carrying about 7.5 hours of fuel, an airline
official said.
Among the passengers there were 154 people from China or Taiwan; 38 Malaysians, and three U.S. citizens.
Relatives of the Chinese
citizens on board gathered Saturday at a hotel complex in the Lido
district of Beijing as a large crowd of reporters gathered outside.
"My son was only 40 years old," one woman wailed as she was led inside. "My son, my son. What am I going to do?"
Family members were kept
in a hotel conference room, where media outlets had no access. Most of
the family members have so far refused to talk to reporters. The airline
said the public can call 603 7884 1234 for further information.
In Malaysia, the
families and loved ones of those aboard the flight were gathered at the
Everly Hotel in Putrajaya, south of Kuala Lumpur, according to Bernama,
the Malaysian national news agency.
Twenty of the passengers
aboard the flight work with Freescale Semiconductor, a company based in
Austin, Texas. The company said that 12 of the employees are from
Malaysia and eight are from China.
The airline's website said the flight was piloted by a veteran.
Capt. Zaharie Ahmad
Shah, a 53-year-old Malaysian, has 18,365 total flying hours and joined
Malaysia Airlines in 1981, the website said. The first officer is Fariq
Ab Hamid, 27, a Malaysian with a total of 2,763 flying hours. He joined
Malaysia Airlines in 2007.
Still an 'urgent need' to find plane
"The lack of
communications suggests to me that something most unfortunate has
happened," said Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S.
Department of Transportation, in an interview with CNN International.
"But that, of course,
does not mean that there are not many persons that need to be rescued
and secured. There's still a very urgent need to find that plane and to
render aid," she said.
Malaysia Airlines
operates in Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and
on the route between Europe and Australasia.
It has 15 Boeing 777-200ER planes in its fleet, CNN's Richard Quest reported. The missing airplane was delivered to Malaysia Airlines in 2002.
Part of the company is in the private sector, but the government owns most of it.
Malayan Airways Limited
began flying in 1937 as an air service between Penang and Singapore. A
decade later, it began flying commercially as the national airline.
In 1963, when Malaysia was formed, the airline was renamed Malaysian Airlines Limited.
Within 20 years, it had grown from a single aircraft operator into a company with 2,400 employees and a fleet operator.
If this aircraft has
crashed with a total loss, it would the deadliest aviation incident
since November 2001, when an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed in
Belle Harbor, Queens, shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport. Killed
were 265 people, including five people on the ground.
- Contributed by Chelsea J. Carter and Jim Clancy, CNN
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