As the world scrambles to
solve the frustrating puzzle of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370,
every possible motive is being looked at including terrorism, hijack and
suicide.
More chilling, though, is
a claim by an American expert that the plane’s disappearance could be part of a
suicide plot by a crew member. A top terrorism expert claimed that there was a
growing consensus that this was a suicide by the pilot or co-pilot.
They wanted to get as far
away and land in the farthest and deepest part of the ocean, said Rep Pete King
(R-LI), chair of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism
and Intelligence.
The scheme might have
hinged on the hope that family members could still collect life insurance on
the dead pilot or co-pilot. If they never find the plane, they can’t call it
suicide. Malaysian government did not
discount the possibility when asked about it.
It is also learnt that police are
delving into the behaviour patterns of the crew members in the days prior to
the flight. It is believed MH370 headed
south towards the Indian Ocean after its “turnback” as some of the deepest
spots of any ocean were to be found there. Experts expressed doubt that the
pilot and co-pilot were both in on the plan, one or the other would have to
somehow silence the other.
The plane’s sharp climb
to 45,000 feet, as recorded by Malaysian military radar, would probably have
“incapacitated” everyone outside the cockpit by rapidly reducing oxygen levels
in the cabin.
Meanwhile, police are
investigating the identity of a Malaysian pilot supposedly connected to a
convicted “British shoe bomber” and if he was connected to the missing MH370
aircraft.
Authorities are
reportedly investigating a possible terror plot in the case of the missing MH370
after an al-Qaeda informant told a court how a group of Malaysian men planned
to hijack a passenger jet.
A British-born Muslim, Saajid
Badat, who also happens to be the son-in-law of Osama Laden, told a New York
court that four or five Malaysian men had planned to use a bomb hidden in a
shoe to blow open the cockpit door of a passenger plane and hijack the flight.
Badat, who security
experts have labelled as "credible", told the court that he had met
the jihadists - including a pilot - in Afghanistan and had supplied them with a
shoe bomb.
“I gave one of my shoes
to the Malaysians. I think it was to access the cockpit.” The revelations come
just a day after Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak admitted that the Boeing
777's communications system had been switched off deliberately "by someone
on the plane.
“These spectaculars take
a long time in the planning,” said a British security source. Confirmation that
a missing Malaysian airliner was deliberately diverted suggests several
scenarios that have sharpened scrutiny of the passengers and cockpit crew, with
police reportedly searching the pilot's home.
Najib announced that satellite and radar data clearly indicated the plane's automated
communications had been disabled and the plane then turned away from its
intended path and flown on for hours.
“These movements are
consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," he said,
adding that investigators had consequently "refocused their investigation
into crew and passengers on board."
Since the September 11,
2001 terror attacks, the International Civil Airline Organisation has mandated
high security standards for plane cockpits. Cockpit doors -- reinforced to
withstand bullets -- must be locked from the inside before push off from the gate.
"So for me there's
only a few scenarios," said Paul Yap, an aviation lecturer at Temasek
Polytechnic in Singapore. "First the people involved in the deliberate
actions are the pilots, one of them or both of them in cahoots. Then we have a
scenario where terrorists make the pilots change course and switch off the
transponders under duress, maybe threatening to kill passengers," Yap
said.
The transponder of MH370
was switched off around the time analysts said it would have reached its
cruising altitude, when pilots often emerge to take a bathroom or coffee break.
The hijackers of the four
planes used in the 9/11 attacks turned off the transponders of three of the
jets. It was not clear if police have yet searched the homes of the other crew
on Flight MH370, including that of First Officer Fariq, 27. His record and
personal life have already come under scrutiny.
An Australian television
report broadcast an interview with a young South African woman who said Fariq
and another pilot colleague invited them into the cockpit of a flight he
co-piloted from Phuket, Thailand to Kuala Lumpur in 2011.
Since 9/11, passengers
have been prohibited from entering cockpits during a flight. Malaysia Airlines
has said it was "shocked" by the report, but that it could not verify
the claims.
The son of a high-ranking
official in the public works department of a Malaysian state, Fariq joined Malaysia
Airlines when he was 20. He is a mild-mannered "good boy" who
regularly visited his neighbourhood mosque outside Kuala Lumpur, said the
mosque's imam, or spiritual leader.
If hijackers are
suspected, then the glare of suspicion will fall again on two passengers who boarded
with stolen EU passports. Interpol had identified the two men as Iranians:
Seyed Mohammed Reza Delavar, who used a stolen Italian passport, and Pouria
Nourmohammadi, who used an Austrian one. Both passports had been stolen in
Thailand.
THEORY: Pilot suicide WHY:
While rare, there have been cases of pilots crashing planes to take their own
lives. In December 1997, a SilkAir Boeing 737 from Jakarta to Singapore plunged
into a river in Indonesia with the loss of 104 passengers and crew. US
investigators blamed pilot suicide.
EXPERT VIEW: A suicide
bid "is possible and if that's the case there might not be a lot of debris
because the plane would have come down in relative structural integrity",
said Terence Fan, aviation expert at Singapore Management University.
"The airplane is not
meant to float and if the airplane sinks in the water, water will go inside
because the door seals are not meant to seal water." Nothing has emerged
to suggest any serious psychological problems with either of the pilots who
were flying MH370.
Is hijacking a
possibility? Interpol's information
suggested the pair were "probably not terrorists", Noble said at the
time. Adam Dolnik, a professor of terrorism studies at the University of
Wollongong in Australia, said he still doubted that organised terrorism was
behind the Malaysian plane mystery.
While a group like
Al-Qaeda "would love to bring down an airliner", a Malaysia Airlines
plane made little sense as a target and the stolen passports had an
"amateurish" element, Dolnik said.
"Terrorists don't do
(hijackings), because the chances of success have gone down," he said,
citing the challenge of bringing weapons onto a plane and subduing other
passengers. There has been no indication yet of any possible terrorist
involvement. But some academics suggest the theory requires further
consideration.
"Investigations
should focus on criminal and terrorist motives," said Rohan Gunaratna, a
terrorism expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. "It is
likely that the aircraft was hijacked by a team knowledgeable about airport and
aircraft security. It is likely they are supported by a competent team from the
ground." Malaysia has not been the target of any notable terror attacks.
But terror analysts say it is home to several individuals alleged to be
operatives of militant Islamic groups such as the Al-Qaeda linked Jemaah
Islamiyah.
Most of the passengers on
the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight were Chinese nationals. China is
grappling with simmering anger among its Muslim ethnic Uighur minority in the
country's remote far west, many of whom openly complain of Chinese repression.
It has blamed Uighur
separatists for a string of violent incidents including a coordinated knife
attack in the south western city of Kunming on March 1 that left 29 people
dead. Malaysia has deported at least 17 Uighur Muslims who were travelling on
fake passports back to China since 2011.
As of now, the missing
MH370 remains mistery. -- Bloggers Note
