#MH370 "terror or suicide", the world tries to solve puzzle

 
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. “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.
12. “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.
13. 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.
14. “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."
15. 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.
16. "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.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. 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.
25. "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.
26. 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.
27. 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.
28. "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.
29. "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.
30. 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.
31. 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.
32. As of now, the missing MH370 remains mistery. -- Bloggers Note
 

MH370 may have stalked SIA flight to the north

1. A theory that lost flight MH370 could have stalked a Barcelona-bound Singapore Airlines flight undetected by radar has emerged from online research that mirrors the massive international search and rescue operations over the past 10 days.
2. The theory is consistent with a flight path along an arc that ends at the Caspian Sea in the north and southern Indian Ocean in the south now being searched by at least 26 nations.
3. Speculators have come up with a similar theory, saying whoever in control of the missing Boeing 777-200ER would just have to switch off all the plane's lights and follow the night to avoid visual contact.
4. Once the transponders are off and the lights are dimmed, Flight MH370 becomes a ghost flight in the night sky. It can follow other planes closely or fly below them without anyone knowing. It will know where the other planes are from the radio chatter.
5. A speculator suggested the theory that lost Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER had shadowed the Barcelona-bound SQ68 for most of the seven hours it remained in the air.
6. Incidentally, Flight SQ68 is a Boeing 777-300ER, a slightly longer version of the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet by 33 feet, and travelled near MH370 when it vanished from Malaysian military radar screens at 2.15am on March 8, 2014.
7. It's the early hours of the morning and without some warning, if a radar operator noticed two primary radar returns in the same area, but had a mode 3A/C response from the other plane, it probably wouldn't draw much attention. Mode 3/A is used to identify each aircraft in the radar's coverage area. Mode C is used to request/report an aircraft's altitude.
8. Piggybacking on SQ68. According to Singapore Airlines website, flight SQ68 was scheduled to leave the republic's Changi airport at 1.05am for Barcelona, some 25 minutes after MH370 flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on the other direction.
9. It looks like if MH370 turned after lost contact at 0130 and followed the track back over Malaysia and along the way points previously discussed, it would be in the position shown at 0215, which is 200NM NW of Penang.
10. This position is only about 30NM behind the 0215 position of SQ68 which is also a 777. If MH370 had followed SQ68 along a north-west path over India, which he speculated, the missing passenger jet would be near the SIA jetliner over Pakistan five hours from its last known position at 2.15am.
11. So, by closely following SQ68 at a similar altitude and speed, it's likely that any Indian radar operator would not notice or question two closely placed primary radar returns as long as he had the expected squawk from SQ68.
12. It came to the same conclusion that flight MH370 had flown to all the navigational waypoints disclosed by the Malaysian authorities until it was near the vicinity of SQ68 at about 2.15am.
13. It became apparent that when inspecting SQ68’s flight path history that MH370 had positioned itself directly behind the SIA plane "at approximately 18:00UTC and over the next 15 minutes had been following SIA68".
14. MH370 undetected without transponders. It is believed 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.
15. The SIA flight would not have detected the missing MH370 as "the Boeing 777 utilises a TCAS system for traffic avoidance; the system would ordinarily provide alerts and visualisation to pilots if another airplane was too close.
16. But 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.
17. In addition, the TCAS system on board 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.
18. While MH370 did not follow SQ68 to Spain, it would have broken free from the shadow of the larger SIA jetliner and "could have then flown a path to it’s final landing site "such as China's Xingjiang province, Kyrgyzstan, or Turkmenistan.
19. 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.
20. No sign of MH370. Central Asian neighbours Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan said yesterday that no unidentified planes had crossed their airspace on March 8, making it unlikely that the lost Malaysia Airlines passenger jet could have diverted along a northern route via Thailand, said a Reuters report. But the Malaysian national carrier's planes made nine regular flights to and from Europe over Kazakhstan's territory on March 8, officials said.
21. Aviation officials in Pakistan and India as well as Taliban militants in Afghanistan also told Reuters they knew nothing about the whereabouts of the missing plane after the search was extended into their territory from yesterday.
22. Malaysia has sent diplomatic notes to 14 nations requesting help for search and rescue operations, apart from radar and satellite intelligence, to piece together any trace of the missing wide-body plane.
23. The search for the missing jet, dubbed as an "unprecedented aviation mystery", continues today, some 240 hours after it vanished into thin air. -- Aviation Blogger

Millions track for MH370, floating suitcases found in Malacca

 
1. WASHINGTON: Three million people have joined an effort led by a satellite operator to locate the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, in what may be the largest crowd sourcing project of its kind.
2. The satellite firm DigitalGlobe said that its search area now has  some 24,000 square kilometres (9,000 square miles) and that more images are  being added daily, including a new area in the Indian Ocean.
3. The company said more than three million people have participated in the program, with some 257 million “map views” and 2.9 million areas “tagged” by participants.
4. DigitalGlobe activated its crowd sourcing platform called Tomnod on March 11, inviting the public to look at the imagery from its five high-definition satellites to help in the search.
5. The response was so great it overloaded the system’s computers for a time last week. The company uses an algorithm called CrowdRank to determine the most promising leads, paying close attention to overlap where people tagged the same location.
6. “DigitalGlobe’s expert analysts will examine the tags to identify the top 10 or so most notable areas and share the information with customers and authorities,” a statement said.
7. Although no definitive records are kept on crowd sourcing, this effort is likely one of the largest in history, and Digital Globe said it was bigger than the relief effort for Typhoon Haiyan last November in the Philippines.
8. “While this crowd sourced effort is unlikely to find the missing Malaysia Flight 370, it may help to identify where the aircraft is not located, thus saving critical time for the professional image analysts and responders.”  
9. Crowd sourcing may have helped responders in 2012 after Superstorm Sandy in the eastern US and was also used during the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake. But crowd sourcing also pointed in the wrong direction after last year’s Boston Marathon bombings. Effective use of crowdsourcing needs hefty computing power which can separate good leads from bad ones, and that this is improving. —AFP.
10. Meanwhile in Malacca Straits, a Greek petrochemical tank was asked to keep an eye out for ‘floating suitcases’ at the Straits of Malacca here yesterday. Elka Athina, a barge heading to Suez was alerted by Indonesian authorities over radio, warning them that they were ‘approaching a field of debris’. Several Greek news portals, Tovima and Times of Change were abuzz as sources from the barge alerted them over the apparent sighting. The portals reported several other barges passing the the busy straits were ‘rushed’ to a coordinate off Sumatran waters.
11. Another Greek portal published an audio interview with a first officer of the ship, claiming that it was steaming towards a ‘debrs zone’ in the northern waters of the Malacca Strait.
12. However, checks with online ship tracking websites revealed that the tanker had sailed passed the debris field at about 9.30pm (Malaysia Time). It is believed that authorities had red flagged a possible area in the straits after users of the map crowdsourcing site Tomnod have indicated a possible debris field in the Straits of Malacca.
13. A twitter user, Richard Barrow, posted a satellite image of ‘a potential crash site’ and ‘possible floating seats’ on the surface of the ocean at coordinate 5°39'08.0"N 98°50'38.0"E.
14. The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has come to a gruelling 10th day, with over 20 countries involved in the search of the missing aircraft which had deviated from its flight path last Saturday. It was carrying 239 people, and was heading to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
15. The search is now focused on two possible corridors, stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand; or Southern coordinator, stretching form Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, after satellites received pings from the aircraft, nearly six hours after it was reported to have disappeared.