Mainstream media stories are all reporting that Fariq Abdul Hamid was “religious” as if that were an indication that he couldn’t have been involved in the plane’s disappearance. The fact that Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Feisal Shahzad and Abdulhakim Mujaid Muhammad and John Walker Lindh and Adam Gadahn and a host of other Islamic jihadists living and dead were or are “religious” never seems to occur to these “journalists” — or maybe they just don’t want it to occur to you.
“Missing flight’s co-pilot was religious, not reckless: family,” by Niluksi Koswanage for Reuters, March 14:
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Friends and family of the co-pilot who flew the missing Malaysia Airlines jet said the 27-year-old was religious and serious about his career, countering news reports suggesting he was a cockpit Romeo who was reckless on the job.
Fariq Abdul Hamid, who joined the national flag carrier in 2007, was helping to fly the Boeing 777 whose disappearance on Saturday has turned into one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
There has been no trace of the plane carrying 239 people nor any sign of wreckage as the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries scour the seas across Southeast Asia.
Australian media reported that Fariq and a pilot invited two women to join them in the cockpit on a flight from Thailand to Malaysia in 2011, where he smoked and flirted with them.
Jonti Roos, a South African living in Melbourne, confirmed to Reuters that the incident took place but said she did not feel that Fariq behaved irresponsibly.
Malaysia Airlines said it was shocked by the allegations in the report, which was based on photos of the apparent cockpit meeting and an interview with Roos.
Smoking has been banned on almost all commercial flights since the late 1990s. Cockpit doors have been reinforced since the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington and passengers have largely been barred from entering the cockpit during the flight since then.
The report also angered some of Fariq’s friends, some of whom took to social media to rebut the report first aired by Australian Channel Nine’s A Current Affair program.
Fariq, first officer of Flight MH370, had clocked a relatively few 2,700 hours of flying.
He had wanted to become a pilot from his school days, said a relative who asked not to be identified.
“He is a good student. He worked very hard to get where he was. His parents are so proud of him,” said the relative, who had visited Fariq’s family home for prayers in the outskirts of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
Fariq and his family are Muslims, like a majority of people in the Southeast Asian nation….
“Malaysian jet mystery: Last words from Malaysia plane believed from co-pilot: airline,” from Gulf News, March 17:
KUALA LUMPUR: The last words spoken from the cockpit of the Malaysian passenger jet that went missing 10 days ago were believed to have been spoken by the co-pilot, the airline’s top executive said Monday.
“Initial investigations indicate it was the co-pilot who basically spoke,” Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told a news briefing.
The last message from the cockpit – “All right, good night” – came around the time that two of the missing plane’s crucial signalling systems were switched off.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and his first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid have become a primary focus of the investigation into the fate of Flight 370, with one of the key questions being who was controlling the aircraft when the communications systems were disabled.
The last signal from the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was received 12 minutes before the co-pilot’s seemingly nonchalant final words.
ACARS transmits key information on a plane’s condition to the ground.
The plane’s transponder – which relays radar information on the plane’s location – was switched off just two minutes after the voice message….