“The discovery raises fears of a possible link between Captain Zaharie, 53, and terror groups whose members routinely use untraceable SIM cards.” However, like everything else surrounding this plane’s disappearance and the subsequent investigation, it is inconclusive.
“Police hunt mystery woman who made final phone call to doomed jet captain as first picture emerges of his estranged wife and family,” by Simon Parry for the Daily Mail, March 23 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
The captain of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 received a two-minute call shortly before take-off from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity.
It was one of the last calls made to or from the mobile of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah in the hours before his Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur 16 days ago.
Investigators are treating it as potentially significant because anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card in Malaysia has to fill out a form giving their identity card or passport number.
Introduced as an anti-terrorism measure following 9/11, this ensures that every number is registered to a traceable person.
But in this case police traced the number to a shop selling SIM cards in Kuala Lumpur.
They found that it had been bought ‘very recently’ by someone who gave a woman’s name – but was using a false identity.
The discovery raises fears of a possible link between Captain Zaharie, 53, and terror groups whose members routinely use untraceable SIM cards.
Everyone else who spoke to the pilot on his phone in the hours before the flight took off has already been interviewed.
Today, planes and ships were scrambled to find a pallet and other debris in a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean as the search resumed for the missing jet.
The pallet was spotted by a search plane yesterday, but has not been closely examined. Wooden pallets are commonly used in shipping, but can also be used in cargo containers carried on planes.
It was the latest in a series of clues experts and searchers are trying to pin down to solve the mystery of what happened to Flight 370 when it disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board.
In a separate development, The Mail on Sunday has learned that investigators are now poised to question Captain Shah’s estranged wife in detail.
They have waited two weeks out of respect, but will now begin formally interviewing Faizah Khan following pressure from FBI agents assisting the inquiry.
Although the couple – who have three children – were separated, they had been living under the same roof.
A source said: ‘Faizah has been spoken to gently by officers but she has not been questioned in detail to establish her husband’s behaviour and state of mind in the days leading to the incident.
‘This is partly for cultural reasons. It is not considered appropriate in Malaysia to subject people in situations of terrible bereavement to the stress of intensive questioning.’
The softly-softly approach has been challenged by the team of FBI agents working with Malaysian police. They have pointed out that she may hold ‘vital clues and information’ to Zaharie’s mental state.
‘The whole world is looking for this missing plane and the person who arguably knows most about the state of mind of the man who captained the plane is being left alone,’ said a source close to the FBI team.
The source added: ‘If we want to eliminate the chief pilot from the inquiry, we must interview her in detail to find out what his state of mind was.’
The mystery caller emerged when Malaysian investigators examined the phone records of both Zaharie and his co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid.
Investigators were keen to trace the caller and interview them, although they have stressed that the fact the SIM card was registered to a non-existent ID card does not necessarily indicate a criminal or terrorist connection.
Political activists in Malaysia sometimes use SIM cards bought with bogus identity cards if they fear that their phones may be bugged by the country’s authoritarian ruling party.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that Zaharie is an avid supporter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, a distant relative, and may have attended a controversial court hearing where Anwar was jailed for five years. It took place only a few hours before the flight.
The timing of the call has intensified scrutiny on Zaharie as investigators struggle to establish whether the cockpit crew, a catastrophic accident or hijackers are to blame for Flight MH370’s disappearance.
Meanwhile FBI experts in the US are continuing to examine the hard drive of a flight simulator seized from Zaharie’s home after it emerged that programs he used on it had been deleted.
Zaharie used the home flight simulator to practise extreme landings, including on remote Indian Ocean islands such as the US air base in Diego Garcia, investigators have revealed.
The hard drive was flown to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, at the end of last week after Malaysian investigators failed to retrieve the deleted files, which they suspect may have been ‘buried’ in an elaborate process to cover the user’s tracks.
The delay in handing the computer hard drive to the FBI has proved to be a source of friction between the Malaysian and US investigators, the source close to the FBI said, adding: ‘We have the technology to do this work quickly and effectively and they simply don’t.’
Malaysia’s acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein yesterday said investigators are coming under increasing pressure as they are aware that time is running out – the black box voice and data recorder only transmits an electronic signal for about 30 days before its battery runs out.
But he claimed a thorough investigation of the plane’s cargo manifest had not shown ‘any link to anything that may have contribution to the plane’s disappearance’.
miriam rove says
weather this pilot had anything to do with this plane, the Islamic Malaysian government is doing what Islam is telling them to: lies, deceptions and with holding information.m
umbra says
Lying is a primal trait of the Malaysian government. But then again, so is incompetence. The authorities in malaysia appear not to know what is going on (in all likelihood, they are completely lost) in this situation. On the rare occasions where they do know what is going on (in similar situations), they often do not know what to do.
Bob Smith says
“It is not considered appropriate in Malaysia to subject people in situations of terrible bereavement to the stress of intensive questioning”
How very convenient for Muslim terrorists that their families won’t be questioned. Also, who knows what Malaysian authorities, who are as infilitrated by Islamic terror cells as the Pakistani ISI is, did to that hard drive before handing it over to infidel authorities.
Brian C. Hoff says
Robert Intelligent Agency and other secert group like the Mason use those kind of cards rotine. This might be than secert worldwide effort to question afew chinese scientists on board that flight and the China Government is going along with it for they reason.
gravenimage says
Well, “DefenderofIslam”, *that* sounds plausible…sarc/off
Islofob IS-1 says
This whole event should be viewed as a direct threat to the U.S.
Assume the worst, and start from that point. Every 777 that is to fly into the U.S. from another country must first report before it flys, and must be searched before it is cleared into our airspace. Anything out of place, or odd, will ground the flight until it clears.
We know what plane is missing, start from there. If a crash site is found, no harm is done in the readiness. If not, well …
And Israel is way ahead again, they know what to do.
Brian C. Hoff says
The plane landed at the USA secret Base in the India Ocean on than island off the coast of India. They will find wreakly to hide the truth from the world.
gravenimage says
I see—where do you get your information, “DefenderofIslam”?
Rezali Mehil says
Hello all,
I think at this point it is wrong to blame the muslim pilot until something underhand is found.
I saw this poor woman on TV today saying that she had lost 3 generations of her family…Allah SWT that is unthinkable …a death sentence whilst alive.
A muslim simply would not be responsible for that…
My heart goes out to all who lost friends and relatives…
May the grace of Allah SWT be upon them.
I cannot write anymore at the moment …it’s all too sad.
More Later…
Rezalil
Jan says
The terminally stupid ‘rezali’ pops into JW to again defecate some words of ‘wisdom’, merely proving, yet again, how vile and evil islam is.
“A muslim simply would not be responsible for that …”
Shreiks ! (Of laughter).
You purport to be a shiite, don’t you ? What’s happening in Syria ? In Iraq ? 🙂 🙂
But I do hope you all carry on ! 🙂
Rezali Mehil says
Hello Jan,
Long time no hear ….how and where have you been? Not by chance on a holiday to Malaysia and then onto China to teach them English?
No…thought not….too much for your old frame….BTW are you retiring?
When is the party?
More Later ….
Rezali
Jan says
Hey, ‘rezali’ !
How’s the beard ?
I hope you’re keeping hairless and smooth that bit “under the nose, and above the top lip”, which is, believe it or not, the *same* place !
By the way, was it you who called that FGM helpline, to order a mutilation for your daughter, granddaughter, niece ?
Betcha …
More later, chumbawumba !
gravenimage says
The grotesque Rezali Mehil wrote:
Hello all,
I think at this point it is wrong to blame the muslim pilot until something underhand is found.
……………………………….
The Malaysian authorities have just acknowledged that the pilot was responsible.
More:
I saw this poor woman on TV today saying that she had lost 3 generations of her family…Allah SWT that is unthinkable …a death sentence whilst alive.
……………………………….
But if she was an Infidel you would not care, and if she is a Muslimah and this was Jihad, then all her relatives as Islam sees it go to paradise.
More:
A muslim simply would not be responsible for that…
……………………………….
This is just grimly laughable. Pious Muslims *regularly* slaughter innocent people, as we see by just picking up the paper every day.
Right now, the number of Jihad attacks just since 9/11 is up to 22,684. Most of these attacks have multiple victims.
How can you say such a thing with a straight face? Certainly, the savvy Infidels here at Jihad Watch are not buying it.
joeb says
The UK Telegraph reports today comments from Malaysia Airlines about evidence now pointing to a suicide mission:
“this has been a deliberate act by someone on board who had to have had the detailed knowledge to do what was done … Nothing is emerging that points to motive.”
This is why I have never and never will fly on an islamic country’s airline – there is no way of knowing when a pilot will turn from being a so-called “moderate” muslim, to a jihadist. And all the security on the planet can’t stop it from happening. Ever.
David says
Here’s the article Joeb. The Telegraph are calling it suicide, I’m calling it jihad by the Muslim pilot like you.
MH370 crashed in ‘suicide mission’, Britain’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper reports
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/mh370-crashed-in-suicide-mission-britains-the-daily-telegraph-newspaper-reports-20140325-hvmf1.html#ixzz2wxU6Qucj
Buraq says
@ Rezali, the benighted bint.
Muslim pilots. Tons of flying hours and experienced. Super-reliable infidel designed plane with near immaculate record. But plane crashes into the sea with full load of passengers more than 1,000 nautical miles from land.
Now. let’s see …………sheer accident, deliberate, sheer accident, deliberate, she loves me, she loves me not, ……..
You’re a baggy-trousered, red-nosed, wire-wigged clown! Begone!