MI6, the CIA and Chinese intelligence are involved in the search. But there is still nothing conclusive. The jihadist Saajid Badat said that the pilot was involved, but he was speculating just like everyone else.
“Search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane: is this the wreckage of flight MH370?,” by Robert Mendick for the Telegraph, March 30 (thanks to Kenneth):
British secret services are investigating the disappearance of Flight MH370, Malaysia’s transport minister said on Saturday. The disclosure that MI6 as well as the CIA are assisting the Malaysian authorities will fuel renewed speculation the aircraft was hijacked by terrorists.
Last night, hope was growing among the search teams that a part of the wreckage might finally have been found, three weeks after the plane vanished.
A photograph of an object floating in the southern Indian Ocean was taken by a Royal New Zealand Air Force plane which has been combing the seas for clues. Ships have been despatched to try to reach the object even as one expert cautioned it could part of the equipment found on-board a shipping trawler.
The New Zealand image followed a few hours after Chinese and Australian teams reported seeing possible debris from the plane in the same area.
Until now, all possible debris have proved to be unconnected to the missing passenger jet.
As the reports emerged last night attention turned again to what might have caused the plane to vanish.
Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s acting transport minister, said yesterday that MI6 and the CIA are working with Chinese spy agencies in determining what happened to the Boeing 777 and the 239 passengers and crew on-board.
Yesterday Mr Hishammuddin stopped short of plumping for one theory over any other. He said that MH370’s disappearance was due to “terrorism, hijacking, personal and psychological problems, or technical failure”.
“These scenarios have been discussed at length with different intelligence agencies,” he said. “When all the agencies are comfortable in what is able to be released is public, it is for the [Malaysian] chief of police to do that.”
Crash investigators believe the disappearance of the plane – and the decision to disable the communications system – appears to have been a deliberate action but have found no evidence of a motive.
MI6 is understood to have assisted with extensive background checks on each of the 239 passengers and crew aboard the plane but nothing suspicious has emerged.
Mr Hishammuddin said MI6 has also been involved in examining ‘pings’ emitted by the plane which are being used to try to locate its route during the seven hours after its communications systems were disabled.
“Now that we are talking about satellite data and imagery, the CIA has been on board, Chinese intelligence has been on board, MI6 has been on board,” Mr Hishammuddin said.
The Malaysia Airlines flight vanished off radar screens en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing more than three weeks ago. Speculation has been rife as to the cause of its disappearance but an explanation has so far proved elusive.
The plane turned wildly off course, its communications systems were ‘deliberately’ disconnected and then it carried on flying south over the Indian Ocean. It is thought to have crashed into the sea off the coast of Australia after running out of fuel.
The suggestion that intelligence agencies are involved will renew speculation its disappearance was a criminal act rather than a mechanical failure.
A fortnight ago the Sunday Telegraph disclosed that an al-Qaeda supergrass had previously warned secret services that four to five Malaysian men had been planning to take control of a plane, using a bomb hidden in a shoe to blow open the cockpit door.
The terror plot was hatched, said the supergrass, in an Afghan terror training camp by the mastermind behind the 9/11 attack on America.
The Malaysian police investigation has centred largely on the actions of MH370’s pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, but an examination of a flight simulator seized from his home has uncovered “nothing sinister,” Mr Hishammuddin said.
Zaharie, 53, a father of three and veteran pilot, used the simulator to play three flying games.
The different theories have done nothing to ease the anguish of families. The possibility the plane was seized by jihadi terrorists was raised after it emerged that Saajid Badat, a British-born Muslim from Gloucester, said that he had been instructed at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan to give a shoe bomb to the Malaysians at the terror camp.
Giving evidence earlier this month at the trial in New York of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Badat said: “I gave one of my shoes to the Malaysians. I think it was to access the cockpit.”
Badat, who spoke via video link and is in hiding in the UK, said the Malaysian plot was masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of 9/11.
According to Badat, Mohammed kept a list of the world’s tallest buildings and crossed out New York’s Twin Towers after the September 11, 2001 attacks with hijacked airliners as “a joke to make us laugh”.
Badat told the court that he believed the Malaysians, including the pilot, were “ready to perform an act.”
During the meeting, the possibility was raised that the cockpit door might be locked. Badat told the court: “So I said, ‘How about I give you one of my bombs to open a cockpit door?’ ” The disclosure that Malaysians were plotting a 9/11-style attack raises the prospect that both pilots were overpowered and the plane intended for use as a fuel-filled bomb. One possible target, if the scenario is correct, will have been the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, a symbol of Malaysia’s modernity and the world’s tallest buildings from 1998 until 2004….
Stephen Poole says
… That Malay plane is on the ground somewhere, and, I’ve said this/that before … Just sayin’ again … Bein’ the intellectual moron that I am … SP OX …
Stephen Poole says
… Commenting on my own comment … All o’ the seats float … That means that there’s @ least 239 airplane seats floatin’ out there, somewhere … Can it be that hard ?? … I would think not … But, I’m an intellectual moron don’t forget … SP OX …
helmut says
Strange. Dont know how to think of this one. But the terror connection is a very disturbing coincidence. The events are more in keeping with terrorist actions than mechanical failure unless this sort of thing happens and we dont dont hear of it because this is just the first one to crash as a result. First the pilot sais “good night” and then flies out into the ocean, maybe unable to navigate. It just seems too strange to give up the suspicion of a terrorist plan gone awry or maybe as intended.
Stephen Poole says
… Or a suicide attack that killed 238 people … Thanks, helmut … I did not Think that anyone else was listening … SP OX …
Stephen Poole says
… Being the intellectual moron that I am … … Mort ?? … JayBoo ?? … Mirren10 ?? … MRove ?? … ibn Muslim ?? … Wellington ?? … Anybody ?? … SP OX …
Stephen Poole says
… Puttin’ my PJ’s on right now, PJ … It’s 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time where I live in Canada right now … Anything that I can get for you, PJ ?? … And, 5:00 AM comes @ 5:00 AM here, everyday … … Plus, they’re searchin’ for that Malay plane whilst I’m sleepin’ ’cause its pretty-much on the other side of the world … Any new news comes to me by 6:00 AM EST … Just sayin’ … And, I’m just a moron, PJ … Intellect has no thing (… blank intended …) ta do with it … Take care, PJ … SP OX … …
Stephen Poole says
… That would be Eastern Daylight Time, on both counts … TC PJ … SP OX …
Annie Oakley says
If the plane didn’t crash, there’s really only one scenario left. The plane was hijacked, has landed somewhere, been hidden from public and satellite view, and ALL sources of power to those engines has been shut down. The only way that could be done is with the cooperation of a regional military power with a hangar big enough to park the plane in.
Speculation as to what was planned for the plane? The plane was to be stripped of its paint and repainted in some other airline’s colors. The reason? Terrorism…most likely a dirty bomb. Something that would have a long-lasting effect…hundreds or thousands of years. Put radioactive waste on board, send it to a target and hope that the new paint job will keep it from being shot down in time. The radiation source could be something commonly available (especially with military/government collusion), like radiation sources from hospital x-ray machines, radiation sources used to x-ray bridges, waste from nuclear reactors, etc. It isn’t that hard to get this stuff in many parts of the world. In some countries, x-ray machines are tossed into garbage dumps with the radiation sources still in them. And wasn’t there a high-level radiation source inside a vehicle that was stolen in the last year or so in Mexico….where the Iranians seem to be involved in schooling the drug gangs in terror methods?
Current outlook…those responsible for the disappearance may not have been aware of the engines continuous, autonomous attempts to communicate on their own with their maker (Rolls Royce, IIRC) via satellite. The constant PINGing (PING = Packet INternet Grope = one computer saying “Hello, is there another computer out there for me to talk to?”) may have been an unexpected monkey wrench in their plans. They may have believed that disabling the traditional communications would have allowed the plane to disappear from view. Now they have a real problem on their hands. The plane is unusable as a terror weapon because as soon as those engines are powered up, they will again start trying to contact their maker. And you know that Rolls Royce has records of which engines were in that particular plane.
So if the plane didn’t crash, the solutions for the terrorists are limited. They have a very large airplane and a bunch of hostages (or dead bodies) on their hands. They can obtain different engines and swap them out for the original engines, hoping that no one at Rolls Royce will figure it out in time to get the plane shot down, OR, they can execute all remaining hostages, dismantle the plane and literally melt down, burn or bury the plane. The bodies of any hostages will also have to be completely destroyed.
Sadly, it’s safe to assume that the hostages are already dead. I can’t see a terror operation on this scale being put at risk for whatever ransom money that the families might be able to scrape up. Even if the hostages were told that they would be ransomed, I’m sure they’ve figured it out by now and they know they are Dead Men Walking. When you have close to 300 people who have nothing left to lose and are only staring at their own certain deaths, they will become particularly difficult to keep confined. Even if they aren’t dead now, what nation would risk the loss of an entire city to save a few hundred people who are going to die when the plane is crashed anyway?
The maddening question is which foreign government(s) have cooperated in this plot, and why? I find the behavior of the Malaysian government highly suspicious and secretive on this matter, but I don’t know why. I also think the Iranians are involved (which again links to the theft of the Mexican truck carrying a radiation source) because the men with the stolen passports (the men who are identical from the waist down) had their tickets purchased in cash by an Iranian man.
Stephen Poole says
Annie Oakley … … A Canadian !! aviation expert said that if that Malay plane was flyin’ close enough to another plane it would not have been picked-up by radar … Or, they had a catastrophic failure and headed for the closest landing strip (… @ Point Blair …) … If the latter, the wreckage should be close by … If the former, there is no wreckage … … Almost 1 month of searching, plus !!, all of the irrelevant leads … … I’m not a gamblin’ man, AO … MH370 is intact somewhere … Possibly only in my Mind, since I am such an intellectual moron … TC AO … SP OX …
mortimer says
Without any flotsam, it’s impossible to say where the jet went. And if you keep throwing mud at yourself, some of it will stick.
Stephen Poole says
… Technically that would be jetsam, Mort … Just sayin’ … SP OX … PS : As an IMoron this site is still under a DDOS attack … … Plus, mud washes off … …
mortimer says
Iran.
Stephen Poole says
… Duly noted, Mort … OX …
Annie Oakley says
The problem I see with trying to sneak a 777 in behind another aircraft is the size & speed of the aircraft involved. The lead aircraft would have to be roughly the same size or larger than a 777.
I believe that most airliners have collision avoidance alarms that alert them when another aircraft is close by. Aircraft are separated by different amounts of vertical space depending on the flight level they are at. Below a certain altitude, 1000 feet of vertical separation is required. At higher altitudes, 2000 vertical feet is required. Because this is standard operating procedure, anything within about 500 feet vertically would probably be setting off proximity alarms in the lead aircraft and they would be informing air traffic control, wanting to know who was encroaching on them. I don’t know what horizontal distance would be involved, but to hide a 777 in the radar shadow of another (large) plane would require a very close distance, too, which would also be setting off proximity alarms. And this still doesn’t explain how a 777 could appear out of nowhere, catch up with, and start drafting in the shadow of another civilian jetliner without being noticed by someone at a radar screen. So now we should believe that air traffic control and a random, passing jet were also in cahoots with whoever was flying the Malaysian 777? Well, nothing is impossible (except skiing through a revolving door), but the more people you try to involve in this conspiracy, the less likely it is to be successful. Simpler plots are less likely to go wrong.
Another thing that points to this aircraft being safely on the ground somewhere is that we still have no report of anyone hearing the Emergency Locator Transmitter going off, and an impact with the water at passenger jet speed (even at near the stall speed) should have been hard enough to set off the ELT. This was open ocean, not the nice, smooth, Hudson River. You take a helluva lick going into rough water. Even if the plane sank or disintegrated on impact, someone should have heard a few yelps from the ELT before it sank out of range.
BTW, no disrespect is meant toward CPT Sully. He did a helluva job…one that I simply don’t have the skill to do (and never will). It’s just a comment that the smoother the water surface, the less likely that an ELT will be knocked around hard enough to start wailing. I see virtually no chance of an open ocean landing being smooth enough to avoid setting off the ELT.
Carmine Fragione says
Perhaps, the plane never went off course, but was made to seem it did, and it flew to Viet Nam, took on fuel and took off for Iran. Iran has a motive, to pay for a hijacking and so the flight MH370 was Shanghaied. Aboard were technical experts of Freescale, the Texas subsidiary of Motorola Corp and they made all the Drone Stealth Tech gear that the Iranians captured in downed drones, and thus the flight could be connected to an attempt to use spyware and drone tech , to launch an attack from Iran against targets ranging from Israel, to Vatican to New York City . And the stolen Boeing 777 can be refitted with stealthy computer gear, the ability to confuse say the French Aviation Controllers, to permit a flight over Europe , over the Arctic Circle to Canada and then playing a chameleon game of misidentifying as some sort of U.S. military plane, using the stolen computer systems to fool U.S. Aviation ground control long enough for the then rogue flight over Canada, going over into U.S. airspace to reach NYC. If so, then a detonation of a EMP bomb, seems to resemble the great fear that President Obama said at the Hague, he is more worried about a nuclear bomb going off in Manhattan , then what is going on in Ukraine by Russian Troops. etc.
fair_dinkum says
“The disclosure that Malaysians were plotting a 9/11-style attack raises the prospect that both pilots were overpowered and the plane intended for use as a fuel-filled bomb. One possible target, if the scenario is correct, will have been the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, a symbol of Malaysia’s modernity”
i wonder why then, it looks like its crashed thousands of miles south of those towers… south and west. ?
statistically it will be a moslem terrorist. but we wont know for a while, if ever.
Cerrabella says
Didn’t the wife and children of one of the pilots – move several days before this took place?
Rezali Mehil says
Blaming the pilot for this is just so wrong.
Bring the proof and I will say fair dos. Really we need to see that the transponder is in the off position and that we have the pilot’s fingerprint imprint on that button.
So we know that it will be impossible to do this, but Islam prohibits suicide.
I know many will laugh but it is true, but I do hope that the orange “blackbox” is found soon so that the pilot is no longer on your radar.
More Later…
Rezali
gravenimage says
The meretricious Rezali Mehil wrote:
So we know that it will be impossible to do this, but Islam prohibits suicide.
……………………………
Does Rezali Mehil really believe that there are many here at Jihad Watch at this point who don’t understand this distinction?
Islam prohibits suicide of those who are innocently despondent, and who wish to harm no one but themselves.
But it is not only condones *but lauds* “killing and being killed in the way of Allah”—i.e., dying while slaughtering Infidels or those deemed “insufficiently Islamic”.
This incident may or may not prove to be Jihad terror—but there is *nothing* to prevent a pious Muslim from mass-murdering Infidels while dying in the process.
In fact, these bloody suicide/murderers are lauded as “Shahids” (Martyrs), and pious Muslims like Rezali Mehil believe that they go straight to paradise to get their reward of alcohol and whores.
Inchoate says
Tut, Tut, Dear Readers….all of you here just know that these interesting scenarios, and they are only interesting variations of the scant available facts…desperately needed and accurate facts…that are at our disposal…no punning here…
[cf;…Flotsam and jetsam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Flotsam and jetsam (disambiguation).
In maritime law, flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage:[1]
Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo.
Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purposely cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and that sinks or is washed ashore…..end paste.]
……. that this is all useless speculation as we have no pretentious, self-important frock coated diplomats at a massive conference in Geneva or Teheran [forget Kuala Lumpur, simply forget them] shuffling papers with red wax seals with their impressive fluttering ribbands affixed, murmuring sage-nothings all around a U-shaped table.
Neville!…Neville!….c o m e i n …N E V I L L E ……..[….the ether remains silent…]
Wave to us smugly at the foot of the steps to your aircraft …..tell us now that we’ll have pieces [!] in our time, not in the time of a decade hence.
Faces have not only fallen, they’ve fallen and become become scattered pieces.
Inchoate says
…….sigh…..all we’ve got so far is…sigh…..Jen Psaki.
[…who?…..Captain Google has the answer..channel his website.]
Stephen Poole says
… Let’s focus here on what we have to go with, people : …
1) There is no wreckage …
2) Jetsam could be passengers evicted …
3) If you were the pilot, and, you had a gun to your head, and, someone was executin’ your passengers, would you do what they demanded ?? … Most likely !! …
4) The mixed up “pings” could easily have been manipulated by someone with knowledge and !! intent …
5) No one has claimed responsibility … Not your “garden variety” hijack …
I used to work in the satellite network business … A big concern for them (… Telesat Canada …) was the theft !! or unauthorized use of satellite signals …
Any electronic communication can be duplicated, transcribed, mixed-up or altered … I point to the DDoS attack that JihadWatch was under just yesterday, 2014 03 30 …
Electronic communication is prey for those that will … Just sayin’ !! …
If you don’t take precautions, you will get “knocked-up” … Or, maybe, knocked down …
… Take care, everyone !! … SP OX …
Bettina says
Hasn’t anyone wondered why the U.S. is spearheading this thing when the largest minority on board are Chinese citizens? So where the hell is the Chinese government here? Don’t they have excellent jets and depth-sounding high-tech equipment? I’m very proud of our nation leading efforts, but where the hell are the Chinese??
Stephen Poole says
… Your comment is inane … I’ll UPS you a sixty … 0X …