Malaysian Prime Minister Najib during a press conference at a hotel ne …
By Giles Hewitt Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - 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.
Prime Minister
Najib Razak announced Saturday 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."
Flight MH370 was under the command of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and his First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid.
Malaysian
reporters told AFP they witnessed police enter Zaharie's home on
Saturday, spending two hours there. Police declined comment to AFP.
The 53-year-old had assembled his own flight simulator at home, according to online tributes describing his passion for flying.
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.
- Flight crew under scrutiny -
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.
The far more seasoned Zaharie joined MAS in 1981 and had logged 18,365 hours of flying time.
Malaysian
media reports quoted colleagues calling Zaharie a "superb pilot", who
also served as an examiner, authorised by the Malaysian Civil Aviation
Department, to conduct simulator tests for pilots.
The whole passenger manifest is likely to be re-examined.
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.
Interpol
chief Ronald Noble said last Tuesday that the men were thought to be
illegal immigrants who had travelled from Doha to Kuala Lumpur in a
round-about bid to reach Europe.
- 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 southwestern 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.
London-based
David Kaminski-Morrow, air transport editor for Flight International,
warned of the danger of rushing to conclusions following Najib's
announcement on Saturday.
"The
new evidence is consistent with deliberate action, but it's still only a
small amount of data -- certainly not a complete picture -- and
therefore it's still premature to label the event formally as a hijack,"
Kaminski-Morrow said.
TOA MAONI YAKO HAPA CHINI
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