AS THE FBI joins the international search for answers to what downed missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, Vietnam may have spotted the first debris.
More than a day and half after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing, the final minutes before it disappeared remain a mystery. The plane, which was carrying 239 people, lost contact with ground controllers somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam after leaving Kuala Lumpur early Saturday morning for Beijing.
A massive international sea search has so far turned up no trace of the jet, though Vietnamese authorities said late Sunday that a low-flying plane had spotted a rectangular object in waters about 80 kilometers south-west of Tho Chu island, in the same area where oil slicks were spotted Saturday.
“We received information from a Vietnamese plane saying that they found two broken objects, which seem like those of an aircraft, located about 80 kilometres to the south-west of Tho Chu Island,’’ said an official from Vietnam’s National Committee for Search and Rescue, who did not want to be named.
The island is part of a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Vietnam, and lies northeast of Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur.
“As it is night they cannot fish them out for proper identification. They have located the position of the areas and flown back to land,’’ the Vietnamese official added.
Planes and boats would be sent back to the area to investigate further, he said.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the fragments were thought to be a composite inner door and a piece of the tail.
The aircraft which spotted the objects could not land near them due to fading sunlight, but the search was set to resume in the area on Monday morning.
It has also emerged that two travellers being investigated for travelling with stolen passports were travelling together and had booked through China Southern Airlines.
Although there were 14 nationalities aboard the Boeing 777, the vast majority were Chinese and the plane was flying to Beijing as a code share with China Southern Airlines.
At a press conference late Sunday night in Kuala Lumpur the Director-General of Malaysia’s Civil Aviation body, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said: “On the possibility of hijack, we are not ruling any possibility however it is important to state that our main concern is to focus our effort to find the missing aircraft.”
“We are looking at all angles, all possibilities,” Mr Rahman said of the investigation into what
happened to the airliner.
After it emerged that two people boarded the flight with stolen European passports, Malaysia’s transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he was looking at four suspect passengers in all.
Two European names — Austrian Christian Kozel and Luigi Maraldi of Italy — were listed on the passenger manifest but neither man boarded the plane to Beijing, officials said. Both had their passports stolen in Thailand over the past two years.
The BBC is reporting that the men falsely using these passports purchased tickets at the same time. They had consecutive ticket numbers and were both booked on the same onward plane from Beijing to Europe on Saturday, the BBC said.
The duo were captured together on CCTV from check-in to boarding and the vision is
being examined by investigators desperate to find out what happened to the flight.
Mr Rahman would not confirm the nationalities of the two men or their origins.
Interpol said that no country checked the police agency’s database that held information about two stolen passports used to board an ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight. “Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol’s databases,’’ Interpol Secretary General Ronald K Noble said in a statement.
Even though the Interpol has been sounding the alarm about passport fraud for years, people have managed to board flights a billion times without having their passports checked against its stolen-documents records, Interpol said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was quoted by The Star newspaper saying the government would review and enhance airport security protocols, if needed. Thai police said they were investigating a possible passport racket.
Malaysia’s department of civil aviation director general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman says radar indicates the plane may have turned back. Source: Getty Images
Rescue teams continue to search for the Malaysia Airlines plane, which was carrying 239 people, including six Australians.
The air search was halted at 7pm last night but the ships continued searching through the night. The search region had been widened from 20 nautical miles to 50 nautical miles of the last point of contact of the plane.
Oil slicks were found in the South China sea on Sunday, but no debris or wreckage has been found yet.
“The outcome so far , there is no sign of the aircraft and although we have reports of some oil spills but this has not been verified, not been confirmed by the authorities,” Mr Rahman said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had asked Malaysia to continue the search, saying every minute counts, according to a report from the official Xinhua news agency early Monday.
The report said he told his Malaysian counterpart Anifah Aman: “Search and rescue should not stop so long as there is a glimmer of hope.’’
Prime Minister Tony Abbott called the Malaysian Prime Minister on Sunday night and offered two RAAF Orion aircraft for the search and rescue operation. Two aircraft were dispatched from Darwin late on Sunday.
Associate Professor Felix Patrikeeff from the University of Adelaide said there could be a connection to Uighur militants from China’s restive Xinjiang province in the country’s northwest, who were responsible for a knife attack that left 33 dead on March 1.
A Chinese woman cries as she leaves a hotel room for relatives or friends of passengers in Beijing. Source: AP
“We had that terrible knife attack at the train station and I just begin to wonder if there might not be some sort of asymmetric action going on, on the part of the separatists … that they’ve taken the struggle out of Xinjiang itself and moved it into China and perhaps abroad,” he said.
But security expert Professor Clive Williams downplayed the Uighur connection, saying if a bomb had been detonated, it was more likely to be a random act connected to organised crime, a personal grudge or an insurance policy.
Mr Rahman said he was not aware of any claims of responsibility by a group in China, again reiterating that all angles will be pursued.
Earlier, Malaysia’s aviation chief said investigators were examining airport CCTV footage of the two passengers with stolen passports who boarded the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.
Devoted Brisbane pair Catherine and Robert Lawton are among the missing. Source: Facebook
The development came as Malaysia’s air force chief raised the possibility that the missing plane may have turned back.
“There are only two passengers on record with false passports,’’ department of civil aviation director general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said.
“We have CCTV recordings of the two passengers. The recordings in the CCTV are now being investigated.’’
The FBI is sending specialists to Kuala Lumpur to assist with the investigation.
Malaysia’s air force chief General Rodzali Daud told a joint media conference with other officials that radar indicated the missing Boeing 777 may have turned back, but declined to give further details on how far the plane may have veered off course.
“There is a distinct possibility the airplane did a turn-back, deviating from the course,’’ said Mr Daud, citing radar data.
But MAS chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the Boeing 777’s systems would have set off alarm bells in that case.
“When there is an air turn-back the pilot would be unable to proceed as planned,’’ he said, adding authorities were “quite puzzled’’ over the situation.
Brisbane couple Rodney and Mary Burrows were travelling with their friends. Source: Supplied
Rescue teams searching for the missing flight have widened their search area.
Malaysian authorities expanded their search for wreckage to the country’s west coast, and asked for help from Indonesia. Searches so far had concentrated on waters to the country’s east, in the South China Sea.
Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein says counterterrorism units have been activated. Source: AP
A total of 40 ships and 34 aircraft from an array of countries, including China and the US, are now involved in the hunt across the two areas, officials said.
Another pilot who was flying ahead of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane revealed he made contact with the missing aircraft minutes after he was asked to do so by Vietnamese air traffic control.
He said he heard mumbling and static from the cockpit of flight MH370.
Six Australians including two couples from Queensland and one couple from New South Wales are among the 239 people on board who are missing and feared dead.
First officer Fariq ab Hamid was on the missing aircraft.Source: Facebook
Brisbane couples Rodney and Mary Burrows, and Catherine and Robert Lawton of Springfield Lakes are believed to be friends travelling together.
Sydney couple Niajun Gu and Yuan Li, from the Sutherland Shire, were also travelling to China for a long-planned holiday.
Perth-based father-of-two Paul Weeks, originally from New Zealand, is also among those feared dead.
Mr Weeks, a 39-year-old mechanical engineer, was travelling to Mongolia for his first shift in a fly-in-fly-out job.
His devastated wife Danica is praying for a miracle that he will return home safely.
Perth engineer Paul Weeks, with his sons Lincoln and Jack, was travelling to Mongolia for a fly-in-fly-out job. Source:Supplied
“I can’t give up hope. I would love him to walk through that door, hold him one more time ... I see him everywhere in the house,’’ she told the Nine Network.
“It’s so hard, so hard. I mean we are praying for a miracle.’’
The couple have a three-year-old son, Lincoln, and a 10-month-old son, Jack.
Mr Weeks was born in New Zealand and moved to WA with his young family in 2011, following the devastating Christchurch earthquake.
Danica Weeks, wife of missing engineer Paul Weeks, says she and her family are praying for a miracle. Source:Supplied
