The claim comes on the heels of revelations by the Wall Street Journal that MH370 sent out intermittent ‘pings’ transmitting the aircraft’s altitude, speed and location, for up to five hours after it vanished from civilian radar screens.
The WSJ reported that the final ping was sent from over the ocean, at a ‘normal’ cruising altitude, five hours after MH370 took off.
“There is probably a significant likelihood” that the aircraft is now on the bottom of the Indian Ocean that ocean, a US official told CNN this afternoon.
Chinese state media, Xinhua, is reporting tonight that Chinese researchers detected a “seafloor event” near the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam about an hour and 30 minutes after flight MH370 disappeared last Saturday.
The area, 116km northeast from where the last contact with the Boeing plane was recorded, used to be a non-seismic region, according to a University of Science and Technology of China research group on seismology and physics, and could have been caused by the plane plunging into the ocean.
The CNN source revealed that Malaysian authorities believe they have several ‘pings’ from the plane’s service data system, known as ACARS, transmitted to satellites in the four to five hours after the last transponder signal, suggesting the plane flew to the Indian Ocean.
“That information, combined with known radar data and knowledge of fuel range leads officials to believe the plane may have made it to the Indian Ocean, which is in the opposite direction of MH370’s original route, which heighten fears of a terror hijacking, or bizarre action by the pilots,” the report said.
US investigators are almost certain that the dual communication modes on flight MH370 were deliberately shut down by someone on board.
They now believe the data reporting system was turned off at 1.07am while the transponder — which transmits location and altitude — shut down at 1.21am, indicating the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.
However, no credible group has claimed responsibility for the plane’s disappearance and there is no evidence — yet — linking the pilots, crew or passengers to any terrorist or criminal organisation.
According to Bloomberg, the Americans have been studying a radar blip detected hundreds of kilometres west of the plane’s intended route, in the area of the Malacca Strait, at about 2.15am. There are also reports today that a second blip at 2.30am will be reinvestigated after initially being dismissed.
The Boeing 777 had enough fuel to fly the 4345km to Beijing and reserves to fly to a diversion airport.
The latest twists, in what is rapidly becoming known as one of the greatest aviation mystery of all time, have fuelled conspiracy theories.
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Radar data suggests MH370 flown towards Andamans
MH370 Military radar-tracking evidence suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula towards the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters today.
Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints - indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training - when it was last plotted on military radar off the country’s north-west coast.
The last plot on the military radar’s tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India’s Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.
Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.
A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight, with 239 people on board, hundreds of kilometres off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.
All three sources declined to be identified because they were not authorised to speak to the media and due to the sensitivity of the investigation.
Officials at Malaysia’s Transport Ministry, the official point of contact for information on the investigation, did not return calls seeking comment.
Malaysian police have previously said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew had personal or psychological problems that might shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or mechanical failure.
The comments by the three sources are the first clear indication that foul play is the main focus of official suspicions in the Boeing 777's disappearance.
As a result of the new evidence, the sources said, multinational search efforts were being stepped up in the Andaman Sea and also the Indian Ocean.
Last sighting
In one of the most baffling mysteries in modern aviation, no trace of the plane nor any sign of wreckage has been found despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries.
The last sighting of the aircraft on civilian radar screens came shortly before 1.30am Malaysian time last Saturday (1730 GMT Friday), less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur, as the plane flew north-east across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand. That put the plane on Malaysia’s east coast.
Malaysia’s air force chief said on Wednesday an aircraft that could have been the missing plane was plotted on military radar at 2.15am, 320km north-west of Penang island off Malaysia’s west coast.
This position marks the limit of Malaysia’s military radar in that part of the country, a fourth source familiar with the investigation told Reuters.
When asked about the range of military radar at a news conference on Thursday, Malaysian acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said it was “a sensitive issue” that he was not going to reveal.
“Even if it doesn’t extend beyond that, we can get the cooperation of the neighbouring countries,” he said.
The fact that the aircraft - if it was MH370 - had lost contact with air traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone aboard had turned its communication systems off, the first two sources said.
They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified aircraft was heading - following aviation corridors identified on maps used by pilots as N571 and P628. These routes
are taken by commercial planes flying from South-East Asia to the Middle East or Europe and can be found in public documents issued by regional aviation authorities.
In a far more detailed description of the military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, the first two sources said the last confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 144km off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a navigational waypoint called ‘Igari’. The time was 1.21am.
The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading towards a waypoint called ‘Vampi’, north-east of Indonesia’s Aceh province and a navigational point used for planes following route N571 to the Middle East.
From there, the plot indicates the plane flew towards a waypoint called ‘Gival’, south of the Thai island of Phuket, and was last plotted heading north-west towards another waypoint called ‘Igrex’, on route P628 that would take it over the Andaman Islands and which carriers use to fly towards Europe.
The time was then 2.15am. That’s the same time given by the air force chief on Wednesday, who gave no information on that plane’s possible direction.
The sources said Malaysia was requesting raw radar data from neighbours Thailand, Indonesia and India, which has a naval base in the Andaman Islands.
- Reuters
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