Below is the full text of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's full statement of the missing MAS MH370 flight.
_http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-pm-s-statement-on-missing-airliner-1.514405#
Based on new satellite information, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was disabled just before the aircraft reached the East coast of peninsular Malaysia. Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft’s transponder was switched off.
From this point onwards, the Royal Malaysian Air Force primary radar showed that an aircraft which was believed – but not confirmed – to be MH370 did indeed turn back. It then flew in a westerly direction back over peninsular Malaysia before turning northwest. Up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane.
Today, based on raw satellite data that was obtained from the satellite data service provider, we can confirm that the aircraft shown in the primary radar data was flight MH370. After much forensic work and deliberation, the FAA, NTSB, AAIB and the Malaysian authorities, working separately on the same data, concur.
According to the new data, the last confirmed communication between the plane and the satellite was at 8:11AM Malaysian time on Saturday 8th March. The investigations team is making further calculations which will indicate how far the aircraft may have flown after this last point of contact. This will help us to refine the search.
Due to the type of satellite data, we are unable to confirm the precise location of the plane when it last made contact with the satellite.
However, based on this new data, the aviation authorities of Malaysia and their international counterparts have determined that the plane’s last communication with the satellite was in one of two possible corridors: a northern corridor stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern corridor stretching approximately from Indonesia to the southern Indian ocean. The investigation team is working to further refine the information.
In view of this latest development the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board. Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear: we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path.
This new satellite information has a significant impact on the nature and scope of the search operation. We are ending our operations in the South China Sea and reassessing the redeployment of our assets. We are working with the relevant countries to request all information relevant to the search, including radar data.
As the two new corridors involve many countries, the relevant foreign embassies have been invited to a briefing on the new information today by the Malaysian Foreign Ministry and the technical experts. I have also instructed the Foreign Ministry to provide a full briefing to foreign governments which had passengers on the plane. This morning, Malaysia Airlines has been informing the families of the passengers and crew of these new developments.
SHAH ALAM: Police were believed to have searched first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid's home at Section 7, after having searched Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's home in Laman Seri here earlier.
_http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-police-at-co-captain-s-house-1.514859
Around 8.07pm, the same unmarked white multi-purpose vehicle with the same WYR548 plate number, which had entered Zaharie's gated neighbourhood, stopped outside Fariq's home.
A total of four men in civilian's clothes, believed to be police officers, entered the house.
A few hours earlier, Fariq's two brothers had arrived at the house in a Mini Cooper, believed to belong to a friend.
Ignoring reporters' questions, they entered the house for awhile and left in a haste in the same car.
They were spotted carrying transparent blue plastic bags containing clothes and toiletries.
The plain clothes policemen left the house an hour later and were seen carrying two brown bags.
Fariq's father, Abd Hamid who earlier declined to make any comments on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's press conference regarding the missing MH370 flight was seen getting into one of the vehicles with his son.
Search for Malaysian Jet Becomes Criminal Inquiry
_http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?emc=eta1&_r=1
SEPANG, Malaysia — The search for Flight 370 turned into a criminal investigation on Saturday, after Malaysia declared that the plane had been deliberately diverted and then flown for as long as seven hours toward an unknown point far from its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The Malaysian authorities released a map showing that the last satellite signal received from the plane had been sent from a point somewhere along one of two arcs spanning large distances across Asia.
As part of the investigation, police officers on Saturday were seen going to the gated residential compound in Kuala Lumpur where the flight’s pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was reported to live, and the Malaysian news media reported that a search there was actually underway after a week of rumors to that effect. A police spokeswoman declined to comment, saying no details would be available until a news conference planned for Sunday evening.
A satellite orbiting 22,250 miles over the middle of the Indian Ocean received the transmission that, based on the angle from which the plane sent it, came from somewhere along one of the two arcs. One arc runs from the southern border of Kazakhstan in Central Asia to northern Thailand, passing over some hot spots of global insurgency and highly militarized areas. The other arc runs from near Jakarta to the Indian Ocean, roughly 1,000 miles off the west coast of Australia.
The plane changed course after it took off. “These movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane,” Mr. Najib said.
He noted that one communications system had been disabled as the plane flew out over the northeast coast of Malaysia. A second system, a transponder aboard the craft, abruptly stopped broadcasting its location, altitude, speed and other information at 1:21 a.m., while the plane was a third of the way across the Gulf of Thailand from Malaysia to Vietnam.
Military radar data subsequently showed that the plane turned and flew west across northern Malaysia before arcing out over the wide northern end of the Strait of Malacca, headed at cruising altitude for the Indian Ocean.
The flight had been scheduled to land at 6:30 a.m. in Beijing, so when its last signal was received, at 8:11 a.m., Mr. Najib said, it could have been nearly out of fuel.
“The investigation team is making further calculations, which will indicate how far the aircraft may have flown after the last point of contact,” Mr. Najib said, reading a statement in English. “Due to the type of satellite data, we are unable to confirm the precise location of the plane when it last made contact with a satellite.” The northern arc Mr. Najib described passes near some of the world’s most volatile countries that are home to insurgent groups, but also over areas with a strong military presence and robust air defense networks, some run by the U.S. military. The arc passes close to northern Iran, through Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, and through northern India and the Himalayas and Myanmar. An aircraft flying on that arc would have to pass through air defense networks in India and Pakistan, whose mutual border is heavily militarized, as well as through Afghanistan, where the United States and other NATO countries have operated air bases for more than a decade.
Air bases near that arc include Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, where the U.S. Air Force’s 455th Air Expeditionary Wing is based, and a large Indian air base, Hindon Air Force Station.
The southern arc, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, travels over open water with few islands. If the aircraft took that path, it may have passed near Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands. These remote islands, with a population of fewer than 1,000 people, have a small airport. After Mr. Najib’s statement Saturday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded to know more, and said that China was sending technical experts to Malaysia.
David Learmount, operations and safety editor for Flightglobal, a news and data service for the aviation sector, said that the Malaysian government could have acted far sooner on the information pointing to someone seizing control of the plane.
Mikael Robertsson, a founder of Flightradar24, a global aviation tracking service, said the way the plane’s communications had been shut down pointed to the involvement of someone with considerable aviation expertise and knowledge of the air route, possibly a crew member, willing or unwilling.
The Boeing’s transponder was switched off just as the plane passed from Malaysian to Vietnamese air traffic control space, thus making it more likely that the plane’s absence from communications would not arouse attention, Mr. Robertsson said by telephone from Sweden.
“Always when you fly, you are in contact with air traffic control in some country,” he said. “Instead of contacting the Vietnam air traffic control, the transponder signal was turned off, so I think the timing of turning off the signal just after you have left Malaysian air traffic control indicates someone did this on purpose, and he found the perfect moment when he wasn’t in control by Malaysia or Vietnam. He was like in no-man’s country.”
The signs thus indicated involvement of the crew, Mr. Robertsson said, but he stressed that those signs were not definitive, nor did they prove whether any involvement was willing or coerced.
Xu Ke, a former commercial pilot who has advised the Chinese government on aviation security, said the details suggested that at least one crew member, most likely one of the pilots, was involved in seizing control of the aircraft, either willingly or under coercion.
“The timing of turning off the transponder suggests that this involved someone with knowledge of how to avoid air traffic control without attracting attention,” Mr. Xu said in a telephone interview. “You needed to know this plane, and you also needed to know this route.”
Especially since 9/11, Mr. Xu said, security on cockpit doors has been reinforced so that forced entry would be difficult without the pilots’ having ample time to send a warning signal.
