Was Malaysian plane ‘piloted’ to Andaman?
15 March 2014 6:29 AM IST
India has responded to a new request by Malaysian authorities and expanded the search for the lost Boeing 777-200 from the ongoing operations in south Andaman Sea to the Bay of Bengal along the Chennai coast.
The ‘expanded search area’ spanning over 9,000 square km, reaching in the west till about 260 nautical miles from the coast of Chennai, indicates India could deploy additional warships and aircraft from the Eastern Naval Command (ENC) at Visakhapatnam.
‘We got the new request from the Malaysian authorities on Friday. With the aircraft (which was carrying 239 people) yet to be located, the search area is being expanded in concentric circles,’ said a source in the defence ministry. Meanwhile, a new possibility of one of the pilots deliberately hijacking the plane to kidnap passengers or even commit suicide has come into light, after American officials said it was emitting signals to satellites for hours after its last contact with air traffic control nearly a week ago over the South China Sea. Malaysian officials insisted that investigators had yet to reach a definitive conclusion on what radar and satellite data showed, and said the search was being expanded because efforts in current areas have not found any wreckage from the Boeing 777.
The possibility that the plane, carrying 239 people, flew many hundreds of kilometers beyond its last known location without any contact with the ground has strengthened speculation that its transponders and other communication devices were turned off deliberately. This could mean one of the pilots, or someone experienced with flying planes, wanted to hijack the plane for some later purpose, kidnap the passengers or commit suicide by plunging the aircraft into the sea.
Given the amount of fuel it had on board, the plane could in theory have reached anywhere in a large swath of South and Southeast Asia. In the absence of more information on its movements, finding it could be a massive task.
Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the search was expanding further afield into the eastern stretches of the South China Sea and on the western side of the Malay Peninsula, northwest into the Andaman Sea and further into the India Ocean. Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 last communicated with air traffic base stations east of Malaysia in the South China Sea. The theory that the plane turned back and flew west has been strengthened because Malaysia says it has military radar records showing unidentified blips supporting that.
The ‘expanded search area’ spanning over 9,000 square km, reaching in the west till about 260 nautical miles from the coast of Chennai, indicates India could deploy additional warships and aircraft from the Eastern Naval Command (ENC) at Visakhapatnam.
‘We got the new request from the Malaysian authorities on Friday. With the aircraft (which was carrying 239 people) yet to be located, the search area is being expanded in concentric circles,’ said a source in the defence ministry. Meanwhile, a new possibility of one of the pilots deliberately hijacking the plane to kidnap passengers or even commit suicide has come into light, after American officials said it was emitting signals to satellites for hours after its last contact with air traffic control nearly a week ago over the South China Sea. Malaysian officials insisted that investigators had yet to reach a definitive conclusion on what radar and satellite data showed, and said the search was being expanded because efforts in current areas have not found any wreckage from the Boeing 777.
The possibility that the plane, carrying 239 people, flew many hundreds of kilometers beyond its last known location without any contact with the ground has strengthened speculation that its transponders and other communication devices were turned off deliberately. This could mean one of the pilots, or someone experienced with flying planes, wanted to hijack the plane for some later purpose, kidnap the passengers or commit suicide by plunging the aircraft into the sea.
Given the amount of fuel it had on board, the plane could in theory have reached anywhere in a large swath of South and Southeast Asia. In the absence of more information on its movements, finding it could be a massive task.
Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the search was expanding further afield into the eastern stretches of the South China Sea and on the western side of the Malay Peninsula, northwest into the Andaman Sea and further into the India Ocean. Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 last communicated with air traffic base stations east of Malaysia in the South China Sea. The theory that the plane turned back and flew west has been strengthened because Malaysia says it has military radar records showing unidentified blips supporting that.
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