Was MH370 ended by conspirators?

The attempted closure has been too abrupt and unanswered questions are too many.

COMMENT

On Monday night, when he announced that Flight MH370 had practically crashed into the sea, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak put paid to any glimmer of hope that the plane might somehow return and help us unravel the mystery of its disappearance.

Najib said satellite data released by Inmarsat indicated that the plane had “ended its flight” in the southern part of the vast Indian Ocean.

We can therefore conclude that it flew for a good eight hours till it ran out of fuel and plunged into the sea.

And that conclusion supports the following assumptions made earlier by aviation experts and other commentators:

• We can rule out a fire as well as a mechanical or electrical fault.

• There was an aviation expert manoeuvring the plane for the entire period.

• The air turn back was deliberate since the plane maintained a cruising altitude to reach the southern Indian Ocean.

• All communication tools were disabled on purpose.

• The turn back was executed during the grey period that the flight passed from Malaysian to Vietnamese air traffic control.

From official statements, we also know the following:

• The Royal Malaysia Air Force detected the plane on radar but let it fly its course since it was found to be “non-hostile”. The military authorities of other countries, except Thailand, claimed they never detected the plane in their air space.

• It took five days for the Malaysian government to confirm early data from Inmarsat suggesting that MH370 was nowhere near the South China Sea.

• In the past week, the Royal Australian Air Force was given full charge of the entire search operation with rather full confidence it had the right leads based on unconfirmed satellite images of two floating objects.

• The flight captain had a passion for aviation and had assembled his own flight simulator.

From this point onwards, we can expect more assumptions and theories to emerge that would be based on the parameters listed above.

The Malaysian government, on its part, must address the following issues:

The plane went off of all communications at 1.30 am on March 8. Vietnamese air control twice contacted it, but it did not respond. It flew for another 6.5 hours. What were our civil aviation authority and air force doing during this time? Who was alerted and what emergency steps were taken? That must be made public.

During those 6.5 hours, was there in fact some communication between the plane and Malaysian authorities, and the government is keeping this secret because it represented a threat to the nation?

Is it possible that the pilot, a strong supporter of the parliamentary opposition, took the plane and its passengers hostage and demanded the resignation of the government?

If suicide was the motive, a pilot need not fly for eight hours or so. It will be quick. Why fly the plane all the way south at cruising speeds when there is great chance of it being spotted and guided down?

If it was discreetly taken over by a third party with or without the cooperation of the pilots, were demands made and denied by either Malaysia or China while MH370 was air borne?

Although there is official confirmation that the plane crashed, there is no trace of the wreckage and all parties are talking about a “mystery”. Are the various search parties, especially those from the US, Australia and Europe, privy to information that is being kept secret for fear of a backlash, particularly from China?

Malaysia Airlines has not made public the cargo manifest. Why the silence? Could there have been items in the plane that were of interest to a second or third party, and hence the forced U-turn and disabling of all communications whilst private negotiations were going on, with the Vietnamese control tower cut off from following the trail?

Was the plane deliberately brought down by military action after it was hurriedly classified as a great threat to the national security of either Malaysia or one of its neighbours?

What is the outcome of investigations made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on the family of the flight captain and his political links?

It is baffling that bases in Indonesia and even Australia and Diego Garcia missed picking up the plane on their civil and military radars.

Why were there passengers on the waiting list when a Boeing 777-200ER can take at least 300 passengers on board? Who were on the waiting list?

Merely confirming that flight MH370 ended its journey in the Indian Ocean is not enough. The Pandora’s box has been open wide. Some of the jittery reporting and statements coming from our official agencies are too glaringly conflicting.

Did MH370 end its flight or did it get ended by some party?

Narinder Singh is a FMT team member.