MH370: FBI and Interpol involved in search since plane went missing - live
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- FBI and Interpol involved from ‘day one’
- Police have twice visited homes of pilot and co-pilot
- Malaysia spreads confusion about timing of last contact
- New CCTV footage of pilot and co-pilot emerges
- Relatives heartened by plane’s ‘deliberate’ change of course
- Malaysia seeks the help of more countries
- Read the latest summary
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- KazakhstanKazakhstan has played down Malaysia’s suggestion that the missing plane could have reached its airspace.A statement for its civil aviation committee said MH370 would have been detected by Kazakhstan’s radar, if had got that far.Reuters quoted the statement as saying that nine Malaysia Airlines flights travelled over Kazakhstan on 8 March. None of them was MH370.The comments come after Malaysia issued a map of one the routes being searched. It showed a flight path stretching as far as Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea.
![Malaysian acting transport minister Hishamuddin Hussein shows north corridor and south corridor maps with deputy minister of foreign affairs, Hamzah Zainudin and Malaysia's department civil aviation director general, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman during a media conference at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.]()
Malaysian acting transport minister Hishamuddin Hussin shows a map showing the possible flight path of the missing plane. Photograph: Ahmad Yusni/EPAUpdated 27m agoSummaryHere’s a summary of the latest developments on the search for the missing plane:· The FBI and Interpol have been involved in the search for the missing plane since it went missing with 239 on board more than a week ago. The investigators appear to be more convinced that at least someone on board deliberately changed its course. Malaysia has denied that it has turned down offers of help from the FBI.· The homes of the pilot and co-pilot have been visited twice by the police since the plane went missing. A flight simulator made by the pilot has been recovered from his home. CCTV footage has emerged of the two men passing through airport security before boarding the flight.· The Malaysian authorities have spread more confusion about the final communication with the missing plane by issuing new details about the timings when contact was lost. They said the plane’s reporting system was switched off at some point between 1.07am and 1.37am on Saturday 8 March. Malaysian Airlines estimates that the plane had enough fuel to have flown on for about 30 minutes after contact was lost.· Malaysia Airlines said it was investigating claims that the plane was flown as low as low as 5,000 ft, after changing course, which would have allowed it to avoid detection by radar. The company denied that it had leaked the information but said it was investigating.· The number of countries involved in the search has increased to 26 as the investigation focuses on two possible flight corridors. One corridor north-west of Malaysia goes over several Asian countries. The other south-west corridor goes over thousands of miles of deep ocean.· Malaysia’s new conviction that someone on the missing plane deliberately changed its course has heartened some relatives of the passengers. Sarah Bajac, an American teacher in Beijing, has set up a Facebook page in an effort to help track down her husband Philip Wood who is on the plane. She wrote: “The glimmer of hope has become a definable ray. Hostages are far more valuable alive.”· The Chinese press has published more scathing criticism of the way Malaysia is handling the search operation.Malaysia’s acting transport minister Hishamuddin Hussein defended the search and accused the media of being “very irresponsible” for suggesting mistakes had been made.Another intriguing detail from the press conference concerned the remaining fuel on the flight. Malaysia Airlines was asked how long the plane could have flown after contact was lost.“We estimate it could have another 30 minutes of fuel”, the company’s chief executive replied.Updated 1h 35m agoThe latest confusion spread by Malaysia, this time about about the timings of when the communication systems were switched off, is detailed by Ben Sandilands from Australia’s Crikey news site.He writes:In yet another puzzling change of the official narrative, acting transport minister and minister of defence Hishammuddin Hussein revised the time of loss of communications with MH370 from 1.30 am local to 1.19 am, which would be two minutes before the last confirmed radar contact with the airliner that used a transponder to identify it to air traffic control system.To recap, the official chronology at least until the next update appears to be that at 1.07 am the last (and unremarkable) ACARS transmission was sent from MH370, and that system was subsequently disabled at a time unknown, but which didn’t prevent it sending standby signals to a geostationary satellite over the western Indian Ocean for as long as it remained in flight or on the ground with electrical power running.At 1.19 the last communication with MH370 was heard by Malaysia ATC which closed with the co-pilot (the airline believes) saying “all right good night”.At 1.22 the last positive radar identification of the 777 was made using the transponder which identifies jets to air traffic control systems. Following this MH370 did not make its expected contact with Vietnam’s air traffic control system.The transponder must have been disabled very shortly after 1.22 as no more transponder identified radar contacts were visible on either Malaysian or Vietnamese ATC screens.These unexplained changes in timings by minister Hishammuddin Hussein threw the media update into a state of confusion for those reporters who have been trying to find consistent sense in the official narrative since regular updates began soon after MH370 ‘vanished’ from regular ATC tracking systems.![Malaysian acting transport minister Hishamuddin Hussein shows north corridor and south corridor maps with deputy minister of foreign affairs, Hamzah Zainudin and Malaysia's department civil aviation director general, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman during a media conference at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.]()
Malaysian acting transport minister Hishamuddin Hussein shows north corridor and south corridor maps with deputy minister of foreign affairs, Hamzah Zainudin and Malaysia's department civil aviation director general, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman during a media conference at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Photograph: Azhar Rahim/EPAIT expert Paul Thompson has responded to the continuing speculation that mobile phone signals on board the missing plane could have been picked up.Thompson, who works on IT policy for the Lib Dems but is commenting in a personal capacity, says the chances of any data getting through would be extremely slim.In response questions raised by reader Michael Rhodes (see earlier), he writes:1. The communication devices would have to connect to a cell tower. Although it’s possible for mobile signals to connect at medium to high altitudes (up to 15,000 ft I believe) this would be extremely patchy and tests have shown that anyone trying to connect above 2000 feet would have a very very difficult time doing so. Also, when someone is making a call while travelling they may go past several cell phone towers with each tower handing the caller onto the next, however at airliner speeds of 400mph it may be far too fast for this process to happen.2. There would have to be a GSM tower for them to connect to. We know that much of the aircraft’s path was over water where no signal would have been possible (a tower has a range of about 35km), however even when it hit land the coverage may have been patchy. Say the aircraft went due north from its last position to Burma where GSM coverage is sporadic at best (rollout only started in 2008), it would have been very lucky to catch a signal from a tower regardless of height or speed.3. We would have to know IMEI numbers for all the passengers mobile devices - this would need to be collected from each of their respective countries, as this would enable us to uniquely identify the device as being from one of the passengers - I doubt this has been done yet.4. Say a mobile did manage to connect to a GSM tower for a split second, enough for the tower to register their IMEI number, that data would have to be collected and made available to us. We are talking about several developing countries with a very wide range of mobile operators, all with varying policies and laws (if any) governing the collection of mobile data. Would that data have been saved and not overwritten after 7 days? If so, it is saved in a central database? Is that database searchable? A mobile company would only pay to build this capability if it had to.5. Has anyone asked each of the mobile operators for all of the countries MH370 could have flown over to see if any of the passengers IMEI data was recorded? The search so far has been a bit of a farce, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone hadn’t yet started this mammoth task as it only became clear in the past few days that MH370 was hijacked somehow.So in short, we really shouldn’t speculate on the lack of mobile data - but investigating it may be a worthwhile avenue to pursue.Updated 1h 54m agoThis is what Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad said about the timing of the last Acars transmission:
“The last Acars transmission was 1.07 [am]. We don’t know when the Acars was switched off after that. It was supposed transmit 30 minutes from then, but that transmission did not come through. When it got switched off? Any time between then and the next 30 minutes.”Civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahmanadded that the “all right, good night” message from the cockpit was issued at 1.19am.Malaysian Airlines said there had been no indications that passengers on the missing flight have used mobile phones since the plane went missing.Asked about the issue during the press conference chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said: “So far we have not had any evidence from telephone companies of any number that is trying to [make] contact. But we are still checking the records.”The missing plane could have flown as low as 5,000ft (1,500 metres) after diverting from its course, allowing it to avoid detection by radar, writes Tania Branigan citing Malaysian media reports.Investigators are working to narrow down the last possible observation of flight MH370 after analysis of satellite information revealed it was in one of two vast corridors: a northern area stretching from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand; and a southern range stretching from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean. Twenty-five countries are now involved in the search for the plane, which officials believe was diverted from its route to Beijing deliberately not long after it took off from Kuala Lumpur just after midnight on 8 March.Malaysia’s New Straits Times reported that investigators were considering the possibility that the Boeing 777 dropped to 5,000ft or potentially even lower to avoid detection.It suggested that the aircraft might not have roused the suspicions of those watching military radars if it followed commercial routes. It also cited unnamed sources as saying the plane had flown low over the Malay peninsula.It is unclear where the altitude estimate originated and experts said that if it came from radar data it could well prove incorrect.Update: Asked about this story Malaysia Airline chief executive said: “We are not aware of that report. It is something that the investigation team has to look into. [After prompting from Hishamuddin] It doesn’t come from us”.Updated 1h 43m agoDuring the press conference the Malaysia authorities spread more confusion about the location and timing of when the plane’s communication system was turned off.Hishamuddin said the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (Acars) was turned off just after the plane flew over the city of Kota Baru. The transponder was switched off near the Igari waypoint over the South China Sea.But Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the Acars system could have been turned off at any time during a 30 minute period.Here are those images of the north and south flight corridors being searched, courtesy of Chua Chin Hon, from the New Straits Times.The press conference has ended. Once again we didn’t learn that much more, and the plane is still missing.Hishammuddin said it was “untrue” that Malaysia had refused an offer by the FBI to send a team to Malaysia. He repeated that Malaysia has been working with the FBI since day one.The chief executive of Malaysia Airlines said the investigation assumed that the last message sent by the flight came from the co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid.It was Hamid who issued the phrase “all right, good night,” Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told the press conference. Pressed on the message he would not say whether there was any sign of stress in the voice. More analysis of the recording is taking place, the authorities said.Here’s the full text of Hishammuddin’s opening remarks:During the last 24 hours, the Prime Minister has spoken to the Prime Minister of Australia and the Premier of China. Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent diplomatic notes to all countries involved in the search and rescue operation.This includes two groups: first, countries in the search corridors; and second, countries from which we are seeking assistance and expertise.For countries in the search corridors, we are requesting radar and satellite information, as well as specific assets for the search and rescue operation. We are asking them to share their land, sea and aerial search and rescue action plans with the Rescue Co-ordination Centre here in Malaysia, so that we can co-ordinate the search effort. We have asked for regular updates, including daily reports on both search activities, and details of any information required from Malaysia.We are not at liberty to reveal information from specific countries. As the co-ordinating authority we are gathering all information as part of the on-going search and rescue operation.Search and rescue operations
Over the past 48 hours, Malaysia has been working on the diplomatic, technical and logistical requirements of the search for MH370. The number of countries involved in the search and rescue operation has increased to 26.Malaysia continues to lead the overall co-ordination of the search effort. The southern corridor has been divided into two sections, according to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) demarcations.These demarcations were agreed by the ICAO – of which Malaysia is a council member – before MH370 went missing. Australia and Indonesia have agreed to lead search and rescue operations in their respective regions as demarcated by the ICAO.Today, I can confirm that search and rescue operations in the northern and southern corridors have already begun.Countries including Malaysia, Australia, China, Indonesia and Kazakhstan have already initiated search and rescue operations.The Royal Malaysian Air Force and the Royal Malaysian Navy have deployed assets to the southern corridor. Two Malaysian ships have been deployed: the offshore patrol vessels KD Kelantan and KD Selangor. This deployment also includes a Super Lynx helicopter, which can operate from either ship.Australia has already moved a P-3 Orion aircraft to region of the Cocos and Christmas Islands. Today, the Prime Minister of Australia confirmed that Australia will send an additional two P-3 Orions and a C-130 Hercules. A US P-8 Poseidon aircraft will be travelling to Perth today to help with the search.Expert involvement
Malaysia has been working with international investigators and aviation authorities since day one.Yesterday, experts from Civil Aviation Administration of China joined the investigations team.Today, officials from the French Office of Investigations and Analysis for the Safety of Civil Aviation also joined the team. These authorities are working with Malaysia Airlines and the DCA to refine data that can help with the search.Police investigation
On Saturday 8 March, the Royal Malaysia Police started investigations into all crew members on board MH370, including the pilot and co-pilot, as well as all ground staff handling the aircraft.On Sunday 9 March, police officers visited the homes of the pilot and co-pilot. Officers also spoke to family members of the pilot and co-pilot.Police visited the homes of the pilot and co-pilot again on Saturday 15 March. The pilot’s flight simulator was taken from his house with the assistance of his family. The simulator was re-assembled at police headquarters.At this point, I would like to stress that Malaysia has been co-operating with the FBI, Interpol and other relevant international law enforcement authorities since day one.Malaysia’s response
I would also like to address the speculation that Malaysia has held back information about MH370’s movements.For the families, I understand that every day prolongs the anguish. I understand because Malaysia, too, is missing its sons and daughters. There were 50 Malaysians on board the plane.Our priority has always been to find the aircraft. We would not withhold any information that could help. But we also have a responsibility not to release information until it has been verified by the international investigations team.This responsibility is not only to the families and to the investigation, but also the search and rescue operation. It would be irresponsible to deploy substantial assets merely on the basis of unverified and uncorroborated information.As soon as the possibility emerged that the plane had carried out an air turn back to the Straits of Malacca, we expanded our search to that area. I would like to reiterate the US investigating team’s statement about that decision: based on the information and data given by the Malaysian authorities, the US team was of the view that there were reasonable grounds for the Malaysian authorities to deploy resources to conduct search on the western side of peninsular Malaysia.As soon as we verified and corroborated the new satellite information as to the possible last known whereabouts of the aircraft, we recalibrated our search efforts to the northern and southern corridors as announced by the Prime Minister. After my statement we will release a more detailed map of the northern and southern corridors.Malaysia Airlines (MAS)
Malaysia Airlines has set up operations centres in both Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, to care for the families of the crew members and passengers.MAS has allocated each family a caregiver, who will be on 24hours duty. They have sent more than 100 staff and caregivers to Beijing.The airline gives daily briefings to the families. They provide counselling sessions. And they contact families, that have elected not to come to Malaysia, between two and three times a day.Concluding remarks
Over the past two days, we have been recalibrating the search for MH370. It remains a significant diplomatic, technical and logistical challenge. Malaysia is encouraged by the progress made during such a short period of time. We are grateful for the response by the heads of government that we have spoken to, all of whom have expressed a commitment of assistance.With support from our many international partners, this new phase of the search is underway. Assets are being deployed, and search and rescue operations have begun. I wish to thank our partners from around the world for their continued support.Updated 3h 20m agoHishammuddin said that Malaysia would release a more detailed map of the north and south corridors which are currently being searched. He waved a copy of the map to reporters by way of a taster.“This new phase of the search is underway. Assets have been deployed,” he said.The FBI and Interpol have been involved in the investigation from day one, Hishammuddin revealed.Malaysia’s defence and acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein says 26 countries are now involved in the search. He says that in the last 48 hours the operation has focused on “diplomatic, technical and logistical” issues. Still no sign of the plane.The Malaysian authorities are just starting another of their daily press briefings.The Wall Street Journal continues its impressive coverage of the hunt for the missing plane.It charts the two possible flight corridors now under investigation, after its revealed last week that the plane was picked up hours after it lost control with air traffic control.Over the weekend one of the paper’s reporters was invited to watch the search on board the P-8A Poseidon, the US military’s most advanced maritime surveillance aircraft.The P-8A is the most sophisticated aircraft available to help find the Malaysia Airlines flight that vanished more than a week ago. It can fly 575 miles an hour and is equipped with sensors and imaging devices strong enough to spot submarines.Yet even its high-tech features face long odds in locating the missing jet, given the vast area yet to be searched. Current guesses about the possible location of the plane now encompass several hundred thousand square miles of water, much of it more remote than any of the maritime areas explored so far.China's criticismChina’s mounting frustration at the Malaysia authorities appears to have reached a new height.The English edition of the state run Global Times has run a series of critical articles questioning the way the search for the Beijing-bound flight is being handled. Last week it described the release of information by Malaysia as “chaotic”.Now it is accusing Malaysia of incompetence and suggests it may need to hand over responsibility for the search after its “lousy” efforts.The lack of national strength and experience in dealing with incidents has left the Malaysian government helpless and exhausted by denying all kinds of rumours. The communication failures make the search and rescue process harder.
As time passes, the Malaysian government has lost authority and credibility on this issue. Exact information is key to any rescue effort, but the Malaysian government has been offering only ambiguous messages. It even got the direction of the flight wrong after it lost contact and traversed the peninsula. Last week’s efforts were in vain.
After these failures, the Malaysian government will face the stern eyes of other countries. If the search continues to be fruitless even following the new information, Malaysia would be better off handing over its command in the international rescue operation.![Chinese relatives of passengers from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 gather at a lounge in the Metro Park Lido Hotel to wait for updated information in Beijing.]()
Chinese relatives of passengers from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 gather at a lounge in the Metro Park Lido Hotel to wait for updated information in Beijing. Photograph: Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty ImagesUpdated 4h 23m agoReader Michael Rhodes, a Sydney-based solicitor who says he has “extensive experience of Malaysia in particular and Malaysian Airlines” asks why the mobile phones and other communications devices of the people on board have not been traced.In a series of emails to the Guardian he wrote:There are 200 plus people who had mobile comms devices on the flight. Not all can have been turned off despite the strict instruction. Add to that the wild changes of altitude and direction. Going back across the Malay Archipelago, some must have established contact with ground, and lost it at variable times. Add to that, if the flight went north, other mobile towers must have acquired signals.....Does the Andamans have any mobile towers?Even one fleeting contact would confirm direction generally ...
It seems inconceivable every single passenger switched off every single electronic device, and all of those devices remained passive as they flew through airspace with mobile phone towers seeking acquisition of mobile signals. There must be one or two forgetful people on board who left devices on. As the flight passed back over Malaysia, and in the event it went north, the mobile devices would acquire signals from ground towers, and vice versa ...
My understanding is that even if mobile phones are switched off, they still ping the nearest tower to seek to acquire a network. This ping leaves a trace. You would only need 2 or 3 pings from different towers to get the trending course of the aircraft. Were it flying out of range and into the Indian Ocean, then the lack of any cell phone activity is not necessarily ominous. The lack of cell phone activity closer to land would be more ominous though for the passengers ...
A number of these cell phone and their IDs must already be known- for instance those of the crew. What is being done to track these phones? They would most likely be switched off, but even then still pinging the nearest towers. They must have data of this when the flight crossed back over Malaysia at the very least.CCTV footageFootage has emerged showing the aircraft’s pilots walking through airport security before the missing flight took off, the Daily Mail reports.CCTV captured Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, pilot of the Boeing 777 flight, being frisked while walking through security at Kuala Lumpar International Airport.He is then joined by co-pilot Fariq Hamid who is also searched before the pair walk onto the plane.Updated 4h 60m agoOpening summaryWelcome to our rolling live coverage of the continuing hunt for the missing Malaysia Airways plane more than a week after it vanished with 239 people on board.Here’s a summary of the latest developments:· The Malaysian authorities have revealed that the missing plane’s 12 crew members have been under investigation since the plane disappeared and that the homes of the pilot and co-pilot have been visited twice by police. The pilot’s flight simulator was taken from his house on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Transport.· Three officials from the French aviation authority Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses have arrived in Kuala Lumpur to lend assistance in the operation based on their experience from the search for Air France flight 447. There are now 26 countries involved in the rescue operation for flight MH370, and Australia has taken charge of the search operation in the Indian Ocean.· The person who transmitted the final message from the plane “all right, good night” may have been aware that one of the communication systems on the plane was shutdown.The suggestions adds further weight to the possibility that the plane was hijacked.· Malaysia’s new conviction that someone on the missing plane deliberately changed its course has heartened some relatives of the passengers. Sarah Bajac, an American teacher in Beijing, has set up a Facebook page in an effort to help track down her husband Philip Wood who is on the plane. She wrote: “The glimmer of hope has become a definable ray. Hostages are far more valuable alive.”· Malaysian officials have requested official assistance from more than a dozen countries in south-east and south Asia in a desperate bid to find MH370 after new satellite data indicated the aircraft flew on for hours after it last made contact with civilian radar. The defence and acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said on Sunday that 15 countries have been contacted for assistance, including China, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. Assistance will include satellite data and analysis, ground-search capabilities, radar data, and maritime and air deployment.· The sister of a passenger on missing the flight says recent developments have renewed the hope her brother may still be alive. New Zealander Sara Weeks, whose brother Paul Weeks was a passenger on flight MH370, says her family had suspected the situation “did not add up”.Updated 5h 31m ago ![Malaysian acting transport minister Hishamuddin Hussin shows a map showing the possible flight path of the missing plane.]()
Malaysian acting transport minister Hishamuddin Hussin shows a map showing the possible flight path of the missing plane. Photograph: Ahmad Yusni/EPA
Chinese relatives of passengers from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 gather at a lounge in the Metro Park Lido Hotel to wait for updated information in Beijing. Photograph: Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images