Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at a press conference over the missing Malaysian airliner.
The investigation into the missing Malaysian airliner has taken a dramatic turn for the worse, with officials now saying evidence suggests the event was a “deliberate action.”
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said at a press conference investigators now are aware that the airliner’s communications devices were deliberately disabled and that its last signal came about 7 1/2 hours after takeoff, suggesting an act of terror.
Investigator must now redirect their focus on the crew members and passengers to learn who was responsible for disabling the Boeing 777 communications.
“In view of this latest development, the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board,” Najib said.
He said the jetliner’s “movements are consistent with the deliberate action of someone on the plane,” BBC News reported.
The last signal was 7.5 hours after departure which vastly broadens the search for the M.I.A airliner — from as far as Kazakhstan or deep in the southern Indian Ocean. Prime Minister Najib Razak did make it clear that they were still investigating all possibilities as to why the plane deviated so drastically from its original flight path.
Unfortunately, the missing Malaysian airliner was carrying 239 people when it took off March 8, 2014 at 12:40a.m. for an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The critical piece of evidence supporting “human intervention” in the plane’s disappearance is that contact with its transponder ceased about 12 minutes before the messaging system did. The evidence also suggests it is possible that the plane could have landed somewhere, a frightening possibility considering the long-plotted terrorist hope to use hijacked aircraft as a weapon of mass destruction.
A Malaysian government official directly involved with the investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official said that — although no motive has been established — they believe the hijacking theory was no longer a theory, but instead is now conclusive.
There are other thoeries floating around aside from an act of terror accounting for the missing Malaysian airliner.
Mike Glynn, a committee member of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said he considers pilot suicide to be the most likely explanation for the disappearance, as was suspected in a SilkAir crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997 and an EgyptAir flight from Los Angeles to Cairo in 1999.
“A pilot rather than a hijacker is more likely to be able to switch off the communications equipment,” Glynn said. “The last thing that I, as a pilot, want is suspicion to fall on the crew, but it’s happened twice before.”
“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.
The current search involves 14 countries, 43 ships and 58 aircraft.
