Malaysia Airlines investigation: Live Report Kuala Lumpur — 06:53 GMT - Sympathy - With the bulk of the passengers coming from China, the countrys social media is filled with messages of sympathy. One widely circulated post on Chinas hugely popular messaging app WeChat reads: MH370, we hope the radar can see you. If you copy, keep flying at your current height until you reach your destination. Well clear the way for you. Everybody is more than happy to let you be the first to land. The sky is clear, with temperature in Beijing at five degrees Celsius, a little bit cold. Please wear your coats to keep warm. Remember to hug your family and friends after you disembark. They love you, they really do. 06:36 GMT - Puzzled - Malaysian Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya says the planes systems would have set off alarm bells if it turned back. When there is an air turn-back the pilot would be unable to proceed as planned, he says, adding authorities are quite puzzled over the situation. 06:13 GMT - Cause - On the possible cause of the incident, Dunleavy says the airline cannot make any assumptions about the root cause until we locate the aircraft. We will not know until we find the aircraft and find the black box. Where the stolen passports are concerned he says the airline itself cannot validate a passport we just need to check that when we see a passport it doesnt look like its been forged, and its got a legitimate visa. Airlines dont have access to national databases about passports, that would be a government investigation. 06:09 GMT - Airline defended - Hugh Dunleavy, commercial director for Malaysia Airlines, is speaking to reporters in Beijing and defending its response to the crisis which has come under attack from distraught relatives. He says the airline has brought 92 people trained in dealing with stressful situations to Beijing. We came here as soon as we could. Even as we speak now we have not been able to locate the aircraft, so you can imagine four or five hours into the event you are much less certain of the information. The airline will take relatives of the passengers to Malaysia, he said. Its a decision for the families, if they want to go to Malaysia to be closer to the operations of the search and rescue activities we will take them there. The earliest they will depart will be tomorrow, before they can depart weve got to make sure theyve got passports and visas. 06:06 GMT - Emotional scenes - Tom Hancock in Beijing reports emotional scenes at the Lido Hotel, where relatives continue to arrive from across China, hugging their loved ones, with some crying. 06:02 GMT - Turned back - Malaysias air force chief, General Rodzali Daud, citing radar data, says authorities are looking into the possibility the plane had attempted to turn back. There is a distinct possibility the airplane did a turn-back, deviating from the course. One of the possibilities is that it was returning to Kuala Lumpur. 06:01 GMT - Summary - As the search continues a quick summary of events in the last few hours: Malaysia has launched a terror probe and is investigating four people as it emerges at least two passengers boarded using stolen European passports. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is sending agents and technical experts to assist the probe. Relatives of the 153 Chinese nationals on board, now camped out at the main international airport in Beijing, bemoan the lack of news. Vietnamese boats reached the scene of two large oil slicks detected overnight but found no sign of the plane, while the search area has been expanded to 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 square miles.) However, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman of Malaysias Department of Civil Aviation says he cannot confirm the existence of the oil slicks. Malaysia Airlines says it is fearing for the worst, and urged all Malaysians and people around the world to pray for flight MH370. China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore have all sent vessels and aircraft and the US Navy has sent a surveillance plane and a destroyer carrying two helicopters. 05:45 GMT - Bigger slick - An unanmed Vietnamese military official at the Ho Chi Minh City military air base, who is helping to co-ordinate search efforts, says the oil slick was bigger and clearer today. The weather is good this morning so search and rescue teams saw the oil more clearly. But they didnt see anything else, says the officer, who was not on the plane but had received reports from his staff. 05:34 GMT - Recovery specialist - Malaysia Airlines says it is continuously working with the authorities in providing assistance. In fearing for the worst, a disaster recovery management specialist from Atlanta, USA will be assisting Malaysia Airlines in this crucial time. 05:28 GMT - Search area - The search area has been expanded to 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 square miles), Vietnams Civil Aviation Department says. 05:24 GMT - International effort - The planes disappearance has triggered a search effort involving vessels from several nations with rival maritime claims in the tense South China Sea. China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore threw vessels and aircraft into the effort. The United States also dispatched a destroyer, with two helicopters aboard, and a surveillance plane. 05:22 GMT - Oil slicks - During the initial search on Saturday Vietnams military said two oil slicks had been spotted, but no debris. Two of our aircraft sighted two oil slicks around 15 to 20 kilometres (10-12 miles) long, running parallel, around 500 metres apart from each other, the Vietnam armys deputy chief-of-staff, Vo Van Tuan, told state-run VTV. We are not certain where these two oil slicks may have come from so we have sent Vietnamese ships to the area. I think the two oil slicks are very likely linked to the missing plane, Vice-Admiral Ngo Van Phat, who is helping to direct the search mission, told AFP. 05:18 GMT - Press - No sooner had relatives appeared at the Lido Hotels restaurant than some members of the press hovered over their tables, even putting recorders on the table to try and tape conversations. 05:14 GMT - Hotel lunch - My colleague Tom Hancock Lido Hotel in Beijing where relatives are gathered, says some relatives have left their rooms to claim a buffet lunch at the hotels restaurant. A woman apparently in her twenties, wearing a bright pink jacket, clutched on to an elder womans arm, sobbing gently as a hotel staff member assigned them a table. A group of around seven people in bright blue jackets labelled special assitance team are clustered at the entrance to the lunch area. 05:11 GMT - Lieutenant-General and Deputy-Chief General of Staff of Vietnamese Army, Vo Van Tuan, has told my colleague in Hanoi, Le Thang Long, the biggest challenge for our research is to locate the position of the suspect site, especially during the night. Thats why we have mobilized this morning a boat equipped with radar and equipment which can allow us to inspect under-water zones. I hope this will bring us new discoveries. 05:10 GMT - Passengers - The 153 Chinese passengers aboard the plane included an infant, while 38 Malaysians and seven Indonesians were aboard. Six Australians, five Indians, four French nationals, and three Americans including an infant, were also among those listed and the Dutch Foreign Ministry said it believed one Dutch passenger was on the plane. 05:06 GMT - Relatives mourn - For the relatives of the 227 passengers -- including 153 Chinese nationals -- and 12 crew, there is little comfort. Earlier Sunday the airline admitted: It has been more than 24 hours since we last heard from MH370 at 1:30 am. The search and rescue team is yet to determine the whereabouts of the Boeing 777-200 aircraft. It then urged all Malaysians and people around the world to pray for flight MH370. 04:55 GMT - Search goes on - Rescuers are still hunting for the whereabouts of the twin-engine plane which mysteriously disappeared from radar screens somewhere between Malaysias east coast and southern Vietnam. Flight MH370 sent no distress signal or reports of rough weather, or other signs of trouble, and both Malaysias national carrier and the Boeing 777-200 model used on the route are known for their solid safety records. But about one hour into the flight, it dropped from radar screens. Adding to the mystery are the two passengers who appear to have been using stolen EU passports. An Austrian, named in reports as Christian Kozel, had his passport pinched in Thailand in 2012, while Italian Luigi Maraldi, 37, had his stolen last year, also in Thailand, officials and sources have said. Despite their names being on the passenger manifest, neither man was on the flight. FBI join investigation 04:52 GMT - US built - The US National Transportation Safety Board could also send a team to join the investigation because the plane was built in the US by Boeing, according to the FBI official. 04:50 GMT - Passports - The stolen passports used by two passengers on the plane are believed to have come from an Italian and an Austrian. But a Department of Homeland Security official told the media that just because they were stolen doesnt mean the travelers were terrorists. They could have been nothing more than thieves. Or they could have simply bought the passports on the black market. 04:48 GMT - Video scan - The FBI official stressed there was no evidence of terrorism thus far, but added FBI personnel will help review video from the Kuala Lumpur airport for images of passengers at the ticket counter, security sections and the boarding area. The agents can then use counterterrorism technology to find any possible matches with known members of Al-Qaeda or other terror groups. 04:46 GMT - FBI involved - Earlier US media reported the FBI is sending agents and technical experts to assist in the investigation of the missing plane that had several Americans aboard. US officials told The Los Angeles Times they are trying to determine whether there was any terror link to what caused Flight 370 to go missing as it carried 239 people from Kuala Lumpur toward Beijing. But so far, what happened is a mystery, an official told the newspaper. 04:41 GMT - Terror link - The minister says Malaysia is probing four names over airline security fears. 04:33 GMT - WELCOME TO AFPs LIVE REPORT as Malaysia looks at a possible terror link in the disappearance of an airliner believed to have gone down in the sea with 239 people aboard. The countrys transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, says Malaysian security agencies are investigating after it was discovered that two passengers may have boarded missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 using stolen passports, raising fears of potential terrorism. At the same time our own intelligence have been activated, and of course, the counterterrorism units... from all the relevant countries have been informed.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 07:03:16 +0000
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