Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 now classified as a criminal investigation

Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 now classified as a criminal investigation
Julian Swallow, Cindy Wockner in Kuala Lumpur, Kristin Shorten and AFP
News Corp Australia
April 03, 2014 3:11PM
Malaysia releases MH370 transcript 0:56
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The transcript of communications between the crew of Flight MH370 and ground control has been released.

THE investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has been classified as a criminal investigation, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal citing Malaysia’s police chief.

As the search for the missing Boeing 777-200ER continues into its 25th day, a series of updates linked to The Wall Street Journal’s Twitter feed quoted police chief Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar as saying police had taken more than 170 statements for the ongoing probe, and would interview more people.

“Investigations may go on and on and on. We have to clear every little thing,’’ Abu Bakar told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

“At the end of the investigations, we may not even know the real cause. We may not even know the reason for this incident.”

IS THIS THE REAL REASON NO-ONE CAN FIND FLIGHT MH370

Abu Bakar said the backgrounds of the 227 passengers, two-thirds of whom were from China, had been checked by local and international investigators and “cleared” of the four possible scenarios: Sabotage, hijacking personal or psychological problems.

Abu Bakar said police were also investigating the cargo and food served on the plane to eliminate the possibility of poisoning of passengers and crew.

Even the aircraft’s cargo of four tonnes of mangosteens are under investigation, he said, after having previously been held up as evidence that nothing untoward was being carried in the hold.

“Investigators are looking into who ordered them, paid for them and plucked and packed them from an orchard in Muar,” he said

It follows comments from Malaysia’s Defence and acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein this week that the plane’s “movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane.”

Investigators have been trawling through the backgrounds of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, along with examining whether a passenger could have hijacked the plane and flown it to the remote southern Indian Ocean.

However, an accident has also not been fully ruled out.

Mr Abu Bakar said some details could not be revealed at the moment because it could impact on a future prosecution.

“You have to understand that there are things we cannot share as it is a criminal investigation but we are investigating based on the four areas of focus,” he said.

According to the Journal, Abu Bakar said the investigation into Captain Ahmad Shah’s home-made flight simulator remained inconclusive, and that they were awaiting expert’s reports.

Malaysian authorities handed over flight simulator hard drives to US authorities, including the FBI, after discovering information had been deleted.

The plane disappeared March 8 on a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur after its transponders, which make the plane visible to commercial radar, were shut off. Military radar picked it up the jet just under an hour later, on the other side of the Malay peninsula. Authorities say until then its “movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane’’ but have not ruled out anything, including mechanical error.

Malaysia Police Inspector General, Khalid Abu Bakar speaks during a press conference at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
‘WE CAN’T LET ANOTHER FLIGHT VANISH’

As the so-far fruitless search for the missing plane continues, the aviation industry has announced it will create a taskforce to make recommendations for continuously tracking commercial airliners because “we cannot let another aircraft simply vanish’’.

The first of nine planes headed out to the search zone about 1,500km west of Perth this morning and another nine ships continue to scour the area, with authorities warning the 25-day hunt for the Malaysia Airlines plane “could drag on for a long time”.

Last night, Malaysian investigators said they were scrutinising the last-known conversation between the Boeing 777 and ground control could not find nothing suspicious.

READ MORE: MH370 OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT RELEASED

With searchers still unable to locate any sign of the airliner, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, the aviation industry has begun to examine exactly how such an incident could have happened.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade group for the world’s airlines meeting in Kuala Lumpur, said the jet’s mysterious disappearance had highlighted the need for improvements in tracking aircraft and security.

“In a world where our every move seems to be tracked, there is disbelief that an aircraft could simply disappear,” said Tony Tyler, the director general of the group whose 240 member airlines carry 84 per cent of all passengers and cargo worldwide.

“We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish,” he said in announcing the high-level task force to make recommendations on tracking commercial aircraft.