March 08, 2014
The Malaysian Airline System Bhd. flight, which was carrying passengers from countries including China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, France, New Zealand, India and the U.S., departed from the Malaysian capital at about 12:41 a.m. local time yesterday and was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6.30 a.m. Photographer: Goh Seng Chong/Bloomberg
Oil slicks signaled that a missing Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS) jet may have crashed in the Gulf of Thailand even as the mystery surrounding the plane deepened with the discovery that two passengers used stolen passports.
An air search is resuming today after Vietnam’s military found twin sheens as long as 15 kilometers (9 miles) off the country’s south coast yesterday. That marked the first clue in the disappearance of Flight 370 and the 239 people on board theBoeing Co. (BA:US) 777-200 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
Six nations hunting for the plane had little to go on, with no distress calls, emergency-beacon signals, bad weather or other signs why a cruising airliner would lose touch in one of the safest phases of flight. The prospect of terrorism arose after Austria and Italy said that two passengers used passports stolen from their nationals, both of them men.
“It is very puzzling right now,” said John Cox, an accident investigator and chief executive officer at Safety Operating Systems in Washington. “We have conflicting very early lines of evidence.”
There is no indication of terrorism at this point, said a U.S. official following the case who asked not to be identified because the investigation is still in its early stages. The U.S. is working with authorities in the region to explore all possible causes, the official said.
Austria, Italy
The stolen Austrian passport used to board Flight 370 was from a 30-year-old who reported the theft in 2012 in Thailand, while the Italian was Luigi Maraldi, who disclosed the theft of his documents in August, according to the countries’ foreign ministries. Neither man was on the jet, their governments said.
An over-water disappearance and stolen passports “raised huge red flags,” said John Magaw, a former top U.S. law enforcement and transportation-security official who now works as a consultant. “Those two things right there are highly, highly, highly suspicious.”
While the airborne search was halted when darkness fell late yesterday, warships and other vessels continued the hunt through the night even as the passing of more than a day since air controllers lost contact dimmed hopes of avoiding a tragedy.
Malaysia is “sparing no efforts to galvanize the resources within its disposal in the ongoing search and rescue efforts,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. The government created a special center to coordinate its crisis response.
Flight 370 departed the Malaysian capital at about 12:41 a.m. local time yesterday and was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. Security screening was performed as normal at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd. (MAHB) said in a statement.
Passengers, Crew
On board the twin-engine wide-body were 227 passengers and 12 crew members, with Chinese travelers -- 153, including an infant -- accounting for the largest group of nationals, the airline said. Also on the plane were three U.S. citizens, according to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is monitoring the situation.
China, Vietnam, the Philippines, the U.S. and Singapore are assisting Malaysia’s government, with the destroyer Pinckney from the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet among vessels in the hunt. President Barack Obama was briefed while on a weekend family vacation in Key Largo, Florida, said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman.
“We believe it is too early to comment on the causes of this incident,” said Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman. “The United States government is in communication across agencies and with international officials to provide any appropriate assistance in the investigation.”
Vietnamese Patrols
The oil slicks discovered by Vietnamese military aircraft were about 140 kilometers south of Tho Chu Island in a body of water known as the Gulf of Thailand, off the South China Sea. Its maximum depth is about 80 meters (.05 mile), according to Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources.
If terrorism was involved, a watery grave for the plane may not be a coincidence, said consultant Magaw, who formerly was director of the U.S. Secret Service and led the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as well as the Transportation Security Administration. Bringing down a jet at sea helps obscure any evidence, he said.
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