SINGAPORE, March 15 ― Investigators are narrowing the missing Malaysian jetliner’s possible routes by mapping hours of satellite contacts that continued after other systems were shut down, according to three people familiar with the work.
None would elaborate on the possible locations other than to say they’re consistent with other evidence the Boeing Co. 777-200 went off course and flew west across Peninsular Malaysia, beyond the range of the country’s radar.
The Malaysian Airline System Bhd. jet vanished a week ago with 239 passengers and crew members on board while over the Gulf of Thailand on the way to Beijing. With no evidence of pilot error or mechanical failure, US investigators are treating the Flight 370 case as air piracy, though it remains unclear by whom, said three people with knowledge of the probe.
Investigators are studying four or five scenarios, including an explosion, intentional acts and actions performed under duress, Malaysia’s acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said in Kuala Lumpur. The possibility of pilot and crew involvement is also being explored, he said.
Investigators have been trying to map out where the plane went using pings from a transmitter that sent signals to a Inmarsat Plc satellite about once an hour for 4 to 5 hours after its transponder beacon went dead and the plane changed course, said a person in the US government who wasn’t authorised to speak about the search.
Mapping pulses
The pulses provide no data about the plane’s speed, location or altitude. Still, they allow calculations of an object’s distance from a satellite and an angle at which the signal travelled, said a person with knowledge of the matter. Combined with radar data, those points could be used to triangulate location within ranges, the person said.
The satellite communications came from an onboard monitoring system that, if fully activated, can send data about how the plane’s equipment is working to Boeing, according to the person familiar with the equipment.
While Malaysian Air never subscribed to the Boeing programme, meaning the system didn’t transmit detailed information about the flight to the planemaker, it was in an idle position of sorts and periodically sent pulses to a satellite.
‘Routine, automated’
Inmarsat, based in London, picked up “routine, automated signals” from Flight 370, according to a statement e-mailed by Jonathan Sinnatt, a spokesman. He declined to elaborate.
Specialists from the UK and engine maker Rolls-Royce Plc have said they are studying the satellite communication with the aircraft and will share their findings with Malaysia, Civil Aviation Chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said.
The satellite signals continued after the plane’s transponder shut off along with another system, known as Acars, that sent data about the engines’ performance to Rolls-Royce.
The data doesn’t necessarily indicate the jet was flying for five hours after it lost radar contact. It may be possible for the system to operate if the 777 was on the ground, one person familiar with the device said. It probably can’t operate following a crash, especially on the water where components probably would sink, the person said.
The 777 can cruise at 500 miles an hour or more, meaning it may have flown for as far as 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometres) beyond its last point of contact if it was intact and had enough fuel.
Transponder, acars
US investigators have been studying a radar blip detected hundreds of miles west of the plane’s intended route, in the area of the Straits of Malacca, about 2.15am local time March 8, about 45 minutes after the last transponder signal.
The search widened yesterday even with the attempts to map the satellite contacts.
At Malaysia’s request, India’s navy started checking an area of 9,000 square kilometres (3,475 square miles) along the Chennai coast. The latest patrol area is a strip measuring 15 kilometres long by 600 miles wide, according to an Indian navy statement.
Indian surface vessels and aircraft continued to scour waters east of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the navy said in the statement, even as the naval official cast doubt on the possibility that Flight 370 could have reached the area undetected by radar. Malaysia said yesterday that it pushed the search farther east into the South China Sea and to the west into the Indian Ocean.
Andaman sea
The Andaman Sea surveillance had opened a new front for investigators as signs mounted that the plane doubled back on its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route and possibly flew for hours after controllers lost contact almost a week ago.
“A normal investigation becomes narrower with time, as new information focuses the search,” Hishammuddin said. “But this is not a normal investigation. In this case, the information we have forces us to look further and further afield.”
A US Navy P-8 naval reconnaissance jet, one of the service’s newest aircraft, will join the hunt in the Bay of Bengal in a “western search area,” said Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. The destroyer USS Kidd, equipped with MH-60R helicopters, is also moving there at the request of the Malaysian government, Warren told reporters in Washington.
The Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal are on the opposite side of Malaysia both from Flight 370’s intended path and from the initial search areas in the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea. Malaysiasaid the hunt for the plane now involves 57 ships and 48 aircraft.
“We want nothing more than to find the plane as quickly as possible,” Hishammuddin said. “But the circumstances have forced us to widen our search.” ― Bloomberg
