Malaysia Airliner Disappearance Possibly 'Done Intentionally' - East Idaho News
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Malaysia Airliner Disappearance Possibly ‘Done Intentionally’

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GETTY 31414 MalaysiaSearch?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1394811431612MOHD RASFAN/AFP/Getty Images(KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia) — Investigators searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet said on Friday that whatever happened to the plane and its 239 passengers “could have been done intentionally” and probers are looking at whether one of the plane’s two pilots could have been involved.

Malaysia’s Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein made clear that investigators do not know what happened to the jetliner despite a week of intense searching. But they have determined that the plane continued to “ping” a satellite long after its transponder stopped sending out signals after it disappeared from radar.

Officials have told ABC News that the plane’s two communications systems were shut down separately and it appeared to have been done manually.

“There are four or five possibilities which we are exploring,” Hishammuddin told a news conference Friday. “It could have been done intentionally. It could be done under duress. It could have been done because of an explosion. That’s why I don’t want to go into the realm of speculation. We are looking at the all the possibilities.”

When asked whether investigators were looking at whether one of the plane’s two pilots could have been involved in whatever happened to the plane, he replied, “We are looking at that possibility.”

“The investigation into the pilots is ongoing,” he said in response to another question, but said they have not yet searched their homes.

Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya added to the speculation that the plane’s disappearance was the result of a plot rather than a catastrophic failure of the airplane’s systems.

“We cannot confirm whether there is no hijacking. Like I said from the start, and I’ve been very consistent, we are looking at all possibilities,” Yahya said.

The plane vanished early Saturday about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and heading for Beijing. It disappeared from radar at 1:30 a.m. local time.

After searching intently east of Malaysia in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, much of the attention has shifted hundreds of miles west in the Strait of Malacca and the Indian Ocean. Officials believe it may have flown west because Malaysian military radar picked up a signal after the jetliner disappeared and they believe it may have been flight MH370.

“I will be the happiest person if we can confirm that (the military radar blip) is MH 370 because then we could move all our assets to the Strait of Malacca. But at this time we cannot do that,” Hishammuddin said on Friday.

Investigators are trying to retrieve data from the satellites that had been pinged by the missing airliner in the hopes that those contacts might aid in plotting the plane’s final position.

Vietnamese officials added a detail to the plane’s mystery on Friday by revealing that when flight MH370 left Malaysian airspace and failed to make contact with Vietnamese air traffic controllers, the Vietnamese asked another plane in the area that was heading to Japan to contact MH370.

The Japan-bound plane reported back to the Vietnamese controllers that when it reached MH370 only a “buzz signal” came back, but no voices. And then the signal went dead. The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not say what time that contact was made.

The destroyer USS Kidd arrived in the northwestern section of the Strait of Malacca on Friday to help search that vast expanse of sea.

Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

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