Malaysian plane presumed crashed; questions over false IDs
(Reuters) - A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew was presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast on Saturday, and European officials said two people on board were using false identities. There were no reports of bad weather and no sign of why the Boeing777-200ER would have vanished from radar screens about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.
"We are not ruling out any possibilities," Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told a news conference.
By the early hours of Sunday, there were no confirmed signs of the plane or any wreckage, well over 24 hours after it went missing. Operations will continue through the night, officials said.
There were no indications of sabotage nor claims of a terrorist attack. But the passenger manifest issued by the airline included the names of two Europeans - Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi - who, according to their foreign ministries, were not in fact on the plane.
A foreign ministry spokesman in Vienna said: "Our embassy got the information that there was an Austrian on board. That was the passenger list from Malaysia Airlines. Our system came back with a note that this is a stolen passport."
Austrian police had found the man safe at home. The passport was stolen two years ago while he was travelling in Thailand, the spokesman said.
The foreign ministry in Rome said no Italian was on the plane either, despite the inclusion of Maraldi's name on the list. His mother, Renata Lucchi, told Reuters his passport was lost, presumed stolen, in Thailand in 2013.
U.S. and European security officials said that there was no proof of any terrorist link and there could be other explanations for the use of stolen passports.
NO MAYDAY
The 11-year-old Boeing, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent engines, took off at 12:40 a.m. (1640 GMT Friday) from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and was apparently flying in good weather conditions when it went missing without a distress call.
Flight MH370 last had contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu. Flight tracking website flightaware.com showed it flew northeast after takeoff, climbed to 35,000 feet and was still climbing when it vanished from tracking records.
A crash, if confirmed, would likely mark the 777's second fatal incident in less than a year, and its deadliest since entering service 19 years ago. An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777-200ER crash-landed in San Francisco in July 2013, killing three passengers and injuring more than 180.
Boeing said it was monitoring the situation but had no further comment.
Paul Hayes, director of safety at Flightglobal Ascend aviation consultancy, said the flight would normally have been at a routine stage, having reached initial cruise altitude.
"Such a sudden disappearance would suggest either that something is happening so quickly that there is no opportunity to put out a mayday, in which case a deliberate act is one possibility to consider, or that the crew is busy coping with what whatever has taken place," he told Reuters.
He said it was too early to speculate on the causes.
A large number of planes and ships from several countries were scouring the area where the plane last made contact, about halfway between Malaysia and the southern tip of Vietnam.
"The search and rescue operations will continue as long as necessary," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters. He said his country had deployed 15 air force aircraft, six navy ships and three coast guard vessels.
Search and rescue vessels from the Malaysian maritime enforcement agency reached the area where the plane last made contact but saw no sign of wreckage, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said.
Vietnam said its rescue planes had spotted two large oil slicks, about 15 km (9 miles) long, and a column of smoke off its coastline, but it was not clear if they were connected to the missing plane.
China and the Philippines also sent ships to the region to help, while the United States, the Philippines and Singapore dispatched military planes. China also put other ships and aircraft on standby.
NO DISTRESS CALL
The disappearance of the plane is a chilling echo of an Air France flight that crashed into the South Atlantic on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people on board. It vanished for hours and wreckage was found only two days later.
John Goglia, a former board member of the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. agency that investigates plane crashes, said the lack of a distress call suggested that the plane either experienced an explosive decompression or was destroyed by an explosive device.
"It had to be quick because there was no communication," Goglia said.
He said the false identities of the two passengers strongly suggested the possibility of a bomb.
"That's a big red flag," he said.
If there were passengers on board with stolen passports, it was not clear how they passed through security checks.
International police body Interpol maintains a database of more than 39 million travel documents reported lost or stolen by 166 countries, and says on its website that this enables police, immigration or border control officers to check the validity of a suspect document within seconds. No comment was immediately available from the organization.
Italian police said the passport of Luigi Maraldi was reported stolen on August 1, 2013 and was inserted in the Interpol database
RELATIVES ANGRY
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing that China was "extremely worried" about the fate of the plane and those on board. Chinese passengers' relatives angrily accused the airline of keeping them in the dark, while state media criticized the carrier's response as poor.
"There's no one from the company here, we can't find a single person. They've just shut us in this room and told us to wait," said one middle-aged man at a hotel near Beijing airport where the relatives were taken.
"We want someone to show their face. They haven't even given us the passenger list," he said.
Another relative, trying to evade a throng of reporters, muttered: "They're treating us worse than dogs."
The airline said people of 14 nationalities were among the 227 passengers, including at least 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three Americans.
In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Airlines told passengers' next of kin to come to the international airport with their passports to prepare to fly to the crash site, once it was identified.
About 20-30 families were being kept in a holding room at the airport, where they were being guarded by security officials and kept away from reporters.
Malaysia Airlines has one of the best safety records among full-service Asia-Pacific carriers.
It identified the pilot of MH370 as Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a 53-year-old Malaysian who joined the carrier in 1981 and has 18,365 hours of flight experience.
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-fbi-disappearance-malaysian-airlines-jet-20140308,0,5571373.story#ixzz2vQIwiLfn
@央广郭亮:转：中方已通知境外机场，提高所有涉华航班安全检查级别到一级，需进行登机口确认。
http://www.weibo.com/1760125267/AA8ap1xrt?mod=weibotime
专家称马航失踪客机极有可能已发生爆炸
文章来源: 路透社 于 2014-03-08 17:03:21 - 新闻取自各大新闻媒体，新闻内容并不代表本网立场！
打印本新闻 (被阅读 2630 次)
“该飞机没有求救信号意味着，飞机要么就是遇到了爆炸性减压，要么就是被引爆装置摧毁了。”美国专门负责空难调查的全国运输安全委员会前董事会成员John Goglia对路透记者表示，他还说“有乘客利用假身份证登机，意味着飞机有极大的发生爆炸的可能性，这是一个很大的危险信号”。
据悉，国际警察机构“国际刑警组织”建有一个全球失踪被窃护照数据库，该数据库录入了166个国家的超过3900万旅客的遗失护照信息，通过该数据库，警察、移民或边境管理人员能够在几秒钟内查到可疑证件，核对护照的真实性。而据意大利警方消息，“被登机”的意大利乘客Luigi Maraldi的护照早在2013年8月1日就曾被录入“国际刑警组织”的失踪被窃护照数据库。但是目前，国际刑警组织没有对此做出任何评论。
Malaysian plane presumed crashed; questions over false IDs
(Reuters) - A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew was presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast on Saturday, and European officials said two people on board were using false identities.
There were no reports of bad weather and no sign of why the Boeing777-200ER would have vanished from radar screens about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.
"We are not ruling out any possibilities," Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told a news conference.
By the early hours of Sunday, there were no confirmed signs of the plane or any wreckage, well over 24 hours after it went missing. Operations will continue through the night, officials said.
There were no indications of sabotage nor claims of a terrorist attack. But the passenger manifest issued by the airline included the names of two Europeans - Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi - who, according to their foreign ministries, were not in fact on the plane.
A foreign ministry spokesman in Vienna said: "Our embassy got the information that there was an Austrian on board. That was the passenger list from Malaysia Airlines. Our system came back with a note that this is a stolen passport."
Austrian police had found the man safe at home. The passport was stolen two years ago while he was travelling in Thailand, the spokesman said.
The foreign ministry in Rome said no Italian was on the plane either, despite the inclusion of Maraldi's name on the list. His mother, Renata Lucchi, told Reuters his passport was lost, presumed stolen, in Thailand in 2013.
U.S. and European security officials said that there was no proof of any terrorist link and there could be other explanations for the use of stolen passports.
NO MAYDAY
The 11-year-old Boeing, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent engines, took off at 12:40 a.m. (1640 GMT Friday) from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and was apparently flying in good weather conditions when it went missing without a distress call.
Flight MH370 last had contact with air traffic controllers 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu. Flight tracking website flightaware.com showed it flew northeast after takeoff, climbed to 35,000 feet and was still climbing when it vanished from tracking records.
A crash, if confirmed, would likely mark the 777's second fatal incident in less than a year, and its deadliest since entering service 19 years ago. An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777-200ER crash-landed in San Francisco in July 2013, killing three passengers and injuring more than 180.
Boeing said it was monitoring the situation but had no further comment.
Paul Hayes, director of safety at Flightglobal Ascend aviation consultancy, said the flight would normally have been at a routine stage, having reached initial cruise altitude.
"Such a sudden disappearance would suggest either that something is happening so quickly that there is no opportunity to put out a mayday, in which case a deliberate act is one possibility to consider, or that the crew is busy coping with what whatever has taken place," he told Reuters.
He said it was too early to speculate on the causes.
A large number of planes and ships from several countries were scouring the area where the plane last made contact, about halfway between Malaysia and the southern tip of Vietnam.
"The search and rescue operations will continue as long as necessary," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters. He said his country had deployed 15 air force aircraft, six navy ships and three coast guard vessels.
Search and rescue vessels from the Malaysian maritime enforcement agency reached the area where the plane last made contact but saw no sign of wreckage, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said.
Vietnam said its rescue planes had spotted two large oil slicks, about 15 km (9 miles) long, and a column of smoke off its coastline, but it was not clear if they were connected to the missing plane.
China and the Philippines also sent ships to the region to help, while the United States, the Philippines and Singapore dispatched military planes. China also put other ships and aircraft on standby.
NO DISTRESS CALL
The disappearance of the plane is a chilling echo of an Air France flight that crashed into the South Atlantic on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people on board. It vanished for hours and wreckage was found only two days later.
John Goglia, a former board member of the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. agency that investigates plane crashes, said the lack of a distress call suggested that the plane either experienced an explosive decompression or was destroyed by an explosive device.
"It had to be quick because there was no communication," Goglia said.
He said the false identities of the two passengers strongly suggested the possibility of a bomb.
"That's a big red flag," he said.
If there were passengers on board with stolen passports, it was not clear how they passed through security checks.
International police body Interpol maintains a database of more than 39 million travel documents reported lost or stolen by 166 countries, and says on its website that this enables police, immigration or border control officers to check the validity of a suspect document within seconds. No comment was immediately available from the organization.
Italian police said the passport of Luigi Maraldi was reported stolen on August 1, 2013 and was inserted in the Interpol database
RELATIVES ANGRY
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing that China was "extremely worried" about the fate of the plane and those on board. Chinese passengers' relatives angrily accused the airline of keeping them in the dark, while state media criticized the carrier's response as poor.
"There's no one from the company here, we can't find a single person. They've just shut us in this room and told us to wait," said one middle-aged man at a hotel near Beijing airport where the relatives were taken.
"We want someone to show their face. They haven't even given us the passenger list," he said.
Another relative, trying to evade a throng of reporters, muttered: "They're treating us worse than dogs."
The airline said people of 14 nationalities were among the 227 passengers, including at least 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three Americans.
In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Airlines told passengers' next of kin to come to the international airport with their passports to prepare to fly to the crash site, once it was identified.
About 20-30 families were being kept in a holding room at the airport, where they were being guarded by security officials and kept away from reporters.
Malaysia Airlines has one of the best safety records among full-service Asia-Pacific carriers.
It identified the pilot of MH370 as Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a 53-year-old Malaysian who joined the carrier in 1981 and has 18,365 hours of flight experience.
话说欧洲绿教也是一堆一堆的，爱马国内疆独，咋觉得哪都不安全了啊？
央视新闻：#马航飞机失联#【我国海警船预计14点抵达飞机失联海域】记者从中国海上搜救中心获悉，我国3艘专业救助船正在前往失联海域，现在距离失联海域最近的专业救助船是海警3411，预计将在5、6个小时之后到达。目前救援力量仍然不断的加强。http://huaren.us/8svVsKg
今晚又要熬夜等消息了，揪心哪。。。
FBI？是不是发现神马人不该出现在飞机上？
开始一拖四个多小时，现在一拖一天，老天爷啊，时间就是生命啊！
开头是此次空难的简要介绍，一架B747在大西洋上突然失踪 。
天涯上的贴子 --《图文并茂八空难》
http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-funinfo-4349295-1.shtml
老百姓也没啥好办法，只能说再也不坐了，去年韩亚的事后俺全家就决定再也不会坐任何韩国飞机，吃得，态度再好也不坐
所以咱还是海上实力不够亚。。。
连阿三都能在飞机消息后60秒通知上头，不明白为毛马来拖这么久！！
这么大个飞机这么多人在天上飞，没信号消失了，过这么久才通报。就算是发射台人偷懒睡觉或者失误操作，顶多被革职，可是这么多人命，如果早点发现早点搜救，会不会搜救难度好一点生还几率大点？！
更加对马来西亚的人不喜欢了，周围认识好几个马来西亚学生平时拽的跟什么似的。
★ 发自Android 华人阅览器 7.2
对啊！心里太揪心了，实在是猪一样的政府，没能力搜救难道还没能力早点上报，藏着掖着就能解决问题。
这安检，太侥幸心理了。这一连串的护照和登机对不上的。。。
现在只是搜不是救了吧唉。。
他大爷的，不骂人不行了。
直升飞机降不了正常，能见度低，又是山地
可是
救援队在离坠机点60几公里的地方，驻扎了一晚，天亮才出发。。
http://www.xmnn.cn/dzbk/xmrb/20140309/201403/t20140309_3740857.htm
越来越扑朔迷离了，感觉也越来越可怕
以为人都死光了还是什么的，居然不连夜赶路
最后520死，4生还，太惨了。。
靠，估计这个是个长得像汉人的在用。
★ 发自Android 华人阅览器 7.2
好像是叫中央情报局吧
厄，刚发出去就发现自己二了，大家忽视我吧
好歹这次也有美国人死，而且要真是恐怖袭击美国也得搞清楚到底是针对什么吧？是针对中国还是要去撞美军基地？
CNN开评论了，舆论导向说可能是恐怖袭击，这个可能是波音背后有给钱，或者是美国查出点啥了，现在中美媒体都在强调假护照…… 而且如果飞机上有炸药的话很可能有内应，在海上爆炸可以湮没证据，洛比克空难本来就是想在海上炸的，结果因为天气影响陆地上炸了，才给了调查人员足够的证据……
饭统局？
.
【异国夫妻都想给对方惊喜，却生生被延迟了】张女士的老公从马来西亚回国没有事先通知她。她得知后打电话求证，他说想给她一个惊喜，所以乘MH370一早能回京陪她过三八节。她去接机也没说，也想给他惊喜。然而本应6点半抵达航班，“延误”了一天仍未抵达…
.