Report: Malaysian Police Believe Missing Plane Could Have Been On 'Suicide Mission'

As Malaysian authorities definitively conclude that no one could have survived the crash of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the Telegraph reports that police are working with a “suicide mission theory,” as all signs point to the plane being flown deliberately into the ocean.

“Well-placed sources” tell the British newspaper that they believe “no malfunction or fire was capable of causing the aircraft’s unusual flight,” which led the plane far off the course to its destination, Beijing, and a three-hour plane ride away from Perth, Australia. The little radar data police have seems to show, sources tell the paper, that the plane was flown “in a rational way” that indicates there was no technical accident that caused the plane to crash. Investigators are now leaning toward the idea that “this has been a deliberate act by someone on board who had to have had the detailed knowledge to do what was done,” the Telegraph reports.

With reports surfacing that Chinese and Australian satellites had found images that appeared to be debris from a plane in distant waters nearest Australia, Malaysian authorities announced yesterday that they were certain the plane’s voyage ended near the sighting of that debris. 

The announcement triggered loud protests from the friends and family of those on board, many of whom marched to the Malaysian embassy in Beijing to protest the announcement. The families continued to voice their objections today, as the Malaysian government announced that it was calling off the search in the “northern corridor”–an area that spans from Kuala Lumpur into Kazakhstan–and instead focus on a chunk of ocean the size of Alaska.

Authorities also provided more details today on how they determined the area where the plane might have crashed. According to acting transportation minister Hishammuddin Hussein, British satellite company Inmarsat found a number of “pings” on their radar from an unidentified aircraft that showed authorities the path the plane might have taken south towards Australia. The final “ping” satellites received from a plane they believe to be Flight 470 corresponds with the “maximum endurance of the aircraft,” authorities noted. They do not know if that ping also aligns with the final crashing point of the plane, but search and rescue operations are being focused on that area.

 

Hishammuddin also announced today that the search will not continue for the day due to inclement weather that could endanger search aircraft. This may change the location of debris found on satellites and could radically alter the search, depending on the number of days in which the search operation is incapacitated.