Mystery over missing aircraft deepens
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A Malaysian police officer checks passengers' identification documents at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia on Sunday.
AP A Malaysian police officer checks passengers' identification documents at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia on Sunday.
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Twenty-two aircraft and 40 ships from half-a-dozen countries were pressed into a frantic search operation across the South China Sea on Sunday as fears grew over the fate of the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft.
Amid deepening mystery over what happened to the Beijing-bound aircraft which was carrying 239 people, including five Indians, on board, there were conflicting reports on Sunday whether the 30-hour rescue operation had yielded a breakthrough.
Vietnamese officials on Sunday evening said their Navy had spotted “fragments” suspected to have been parts of the aircraft floating in the waters off southern Vietnam. The Ministry of Information released what it said was a photograph of parts of an aircraft door and tail.
Airline officials, however, said they could not confirm if the fragments were indeed aircraft debris. The airline said Sunday it was “fearing the worst,” although the fate of the Boeing remained a mystery almost two days after air traffic control first lost the aircraft near the Gulf of Thailand.
As the search continued, the Malaysian government said it was investigating the identities of at least two passengers who were found to have boarded the aircraft using stolen passports. An Italian and an Austrian named on the passenger manifest were not on board, and had reported having their passports stolen in Thailand last year, fuelling suspicions of foul play.
It emerged that both passengers had purchased their tickets from China Southern airlines — which was running a code share on the flight — and had been booked to travel onward from Beijing to Amsterdam. While officials said there was no clear evidence of terrorism, they were not ruling out any possibilities and had alerted intelligence officials to begin a probe. Agents from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would travel to Malaysia to assist with investigations.
“Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol’s databases,” said Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble.
Rodzali Daud, the Royal Malaysian Air Force Chief, said the government was also looking into the possibility that the aircraft attempted turning back shortly before it lost contact.
Keywords: Malaysia Airlines plane crash, missing flight, Beijing-bound flight, Subang Air Traffic Control, Chinese passengers, emergency mechanism, fake passports