KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The search for the missing Malaysian jet pushed deep into the northern and southern hemispheres Monday as Australia scoured the southern Indian Ocean and China offered 21 satellites to respond to Malaysia’s call for help in the hunt.
French investigators arrived in Kuala Lumpur to lend expertise from the two-year search for an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. They were able to rely on distress signals in that case, but that vital tool is missing in the Malaysia Airlines mystery because flight 370’s communications were deliberately severed ahead of its disappearance more than a week ago, investigators said.
“It’s very different from the Air France case. The Malaysian situation is much more difficult,” said Jean Paul Troadec, a special adviser to France’s aviation accident investigation bureau.
Malaysian authorities said the jet carrying 239 people was intentionally diverted from its flight path during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 and flew off course for several hours. Suspicion has fallen on the pilots, though Malaysian officials have said they are investigating everyone aboard the flight.
Malaysian police confiscated a flight simulator program from the pilot’s home Saturday and also visited the home of the co-pilot in what Malaysian Police Chief Khalid Abu Bakar initially said was the first police visits to those homes. But the government - which has come under criticism abroad for missteps and foot-dragging in their release of information - issued a statement Monday contradicting that account by saying police first visited the pilots’ homes as early as March 9, the day after the flight.
Investigators haven’t ruled out hijacking, sabotage, pilot suicide or mass murder, and they are checking the backgrounds of all 227 passengers and 12 crew members, as well as the ground crew.
For now, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that finding the plane remains the main focus, and he did not rule out finding it intact.
“The fact that there was no distress signal, no ransom notes, no parties claiming responsibility, there is always hope,” Hishammuddin said.
Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said an initial investigation indicated that the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, spoke the fight’s last words - “All right, good night” - to ground controllers. Had it been a voice other than that of Fariq or the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, it would have been the clearest indication yet of something amiss in the cockpit before the flight went off-course.
Malaysian officials earlier said those words came after one of the jetliner’s data communications systems - the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System - had been switched off, sharpening suspicion that one or both of the pilots might have been involved in the plane’s disappearance.
However, Ahmad said Monday that though the last data transmission from the system - which gives plane performance and maintenance information - came before that, it was still unclear at what point the system was switched off. That opened the possibility that the system and the plane’s transponders - which make the plane visible to civilian air traffic controllers - were severed later and about the same time. It also suggests that the all-clear message delivered from the cockpit could have preceded any of the severed communications.
Twenty-six countries are now involved in the search, which initially focused on the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca.
Over the weekend, however, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that investigators determined that a satellite picked up a faint signal from the aircraft about 7½ hours after takeoff. The signal indicated the plane would have been somewhere on a vast arc stretching from Kazakhstan down to the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean.
Hishammuddin said Monday that searches in both the northern and southern stretches of the arc had begun, and that countries from Australia north to China and west to Kazakhstan had joined the hunt.
Had the plane gone northwest to Central Asia, it would have crossed over countries with busy airspaces, and some experts believe that it more likely would have gone south, though Malaysian authorities are not ruling out the northern corridor.
The northern corridor crosses through countries including China, India and Pakistan - all of which have said they have seen no sign of the plane. China, where two-thirds of the passengers were from, is providing several planes and 21 satellites for the search, Premier Li Keqiang said in a statement.
“Factors involved in the incident continue to multiply, the area of search and rescue continues to broaden, and the level of difficulty increases, but as long as there is one thread of hope, we will continue an all-out effort,” Li said.
To the south, Indonesia focused on Indian Ocean waters west of Sumatra, air force spokesman Rear Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto said.
Australia agreed to Malaysia’s request to take the lead in scouring the southern Indian Ocean with four Orion maritime planes that also would be joined by New Zealand and U.S. planes, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.
“Australia will do its duty in this matter,” Abbott said. “We will do our duty to the families of the 239 people on that aircraft who are still absolutely devastated by their absence, and who are still profoundly, profoundly saddened by this as yet unfathomed mystery.”
Also on Monday, U.S. military officials said the Navy ship that has been helping search for the missing Malaysian airliner is dropping out of the hunt.
The Navy’s 7th Fleet determined that long-range naval aircraft are a more efficient means of looking for the plane or its debris now that the search area has broadened.
Long-range Navy P-3 and P-8 surveillance aircraft remain involved in the search, Cmdr. William Marks, a spokesman for the 7th Fleet, said in an emailed statement.
The USS Kidd, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that has been searching in the Indian Ocean, will return to its normal duties.
Information for this article was contributed by Chris Brummitt, Jim Gomez, Eileen Ng, Kirsten Gelineau, Christopher Bodeen, Niniek Karmini and Robert Burns of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 03/18/2014