Investigations into the mystery of a missing Malaysian jet appeared to
be at a deadlock on Wednesday, with no conclusive evidence of foul play and
doubts whether nations would share military tracking data that could show where
the plane may have headed.
Eleven days have passed since Malaysia Airlines (MASM.KL) Flight MH370 went missing, and 26
nations are struggling to search for the airliner over an area more than
two-thirds the size of the continental United States.
Malaysian and U.S. officials believe the aircraft was deliberately
diverted but an exhaustive background search of the 239
passengers and crew aboard has not yielded any possible motive or link to
terrorism.
Malaysia's top official in charge of the unprecedented operation said
it was vital to reduce the scale of the search and renewed appeals for
sensitive military data from its neighbours that Malaysia believes may shed
light on where the airliner flew.
"All the efforts must be used to
actually narrow the corridors that we have announced - I think that is the best
approach to do it. Otherwise we are in the realm of speculation again,"
Malaysia's Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters late
on Tuesday.
The U.S. Navy said it had switched mainly to using P-8A
Poseidon and P-3 Orion aircraft to search for the
missing plane instead of ships and helicopters.
"The maritime patrol aircraft are
much more suited for this type of operation since the search field is
growing," said Navy Lieutenant David Levy, who is on board the USS Blue
Ridge, the U.S. Navy ship that is coordinating the search effort.
"It's just a much more efficient
way to search," he said.
Flight MH370 vanished from civilian air traffic
control screens off Malaysia's east coast at 1:21
a.m. local time on March 8 (1721 GMT March 7), less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur
for Beijing.
Investigators piecing together patchy data from military radar and
satellites believe that someone turned off vital datalinks and turned west,
re-crossing the Malay Peninsula and following a commercial route towards India.
After that, ephemeral pings picked up by one commercial satellite
suggest the aircraft flew on for at least six hours, but investigators have
very little idea whether it turned north or south, triggering a search
expanding across two hemispheres.
In the latest of a series of possible sightings of the plane, police in
the Indian Ocean island chain of the Maldives said they were investigating
reports that people on one of its outer islands had seen a low-flying airplane
there early on March 8. The police gave no further
details.
Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the fact
that aircraft continued to exchange electronic "handshakes" with the
satellite weighed against theories that the pilots were battling some kind of
technical problem.
"There's a possibility of
malfunction, but the satellite communication system was still active until the
last time there was data at 8:11 a.m.," he said.
"There's some functionality in the system, except the reporting system was
disabled."
U.S. government sources said intelligence agencies had extensively
analysed people on the flight but came up with no connections to terrorism or
possible criminal motives.
A senior U.S. official said he was "not aware of any stones left
unturned".
China has said there is no evidence that Chinese passengers, who made
up over two-thirds of those on board, were involved in a hijack or terror
attack.
Unless there is some kind of breakthrough, either in the form of new
data or a sighting of the plane, the investigation appears to be drifting
towards deadlock, sources said.
HUGE SEARCH AREA
Asked how important military tracking data would be to resolving the
mystery, Hishammuddin said, "It is very important. But in the case of
Malaysia, we have actually put aside national security, national interest to
get to where we are today."
A senior diplomat in the region said military and government leaders
were studying Malaysia's request, but there was no word so far on whether any
data would be exchanged.
Malaysia says it will have to buy a new radar system after revealing
what it knew of the path the airliner took after turning back across its
territory.
"It looks like the ball is in
(others') court now and they need to decide what sort of military and other
data they are willing to share with us," a Malaysian government source
said.
Analysts say it will be difficult to persuade others to do the same,
especially if the result would be to reveal weakness in their own defences
given the numerous maritime and territorial boundary disputes going on in the
region.
"Information and intelligence
exchange is very sensitive in this part of the world where there is a lot of
distrust and sovereign issues," said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at
Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
"Countries are unwilling to share
sensitive intelligence because if reveals their military capabilities - or lack
of capabilities."
The search covers a total area of 2.24
million nautical miles (7.68 million sq km), from
central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Because of its size, scale of human loss and sheer uncertainty over
what happened, the missing airliner looks set to establish itself as one of the
most baffling air transport incidents of all time.
A breakthrough is still possible, experts say. Wreckage could be found,
but the more time elapsed since the aircraft's disappearance the more it will
be scattered.
"It's a mystery and it may remain
a mystery," says Elizabeth Quintalla, chief air power researcher at the
Royal United Services Institute in London.
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