The team investigating the safety aspects of MH370 has concluded that they are unable to determine the real cause of the disappearance of the plane but did not rule out the possibility that \u201cunlawful interference\u201d by a third party had caused the incident.<\/p>\n
The Malaysian International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team, which released its 449-page report after a four-year wait, also allayed concerns that their findings were final.<\/p>\n
Chief investigator Datuk Kok Soo Chon said the team had analysed the pilot and first officer of the fateful MH370 plane on many aspects and found no abnormalities.<\/p>\n
However, evidence such as the aircraft turn back, which was done manually, no malfunction and that the transponder was switched off \u201cirresistibly\u201d suggested unlawful interference, said Kok.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on all that, we dare not exclude unlawful interference,\u201d he told a media briefing held at the Transport Ministry yesterday.<\/p>\n
Flight MH370, which was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, vanished on March 8, 2014, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.<\/p>\n
The disappearance of the aircraft has been dubbed one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time.<\/p>\n
The report also quelled concerns over the pilot\u2019s possible role in the missing plane.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe analysed the pilot and first officer on many aspects including behavioural, psychological, social and also their medical history. There were two psychiatrists in the team and they even viewed footages of the pilot and first officer before the flight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey concluded that there were no behavioural signs of social isolation, change in habits or interest, self-neglect, drug or alcohol abuse of the pilot-in-command and flight officer,\u201d said the report.<\/p>\n
Kok told the media that background checks were also done on the crew and passengers of MH370 and all were given \u201ca clean bill of health\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the Boeing 777 was fitted with four emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) and the search team could not detect any signals from the plane\u2019s ELTs.<\/p>\n
\u201cELTs do not work if submerged under water, if cables are broken or its antenna is damaged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kok said there was nothing unusual about MH370\u2019s ELTs not working and pointed out that in 170 air incidents recorded by the ICAO over the past 30 years, only 39 cases of signals from ELTs were detected.<\/p>\n
On the aircraft underwater locator beacons, he said that although the battery for the equipment had expired in 2012, it could still function for a few days.<\/p>\n
On the report, Kok pointed out that his team was only responsible to conduct the safety investigation while the judicial probe, as well as the search for the missing, was conducted by other authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the final report. It would be presumptuous of us to say the wreckage is found when there are no victims. There must be a closure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Earlier, the team held a briefing to the Malaysian next of kin. A similar session will be held in Beijing on Aug 3.<\/p>\n
Kok explained that the report could not be released earlier as the search for the missing plane was ongoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the tripartite search ended, Ocean Infinity conducted a search. When this stopped in May, it gave us two months to prepare the report and here it is today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kok said he was unaware of claims that the next of kin were given 48 hours\u2019 notice to attend the briefing as the team had no communication with them and neither did they call for a press conference as these matters were dealt with by different teams.<\/p>\n
On the fate of the team, he said that with the release of the report, its members had agreed to offer termination of their contract within a month from now-.thestar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The team investigating the safety aspects of MH370 has concluded that they are unable to determine the real cause of the disappearance of the plane but did not rule out the possibility that \u201cunlawful interference\u201d by a third party had caused the incident. The Malaysian International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annex 13 Safety Investigation Team, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":{"id":21106,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":640,"height":360,"file":"2014\/03\/malaysia-map-MH370.jpg","filesize":111723,"sizes":{},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":21105,"source_url":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/malaysia-map-MH370.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70037,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70036\/revisions\/70037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}