KUALA LUMPUR: Information combined with known radar data and knowledge of fuel range leads US officials to believe the missing Malaysia Airlines plane may have made it to Indian Ocean which is in the opposite direction of the plane’s original route.
“There is probably a significant likelihood” that the aircraft is now on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, a senior US official said, citing information Malaysia has shared with the United States.
Malaysian authorities believe they have several “pings” from the airliner’s service data system, known as ACARS, transmitted to satellites in the four to five hours after the last transponder signal, suggesting the plane flew to the Indian Ocean, a senior US official told CNN.
It’s the latest twist in a case that’s baffled investigators and grabbed global attention for days since the plane disappeared on Saturday early morning on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Information about the missing flight has been hard to come by, and numerous leads have been revealed by some officials only to be debunked by others hours later.
This new information led to a decision to move the US Navy destroyer USS Kidd into the Indian Ocean to begin searching that area, the official said.
The Navy destroyer is now on its way there at the request of the Malaysian government, Cmdr. William Marks of the US 7th Fleet told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday.
Won’t be easy
“We’re not out here freelancing, and it’s not just something the US Navy thinks and no one else…,” Marks said.
“So this was by request of the Malaysian government. They asked the Navy to move our ship to the west into the Strait of Malacca. … It is coordinated, but certain ships and aircraft stay in the east, and some go to the west. And we’re moving to the west.”
Saying that it won’t be easy moving into the Indian Ocean, Marks said, it was like going “from a chess board to a football field.”
The Indian Ocean is the world’s third largest ocean, and in most places it’s much deeper than other areas where search crews have been looking.
“It’s a completely new game. Now we have to come up with a new strategy, new tactics,” he said.
There is reason to believe the plane flew for four hours, officials said, but there is no specific indication where the plane actually is.
Multiple bursts of data were received indicating the plane was flying over the Indian Ocean, the senior US official told CNN.
But there’s another confusing twist. An emergency beacon that would have sent data upon impact apparently did not go off, the official said.
The beacons, known as Emergency Locator Transmitters, activate automatically upon immersion in fresh or salt water, but must remain on the surface for a distress signal to transmit.
The failure of the beacon to activate could mean that the plane didn’t crash, that the transmitter malfunctioned, or that it’s underwater somewhere.
-Agencies
