Co-pilot spoke the last words heard from the Malaysia missing plane.
As the search of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 people aboard continues, investigators consider suicide by the captain or first officer as one possible explanation for the disappearance.
The plane vanished on March 8. Investigators are increasingly convinced it was diverted perhaps thousands of miles off course by someone with deep knowledge of the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial navigation.
The airline's chief executive, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, said on Monday that this was the co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid who spoke the last words – an informal "all right, good night"– heard from the cockpit.
The revelation is likely to sharpen suspicions that Hamid and the plane’s pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, were somehow involved in the aircraft’s disappearance.
On Saturday, police seized a flight simulator from Shah's home and also searched Hamid’s home.
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, to see if links to terrorists, personal problems or psychological issues could be factors.
The co-pilot's last words were spoken after the system, known as "ACARS", was shut down.
That was a sign-off to air traffic controllers at 1.19 am, as the Beijing-bound plane left Malaysian airspace.
The last transmission from the ACARS system – a maintenance computer that relays data on the plane's status – had been received at 1.07 a.m., as the plane crossed Malaysia's northeast coast and headed out over the Gulf of Thailand.
"We don't know when the ACARS was switched off after that," Ahmad Jauhari said. "It was supposed to transmit 30 minutes from there, but that transmission did not come through."
A search unprecedented in its scale is now under way for the plane, covering a area stretching from the shores of the Caspian Sea in the north to deep in the southern Indian Ocean.
Focus on those with aviation skills
A senior police official told Reuters Monday that authorities are investigating Mohd Khairul Amri Selamat, a 29-year-old Malaysian flight engineer. Selamat reportedly said on social media that he had worked for a private jet charter company.
"Yes, we are looking into Mohd Khairul, as well as the other passengers and crew,” said the police official, who has knowledge of ongoing investigations. “The focus is on anyone else who might have had aviation skills on that plane."
The plane flew low to avoid radar?
Authorities are also look at the possibility that the jetliner flew at an altitude of less than 1,500 meters to avoid radar coverage after it turned back from its planned route to Beijing, the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times reports.
The newspaper said officials are reviewing the plane’s flight profile to determine whether it used "terrain masking" techniques during the time it disappeared from radar coverage.
Source: Legit.ng
