Malaysia 370 - A Mystery?

"Bring down their planes" - Sheikh Rahman, associate of
Osama bin Laden, issuing a fatwa from his prison cell

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing which on 8 March 2014 went missing less than an hour after takeoff. This picture from an article in TMZ depicts the left turn that the aircraft supposedly made after radio contact was lost with it.  A joint search and rescue effort, later reported as the largest in history, was initiated in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. The search area was later extended to include the Stait of Malacca, Andaman Sea, and the Indian Ocean. On 15 March, investigators believed that the aircraft had first headed west back across the Malay Peninsula, then continued on a southern track for approximately seven hours.

That the aircraft turned back towards an airport north of Kuala Lumpur and then flew south to crash in the sea off Western Australia has led to much speculation that one or other of the pilots was involved in destroying the plane and had turned off the aircraft’s transponder so it could not be traced.  The news media is screaming “criminal act” and blaming the pilots. Yet all of this has happened before right in our own backyard off the Eastern Coasts of the United States and Canada where numerous strange crashes have occurred in the past 20 years.

In October 1995, Egypt Air Flight 990, a twin-engine Boeing 767, was cruising at 31,000 feet off Nantucket, Mass., when it suddenly dove, and plummeted at breakneck speed into the cold Atlantic, killing all 217 people aboard. Pilot suicide was blamed despite the fact that the pilot had called his wife just before take-off to tell her that he had picked up medicines in New York needed for their child. Included in the passenger manifest were 33 Egyptian military officers returning from a training exercise; among them were two Brigadier-Generals, a Colonel, a Major, and four other air force officers. After the crash, newspapers in Cairo were prevented by censors from reporting the officers' presence on the flight.

On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 was climbing gradually after taking off from New York City and well along in its flight when it exploded at about 13,000 feet. All 230 people aboard were killed.

On Sept. 2, 1998, Swissair Flight 111, was also cruising along a similar route as TWA 800 and Egyptair 990 on a flight from New York to Geneva when it crashed off Nova Scotia, killing the 229 people aboard. "We don't see any common threat in these accidents,'' emphasized Capt. Dwayne Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association".

Let’s trace the story of Swissair 111 from newspaper accounts and other reports from that time. It bears some uncanny parallels to the flight of Malaysian Airlines 370.  The initial search and rescue response, crash recovery operation, and resulting investigation by the Government of Canada took over four years and cost CAD 57 million (at that time approximately USD 38 million). The Transportation Safety Board of Canada's (TSB) official report of their investigation stated that flammable material used in the aircraft's structure allowed a fire to spread beyond the control of the crew, resulting in a loss of control and the crash of the aircraft.

But Swissair Flight 111 was known as the "U.N. shuttle" due to its popularity with United Nations officials; the flight often carried business executives, scientists, and researchers. Also on board that night was a particular enemy of Osama bin Laden.

August 30, 2000  The Globe and Mail
Pinpointing the origin of the fire aboard Swissair Flight 111, which crashed into the sea near Peggy’s Cove, N.S., killing all 229 people on board, may prove impossible, Canadian crash investigators acknowledge. After spending two years of painstaking effort, including salvaging nearly two million pieces of the shattered MD-11 from the sea bottom, Canadian Transportation Safety Board investigators have failed to find the cause of the fire. "Finding the origin of the fire is only one aspect of this investigation," said Vic Gerden, who heads the TSB team conducting the largest and most expensive probe in Canadian history. In an interview, Mr. Gerden said the origin -- perhaps an arcing wire, perhaps something else -- "could be the size of a fingernail." The board released one of its periodic status reports yesterday, just four days before the second anniversary of the crash on Sept. 2, 1998. In the report, investigators say they are still attempting to find a way to "distinguish between arced wires" to determine if one of them was the origin of the fire, or whether they shorted only after fire burned through their insulation. But it "will be difficult to be conclusive without finding the piece" that caused the fire, Mr. Gerden said.

November 5, 1998 The Associated Press
Before Swissair Flight 111 crashed, the temperature rose to 572 degrees in the front part of the plane, the airline's in-house publication said Thursday. Swissair's "News'' also said there are no traces of fire despite the high temperature and the source of the heat still is not known. According to the newsletter, investigators were surprised that the heat was in the upper part of the plane and not below the cockpit floor, where most of the wiring is located.

Molten metal was discovered in the wreckage which could not have come from the burning of organic materials such as plastics or wire coverings.  That to most observers would be a clear indication of sabotage with an incendiary device.

Elaine Scarry in The NY Review of Books, Vol XLVII, Number 14, Sept 21, 2000 highlights some very strange facts about what was going on with SwissAir while it travelled along the same flight path as TWA 800. Both flights took off on a Wednesday evening at 8:19 pm and followed the same flight path along Long Island Sound.  Scarry writes:

"Reports about Swissair 111 have left the public with the incorrect impression that the plane managed to make its way, uneventfully, east along Long Island and north along the New England coast before suddenly beginning to encounter trouble when it was sixty miles from Halifax. The record of the difficulty, as widely reported in the press, begins at 9:14 PM, when Swissair 111's pilot requests permission to make an unscheduled landing at Boston; the air controller in Moncton, Canada, reminds him that he is much closer to the Halifax airport than to Boston, and asks him if he would prefer to land at Halifax. At the moment of the 9:14 call, the cockpit has smoke in it.

However, in the early stage of the flight, while Swissair 111 was still traveling east along the southern coast of Long Island, it lost radio contact with the eastern seaboard air controllers for thirteen minutes. The aircraft had its last normal exchange with the Boston air controllers at 8:33 PM, after which it lost radio contact with every air controller on the northeast coast for the next thirteen minutes.

Under normal conditions, exchanges between air controllers and pilots occur in pairs: a call initiated by the air controller will be answered by the pilot, who restates what the air controller has just said; or the call may instead be initiated by the pilot, who asks a question (such as permission to climb to an altitude that has less wind turbulence), which the air controller answers, after which the pilot repeats the information to verify that the words have been heard and understood. This pattern of call and recall is not a casual practice; it is a required procedure. While the sentences of pilots and air controllers normally occur in tight pairs, there can be many factors that for a few seconds interrupt the rhythm of the call-and-recall pattern, and necessitate a repetition of the call. But the failure to answer is never taken lightly and if it continues, it may become a matter of grave concern.

For a thirteen-minute period from 8:33 PM until 8:47 PM, no completed act of radio contact took place between Swissair 111 and the Boston area air controllers, whose radars are positioned at Sardi on Long Island, Hampton on Long Island, Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Augusta, Maine. As the plane progresses, it is passed along from one controller to the next. In Swissair 111's last successful exchange at 8:33, the Hampton controller had told the pilot the radio frequency he should now use as he begins to enter the Cape Cod airspace and the pilot had accurately repeated back to him that new frequency:

Hampton Controller: Swissair 111. Boston one two eight point seven five.
Swissair 111: One two eight seven five. One Eleven, right.
Hampton Controller: Good bye.

From this point forward, Swissair 111 should be in communication with the Cape sector. But the Cape controller cannot reach the plane; and so at 8:34 PM, he asks the Hampton controller to try to reach him on the old frequency: "Try him again, thanks."

Hampton Controller: Swissair 111. Center.
Swissair 111: [no response]

The radio a commercial pilot uses for communication with air traffic control has a double screen: the frequency used for one sector (in this case, Hampton) is kept in place on the first screen when the new frequency (in this case, Cape) is dialed in on the second screen. That way the pilot can quickly get back to the first frequency, should he discover that he has misheard or misdialed the new frequency. But Swissair 111 can now be reached on neither frequency (though it remains visible on radar). Unable to reach Swissair 111, the Hampton controller goes on to normal exchanges with other planes in the area—he instructs a plane addressed as Echo Charley to descend and maintain a specified altitude (and Echo Charley repeats back the altitude); he instructs a Delta flight to proceed to its destination (and the Delta flight repeats back the instruction).

The clock moves forward to 8:36 and the Cape controller renews his efforts to reach Swissair 111:

Cape Controller: Swissair 111. Climb and maintain flight level three one zero [31,000].
Swissair 111: [no response]
Cape Controller: Swissair 111. Boston.
Swissair 111: [no response]

The Cape controller now contacts the associated controller at Hampton to enlist his help once more:

Hampton Associated Controller: Hampton.
Cape Controller: Try Swissair 111 again, please.
Hampton Associated Controller: We tried him, he's not here. We'll try him again.
Cape Controller: O.K.

At 8:38 the Cape controller tries and fails to reach the plane:

Cape Controller: Swissair 111. Cleared direct [to] Bradd.
Swissair 111: [no response]
Cape Controller: Swissair 111. Swissair 111. Hear Boston Center. Contact Boston one two eight point seven five, one two eight point seven five. If you hear Boston, ident.
Swissair 111: [no response]

The Cape associated controller contacts the Hampton associated controller to ask for help:

Hampton Associated Controller: Hampton.
Cape Associated Controller: Yes. This is Cape. Could you try Swissair 111 again off of Kennedy.
Hampton Associated Controller (speaking to Hampton controller): Try Swissair 111 again, Gary.
Cape Associated Controller: Thanks, Bob.

The Hampton air controller now twice tries to reach the plane, once by calling the name of the plane and announcing the radio frequency to be used for contact; then by calling the name and identifying who it is that is attempting to reach him:

Hampton Controller: Swissair 111. One twenty-eight seventy-five.
Swissair 111: [no response]
Hampton Controller: Swissair 111. Center.
Swissair 111: [no response]

Having observed the failed exchange between the Hampton controller and the pilot, the Hampton associated controller now reports the unhappy result to the Cape associated controller:

Cape Associated Controller: Ya. Go ahead.
Hampton Associated Controller: Negative joy on that Swissair.
Cape Associated Controller: O.K., then. Thanks.

Although Swissair 111 is still in the air, it has lost radio contact.

Swissair 111—off the air for a total of thirteen minutes—eventually does get back in contact with the air controller. The pilot's voice first comes through not at the air controller station at Hampton, Cape Cod, or Nantucket but at Augusta, Maine. The Augusta air controller at first believes he is receiving a call from a different Swissair plane (flight 104), one that is flying in the Augusta region airspace; but he quickly corrects himself and swiftly relays to the Swissair 111 pilot the frequency on which he should contact Boston:

Swissair 111: Boston Center, Swissair 111 heavy.
Augusta Air Controller: Is that Swissair 104?
Swissair 111: Negative. This is Swissair 111...[Here Swissair 111 and Swissair 104 begin to speak simultaneously.]
Augusta Air Controller: Stand by, Swissair 104. Swissair 111, Boston Center.
Swissair 111: Boston Center, Swissair 111. Go ahead.
Augusta Air Controller: Swissair 111, contact Boston Center, one three three point four five. [frequency 133.45]
Swissair 111: Three three four five. Swissair 111.

The time is 8:47.34 A moment later, at 8:48, Swissair 111 successfully contacts Boston's Nantucket sector:

Swissair 111: Boston Center. Swissair 111 heavy.
Nantucket Air Controller: I'm sorry. Who was that last call?
Swissair 111: Boston Center, Swissair 111 heavy is calling 133.
Nantucket Air Controller: Swissair 111. Boston Center, roger. How do you read?
Swisssair 111: I read you loud and clear. Go ahead.
Nantucket Air Controller: Swissair 111. Climb to flight level two niner zero. Higher shortly.
Swissair 111: Level two niner zero. Swissair 111.

Other than the spirited inquiry about legibility—"How do you read? I read you loud and clear"—the air controller and pilot do not stop to welcome one another back or to discuss the previous radio blackout. They at once turn to the business at hand, the resumption of the scheduled climb to 33,000 feet that had been interrupted at 27,000 feet when the radio transmissions were suspended. The confident tone and the reassuringly professional procedure of information given (two niner zero) and repeated (two niner zero) continue over a sequence of exchanges about altitude and radio frequency until 8:58, when the Nantucket controller passes the plane on to the Moncton controller in Canada. Radio contact has been restored; a normal flight has been regained; the events of the previous quarter-hour now seem an uneventful anomaly.

It should be noted that the Flight Data Recorder shows that the pilots keyed their microphones several times in this blackout period and were therefore aware that they were out of radio contact with air traffic control. Shortly thereafter smoke was observed in the cockpit and the emergency descent of SwissAir 111 began during which radio transmissions with the aircraft again ceased for the six and one half minutes that preceded impact with the ocean...

Here is the timeline of the events once the pilots knew they were in trouble:

10:10:45 (Atlantic Summer time) Pilots first notice odor and 2 minutes later smoke in the cockpit.

10:14:15 - 33,000 feet  Swissair 111 declares "Pan, Pan, Pan" with a request to divert to Boston.

10:15:08 - Air traffic controller suggests Halifax is closer. Pilots agree.

10:18:15 - 22,000 feet   Non-emergency descent rate of 4,000 ft./min. Swissair 111, now heading 049 degrees is still roughly in line with Halifax's longest runway (060 degrees) and accepts Halifax's air traffic controller's offer of "vectors for (runway) six."

10:19:36 Swissair 111 is now 50 kilometres from the runway, pilots elect to turn away.

10:21:25 - 15,700 feet   Pilots request a turn out to sea to dump fuel and lighten aircraft.

10:24:40 - 10,000 feet  The pilots of Swissair 111, now flying level, declare "Emergency" after the autopilot disengages and ask for immediate landing.

(No further radio communication comes from the aircraft. It crashes about 6 minutes and 40 seconds later.)

10:31:21 - Impact

During the 13 minute blackout of SwissAir 111 what was said on the cockpit voice recorders?  The transcripts of these CVR conversations were not released and so we will be unable to determine why it is that on the Transportation Safety Board of Canada's website there is a strange reference to "speculation". What was the speculation about?

Protection of CVR Information in Canada:
Cockpit voice recorders (CVR) are designed and installed for the single purpose of advancing transportation safety. They have no other purpose. Under Canadian law, the protection afforded to CVR recordings is found in the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act. According to this law, no one shall communicate an on-board recording, a transcript or a substantial summary, in whole or in part, or give evidence relating to it in any legal, disciplinary or other proceedings - unless specifically ordered to do so by a coroner or a court.  Very few workers are subjected to recording of their every word while on the job. An exception has been made for pilots, who have accepted this extreme invasion of privacy in the interests of advancing aviation safety. To offset this intrusion, provision has been made to protect flight crews whose voices are recorded on CVRs. Such protection facilitates open and frank dialogue in the cockpit of an aircraft during situations that could be extremely stressful - without fear of disciplinary or other action for what was said. Canadian law respecting the protection afforded to CVR information gives primacy to using only that information necessary to advance transportation safety, while protecting the privacy of flight crews. This protection of flight crews is designed to protect public safety in the longer term. The Board will not release anything considered to be personal and not related to an occurrence's causes and contributing factors. Without due consideration to such privacy issues, the availability of vital information could be jeopardized, which could impact on transportation safety. In the early months of the investigation, there has been much public speculation concerning the Swissair 111 accident. Some of this speculation has been based on reported access to summaries of recordings from Flight 111's CVR.  Speculation has the potential to compromise the quality and the timeliness of an investigation and may be prejudicial to the investigation process in the long term. The Board does not confirm or deny speculative reports concerning its investigations.  In summary, by affording strong protection to CVR information, Parliament is attempting to meet the public's requirement for a safe transportation system.

On board the aircraft was a Saudi prince whose family Osama bin Laden was attempting to overthrow.

September 5, 1998   The Hindu Online
A Saudi Arabian prince was among those killed in the Swissair plane crash off Canada. The English-language Saudi Gazette quoted a Swissair source confirming that Prince Bandar Bin Saud Bin Saad Abdul Rahman al-Saud was among the 229 passengers and crew killed when the plane plunged into the Atlantic near Nova Scotia on Wednesday. Prince Bandar, 45, a former Saudi Air Force pilot, was on his way to visit his father who was receiving treatment in Switzerland.

And the Saudi royal family saw itself in a state of siege:

October 7, 1996  The Telegraph    (U.K. Electronic Edition)     Issue 502
Bombers fail to undermine the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia is waiting for its next bomb. Platoons of heavily armed soldiers ring the royal palaces in the capital, Riyadh; security guards cruise its opulent shopping centers, and the 5,000 American servicemen who are the focus of the terrorists' wrath are moving to a new impenetrable compound in the heart of the desert. ... From his exile in Afghanistan, the government's most feared enemy ... Osama bin Laden, has declared jihad, or holy war, against the foreign presence. Quietly, embassies and barracks are tightening security......Pessimists draw close parallels between Saudi Arabia and its neighbor Iran, where the Western-supported Shah was overthrown in 1979 by a broad-based Islamic revolution ......

Should we be amazed therefore that two months later Osama bin Laden was the victim of an assassination attempt by poisoning which he blamed on Saudi Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz. Bin Laden suffered acute kidney failure and for the next few months he hobbled around leaning on a stick (The New Jackals by Simon Reeve).

In 2003 the Canadian NTSB published it final report in which it did not definitively find the cause of the crash:

March 27, 2003 The Globe and Mail
Swissair report fails to pinpoint cause of crash......  After the most expensive and exhaustive air-crash probe in Canadian history, investigators have failed to pinpoint the cause of a fire aboard Swissair Flight 111 that crashed off Peggy’s Cove, N.S., in 1999, killing all 229 people on board. Although a probable source of the first electrical fault lies in the improperly installed entertainment and gambling system that the now-defunct Swissair used to pamper its highest-paying passengers in First and Business Class, investigators from the Transportation Safety Board acknowledge that they cannot be certain. And, they add, it is "unlikely that this entertainment power-system supply wire was the only wire in the lead arcing event."

One must hope that Malaysian 370 is not another test run for a new Bojinka plot. As reported in the Baltimore Sun:

The plan was devastating in its complexity and technical brilliance. If it had not been foiled, it might have been the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Project Bojinka was a plan to blow up 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific in a day of rage at the United States. According to investigators, it called for five Muslim terrorists to plant virtually undetectable bombs aboard the planes, all jumbo jets, in an intricately synchronized plan that had the bombers changing planes as many as four times in a day.

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the Pakistani who with his uncle Sheikh Mohammed (the 911 mastermind) masterminded the earlier New York World Trade Center bombing, was the brains behind the Bojinka plot.  On Dec. 11, 1994, he placed a bomb aboard Philippine Airlines Flight 434 bound for Tokyo in a test run. The blast killed a Japanese tourist seated near the explosive, which was taped under a seat in the economy section, and injured 10 others. The plane made an emergency landing in Guam. Yousef was subsequently captured before the plan could be carried out to destroy the 11 airliners.

Does that explain the round the clock coverage of Malaysia 370?

Was it an accident or sabotage?

Is Malaysia 370 the test run for a new 'Bojinka' plot?

This blog is authored by Michael N. Hull, a retired senior citizen. Hull contributes to the Facebook page Clarkstown: What They Don't Want You To Know and is participating in the startup of a new Rockland County internet newspaper Rockland Voice