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Investigators Seek Data Deleted From Malaysian Pilot’s Flight Simulator Malaysia Turns to F.B.I. for Help in Plane Inquiry
(about 2 hours later)
SEPANG, Malaysia — The authorities here said Wednesday that they were trying to recover data deleted from a flight simulator custom-built by the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, whose actions, along with those of his first officer, have fallen under growing scrutiny. SEPANG, Malaysia — The Malaysian authorities say some data was deleted from a flight simulator that one of the pilots of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet had built in his home, and they have turned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for help in recovering the data, in the hope that it will provide some clue to what happened to the plane.
At a news briefing Wednesday that began after Chinese protesters representing relatives of passengers on the lost flight burst in and demanded information from the Malaysian government, officials said that investigators had recruited “local and international expertise” to examine the flight simulator taken from the home of the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah. They discovered that its data records had been cleared on Feb. 3, more than a month before the March 8 flight that vanished with 239 people on board after veering off its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The expansion of the American role in the investigation came as governments struggled to narrow down the vast search zone for the plane, which stretches across two hemispheres, and as relatives of some of the 227 missing passengers angrily protested the Malaysian government’s handing of the so-far fruitless hunt.
“The experts are looking at what are the logs, what has been cleared,” said Tan Sri Khalid Bin Abu Bakar, inspector general of the police, who declined to comment further. Flight simulators, computer programs often used in pilot training, can often replicate specific airports and flight paths. Investigators have said the plane’s extraordinary diversion from its intended course, from northeastward across the Gulf of Thailand to westward across the Malaysian peninsula, was probably carried out by someone on the plane who had aviation experience. Attention has focused on the two pilots — Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and his junior officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. The Malaysian police, who found that Mr. Zaharie had a flight simulator in his home, said on Wednesday that some data was erased from the simulator on Feb. 3, more than a month before the ill-fated flight.
The Malaysian defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said the authorities had received background checks from the countries of all the passengers on the plane except Ukraine and Russia. “So far, no information of significance on any passengers has been found,” he said. “The experts are looking at what are the logs, what has been cleared,” Tan Sri Khalid Bin Abu Bakar, inspector-general of the Malaysian police, told reporters at a news conference in Sepang, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, the capital. He declined to comment further.
Because of evidence suggesting that whoever diverted the missing Boeing 777-200 knew how to disable the plane’s communications systems and make course changes, investigators have been closely examining Mr. Zaharie, 53, a veteran pilot with more than two decades of experience, and his co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. But Mr. Hishammuddin cautioned that “the passengers, the pilots and the crew remain innocent until proven otherwise.” Because of evidence suggesting that whoever diverted the missing plane, a Boeing 777-200, knew how to disable the plane’s communications systems and make course changes, the data recorded in Mr. Zaharie’s flight simulator may shed light on whether he was involved, and may have rehearsed such actions before the flight. But building and using flight simulators at home is a popular hobby among aviation enthusiasts, and the deletion of data from his simulator may have been routine housekeeping with no significance.
“For the sake of their families, I ask that we refrain from any unnecessary speculation that might make an already difficult time even harder,” he said. Hishammuddin Hussein, the Malaysian defense minister and acting transportation minister, emphasized that “the passengers, the pilots and the crew remain innocent until proven otherwise.”
Earlier Wednesday, Australian organizers of one part of the vast search for the missing jet said that they had reduced their search area in the southern Indian Ocean by half. John Young, general manager for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s emergency response division, said the focus had been narrowed using new data analysis of the plane’s likely fuel consumption. He said the authorities had received background-check information from the home countries of all the passengers on the plane except Ukraine and Russia. “So far, no information of significance on any passengers has been found,” he said.
The revised area of focus in the Australian-led part of the search covers 89,000 square nautical miles, roughly 1,200 nautical miles southwest of the Australian city of Perth, Mr. Young said. He said the airborne searchers had found no traces of debris that could be from the jet. The searchers’ view of the water was good and they were able to spot marine life, “so we know we can make sightings, but there were no results relevant to the search,” Mr. Young said. It was not clear whether the Malaysians have asked American law enforcement officials for help with any other parts of their inquiry. The Malaysians have kept American investigators at a distance since the plane vanished in the early hours of March 8, angering some lawmakers in Washington who believe the F.B.I. should have been playing a larger role in the investigation from the beginning. A small team of F.B.I. agents in Malaysia has received briefings on the investigation, but have not been asked to help with the inquiry.
Like other officials involved in the multinational search, Mr. Young stressed the difficulty of finding the plane, let alone possible survivors, more than a week and a half after the jet disappeared. Despite this, American law enforcement officials and intelligence analysts in Washington checked the names of the passengers on the plane to determine whether any of them had known links to terrorists, but that yielded no connections. As part of the American efforts, F.B.I. agents interviewed family members of the passengers in the United States and Europe, and conducted link analysis — a computer-based investigative technique that tries to discern connections between individuals based on extensive government and airline databases — on the pilots and on two Iranian passengers who were traveling on stolen passports.
“We still have grave fears for the safety of anyone that may have managed to escape the aircraft in the southern ocean. It remains a big area,” Mr. Young said. “There is a lot of work to be done yet.” The 12 days since the plane, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, disappeared from air controllers’ screens have been troubled by confusion that has compounded the anguish of family members waiting for news.
The frustrations felt by family members and friends of the missing passengers, who have waited 11 days for some indication of what happened, erupted before the briefing Wednesday in a hotel conference room in Sepang. As reporters waited for the briefing to begin, several protesters who said they represented families of the passengers unfurled a banner that read, “We oppose the Malaysian government concealing the truth. Delaying time for saving lives.” The frustrations felt by family members and friends of the missing Chinese passengers erupted before a briefing by Malaysian officials Wednesday in a hotel conference room in Sepang. As reporters waited for the briefing to start, several protesters who said they represented families of the passengers unfurled a banner that read: “We oppose the Malaysian government concealing the truth. Delaying time for saving lives.”
“We’ve waited, and waited, and waited, and Malaysia Airlines says kind words, but the Malaysian government hasn’t told us anything,” said one of the protesters, Xu Dengwang, a middle-aged man from Beijing who said a relative was on Flight 370. After a struggle, the police eventually removed the banner and forced the protesters from the room. “All our feelings are the same: we demand to know the truth,” said Xu Dengwang, one of the protesters. “It’s not about compensation, it’s about the truth.”
About two-thirds of the missing passengers are Chinese citizens, and some of their family members have come to Malaysia hoping for news about the plane. The protesters said that until now they had been prevented from telling the press of their mounting frustration with the Malaysian government’s erratic response. “We’ve waited, and waited, and waited, and Malaysia Airlines says kind words, but the Malaysian government hasn’t told us anything,” said Mr. Xu, a middle-aged man from Beijing who said a relative of his had been on Flight 370.
Mr. Young of Australia said four military aircraft used for surveillance had been assigned to the search area on Wednesday: two long-range Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orions, one P-3K Orion from New Zealand and a P-8 Poseidon from the United States. After a scuffle, the police eventually pulled down the banner and forced the protesters out of the room.
“We are getting some reasonable coverage of the area,” he said. “We have also had three ships in the area.” About two-thirds of the 227 passengers on the plane were Chinese citizens. Some of their family members have come to Malaysia, hoping for word that the plane has been found. Those hopes appear increasingly bleak, and the protesters said that until now they had been prevented from telling reporters about their mounting frustration with the Malaysian government’s erratic response.
But searchers are confronted with sobering limits on their reach across the seas. The plane’s whereabouts remain little more than a matter of educated guesswork, based on satellite signals and other data gleaned by analysts. “We need to know the truth,” said one member of the group, a middled-aged woman who declined to give her name or the name of her missing kin. “The Malaysian government is a bunch of cheats. All the governments of the world must join together to pressure the Malaysian government to give an explanation.”
“A needle in a haystack remains a good analogy,” Mr. Young said Tuesday. Mr. Hishammuddin, the government minister who has overseen the Malaysian search effort, said he would investigate the protest. “One can only imagine the anguish they are going through,” he said in an emailed statement.
A satellite over the Indian Ocean received a final transmission from an automatic data system on Flight 370 hours after the last radio or radar contact, leading investigators to deduce that the plane had sent it from somewhere along one of two long, arcing corridors that together encompass 2.24 million square nautical miles, Mr. Hishammuddin, the Malaysian defense minister, said Tuesday. That is an area the size of the continental United States, excluding California. While investigators grapple with the minutiae of machines and people on the missing plane, searchers are confronted with sobering limits on their reach across huge areas of sea and land. The plane’s whereabouts remain little more than a matter of educated guesswork, based on satellite signals and other data gleaned by analysts.
The jet, which had been headed to Beijing, abruptly turned back over the Gulf of Thailand early on March 8. Around that time, its communication links were severed, and it cut across peninsular Malaysia and out over the Strait of Malacca. The plane’s final blips to a satellite indicate it headed west toward the Indian Ocean and then turned to take one of two possible corridors, either north or south. The United States has employed its constellation of spy satellites in the search since its earliest stages, and is now using the satellites’ ability to capture high-resolution images to help narrow down the search area, a senior American military official said.
One of the two arcs reaches from northern Laos to Central Asia. At the time of the last satellite contact, the plane would be at the Laotian end of the arc if it traveled at the slow end of its possible speed, or in Kazakhstan near the Caspian Sea if it traveled at top speed. Any speed in between would have put the plane somewhere in western or southwestern China, including remote, mountainous terrain in Tibet. By then, more than seven hours after it took off, the plane was most likely running low on fuel. Officials are using imagery taken during the satellites’ regular orbits, and have not yet instructed the National Reconnaissance Office, which operates the satellites, to redirect any specific satellite to focus solely on the search, the American official said. The satellite imagery would be most useful in detecting any debris floating on the ocean. “The satellites are being used, but so far they haven’t found anything,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
If the plane had instead traveled on the southern arc, it may have been anywhere from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, west of Australia, when it was last in contact with a satellite. On Monday, after consultations with the Malaysian government, the United States said it would soon withdraw a Navy destroyer, the Kidd, from the search effort and rely instead on two Navy surveillance aircraft — a P-3 Orion based for now in Kuala Lumpur, and a newer, more advanced P-8 Poseidon, based in Perth, Australia.
Officials have said that the plane’s abrupt deviation from its normal flight path most likely involved deliberate intervention by an experienced aviator, making the two men assigned to the cockpit — Mr. Zaharie and Mr. Fariq — focal points of attention. Designed to hunt enemy submarines, the P-3 and P-8 aircraft are equipped with sophisticated electronics and advanced sensors that would be used to try and spot any debris from a possible crash. With the search now focusing on the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia, the aircraft can hunt in that area more quickly and efficiently than a surface ship, military officials said.
American officials have said that the sharp turn to the west was achieved using a computer system on the plane, and that the turn was most likely programmed into it by someone in the cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems. The senior military official said the Malaysians were now focusing more on the southernmost of the two possible regions where the airplane could be because of a lack of evidence that it had flown over land toward the northern region.
Malaysian officials said on Monday that the southern search would be coordinated by the Australian and Indonesia governments. On Wednesday, Australian organizers said that they had narrowed down their search area by half, though it was still huge — an expanse of deep ocean the size of Italy.
John Young, general manager for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s emergency response division, said the focus had been narrowed using new data analysis of the plane’s likely fuel consumption.
The new area of focus in the Australian-led part of the search covers 89,000 square nautical miles, and is roughly 1,200 nautical miles southwest of Perth, Mr. Young said, adding that nothing had been found in the areas covered so far. The searchers have a good view of the water and have been able to spot marine life, “so we know we can make sightings, but there were no results relevant to the search,” Mr. Young said.
Like other officials involved in the multinational search, Mr. Young stressed the sheer difficulty of finding the plane, let alone possible survivors, more than a week and a half after the jet disappeared.
“We still have grave fears for the safety of anyone that may have managed to escape the aircraft in the southern ocean,” Mr. Young said. “It remains a big area. There is a lot of work to be done yet.”