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Officials: Malaysian plane may have flown long after last contact
It's a mystery that authorities still haven't been able to solve: Where is Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
There were still more
questions than answers Thursday as U.S. officials said investigators
might start combing the Indian Ocean as they look for the missing
aircraft.
Why would authorities expand their search rather than narrowing it? New information, U.S.
officials told CNN, indicates the missing airplane could have flown for
several hours beyond the last transponder reading.
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 U.S. official told CNN. That information
combined with known radar data and knowledge of fuel range leads
officials to believe the plane may have made it to that 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, the official said, citing information Malaysia has shared
with the United States.
It's the latest twist in a
case that's baffled investigators and grabbed global attention for
days. 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.
There are conflicting reports about this latest lead as well. Earlier Thursday the
Malaysian government denied a Wall Street Journal report that the plane
was transmitting data after the last transponder signal.
And a senior aviation
source with detailed knowledge of the matter also told CNN's Richard
Quest on Thursday that there was no technical data suggesting the
airplane continued flying for four hours, and said specifically that the
Wall Street Journal account was wrong.
But U.S. officials
maintained Thursday afternoon that the information from the airplane's
data system was being actively pursued in the plane investigation.
Analysts from U.S.
intelligence, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National
Transportation Safety Board have concluded that pings sent to a
satellite hours after the plane's last transponder signal likely came
from the missing aircraft, the senior U.S. official said.
"It appears the plane
was flying most of that time," the senior U.S. official said. The
"indication" that the plane kept flying is not based on U.S. government
information but rather based on radar readings and plane data.
There is reason to
believe the plane flew for four hours, the 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 U.S. official told CNN.
And there's another
confusing twist. An emergency beacon that would have sent data if the
plane was about to impact the ocean 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.
This new information has
now led to a decision to move the 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 U.S. 7th Fleet told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Thursday.
"We're not out here
freelancing, and it's not just something the U.S. 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."
Mary Schiavo, former
inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said even
though it's unclear how accurate the latest information is, authorities
have no choice but to pursue it.
"Well I think basically
given that there is some information -- how reliable or not -- we have
to respond," she said. "There is no way we cannot follow up on this
lead. It would be inhumane. And it might turn out to be just the lead we
need. ... There isn't much, but I think we have to do it."
So are we any closer to knowing whether a mechanical problem, terrorism or hijacking could be tied to the plane's disappearance?
Not really, said Evy Poumpouras, a former Secret Service agent. "The sad thing here is,
we don't have enough information to say, 'It's not this, it's not
that,'" she told CNN's Don Lemon. "We're still at the point, six days
later, it could be anything, and that's the frustrating thing."
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