Journal 2014 - # 608

#MalaysiaAirlines, #MH370, #PrayForMH370

Analyst: 'Deliberate act' shut down communication

An ABC News report added another twist to the mystery Thursday evening. Citing two unnamed U.S. officials, the network said two separate communications systems on the missing aircraft were shut down separately, 14 minutes apart.

The officials told ABC they believe the plane's data reporting system was shut down at 1:07 a.m. Saturday, while the transponder transmitting location and altitude was shut down at 1:21 a.m.

"This is beginning to come together to say that... this had to have been some sort of deliberate act," ABC aviation analyst John Nance told CNN's Erin Burnett.

White House spokesman Jay Carney didn't go into details when he discussed the search for the plane Thursday, but he said "some new information that's not necessarily conclusive" could lead U.S. searchers to the Indian Ocean.

"We are looking at information, pursuing possible leads, working within the investigation being led by the Malaysian government, and it is my understanding that one possible piece of information or collection of pieces of information has led to the possibility that a new search area may be opened," Carney said.

Originally, a report from The Wall Street Journal said data from the plane's Rolls-Royce engine had raised questions among some U.S. officials about whether the plane had been steered off course "with the intention of using it later for another purpose," the newspaper reported, citing a "person familiar with the matter."

The newspaper later corrected its story, saying that data leading investigators to believe the plane had flown for up to five hours came from the plane's satellite-communication link, which the newspaper said is "designed to automatically transmit the status of certain onboard systems to the ground."

Malaysia's acting Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein rejected the Wall Street Journal report at a news conference Thursday, reiterating that the plane sent its last transmissions at 1:07 a.m. Saturday.

And Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said that Rolls-Royce and Boeing have reported that they didn't receive transmissions of any kind after 1:07 a.m. Saturday. Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane shortly afterward, around 1:30 a.m.

Erin Atan, a spokeswoman for Rolls-Royce in Asia, declined to comment on the matter, telling CNN it was "an official air accident investigation."

Authorities have not ruled out the possibility the plane continued to fly, however. And given the lack of evidence, all options remain on the table.

Four more hours in the air could have put the plane many hundreds of miles beyond the area currently being searched.

But one aviation industry observer expressed skepticism about the report even before the denials by officials.

"I find this very, very difficult to believe," Tom Ballantyne, chief correspondent for the magazine Orient Aviation, told CNN. "That this aircraft could have flown on for four hours after it disappeared and not have been picked up by someone's radar and not have been seen by anyone, it's almost unbelievable."

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