deep
Blue Crack Addict
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The announcements from the Malaysian authorities of late have been veering from the baffling to the bizarre, and if I knew somebody on the flight I'd probably find them rather distressing or offensive (certainly it seems some of the families are becoming rather angry!). It's as if in the absence of any concrete information, they feel they must say something, anything to placate the feverish public interest, so they blurt out the first thing to come into their heads. The suggestion that the plane was downed by somebody wanting to claim a life insurance policy belongs to outlandish speculation the comments section of a tabloid news website, not an official spokesperson, and mentioning that Italian soccer player who looked nothing like either of the men on fake passports was just all-round strange.
I saw something that had a spokesman basically breaking it down to say it was either:
a) terrorism
b) (I actually forgot what the second thing was; I don't think it was something obvious, like "mechanical failure")
c) a "psychological problem" among the crew or passengers; or
d) a "personal problem" among the crew or passengers.
I can see how they'd land at c (i.e., someone was mentally unstable), but with d, I'm stymied.
All I saw about that was that it was one of the threads they were perusing in trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. Never did I actually hear that they thought that was what was going on.
“Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities,” Bakar told a news conference.
“We are looking very closely at the video footage taken at the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport), we are studying the behavioral pattern of all the passengers.”
Here's the quote:
It's one thing to look up all leads, but this reads rather like any other strange theory posted in news comment sections, especially after other strange or contradictory announcements.
The New Zealand Herald has a good interview that notes Malaysia Airlines were accustomed to dealing with a more compliant local media, not the pressure being applied by overseas journalists. That would explain at least some of the awkward conduct and eagerness to say anything, even if it's contradictory (time and location of last contact with plane), half-baked (Italian footballer comparison), or speculative (life insurance policy theory).
Malaysia’s home minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has also slammed immigration officials over border control checks.
“I am still perturbed. Can’t these immigration officials think? Italian and Austrian but with Asian faces,” he told state news agency Bernama in comments that appear to have been made late on Sunday.
The mystery surrounding the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has deepened with the Chinese media reporting that several of the passengers' mobile phones were connecting when called by relatives, but the calls were not picked up.
The sister of one of the Chinese passengers among the 239 people on board the vanished flight rang his phone live on TV, the Mirror reports.
"This morning, around 11:40 [am], I called my older brother's number twice, and I got the ringing tone," said Bian Liangwei, sister of one of the passengers. At 2pm, Bian called again and heard it ringing once more.
"If I could get through, the police could locate the position, and there's a chance he could still be alive." She has passed on the number to Malaysia Airlines and the Chinese police.
A man from Beijing also called his missing brother on the plane, and reported to the airlines that the phone connected three times and rang before appearing to hang up, according to Shanghai Daily. Media reports claim that the brother had called the number in the presence of reporters before informing the airline.
The Strait Times reported that many of the family members told MAS commercial director Hugh Dunleavy that the commuters' mobile phones were ringing but they were not picked up.
To this, Dunleavy replied that MAS was calling the mobile phones of the crew members as well, which were ringing, and that he had given the numbers to Chinese investigators.
Technology expert Jeff Kagan joined Blitzer to explain what might be happening and in the process squashed the hopes of those people who see the ringing cell phones as a positive omen. “This is one of the sad parts about the technology,” Kagan said before explaining that just because the calls are not going straight to voicemail does not mean that those phones are still on and active somewhere.
While the person on this end may hear ringing the phone on the other end may not actually be receiving the call. “They are hearing ringing and they are assuming it’s connecting to their loved ones, but it’s not,” he said. “It’s the network sending a signal to the phone letting them know it’s looking for them.”
Vietnam said it had halted its air search and scaled back a sea search while it waited for Malaysia to offer more detail.
“We’ve decided to temporarily suspend some search and rescue activities, pending information from Malaysia,” Vietnam’s deputy minister of transport, Pham Quy Tieu, told AFP.
Asked about the claim that the plane had last been detected over the Strait of Malacca – suggesting it had crossed the entire peninsula – he replied: “We’ve asked Malaysian authorities twice but so far they have not replied to us.
“We informed Malaysia on the day we lost contact with the flight that we noticed the flight turned back west but Malaysia did not respond.”
I'd like more of an explanation for why it would do this in this singular case, rather than going straight to voicemail as it usually would do...
i mean, the Mexican fisherman who was recently rescued was adrift for a year and a half and saw no-one...