Earlier today, Malaysian officials dropped a bombshell. Based on a review of radio and radar data, the pilot of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 radioed air traffic control in Kuala Lumpur for the last time--after someone disabled the plane's data system.
Malaysia’s defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, offered the detail a day after the country’s prime minister, Najib Razak, ended days of hesitant, sometimes contradictory government statements about the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared over a week ago. Mr. Najib acknowledged on Saturday that military radar and satellite data showed the plane had probably been deliberately diverted by at least one person onboard and flown far off its intended route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
[snip]
Commercial passenger planes use radio or satellite signals to send data through ACARS — the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System — which can monitor engines and other equipment for problems that may need attention when a plane lands. Although officials have said ACARS was disabled on the missing plane, it had previously been unclear whether the system stopped functioning before or after the captain of the plane radioed his last, brief words to Kuala Lumpur, in which he did not indicate anything wrong with the signals system or the plane as a whole.
During a press conference on Sunday Mr. Hishammuddin, who is also acting minister of transportation, gave his brief answer: “Yes, it was disabled before,” he said.
Malaysian officials still maintain that sabotage is only one reason behind the plane's disappearance. However, this latest development is disturbing, to put it mildly. There really is no good-faith reason for a pilot to radio in that all is well immediately after the data system has been turned off. There are only two plausible explanations--either the plane was hijacked, or the pilots deliberately turned the plane off course for some reason.
Regardless of what happened, experts agree on one thing--whoever turned that plane off course definitely knew what the hell they were doing. Robert Goyer, editor-in-chief of Flying magazine and a jet-rated pilot, wrote in an op-ed for CNN that someone altered the flight management system of the 777 used on that flight--a task that could have only been accomplished by an experienced pilot. Likewise, CBS News' Bob Orr, a transportation expert, said on Face the Nation today that based on the way the plane appears to have behaved and where it's likely to have gone, whoever changed the route had "some level of knowledge" about how it worked.
One other thing is certain--in all likelihood, this won't end well.