A transcript of the final 54 minutes of cockpit communication with Malaysia Airline MH370 has been revealed by the UK Daily Telegraph. The 54 minute transcript of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 includes communication with co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid starting 00.25 with general instructions from the control tower to the pilots. The detailed conversation begins at 00.36 and ends at 1.19am of with ‘all right, good night’. There were two odd uccruances in this transcript:
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| Transcript final 54 minutes of contact with Malaysia Airlines MH370 |
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The first was a message from the cockpit at 1.07am, saying the plane was flying at 35,000ft. This was unnecessary as it repeated a message delivered six minutes earlier.
But it occurred at a crucial moment: it was at 1.07am that the plane’s Acars signalling device sent its last message before being disabled some time in the next 30 minutes, apparently deliberately. A separate transponder was disabled at 1.21am but investigators believe the Acars was shut down before Hamid’s final, 1.19am farewell.
The other odd feature, one reason for suspicions that the plane’s disappearance was no accident, was that its loss of communication and subsequent sharp turn west occurred at the handover from air traffic controllers in Kuala Lumpur to those in Ho Chi Minh City.
“If I was going to steal the aeroplane, that would be the point I would do it,” said Stephen Buzdygan, a former British Airways pilot who flew 777s.
“There might be a bit of dead space between the air traffic controllers … It was the only time during the flight they would maybe not have been able to be seen from the ground.”
The fresh details add to speculation over the fate of MH370, whether it was the victim of a sudden accident or a hijacking. The transcript also suggests that if the pilots were involved, they were very careful to hide their true intentions.
Dozens of ships and aircraft continue to search an area off the Australian coast where debris, potentially from MH370, was spotted by a spy satellite earlier this week.
Malaysia has begun contacting the handful of nations with deep sea detection equipment for help in what may be a long search for the aircraft’s black box. The area of interest spans 9,000 sq miles of waters up to 13,000ft deep with strong currents.