Missing and Presumed

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Missing and presumed...

Missing...

Everything else is just speculation, so get a

grip!

'One of two men who boarded doomed Air Malaysia flight on a stolen

passport looked like Mario Balotelli': Authorities reveal key clue as

they hunt Kazem Ali, mystery Iranian businessman who booked their

tickets

• Search teams still unable to find trace of missing MalaysiaAirlines plane

• Searches taking place in South China Sea where last contact

was made

• U.S. led search meanwhile is also taking place near Andaman

Sea

• Interpol investigating whether up to four passengers had stolen

passports

• Men who used stolen passports not of Asian appearance,

investigators say • Five passengers also checked on to flight but did not board

plane

• China has urged Malaysia to step up search as it also sends

rescue teams

• Thai travel agent says Iranian booked tickets for stolen

passport passengers

By James Rush and Damien Gayle

PUBLISHED: 03:04 EST, 10 March 2014 | UPDATED: 10:23 EST, 11March 2014

One of the two men who used stolen passports to board the missingMalaysian Airlines plane looked like Mario Balotelli, Malaysian officialshave claimed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=James+Rush

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Damien+Gayle

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Yet, hours later, a fresh report has emerged claiming that the pair were infact Iranian nationals on a quest to flee their country's oppressive regime.

That seems to tie in with an earlier announcement by Thai officials that anIranian businessman called Kazem Ali had booked the tickets for the twopassengers.

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Chinese students stand by candles while praying for the passengersaboard the missing Boeing 777 at a school in Zhuji city. The disappearancemay be down to a terrorist act



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A group of Malaysian residents pose after lighting candles during a vigil formissing Malaysia Airlines passengers at the Independence Square in KualaLumpur



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A Malaysian ethnic Chinese child joins a vigil for missing Malaysia Airlines

passengers at the Independence Square in Kuala Lumpur



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Authorities have revealed one of the two men who used stolen passports toboard the missing Malaysian Airlines plane looked like Mario Balotelli(pictured). Right, Italian tourist Luigi Maraldi, 37, shows his current passportduring a press conference at a police station in Phuket island, southernThailand. One of the passengers on the missing plane travelled on thestolen passport of Mr Maraldi

But it contradicts a suggestion by Malaysia's civil aviation chief AzharuddinAbdul Rahman that the men who boarded the plane were not of 'Asian

appearance'.

Asked by a reporter what they looked like 'roughly', he said: 'Do you knowof a footballer by the name of (Mario) Balotelli? He is an Italian. Do youknow how he looks like?'

A reporter then asked, 'Is he black?' and the aviation chief replied, 'Yes'.



More...

• Did Missing Malaysia flight DISINTEGRATE at 35,000 feet? Searchteam find what they believe is part of plane door and tail as Interpolprobes claims four people boarded using stolen passports

• Terror attack clue as 239 die in jet plunge: Two passengers on flighthad used 'stolen passports'

• Revealed: The tickets booked on stolen passports at the centre of themystery of missing flight MH370

• Devastated girlfriend of Texas man aboard missing Malaysian planereveals how she waited anxiously at their Beijing home for flight thatnever arrived

• COMMENT: The loss of this modern plane in 2014 is made all themore terrible by the rarity of the tragedy

The latest report, by BBC Persian, quotes a Iranian friend of one of themen who says he hosted them in Kuala Lumpur after they arrived fromTehran.

They bought fake passports in the Malaysian capital to travel to Europe andclaim asylum, he claimed. After reaching Beijing, the destination of flightMH370, the pair were said to have intended to carry on to Amsterdam.

One had planned to then travel to Frankfurt, to join his mother there, whilethe other wanted to continue on to Denmark. They were 'looking for a place

settle', an editor at BBC Persian told The Telegraph.

Chinese hold vigil for missing Malaysian jet passengers

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2576641/Terror-fears-missing-777-grow-Identities-ANOTHER-two-passengers-probed-suspicion-falls-four-booked-Chinese-airline.html




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2576553/Terror-attack-clue-239-die-jet-plunge-Two-passengers-flight-used-stolen-passports.html



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2577322/Revealed-The-tickets-booked-stolen-passports-centre-mystery-missing-flight-MH370.html



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2576827/Devastated-girlfriend-Texas-man-aboard-missing-Malaysian-plane-reveals-waited-anxiously-Beijing-home-flight-never-arrived.html




http://travelblog.dailymail.co.uk/2014/03/malaysia-airlines-crash-is-made-all-the-more-horrific-by-the-rarity-of-the-tragedy.html



http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2014/03/140310_l39_missing_airplane_malaysia.shtml

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/10688861/Mystery-fake-passport-holders-on-flight-MH370-were-Iranian.html

















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A woman holds a candle and a sign during a vigil held near IndependenceSquare in Kuala Lumpur

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A woman holds a candle as she takes part in a candlelight vigil held byMalaysian ethnic Chinese for the passengers

Malaysian investigators are now downplaying suggestions that the airlinerwas the target of an attack, said U.S. and European government sources

close to the probe.

Neither Malaysia's Special Branch, the agency leading the investigationlocally, nor spy agencies in the United States and Europe have ruled outthe possibility that militants may have been involved in downing flightMH370.



But officials have indicated that the evidence so far does not point to anattack as a cause for the aircraft's disappearance, and that mechanical orpilot problems could have led to the apparent crash, the U.S. sources said.

'There is no evidence to suggest an act of terror,' a European securitysource told Reuters. He added that there was also 'no explanation what'shappened to it or where it is.'

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Members of the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) scan the seasabout 140 nautical miles north-east of Kota Baru, Malaysia, for any signs ofthe missing Malaysia Airlines plane



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Oil slicks can be seen from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF)plane scanning the seas about 140 nautical miles north-east of Kota Baru,Malaysia



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The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said on its website searches werebeing conducted about 140 km (90 miles) southwest of Tho Chu island,which is located about 200 km off the coast of southern Vietnam



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The possibility of a further two stolen passports used on the same flight isnow being investigated after it emerged that no cross checks were carriedout against Interpol's lost and stolen database

Police investigate stolen passports used on missing plane



The latest developments came as authorities had yesterday still found notrace of the missing plane despite searches by ships from six navies anddozens of military aircraft.

A Thai travel agent who arranged the tickets for the two passengers hasnow said she had booked them on the flight via Beijing because they were

the cheapest tickets, it has been reported.

The travel agent in the resort of Pattaya said an Iranian business contactshe knew only as 'Mr Ali' had asked her to book tickets for the two men onMarch 1.

She had initially booked them on other airlines but those reservationsexpired and on March 6, Mr Ali had asked her to book them again.

She told the Financial Times she did not think Mr Ali, who paid her in cash

and booked tickets with her regularly, was linked to terrorism.

The massive search is mainly in a 50-nautical mile radius from where thelast contact with the plane was made, midway between Malaysia's eastcoast and the southern tip of Vietnam.

Families of missing passengers leave Beijing for Kuala Lumpur



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Flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens in the early hours ofSaturday, about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur. Searches for theplane are now taking place throughout the area

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Malaysia's Department Civil Aviation Director General, Azharuddin AbdulRahman (left) with Malaysian Airlines CEO Group Ahmad Jauhari Yahya(right) during a press conference on the new search area



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Potential sightings of possible airliner debris and a possible oil slick in thesea off Vietnam have not been officially verified or confirmed asinvestigative teams continue to search for the whereabouts of the missingflight

A U.S. led search is also taking place hundreds of miles away on the otherside of the Malaysian peninsula.

Malaysia's civil aviation chief said today that the search for the Boeing 777which vanished early Saturday morning had failed to find anything and thata sighting of a yellow object, which was earlier suspected to have been alife raft, was found to be a false alarm.

It has now also been confirmed an oil slick suspected of coming from thewreckage was not jet fuel.



Underlining the lack of hard information about the plane's fate, a U.S. NavyP-3 aircraft capable of covering 1,500 sq miles every hour was sweepingthe northern part of the Strait of Malacca, on the other side of theMalaysian peninsula from where the last contact with MH370 was made.

'Our aircraft are able to clearly detect small debris in the water, but so far ithas all been trash or wood,' said U.S. 7th Fleet spokesman CommanderWilliam Marks in an emailed statement.

As Interpol investigates whether up to four passengers boarded the planeusing stolen passports, it was today revealed five passengers checked onto the flight but did not board the plane. Their baggage was removed beforeit departed.

Vietnam teams scour the South Vietnam Sea for missing plane



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Vietnamese military personnel prepare a helicopter for a search and rescuemission for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight



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A minister today said rescue helicopters had been scrambled to check a'yellow object' that rescue teams suspected could have been a life raft fromthe missing plane, but turned out to be a false alarm



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The Singaporean submarine support and rescue vessel, MV Swift Rescue,is prepared before it departs to assist in the search for missing MalaysianAirlines flight MH370 in Singapore



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Search and rescue planes scoured waters off the southern tip of Vietnamon Monday, searching for any trace of a Malaysia Airlines jetl 48 hours afterit vanished from radar screens with 239 people on board





Malaysia's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman described thedisappearance of the plane as an 'unprecedented aviation mystery'.

He said a hijacking could not be ruled out as investigators explore alltheories for the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

'Unfortunately we have not found anything that appears to be objects fromthe aircraft, let alone the aircraft,' he told a news conference.

'As far as we are concerned, we have to find the aircraft, we have to find apiece of the aircraft if possible.'

As dozens of ships and aircraft from seven countries scour the seas aroundMalaysia and south of Vietnam, questions mounted over possible security

lapses and whether a bomb or hijacking could have brought down theBoeing airliner.

Malaysia has expanded the search to its west coast after theories that theplane may have turned back toward Kuala Lumpur for some reason.

A total of 34 aircraft and 40 ships from 10 nations are involved in thesearch.

The U.S. 7th Fleet has sent a P-3C Orion surveillance plane from its base

in Okinawa, Japan, and the USS Pinckney destroyer that is equipped withtwo MH-60R Seahawk helicopters for search and rescue.

The Orion was used for more than three hours on Sunday, sweeping about4,000 sq km every hour.

It is equipped with the APS-147, an advanced radar system that canidentify a soccer ball bobbing in the water from hundreds of feet in the air.

Family of US man on Flight 370 not giving up hope



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Indonesian Navy pilots Maj. Bambang Edi Saputro, left, and 2nd Lt. TriLaksono check their map during a search operation for the missingMalaysian Airlines Boeing 777

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An Indonesian Navy search and rescue personel looks out from the aircraftwindow during an aerial search for the missing plane



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An Indonesian Navy pilot checks his map during a search operation for themissing aircraft



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A relative of a passenger on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 answersmedia questions at Lido Hotel in Beijing, China

The Seahawks have been used for night searches, using a forward-lookinginfra-red camera.

'There are lots of challenges,' said Commander William Marks, aspokesman for the 7th Fleet.

'First should the central point be the point of last communication or lastradar contact? Then you have to account for winds and currents. Everyhour, the area gets bigger. It's been three days since the plane wasreported missing, it's a very large area.'



China has sent four naval ships, a coastguard vessel and a civilian ship tohelp. Three other Orions have also been deployed - two from Australia andone from New Zealand.

Besides militaries and hi-technology, many others are involved in thesearch.

'We've ordered border guard forces and all fishing boats to check the area,'Pham Thanh Tuoi, chairman of the People's Committee of Vietnam'ssouthern Ca Mau Province, told Reuters by phone.

'Everyone is on the alert and searching out at the sea, but we haven't foundanything yet.'

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Relatives of a Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 passenger wait for updatedinformation regarding the missing aircraft at a hotel in Putrajaya

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Relatives of the missing passengers have been advised to prepare for theworst as authorities focus on two passengers on board travelling withstolen passports



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Malaysia's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman described thedisappearance of the plane as an 'unprecedented aviation mystery'



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A family member of passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight at ahotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia

It comes as Interpol criticised Thailand's lax airport security after it emergedat least two passengers' passports were stolen.

The possibility of a further two stolen passports used on the same flight isnow being investigated after it emerged that no cross checks were carriedout against Interpol's lost and stolen database.

PILOT ENJOYED FLYING SO MUCH HE HAD HIS OWN SIMULATOR



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The pilot of a Malaysia Airlines jet that went missing on Saturday enjoyedflying the Boeing 777 so much that he spent his off days tinkering with aflight simulator of the plane that he had set up at home, current and former

co-workers said.

Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, captain of the airliner carrying 239 people boundfor Beijing from the Malaysian capital, had always wanted to become a pilotand joined the national carrier in 1981.

Airline staff who worked with the pilot said Zaharie knew the ins and outs ofthe Boeing 777 extremely well, as he was always practicing with thesimulator. They declined to be identified due to company policy.

'He was an aviation tech geek. You could ask him anything and he wouldhelp you. That is the kind of guy he is,' said a Malaysia Airlines co-pilot whohad flown with Zaharie in the past.

Zaharie set up the Boeing 777 simulator at his home in a suburb on theoutskirts of the Malaysian capital where many airline staff stay as itprovides quick access to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Procedural checks would have revealed that at least two passengers were

travelling on stolen passports.

Malaysian authorities now believe they have CCTV images of the two menusing the stolen passports to board the flights.

The images have been circulated across international intelligence agenciesand will be cross-referenced with facial recognition software.



The passports were used to buy tickets booked in the names of Italian LuigiMaraldi and Austrian Christian Kozel on March 6, 2014, and issued in theThai city of Pattaya, a popular beach resort south of the capital Bangkok.

Officials believe one possible explanation for the stolen passports could bethat they were being used for illegal immigration.

There are previous cases of illegal immigrants using fake passports, andSoutheast Asia is known to be a booming market for stolen passports.

Flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens in the early hours ofSaturday, about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur, after climbing toa cruising altitude of 35,000 ft (10,670 metres).

A Vietnamese navy plane reported seeing what could have been a piece ofthe aircraft as darkness fell across the Gulf of Thailand and South ChinaSea on Sunday, but ships and aircraft returning in daylight have so farfound nothing.

No distress signal was sent from the lost plane, which experts saidsuggested a sudden catastrophic failure or explosion, but Malaysia's airforce chief said radar tracking showed it may have turned back from itsscheduled route before it disappeared.

Last night a group called the Chinese Martyrs’ Brigade claimedresponsibility for the plane’s disappearance but officials believed it could bea hoax.

The shadowy outfit sent a message saying: ‘You kill one of our clan, we willkill 100 of you as pay back’, in reference to the killing of a Chineseseparatist who launched a bloody attack at a railway station over a weekago.

A senior source involved in preliminary investigations in Malaysia said thefailure to quickly find any debris indicated the plane may have broken upmid-flight, which could disperse wreckage over a very wide area.

'The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicatethat the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet,' saidthe source.



Asked about the possibility of an explosion, such as a bomb, the sourcesaid there was no evidence yet of foul play and that the aircraft could havebroken up due to mechanical causes.

Still, the source said the closest parallels were the explosion on board anAir India jetliner in 1985 when it was over the Atlantic Ocean and theLockerbie air disaster in 1988. Both planes were cruising at around 31,000feet when bombs exploded on board.

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A cabin crew of Division 918 of the Vietnam Air Force is onboard a flyingSoviet-made AN-26 during the search operations



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A vessel is seen from a flying Soviet-made AN-26 of the Vietnam Air Forceduring a search operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777over the South China Sea



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Ships are seen from a Soviet-made AN-26 of the Vietnam Air Force duringa search operation for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane



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An iPad is used to support orientation by a military official inside aVietnamese Air Force plane during search and rescue operations for themissing Malaysian Airlines flight

The United States extensively reviewed imagery taken by American spysatellites for evidence of a mid-air explosion, but saw none, a U.S.government source said. The source described U.S. satellite coverage ofthe region as thorough.

An Interpol spokeswoman said a check of all documents used to board theplane had revealed more 'suspect passports', which were beinginvestigated.

'Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between thesestolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern thatany passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen



passport listed in Interpol's databases,' Interpol Secretary General RonaldNoble said.

Malaysia's state news agency quoted Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidias saying the two passengers using the stolen European passports were ofAsian appearance, and criticised the border officials who let them through.

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An officer looks out of a helicopter during a mission to find the MalaysiaAirlines flight MH370





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A military official works inside a Vietnamese Air Force plane during searchand rescue operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight



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Malaysia's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman described thedisappearance of the plane as an 'unprecedented aviation mystery'



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A travel agent in the resort of Pattaya (file picture) said an Iranian businesscontact she knew only as 'Mr Ali' had asked her to book tickets for the twomen on March 1

'I am still perturbed. Can't these immigration officials think? Italian andAustrian but with Asian faces,' he was quoted as saying late on Sunday.

A European diplomat in Kuala Lumpur cautioned that the Malaysian capitalwas an Asian hub for illegal migrants, many of whom used false documentsand complex routes including via Beijing or West Africa to reach a finaldestination in Europe.

'You shouldn't automatically think that the fact there were two people on theplane with false passports had anything to do with the disappearance of theplane,' the diplomat said.



'The more you know about the role of Kuala Lumpur in this chain, the moredoubtful you are of the chances of a linkage.'

Boeing declined to comment and referred to its brief earlier statement thatsaid it was monitoring the situation.

The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any commercialaircraft in service. Its only previous fatal crash came on July 6 last yearwhen Asiana Airlines flight 214 struck a seawall on landing in SanFrancisco, killing three people.

Agony of the relatives of those on board missing passenger jet as

they wait for news of loved ones

Across the world, relatives of the passengers on the missing plane havebeen waiting anxiously for any news as to its whereabouts.

Of the 227 passengers, two-thirds were Chinese. There were also 38passengers and 12 crew members from Malaysia, and others fromelsewhere in Asia, Europe and North America, including three Americans.

Hundreds of distraught relatives of those on board the plane have gatheredin a hotel in Beijing, waiting to be flown to Malaysia.



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Philip Wood, an IBM executive who had been working in Beijing over thepast two years was aboard the the missing Malaysia Airlines jet liner



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Mr Mukherjee, the vice-president of operations in China for thePennsylvania-based XCoal Energy and Resources, was one of five Indianson the flight

'We accept God's will. Whether he is found alive or dead, we surrender toAllah,' said Selamat Omar, a Malaysian whose 29-year-old son, MohamadKhairul Amri Selamat, was heading to Beijing for a business trip.

He said he was expecting a call from his son after the flight's scheduled

arrival time at 6.30am on Saturday. Instead he got a call from the airline tosay the plane was missing.

Family members of Philip Wood, a 50-year-old IBM executive who was onboard, said they saw him a week ago when he visited them in Texas afterrelocating to Kuala Lumpur from Beijing, where he had worked for twoyears.



The other two Americans were identified on the passenger manifest asfour-year-old Nicole Meng and two-year-old Yan Zhang. It was not knownwith whom they were travelling.

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Globetrotters: Catherine and Robert Lawton, from Brisbane, were namedas one of three couples from Australia who were missing



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French teenagers Zhao Yan and Hadrien Wattrelos had enrolled togetherat the Lycee Francais International de Pekin. Both are believed to havebeen on board

A friend of one passenger meanwhile, speaking to reporters after a meetingwith China's civil aviation authority and government officials in Beijing, saidpassengers' families were growing impatient.



'The family members are really not happy. They feel like they have waitedfar too long,' the man, surnamed Zhou, said. The main thing they areinterested in is whether there is anyone left alive or not.'

'I can only pray for a miracle,' said Daniel Liau, the organiser of acalligraphic and painting exhibition in Malaysia attended by acclaimedChinese calligrapher Meng Gaosheng, who boarded the flight with 18 otherartists plus six family members and four staff.

'I feel very sad. Even though I knew them for a short time, they havebecome my friends,' Liau said.

Also traveling as a group were eight Chinese and 12 Malaysian employeesof Austin, Texas, semiconductor company Freescale, which said it was

assembling 'around-the-clock support' for their families.

Each day more than 80,000 flights take off and land around the worldwithout incident. For seasoned Australian travelers Robert Lawton, 58, andhis wife, Catherine, 54, the seemingly routine takeoff of flight MH370 wasthe beginning of another adventure.



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Grieving Indonesian mother Suharni displays a portrait of her son SugiantoLo and wife Vinny Chynthya who are both passengers of the missingMalaysia Airlines flight



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On board: Co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid (left) and passenger Firman Siregar(right)

'They mentioned in passing they were going on another big trip and theywere really excited,' Caroline Daintith, a neighbor, told AustralianBroadcasting Corp. television of the couple described as dotinggrandparents.

Sharing their adventure was another 50-something Australian couple,

Rodney and Mary Burrows. Neighbour Don Stokes said the trip wasintended as the beginning of the 'next step in their life'.

Among the family groups on board were teenage sweethearts HadrienWattrelos, 17, and Zhao Yan, 18, students at a French school in Beijingwho were returning from the Malaysian leg of a two-week holiday alongwith Hadrien's mother and younger sister.



In December, Zhao changed her Facebook profile photo to one of her andHadrien. He had commented: 'Je t'aime,' followed by a heart, and she had'liked' his comment.





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Victims: This handout picture taken on March 7, 2014 and released byHamid Ramlan shows his daughter Norliakmar Hamid (second right) andher husband Razahan Zamani (right), who were passengers on a missingMalaysia Airlines flight

Some boarded the plane with more serious purposes in mind.

Colleagues of Chandrika Sharma said the 50-year-old director of theChennai chapter of an organisation that works with fishermen was on herway from the southern Indian city to Mongolia for a Food and Agriculture

Organization conference.

'There must still be hope,' said a colleague, Venogupal, who like many inIndia goes by one name.

He seemed, however, to be bracing for the worst. 'She was friendly andvery loveable, very industrious and astute. We will miss her.'

For 24-year-old Firman Chandra Siregar from Medan, Indonesia, the flightwas a new chapter. In Beijing, he was to start a three-year contract with

Schlumberger, an oilfield services company.

Dozens of relatives and neighbors gathered at his family's home, sometearful, praying or watching news of the search and rescue operation. LikeSharma's colleagues, they were forced to let hope ebb away.

China warned of terror attacks days before plane disappeared

Taiwan's spy chief has today said the island passed on a warning ofpossible terrorist attacks in China just days before the Malaysia Airlinesflight went missing early Saturday morning.

National Security Bureau head Tsai De-sheng told a legislative committeetoday that the NSB passed on a warning of planned attacks against theBeijing airport and the city's subway system to Chinese authorities followingits receipt on Tuesday, March 4.



It comes as China's National People's Congress holds its annual session. Itopened on Wednesday, March 5 and closes Thursday.

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A member of a Chinese emergency response team adjusts equipment onthe rescue vessel 'South China Sea Rescue 101', on the way to search forthe missing plane



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China's rescue vessels 'South China Sea Rescue 115' and 'South ChinaSea Rescue 101' will arrive at the possible crash site respectively onMonday night and Tuesday night to join the salvage mission for missing

flight MH370

Tsai said the receipt of the warning prompted stepped up securitymeasures at Taiwanese airports, particularly on Beijing-bound flights.

He said it had no connection to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight whichwas bound for Beijing.

China meanwhile has urged Malaysia to step up the search for the jetliner

that went missing with 239 people on board, about two-thirds of themChinese, and said it has sent security agents to help with an investigationinto the misuse of passports.

As dozens of ships and aircraft from seven countries scoured the seasaround Malaysia and south of Vietnam, Chinese Foreign Ministryspokesman Qin Gang said it was too early to know what may have caused



the plane to vanish but that family of the passengers deserved anexplanation as soon as possible.

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Chinese relatives of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines planewait for the latest news inside a hotel room in Beijing

'This incident happened more than two days ago, and we hope that theMalaysians can fully understand the urgency of China, especially of the

family members, and can step up the speed of the investigation andincrease efforts on search and rescue,' Qin told reporters at a daily newsbriefing.

China's Public Security Ministry had sent a team to Malaysia to look intothe use of the two stolen passports.



'We cannot confirm at present who it was who misused these twopassports,' he said, adding the incident 'should certainly attract our greatestvigilance'.

As they were Italian and Austrian passports, they would not have needed avisa for a stay in Beijing that did not exceed 72 hours, Qin said.

He would not speculate on whether foul play could be behind the aircraft'sdisappearance.

Read more:

• Martin Varsavsky | English

Mystery fake-passport holders on flight MH370 were Iranian

A BBC Persian report says that the two Iranians on the Malaysia

Airlines plane had bought the fake passports in order to migrate to

Germany and Denmark

http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/





The search and rescue mission continues on day 3 for the missingMalaysiasn Airlines plane MH370. Photo: HALIM BERBAR/SIPA/REX

By Arron Merat

10:57PM GMT 10 Mar 2014

The two men travelling on stolen passports on the Malaysia Airlines flightMH370 that mysteriously disappeared on Saturday have been identified asIranian nationals.

A BBC Persian report quotes an Iranian friend of one of the men, who saidhe hosted the pair in Kuala Lumpur after they arrived from Tehran in thedays preceding their flight to Beijing.

The friend, who knew one of the men from his school days in Iran, said themen had bought the fake passports because they wanted to migrate toEurope.

The pair were travelling on passports belonging to Christian Kozel, an 30-year-old Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi, a 37-year-old Italian.

They had bought the passports in Kuala Lumpur as well as tickets toAmsterdam, via Beijing.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10688613/Questions-over-UK-border-security-in-wake-of-missing-Malaysia-Airlines-jet.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10687223/Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-plane-crash-live.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10687910/Constant-vigilance.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10687943/Air-travel-As-well-as-good-security-you-need-a-little-luck.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10687943/Air-travel-As-well-as-good-security-you-need-a-little-luck.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10687910/Constant-vigilance.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10687223/Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-plane-crash-live.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10688613/Questions-over-UK-border-security-in-wake-of-missing-Malaysia-Airlines-jet.html




11 Mar 2014

One of the Iranian nationals' intended final destination was Frankfurt,where his mother lives, while the other wanted to travel to Denmark.

The same source that spoke to BBC Persian also emailed CNN with aphotograph of him posing with his two friends in the days before theyembarked on their fateful trip.

An editor at BBC Persian told The Telegraph that the two Iranians were“looking for a place to settle”.

Both Malaysia and neighbouring Thailand, where the passports wereoriginally stolen, host large and established Iranian communities.

US-led sanctions on Iran have plagued the economy and encouragedmany young Iranians, who face high unemployment, to seek ways to travelto Europe, North America or Australia – legally or illegally.

Malaysia military tracked missing plane to west coast: source

By Niluksi Koswanage and Eveline Danubrata

KUALA LUMPUR Tue Mar 11, 2014 11:00am EDT

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1 of 18. A combination photo shows two men whom police said weretravelling on stolen passports onboard the missing Malaysia AirlinesMH370 plane, taken before their departure at Kuala Lumpur InternationalAirport in this March 11, 2014 handout courtesy of the Malaysian Police.

Credit: Reuters/Malaysian Police/Handout via Reuters

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Families of passengers on missing Malaysia aircraft want answers

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• Malaysia missing plane unlikely to be terrorist event: Interpol head • Missing Malaysian plane last seen at Strait of Malacca: source

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(Reuters) - Malaysia's military believes a jetliner missing for almost fourdays turned and flew hundreds of kilometers to the west after it last madecontact with civilian air traffic control off the country's east coast, a seniorofficer told Reuters on Tuesday.

In one of the most baffling mysteries in recent aviation history, a massivesearch operation for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER has so far

found no trace of the aircraft or the 239 passengers and crew.

Malaysian authorities have previously said flight MH370 disappeared aboutan hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for the Chinese capital Beijing.

"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made itinto the Malacca Strait," the senior military officer, who has been briefed oninvestigations, told Reuters.

That would appear to rule out sudden catastrophic mechanical failure, as it

would mean the plane flew around 500 km (350 miles) at least after its lastcontact with air traffic control, although its transponder and other trackingsystems were off.

A non-military source familiar with the investigations said the report wasone of several theories and was being checked.




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LOST CONTACT

At the time it lost contact with civilian air traffic control, the plane wasroughly midway between Malaysia's east coast town of Kota Bharu and thesouthern tip of Vietnam, flying at 35,000 ft.

The Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping channels, runsalong Malaysia's west coast.

Malaysia's Berita Harian newspaper quoted air force chief Rodzali Daud assaying the plane was last detected at 2.40 a.m. by military radar near theisland of Pulau Perak at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca. It wasflying about 1,000 meters lower than its previous altitude, he was quoted assaying.

There was no word on what happened to the plane thereafter.

The effect of turning off the transponder is to make the aircraft inert tosecondary radar, so civil controllers cannot identify it. Secondary radarinterrogates the transponder and gets information about the plane'sidentity, speed and height.

It would however still be visible to primary radar, which is used by militaries.

Police had earlier said they were investigating whether any passengers orcrew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that mightexplain its disappearance, along with the possibility of a hijack, sabotage ormechanical failure.

There was no distress signal or radio contact indicating a problem and, inthe absence of any wreckage or flight data, police have been left trawlingthrough passenger and crew lists for potential leads.

"Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, whowants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody somuch money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities," Malaysianpolice chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference.



"We are looking very closely at the video footage taken at the KLIA (KualaLumpur International Airport), we are studying the behavioral pattern of allthe passengers."

A huge search operation for the plane has been mostly focused on theshallow waters of the Gulf of Thailand off Malaysia's east coast, althoughthe Strait of Malacca has been included since Sunday.

Navy ships, military aircraft, helicopters, coastguard and civilian vesselsfrom 10 nations have criss-crossed the seas off both coasts of Malaysiawithout success.

The massive search for the plane has drawn in navies, military aircraft,coastguard and civilian vessels from 10 nations.

STOLEN PASSPORTS

The fact that at least two passengers on board had used stolen passportshas raised suspicions of foul play. But Southeast Asia is known as a hubfor false documents that are also used by smugglers, illegal migrants andasylum seekers.

Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble named the two men as Iraniansaged 18 and 29, who had entered Malaysia using their real passports

before using the stolen European documents to board the Beijing-boundflight.

"The more information we get, the more we are inclined to conclude it is nota terrorist incident," Noble said.

Malaysian police chief Khalid said the younger man, who he said was 19,appeared to be an illegal immigrant. His mother was waiting for him inFrankfurt and had been in contact with authorities, he said.

"We believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group, and webelieve he was trying to migrate to Germany," Khalid said.

Asked if that meant he ruled out a hijack, Khalid said: "(We are giving)same weightage to all (possibilities) until we complete our investigations."



Both men entered Malaysia on Feb 28, at least one from Phuket, inThailand, eight days before boarding the flight to Beijing, Malaysianimmigration chief Aloyah Mamat told the news conference. Both heldonward reservations to Western Europe.

Police in Thailand, where the Italian and Austrian passports were stolenand the tickets used by the two men were booked, said they did not thinkthey were linked to the disappearance of the plane.

"We haven't ruled it out, but the weight of evidence we're getting swingsagainst the idea that these men are or were involved in terrorism,"Supachai Puikaewcome, chief of police in the Thai resort city of Pattaya,told Reuters.

About two-thirds of the 227 passengers and 12 crew now presumed tohave died aboard the plane were Chinese. Other nationalities included 38Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four Frenchand three Americans.

China has deployed 10 satellites using high-resolution earth imagingcapabilities, visible light imaging and other technologies to "support andassist in the search and rescue operations", the People's Liberation ArmyDaily said.

The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any commercialaircraft in service. Its only previous fatal crash came on July 6 last yearwhen Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck a seawall on landing in SanFrancisco, killing three people.

U.S. planemaker Boeing has declined to comment beyond a briefstatement saying it was monitoring the situation.

(Additional reporting by Siva Govindasamy, Stuart Grudgings, Raju

Gopalakrishnan and Yantoultra Ngui in Kuala Lumpur; Ben Blanchard,Megha Rajagopalan and Adam Rose in Beijing; Nguyen Phuong Linh onPhu Quoc Island, Mai Nguyen and Martin Petty in Hanoi; Robert Birsel andAmy Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok; Alwyn Scott in New York; Tim Hepher inParis; Brian Leonal in Singapore; Mark Hosenball and Ian Simpson inWashington and Johnny Cotton in Lyon, France; Writing by RajuGopalakrishnan; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Malaysia Airlines live: military says last tracked plane hundreds of

miles off course

Malaysia's military believes it tracked a missing jetliner by radar over

the Strait of Malacca, far from where it last made contact with civilianair traffic control

Interpol secretary general Ronald Noble said Iranian nationals Pouria NourMohammah Mehrdad, 19, and Delavar Seyed Mohammadreza, 29,travelled to Malaysia on their Iranian passports before switching to theItalian and Austrian documents

By Josie Ensor, and Malcolm Moore in Beijing

2:41PM GMT 11 Mar 2014

Latest

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/josie-ensor/





14.54 We have Norman Tebbit writing for us on why today's aircraft are quite unlike the planes he flew:

In my civil flying days back in the 50s and 60s, the threat of hijackingwas much more limited than it is today. We did not expect to face that

difficulty. On the other hand, the possibility of catastrophic technical failurewas much greater, as the Comet disasters proved.

Modern airliners are extraordinarily technically safe. The sophistication ofdesign, both in terms of the electronics and of the developments in enginetechnology and structures, have transformed the life of aircraft and theirvulnerability to failure. These days it is much less likely that an engine willfail. It is much less likely that an aircraft will accidentally descend into highground, because it is protected by complex but reliable systems.

Personnel from the Republic

of Singapore Air Force scan the sea for any signs of the Malaysia Airlines plane that went missing

14.44 We have looked into reports that the mobile phones of those onboardare still ringing (according to some relatives). We couldn't get a definitiveanswer from anyone except that, well, sometimes they do. The authoritieshave been aware of it from day one, and have all the numbers, sopresumably if it was possible to triangulate the location of the plane frommobile phone signals that were still alive, they would have done so?

Some of the relatives have said passenger QQ accounts (a Chinese webchat service like Gmail Chat) are still online. Tencent, the company that

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administers QQ, says if a user has not logged out of QQ, but merely turnedtheir phone or computer off, they could still seem to be there, even if theyare not.

CEO of Malaysia Airlines

Ignatius Ong, centre, outside a hotel room for relatives and friends of the missing passengers

14.36 Malaysia Airlines says it is investigating an Australia television reportthat the co-pilot on its missing flight had invited two women to stay in thecockpit for a flight two years ago.

Jonti Roos described the encounter on the program "A Current Affair." Itaired multiple still photographs from Roos that showed the women insidethe cockpit and the pilots apparently working the plane's controls.

The airline said it wouldn't comment about the report until its investigationinto it is complete.

Roos said Fariq Abdul Hamid and the second pilot talked to her and herfriend in the cockpit during the entire flight in December 2011 from Phuket,Thailand, to Kuala Lumpur.



Jonti Roos and Jaan Maree

with co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, right, in December 2011.

14.06 In the fog of rumour and speculation, what do we know for sure

about missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370? Malcolm Moore inBeijing fills us in:

* Where did it go missing? Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijingdeparted at 12.41am on Saturday March 8. After that, what happened isnot clear. Until Tuesday, the last known location was above the Gulf ofThailand, roughly 40 minutes into its journey.

But now the Malaysian Air Force say its radars tracked the plane as itturned West and headed back across Malaysia and into the Strait ofMalacca, where it was last seen at 30,000ft at 2.40am above the smallisland of Pulau Perak.

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* Do we have any idea what happened? No. The authorities areconsidering mechanical failure, hijacking, sabotage, any psychologicalproblems among passengers and crew and any personal problems amongthe passengers and crew.

* How big is the search operation? It is getting bigger every day, but atleast 10 countries have sent dozens of ships and aircraft to comb both theGulf of Thailand, the Malacca Strait, and most of northern Malaysia.

13.43 If the plane landed in the Strait of Malacca (where Malaysian militarysay they last tracked the plane) it surely wouldn't take too long to finddebris as it is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

13.18 Families in China waiting for news have been holed up in a hotel inBeijing. Understandably the situation is tense. In a conference earlierrelatives can be seen crying and pleading with officials to carry onsearching. Some are convinced their relatives are still alive and authoritiesare wasting time:

One distraught man shouts: "I just called my kid's cellphone. It was notturned off. My kid's phone is still on. Time is life. You just count how manydays have past. How much oxygen are still left? What's the conditionthere? If you pass the right time, my kid will be dead no matter you find himor not."



A relative of a passenger of

cries as she walks past journalists in Beijing

12.55 Relatives of Chinese passengers on board flight MH370 have

declined to accept money from the airline.

Malaysia Airlines said it had offered "financial assistance" of 31,000 yuan(£3,000) to the family of each missing traveller But a relative of one of thepassengers, from east China's Shandong province, said: "We're not reallyinterested in the money."



"It is all about the people - the people on the plane. We just want themback."

It is now three days since their loved ones went missing, and authoritiesare no clearer as to how and where the plane disappeared.

Indonesian couple Sugianto

Lo (L) and wife Vinny Chyntya (R), missing on flight M370, holding their two children

12.22 So the mystery of the two passports seems to have been mostlysolved, with authorities confident there is no terror link. The two Iranianstravelling on stolen passports were thought to be asylum seekers headingfor Europe.



Christian Kozel, the Austrian

who had his passport stolen and used to board the missing plane

12.07 Malaysia’s Berita Harian newspaper quoted air force chief RodzaliDaud as saying the missing plane was last detected by military radar at2:40 a.m. on Saturday, near the island of Pulau Perak at the northern endof the Strait of Malacca.

The time given by Rodzali was an hour and 10 minutes after the planevanished from air traffic control screens over Igari waypoint, midwaybetween Malaysia and Vietnam.

11.07 "It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. Itmade it into the Malacca Strait," the military official, who has been briefedon investigations, told Reuters.

The plane left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early on Saturday morning,vanishing from civilian radar screens about an hour after take-off over thesea separating eastern Malaysia from the southern tip of Vietnam.



10.57 Our correspondent in Beijing, Malcolm Moore, sheds some light onthe news the military tracked the plane hundreds of miles away:

The Malacca Strait runs all the way down the west side of Malaysia,quite close to Kuala Lumpur. There has been some speculation that if theplane suffered a problem with its computer systems and the pilots wantedto return to the airport, they could have been trying to track the west coast

back down to KL.

That is speculation, but what we do know is that if they are now focusingattention on the Malacca Strait, they must give some credence to the earlyreport that a military radar had seen the plane turn around, or changecourse.

10.30 A military source has told Reuters news agency that it believes ittracked the missing plane of the radar to the Strait of Malacca. What thissuggests is that the plane tried to turn back, which is why they have now

widened their search.



Members of a Chinese

emergency response team prepare to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane

10.28 Ronald Noble, Interpol's secretary general, is giving a pressconference now. He says the two Iranians flew from Doha to KualaLumpar, where they were flying on to Beijing. They used Iranian passportsto enter Malaysia on February 28, but used stolen passports to fly onwards.

He said the name of the second passenger on the stolen passport wasDelavar Syed Mohammad Reza, 30, also Iranian.

Neither Iranian is on the Interpol database.

10.17 A picture of the two suspects who boarded the missing plane withstolen passports. They are wearing the same clothes, which suggests itwas taken earlier in the day:



09.30 Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Malaysian civil aviation chief, said earlierthat the widened search includes northern parts of the Malacca Strait, onthe opposite side of the Malay Peninsula and far west of the plane's lastknown location. Mr Azharuddin would not explain why crews weresearching there, saying rather cryptically, "There are some things that I cantell you and some things that I can't."

Azharuddin Abdul Rahman

giving a press conference

To watch the press conference:



09.20 Malaysia's ministry of transportation has said "no ill feelings"were meant by a transport official's reference to black Italian

footballer Mario Balotelli when discussing two suspicious passengers on amiss

ing jet.

"No ill feelings were meant to the personality concerned. We hope thisclarifies the issue," the ministry said a statement.

Civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman had been asked yesterday toconfirm another official's assertion that the two men who used stolenEuropean passports to board missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 looked"Asian".

A police handout which shows

19-year-old Iranian Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad (L) and an unidentified man who both boarded the missing

plane

09.10 Police chief Khalid said the other man traveling with the Iranian hadarrived in Malaysia on the same day, and had yet to be identified.

He said investigators had not ruled out any possibility, including hijacking,

sabotage or a personal motive to down the plane by either the crew orpassengers. He also said that the police " had no prior information orintelligence about any involvement of terrorists."

08.53 Families and friends are still waiting for answers:



A relative of one of the

missing passengers is surrounded by the media as she answers questions about how families are beingcompensated

08.11 It seems we're no clearer to understanding what happened and whythen we were when the plane first went missing.

08.06 Malaysia's national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said police werestill considering all possibilities in terms of criminal involvement in theplane's disappearance, when asked whether police thought the revelationmade them consider terrorism less likely in the case.

"At this moment, I would not say less likely. Same weightage to all until wefinish our investigations," Khalid said.

07.36 Our correspondent in Beijing, Malcolm Moore, has been followingthe press conference:

1. The man travelling on Christian Kozel's passport is 19-year-old

Iranian Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad.

"We have been checking his background, we have also checked with otherpolice organisation on his profile and we believe that he is not likely to be amember of any terrorist group. We believe he is trying to migrate toGermany. How do I know? We are in contact with his mother. His mother is



expecting him to arrive in Frankfurt, when he didn't arrive she contacted ushere and that's how we knew he was the one."

2. "We are looking into four areas: hijacking, sabotage, psychologicalproblems of the passengers and crew, personal problems amongpassengers and crew," he said.

"We have been going through all the passenger manifest, we havecommunicated with our counterparts in at least 14 countries and also fromother parts of the world and we have been exchanging information andintelligence.

"This afternoon a team of officers from China PSB visited me in the officeand we have a discussion with them and the PSB supplied us with the

photographs of all 153 Chinese passengers plus their profiles and we aregoing through all the passengers and missing crew. We are also goingthrough all the video footage the whole day from the 7 to the 8 at KLIA andwe are checking with all our officers from other depts on the background ofall the passengers."

07.28 Malaysian police inspector general also says it is not true five people

checked in and didn't board. BBC Persia and the Telegraph had reported

overnight that a school friend had said the man had bought the fakepassports because he wanted to migrate to Europe.







07.23 Malaysian officials have said this morning that one of the two menwho boarded the plane with a stolen passport was a 19-year-old Iranian,who they believe was trying to emirate to Germany.

The man, Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehread, is not believed to have anyterrorist connections.

Our correspondent in China, Malcolm Moore, says

07.20 Welcome to The Telegraph 's live coverage of the disappearance ofthe Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

So here is a brief recap of what we know:

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was last heard from at 1.20am local time onSaturday morning, roughly 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpuron route to Beijing.

The skies were clear and the plane has 239 passengers on board.

Of those, 150 were Chinese - but in total 14 countries had citizens onboard.

The plane sent no distress signal. And no wreckage has yet been found.

Documents

Missing and Presumed