MH370: Setahun dibayangi teori konspirasi...

Hari ini, 8 Mac genap setahun kehilangan pesawat Malaysia Airlines Penerbangan MH370 dari Kuala Lumpur ke Beijing, dan di sebalik gerakan mencari besar-besaran yang pernah dilancarkan dalam sejarah penerbangan, nasib pesawat Penerbangan MH370 masih menjadi misteri.

Ketika usaha mencari yang diketuai Australia diteruskan di Lautan Hindi, semakin banyak pihak ingin tahu bagaimana dan mengapa pesawat Boeing 777 yang canggih serta membawa 227 penumpang dan 12 anak kapal boleh hilang dari skrin radar tanpa dapat dikesan.

Rata-rata pihak berkuasa serta pakar penerbangan masih bingung mengenai kehilangan pesawat MH370.

Mereka percaya hanya kotak hitam pesawat itu boleh menjelaskan mengapa ia menyimpang daripada laluan penerbangan dan kemudian menghala ke selatan merentasi Lautan Hindi yang luas.

Kurangnya fakta serta kekeliruan yang berlaku di peringkat awal kehilangan MH370 mencetuskan pelbagai andaian yang tidak berasas.

Pada masa yang sama, dalam tempoh yang singkat muncul ramai 'pakar penerbangan' yang tidak diundang melontarkan teori masing-masing mengenai kehilangan pesawat MH370.

Pelbagai teori konspirasi mengenai nasib pesawat MH370 muncul satu demi satu namun tiada satu pun yang dapat memberikan petunjuk kukuh apa yang sebenarnya berlaku dalam penerbangan MH370 itu.

Pelbagai teori

Menjelang setahun kehilangan pesawat MH370, muncul lagi teori konspirasi dan yang terkini oleh Jeff Wise, wartawan sains dan penulis.

Beliau mendakwa kononnya pesawat malang itu dirampas atas arahan Presiden Rusia, Vladimir Putin dan diterbangkan ke satu landasan terbang terpencil di Kazakhstan.

Persoalannya ialah mengapa pula Putin mahu merampas kapal terbang Malaysia?

Pada 3 Mac, seorang juruterbang kanan Boeing 777 mendakwa kononnya penerbangan MH370 berlegar di ruang udara Pulau Pinang iaitu kampung halaman juruterbang itu seolah-olah mengucapkan selamat tinggal sebelum penerbangan pesawat itu menjunam ke laut.

Kapten Simon Hardy mengemukakan teori ini berdasarkan data penerbangan MH370 dan perkara ini telah diterbitkan dalam majalah Flight International serta laman sesawang flightglobal.

Teori Hardy mengingatkan semula kesangsian awal tentang kemungkinan juruterbang MH370 Kapten Zaharie Ahmad Shah dengan sengaja melencongkan pesawat itu.

Bagaimanapun, sehingga hari ini masih belum ada bukti untuk menyokong dakwaan itu.

Pada bulan Disember 2014, mantan Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif sebuah syarikat penerbangan Perancis, Marc Dugain menulis artikel enam halaman yang disiar dalam Paris Match mendakwa kononnya pihak Amerika mungkin telah menembak jatuh pesawat MH370 ketika ia terbang menghampiri pangkalan tentera AS di atol Diego Garcia di Lautan Hindi.

Pihak tentera AS didakwa kononnya berbuat demikian kerana cemas pangkalan itu akan diserang ala-9/11.

Tentera AS didakwa telah menyembunyikan insiden itu tetapi kedutaan AS di Kuala Lumpur menyangkal dakwaan ini dan menyatakan tidak ada petunjuk bahawa pesawat MH370 telah terbang berhampiran pangkalan tentera Amerika itu.

Mantan perdana menteri Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed juga mempunyai andaiannya sendiri apa yang mungkin telah berlaku kepada pesawat MH370.

Dalam blognya kira-kira dua bulan selepas pesawat itu hilang, beliau menulis "orang tertentu" telah merampas pesawat itu daripada juruterbangnya menggunakan kawalan jarak jauh.

Hujah beliau berdasarkan kepada paten yang diterima oleh Boeing pada tahun 2006 untuk "sistem pendaratan automatik anti pengganas" yang apabila diaktifkan, mengambil alih semua kawalan daripada juruterbang untuk membawa pesawat komersial ke lokasi pendaratan yang ditentukan.

Bagaimanapun, Dr Mahathir tidak menyebut siapa "orang tertentu" itu di sebalik komplot berkenaan. Nampaknya masih belum ada jawapan kepada kehilangan pesawat MH370.

Lebih banyak hipotesis

Mereka yang muncul dengan teori konspirasi berasa syak dengan semua yang ada dalam pesawat MH370 termasuk kargo serta penumpangnya.

Mereka mendakwa kononnya ia membawa kargo berbahaya yang menyebabkan kebakaran di dalam pesawat ataupun melumpuhkan sistem pengendalian kapal terbang.

Antara kargo MH370 ialah bateri lithium ion yang mudah terbakar. Apakah bateri itu ada kaitan dengan nasib pesawat itu seperti kebakaran yang berlaku dalam pesawat South African Airways, penerbangan 295 pada tahun 1987?

Mereka juga mendakwa kononnya 20 petugas firma semi-konduktor berpangkalan di Texas sebagai dalang kerana peralatan yang mereka bawa mempunyai kemampuan menyekat radar. Peralatan yang dihasilkan sendiri oleh firma itu didakwa kononnya telah melumpuhkan sistem kapal terbang MH370.

Bagaimanapun, tanpa pemeriksaan suara kokpit dan perakam data serta bangkai pesawat, teori-teori ini boleh diibaratkan sebagai serkap jarang semata-mata.

Ada juga yang menuding jari kepada dua penumpang rakyat Iran yang menaiki pesawat itu menggunakan dokumen perjalanan palsu.

Adakah mereka pengganas yang merampas pesawat untuk membawanya ke destinasi yang tidak diketahui atau mensabotajnya.

Interpol kemudiannya mendedahkan kedua-dua orang itu tidak mempunyai sebarang kaitan dengan mana-mana kumpulan pengganas. Mereka berdua hanyalah dalam perjalanan untuk mendapatkan suaka di Eropah.

Ada juga yang membuat teori kelakar seperti kapal terbang itu dirampas makhluk asing. Seorang bomoh Malaysia mendakwa kononnya pesawat MH370 dirampas orang bunian dan berada di awang-awangan. Semua ini menjadikan tragedi sedih MH370 sebagai bahan lawak jenaka.

Dokumentari dan filem mengenai MH370

Hanya dua bulan selepas MH370 hilang, muncul treler filem penuh kontroversi mengenai nasib pesawat itu di Pesta Filem Cannes yang dihasilkan pengarah India, Rupesh Paul.

Laporan CNN dengan tepat menggambarkan respons terhadap treler filem bertajuk "The Vanishing Act: The Untold Story of the Missing Malaysian Plane" itu.

Kata CNN, "Sekiranya ada anugerah di Pesta Filem Cannes untuk pengeluaran filem yang begitu memalukan, sudah tentu ia akan dimenangi pengeluar filem seram baru yang menceritakan kisah 'sebenar' pesawat Malaysia Airlines yang masih hilang."

Dokumentari The National Geographic mengenai MH370 lebih berhati-hati dalam menggambarkan semua kemungkinan termasuk kegagalan struktur kapal terbang itu.

Bagaimanapun, ia masih tidak dapat menjawab apa yang sebenarnya berlaku dalam pesawat MH370.

Memandangkan semakin ramai yang ingin tahu tentang kehilangan MH370 yang penuh misteri itu, lebih banyak teori konspirasi dijangka muncul pada masa hadapan atau sehingga kotak hitam dan perakam data penerbangan dijumpai.

Amat menarik apabila banyak juga teori konspirasi yang menyamakan kehilangan pesawat MH370 dengan teori konspirasi berhubung pembunuhan Presiden AS, John F. Kennedy termasuk kerajaan telah menyembunyikan maklumat penting selepas insiden itu.

Justeru jangan terkejut sekiranya teori konspirasi Penerbangan MH370 berterusan pada masa akan datang seperti mana teori konspirasi di sebalik pembunuhan John F Kennedy berlarutan selama lebih lima dekad.- mk 

MH370: Ahli keluarga luah perasaan sedih di laman sosial

MH370: Hijacked by conspiracy theories...

It’s been exactly a year since Malaysia Airlines’ Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and despite the most extensive search in aviation history, the fate of the Boeing 777 aircraft and the 239 people on board remains a mystery.

While the search led by Australia in the depths of the Indian Ocean continues, how and why a sophisticated aircraft carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew vanished without a trace has piqued the curiosity of many.

The authorities and aviation experts remain baffled. They believe only the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders can shed light on why the plane was diverted from its original path and headed south across the vast Indian Ocean.

The lack of hard facts and the initial confusion when the plane was declared missing gave rise to a flood of anecdotal “evidence” and a crop of overnight aviation “experts” basking in their two minutes of fame.

Numerous conspiracy theories over the fate of flight MH370 have been appearing ever since, with none providing a credible clue on what could have really transpired.

In the run up to the first anniversary of MH370′s disappearance, conspiracy theorists went into overdrive.

The latest was Jeff Wise, a science journalist and author, who claimed that the plane was hijacked on the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and flown to a remote landing strip in Kazakhstan.

But why would Putin want to hijack a Malaysian plane in the first place?

On March 3, a senior Boeing 777 pilot claimed that flight MH370 was taken on an emotional last farewell ride over the pilot’s home island of Penang, before the pilot ditched the plane into the ocean.

Captain Simon Hardy who came up with this theory, published in Flight International magazine, is based on the initial suspicion that the MH370′s Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah could have turned rogue and deliberately flown the plane off course.

But there is nothing to substantiate this claim.

In December 2014, a former French airline boss Marc Dugain in a six page article in Paris Match claimed that the US might have shot down flight MH370 as it approached the US military base on the Diego Garcia atoll in the western Indian Ocean, fearing a 9/11 style attack on the base.

The US military is said to have covered up the incident.

Immediately, the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur stated that there was no indication that flight MH370 had flown near the US military facility in the first place.

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamed, too, had his own idea: just two months after the plane disappeared, he wrote in his blog that “someone” must have remotely seized control of the aircraft from the pilots.

He based his argument on a supposed patent received by Boeing in 2006 for an “anti-terrorism auto-land system” that, once activated, removed all control from the pilots to return a commercial airliner to a pre-determined landing location. But Dr Mahathir failed to mention who that “someone” could be behind the plot. So back to square one.

Everything on board the plane, including its cargo and passengers, came under suspicion right from the onset.

Conspiracy theorists claimed that the plane was carrying dangerous cargo that caused a fire on board or crippled the plane’s operating systems.

Among the items in the cargo manifest were highly flammable lithium ion batteries. Did the batteries have anything to do with the plane’s fate like the fire in South African Airways’ Flight 295 in 1987?

Other conspiracy theorists focussed on the 20 employees of Freestyle, a Texas based semiconductor manufacturing company; the equipment they were carrying had radar-blocking capabilities developed by the company, thus crippling the plane’s systems, these theorists claimed.

Fingers were also pointed at two Iranians on the passenger list who boarded the plane with forged travel documents. Could they have been terrorists who hijacked the plane to an unknown destination or sabotaged the plane?

But Interpol revealed that the pair had no links with any terrorist groups and were on their way to seek asylum in Europe.

And of course there were the out-of-this-world conspiracy theories. The plane was hijacked by aliens. A Malaysian bomoh claimed the plane was hijacked by elves and was permanently suspended in the air.

Two months after the plane disappeared, Indian film director Rupesh Paul put up a trailer for a film about MH370 at the Cannes Film Festival, to be called “The Vanishing Act: The Untold Story of the Missing Malaysian Plane”.

CNN, which had given the MH370 story its full wall-to-wall treatment, described it tellingly: “If the Cannes Film Festival had an award for most squirm-inducing production, it would surely go to the producers of a new thriller telling the “real” story of the still-missing Malaysian Airlines jet.”

National Geographic turned out a documentary that was more cautious in its approach visualising all possibilities including a catastrophic failure of aircraft systems or structure. But there are not definitive answers.

The confusion in the first days of the aircraft’s disappearance led to parallels with conspiracy theories about the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, mainly that the government had covered up crucial information in the aftermath of the incident.

Looking back: The final moments of MH370

Malaysia Airlines’ Flight MH370 departs from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang at 12.41 am to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew. It was a code sharing flight with China Southern Airlines.

At the helm of the Boeing 777-200 ER was veteran pilot Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

The passengers include 153 Chinese nationals, 38 Malaysians, 12 Indonesians, six Australians, three French, four Americans, two from Ukraine, New Zealand and Canada respectively and one each from Russia, Taiwan, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria.

Less than one hour into the flight, as the plane approached the Igari Waypoint, in South China Sea, where it was to be handed over to the Ho Chi Minh City air traffic control, it disappeared from the radar screen.

“Good night Malaysian three seven zero” were the last words spoken from the cockpit. No distress signal received.

Subesequently the plane was tracked by Malaysian military radar as it deviated from its planned flight path and crossed the Malay Peninsula and headed towards the Andaman Sea.

Communications pings between the aircraft and Inmarsat’s satellite network concluded that the flight continued until 8:19 am towards Southern Indian Ocean. However, the precise location could not be determined.

A major multinational search was mounted without success. Australia leads the second phase of the search with the cost mounting. - fmt 

In MH370, military should have learned from 9-11

cheers.