Michael Ross: Was Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 headed for Asia’s Twin Towers?
Michael Ross, National Post | March 10, 2014 | Last Updated: Mar 10 3:26 PM ET
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Last November, I flew out of Kuala Lumpur on a flight to China on a Boeing 777. It was a smooth, uneventful flight that left on time — a delightfully common occurrence in this part of the world.
It was dark, and I recall gazing out my window at the dazzling image of Kuala Lumpur below. I particularly remember seeing the massive, 88-floor Petronas Twin Towers glowing amidst the landscape of the city.
This memory came back to me when I heard about the disappearance of Malaysian Airways flight MH370, and subsequent reports that the missing Beijing-bound jet may have turned back toward Kuala Lumpur before vanishing, 40 minutes into its flight. The flight had entered Vietnamese airspace by the time the plane crashed. Were it experiencing a technical issue, the pilots would have continued north toward nearby Ho Chi Minh Airport.
The chief of the Malaysian Air Force is quoted as saying in a crowded press conference that, “The military radar indicated that the aircraft may have made a turn back and in some parts, this was corroborated by civilian radar.”
I thought about United Flight 93, the fourth hijacked flight on September 11, 2001, which passengers tried to wrest away from hijackers before the plane plowed into a field in rural Pennsylvania, killing all on board, but sparing its intended target (possibly the Capitol in Washington, D.C., though no one is certain).
Is it possible that MH370 was a 9/11-type plot, in which the target was the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur? Until recently, they were the tallest buildings in the world. And even now, they remain a spectacular centerpiece to Kuala Lumpur’s skyline. You can see why terrorists would find them a tantalizing target.
Malaysia is a Muslim country, so it would be low on the target list for many terrorist groups. But then, so are Iraq and Syria, yet both nations regularly witness mass-casualty attacks against civilians. It’s also worth noting that Southeast Asia has played host to a number of terrorist entities for decades.
Why was there no distress call? It could well be that whatever tragedy transpired happened in mere seconds. At 35,000 feet, cellphones don’t work well.
In truth, we have no idea what happened. TWA Flight 800 disintegrated over the water near East Moriches, NY shortly after take-off in 1996, and it took authorities over a year to rule out terrorism. Likewise when Air France Flight 447 went down in the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009; it took two years to find the jet’s wreckage. Mysterious and spectacular airplane crashes aren’t always caused by terrorist attacks.
It may be some time until the flight data and cockpit voice recorders are retrieved (it can be difficult to locate them under the ocean, but it’s not impossible). Until then, all we have are theories and hunches.
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