The Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 crew’s last words before the plane cut off communication with the ground were not, in fact , “all right, good night,” as had been previously reported by the Malaysian government. Now, more than three weeks since the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane, officials have changed that report.
“We would like to confirm that the last conversation in the transcript between the air traffic controller and the cockpit is at 01:19 (Malaysian Time) and is ‘Good night Malaysian three seven zero,’” the Malaysia Transport Ministry said in a statement .
The Malaysia authorities also backtracked on the identity of the person who spoke those last words from the deck of the Malaysia Airlines plane. Previously, the “all right, good night” line was attributed to co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid.
But now, the Malaysia government says it doesn’t know who spoke the last words, “Good night Malaysian three seven zero.” A “forensic investigation” is underway to determine if was the co-pilot or pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah.
An earlier report in Britain’s Daily Mail said that Zaharie, 53, was acting strangely before the flight and had been experiencing personal problems, including a pending divorce. But the daughter of the vanished Malaysia Airlines pilot has condemned that report as bogus.
“Dear Daily Mail, You should consider making movies since you are so good at making up stories and scripts out of thin air,” wrote the pilot’s 23-year-old daughter, Aishah Zaharie, on her Facebook wall.
Her comments were quoted in media reports, as she allows only restricted access to her Facebook posts.
Authorities nonetheless continue to investigate both Zaharie and Fariq, 27, looking for anything in their backgrounds that might indicate whether one or both was responsible for diverting the plane off its planned, routine route for some nefarious reason. So far investigators have not uncovered anything to point in that direction.
While investigators have said they are certain that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ended up thousands of miles from its planned course, flying in the opposite direction and crashing in the Indian Ocean, a 26-country, multimillion dollar search effort has turned up nothing .
A group of orange objects seen from a search plane that was considered possible debris from the Malaysia Airlines plane turned out be stray fishing equipment and other “ocean junk,” the Malaysia government said Monday.