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A purported transcript of the final 54 minutes of communication with the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger plane has been released.
On Friday, the Daily Telegraph released the transcript of exchanges between copilot and air traffic controllers from the time the Boeing 777 was taxiing to its last known position thousands of feet above the South China Sea.
Commentators say the transcript shows no problem, either mechanical or manmade, as the sequence of messages appears “perfectly routine,” but two features stood out as potentially odd.
The first was a repeated message from the cockpit saying the plane was flying at a 35000-ft altitude, which seemed unnecessary as it was delivered six minutes earlier.
The other odd feature, which may suggest that there has been no accident, was that the plane’s loss of communication and its sharp turn west took place at the handover from air traffic controllers in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, to those in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
The transcript fuels more speculation over the fate of the aircraft whether it was hijacked or destroyed in an accident.
The new details also suggest that if the pilots were involved, they would carefully conceal their true intentions.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER went missing on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, after taking off with more than 239 people on board.
On Saturday, the international team searching for the plane in the remote southern Indian Ocean returned to an area where suspected debris was spotted by satellite.
Six aircraft and two merchant ships are searching the zone.
China, Japan and India have dispatched planes and Australian and Chinese navy vessels are heading to the area, more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) southwest of Perth.
Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein says the searchers have cautioned about their time restriction as the plane’s black box can only transmit data for about 30 days before its battery dies.
ASH/HSN