“At one stage they were pretty much turned around the whole time in their seats talking to us.
“They
were so engaged in conversation that he took my friends hand and he was
looking at her palm and said ‘your hand is very creased. That means
you’re a very creative person’ and commented on her nail polish.”
Mr Hamid identified the South African nationals as they waited in the boarding queue at Phuket airport in December 2011.
As
they took their seats on the aircraft, an air steward approached the
women and invited them to join the pilots in the cockpit.
Despite pictures exposing the gross misconduct of the distracted pilots, Ms Roos said she wasn’t concerned for her safety.
“I
did feel safe. I don’t think there was one instance where I felt
threatened or I felt that they didn’t know what they were doing,” she
said.
The whole time I felt they were very friendly. I felt they were very competent in what they were doing.
 |
Not camera shy ... Jonti Roos and
Jaan Maree in the cockpit of a Malaysia Airlines flight from Phuket to
KL in December 2011. Picture: A Current Affair.
Source: Supplied
|
“We wished they (would) stop smoking because it is such a confined space. But you can’t exactly tell a pilot to stop smoking.”
The
plucky pilots reportedly wanted Ms Roos and Ms Maree to change their
travel arrangements and extend their stay in Kuala Lumpur and join them
on a night on the town.
Ms Roos said she was shocked to learn Mr Hamid was at the helm of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight.
“I thought it was crazy. I was just completely shocked. I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
“When
I saw all his friends and family posting on his wall my heart really
broke for them and my heart broke for the family of the passengers. It’s
just a really sad story.”
Malaysia Airlines issued a statement about the incident late last night.
“Malaysia
Airlines has become aware of the allegations being made against First
Officer, Fariq Ab Hamid which we take very seriously.” the statement
said.
“We are shocked by these allegations.
“We have not been able to confirm the validity of the pictures and videos of the alleged incident.
“As you are aware, we are in the midst of a crisis, and we do not want our attention to be diverted.
“We
also urge the media and general public to respect the privacy of the
families of our colleagues and passengers. It has been a difficult time
for them.
“The welfare of both the crew and passenger’s families
remain our focus. At the same time, the security and safety of our
passengers is of the utmost importance to us.”
 |
Special access ... Jaan Maree in the cockpit of a Malaysia Airlines flight in December 2011. Picture: A Current Affair.
Source: Supplied
|
POLICE RELEASE IDENTITY OF ONE STOLEN PASSPORT HOLDER
One
of the men travelling with a stolen passport on the Malaysia Airlines
flight that mysteriously disappeared has been identified as a
19-year-old Iranian seeking asylum in Europe.
This comes as police
downplayed the possibility of terrorist involvement in the
disappearance of MH370 — giving four areas of investigation: hijack,
sabotage, psychological or personal problems among the passengers and
crew.
Malaysian police tonight said the man was Pouria Nour
Mohammad Mehrdad, and intelligence suggested he was not likely to be a
member of any terrorist group.
Malaysia’s Inspector General of
Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, said Mehrdad was travelling on a
stolen Austrian passport and was planning to meet up with his mother in
Frankfurt.
The second passenger using a stolen passport has not been identified yet.
 |
Revealed ... a Malaysian police
official displays photographs of the two men who boarded the Malaysia
Airlines MH370 flight using stolen European passports to the media.
Source: AFP
|
However, he said police were still considering all
possibilities in terms of criminal involvement in the plane’s
disappearance, when asked whether police thought the revelation made
them consider terrorism less likely in the case.
“At this moment, I would not say less likely. Same weightage to all until we finish our investigations,” Khalid said.
He
also contradicted an earlier statement made by Malaysia’s aviation
chief that five people did not board the plane, saying they did not
exist and everyone who booked a seat was on the flight.
FISHERMAN SAW ‘LOW
FLYING LIGHTS’
Authorities are also
investigating several reports of locals claiming to have seen the
lights of a low-flying aircraft in an area off the Malaysian coast, just
below the Malay-Thai border.
It is this area which is now included in the widened search area for missing
Malaysia Airlines
Flight MH370.
A
fisherman who was in his boat at sea, says that at about 1.30am he saw
the lights of a low-flying aircraft in the area of Kuala Besar.
Azid Ibrahim
told The Star newspaper in Malaysia that the plane was flying so low that the lights were “as big as coconuts”.
And another man, about 30km south of
Kota Bharu,
is reported to have seen “bright white lights” from what he thought was
a fast-descending aircraft at about 1.45am on Saturday morning.
He has since reported what he saw to authorities after seeing the lights from his home that evening.
Malaysia Airlines
said in a statement
that the search and rescue teams (SAR) have expanded the scope beyond
the flight path to the West Peninsular of Malaysia at the Straits of
Malacca. The authorities are looking at a possibility of an attempt made
by MH370 to turn back to Subang.
The search sphere now includes
land on the Malaysian peninsula itself, the waters off its west coast
and an area to the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, an area
far removed from flight MH370’s scheduled route.
The news of the
search being widened comes as Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department said
it had received a report from the crew of a Cathay Pacific plane flying
from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur at about 3pm Saturday that more debris
was spotted near Vung Tau, off southeast Vietnam,
The South China Morning Post reports.
It is not known if the debris is from the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft.
 |
Prayer ... Students in East China pray for the passengers from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. Picture: Twitter
Source: Supplied
|
As the search for the missing Boeing 777 continues into its
fourth day, it also emerged that the aeroplane underwent maintenance on
February 23, 12 days before it went missing bound for Beijing, China.
“The
maintenance was conducted at the KLIA hangar and there were no issues
on the health of the aircraft,” Malaysia Airlines said. Its next check
was due on June 19.
 |
In limbo ... Sarah Nor, 55, the
mother of 34-year-old Norliakmar Hamid, a passenger on the missing
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Source: AFP
|
FINGERPRINTS BEING ANALYSED BY FBI
In
other news, fingerprints from the mystery passengers travelling on
missing Flight MH370 with stolen passports are being analysed by the FBI
as it emerged they were reportedly Iranians looking for a new life in
Europe.
The men are believed to have bought the fake travel
documents because they were “looking for a place to settle” and it is
thought their plane tickets were purchased in Thailand by an Iranian
middleman known as “Mr Ali”.
The news came as officials reacted
with scepticism to a claim of responsibility for the plane’s
disappearance from a previously unheard of Chinese terror group.
READ MORE: SHADOWY GROUP CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY
With authorities still scratching their heads
about exactly what has happened to the Malaysia Airlines flight and
conflicting information deepening the anguish of relatives, much of the
focus of the investigation has fallen on those on board.
Director-general
of Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman,
revealed late last night that the two men travelling on stolen passports
were not Asian-looking as had been earlier speculated.
He said they had passed through all “security
protocols” before boarding the flight, which disappeared with 239
passengers on board, including six Australians, in the early hours of
Saturday en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
 |
Under pressure ... an official in Malaysia is besieged by journalists.
Source: AP
|
“We have looked at the footage of the video and the
photographs and it is confirmed now that they are not Asian-looking
men,” Mr Rahman told a press briefing in Kuala Lumpur.
“They have gone through screening, their baggage has
been screened, their cabin baggage has been screened and they complied
fully with the protocols of immigration security.”
The CCTV footage in question has reportedly
been given to international security agencies and is expected to be
released publicly at some stage.
He said authorities were now
investigating the possibility of a stolen passport syndicate but he
would not be drawn on what the mystery men looked like.
Initial
reports that Mr Rahman had implied the men looked like African-Italian
soccer star Mario Balotelli were clarified by Malaysia this afternoon.
Officials
pointed out that Mr Rahman was actually saying a person’s appearance is
not necessarily a reliable indicator of their nationality, using the
footballer as an example.
Balotelli is Italian, having been born in Italy to Ghanaian parents.
 |
Unwitting example ... AC Milan footballer Mario Balotelli.
Source: AFP
|
Two European names were on the passenger list for the missing
flight but neither Christian Kozel, an Austrian, nor Luigi Maraldi from
Italy, ever boarded the plane — instead two passengers used their
passports, which had been stolen from the men in separate incidents in
Thailand.
LOOKING FOR A NEW LIFE
A man who says he is a
friend of the two unidentified passengers has now told how they were
Iranian nationals who travelled to Kuala Lumpur from Tehran several days
ago.
According to
London’s Daily Telegraph,
the unnamed friend told BBC Persia that the pair bought the stolen
passports in the Malaysian capital as well as tickets to Amsterdam via
Beijing.
 |
The BBC’s Bahman Kalbasi
Source: Supplied
|
One of the men wanted to eventually end up in Frankfurt, where his mother lives, while the other wanted to travel to Denmark.
BBC Persia’s UN correspondent Bahman Kalbasi said he was told the pair were “looking for a place to settle”.
Malaysia and neighbouring Thailand, where the passports were originally stolen, host large and established Iranian communities.
Earlier,
the Financial Times
reported that the duo’s tickets had been arranged for by an Iranian
known only as “Mr Ali”. According to Thai police, his full name is Kazem
Ali.
A travel agent in Thailand told the newspaper that Mr Ali
first asked her to book cheap tickets to Europe for the pair on March 1.
The
tickets expired before Mr Ali called her again last Thursday to rebook
them on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. A friend of Mr Ali’s paid
cash for the tickets.
Benjaporn Krutnait, owner of the Grand
Horizon travel agency in Thailand, said she had known the Iranian for
about three years and he had booked tickets through her agency before.
There is no evidence Mr Ali knew the two men were travelling on stolen passports and, according to
NBC News, he has come forward to authorities after learning they were under suspicion.
He is currently believed to be in Iran.
Authorities
have made no comment on these reports but Thai police are thought to
have visited two Pattaya travel agencies on Monday, who are believed to
be involved in selling the tickets.
ANALYSING THE INTELLIGENCE
Malaysian
authorities have released thumbprints of the pair that were taken at
the airport check-in at Kuala Lumpur to intelligence and law enforcement
agencies around the world.
“They will compare that to what we
have in our terrorist databases. These are lists of people on no-fly
lists, people with possible terrorist connections, people we have
reasons to be suspicious of,” US lawmaker Peter King told CNN.
“We have these listings, and those names and those biometrics will be compared to those.”
Images of the men has also been shared.
READ MORE: WHY THE BLACK BOX WON’T HELP
There has been no further update on the five
passengers who checked in for flight MH370 but didn’t board the plane.
They had their luggage removed from the hold.
Malaysian Transport
Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said they were being investigated but he
didn’t say whether this was suspicious.
Aviation industry figures said five passengers failing to board an international flight was not unusual.
 |
Searching ... Indonesian Navy pilots looking for the missing plane.
Source: AP
|
“To have that many people — five to 10 — as no-shows is
relatively common, particularly if they are connecting from elsewhere,”
they said.
They said a passenger’s failure to board can simply be
the result of a late connecting flight, a missed connection or simply
changing their mind. If anything, they said it was an increasing problem
due to the popularity of online check-in, which allows a passenger to
register their intention to board the flight up to several days ahead.
While there has been a claim of responsibility of some
kind for the disappearance of the flight by a shadowy group called the
Chinese Martyrs’ Brigade, officials are sceptical and have said it could
be a hoax.
The group — unheard of before now — on Sunday sent an
email to journalists across China that read: “You kill one of our clan,
we will kill 100 of you as payback,” but the message provided no other
details.
 |
Prayers ... candles are lit in Kuala Lumpur to send a message of hope.
Source: AP
|
CRIMINAL HUB FOCUS
Thailand’s role as a hub for
criminal networks using false documents is now in the spotlight after
the stolen passports sparked fears of a terror attack.
The
revelation has triggered a probe by Malaysian authorities, who are
working with other intelligence agencies including the FBI.
READ MORE: DAUGHTER’S TWEETS TO MISSING FATHER
“Thailand has been used by some international
terrorist groups as a zone of operation, to raise funds or to plan
attacks,’’ said Rommel Banlaoi, an analyst on terrorism in South-East
Asia.
In 2010, two Pakistanis and a Thai woman were arrested in
Thailand on suspicion of making false passports for al Qaeda-linked
groups, as part of an international operation linked to the 2008 attacks
in Mumbai and the Madrid train bombings in 2004.
 |
In shock ... relatives of passengers from the missing flight in Beijing.
Source: AFP
|
But Banlaoi stressed that the false passports used on
the Malaysia flight “could also be linked to other criminal activities,
like illegal immigration’’.
“Thailand is a destination for
international crime organisations who use it to secure travel documents,
financial documents,’’ a Thai intelligence source said.
READ MORE: STOLEN PASSPORTS REVEAL SECURITY LOOPHOLE
“It’s not just linked to terrorism but to other crimes. It’s a complex network, connected to other networks.’’
TRACKING STOLEN PASSPORTS TRAIL
The
intricate web of clues surrounding the stolen passports includes Thais
and foreigners, passport thieves, counterfeiters, intermediaries and
clients, Banlaoi said.
Thai police have announced an investigation
into a possible passport racket on the resort island of Phuket —
Maraldi’s passport was stolen there in 2013 and Kozel’s on a flight from
Phuket to Bangkok, according to authorities in Vienna.
 |
Message of hope ... a poster carrying words of support for the passengers.
Source: AFP
|
Flight information seen by the AFP news agency shows that two
tickets in Kozel and Maraldi’s names were issued in Pattaya, a beach
resort south of Bangkok, on March 6, 2014, and were paid for in Thai
baht.
Geographically well-placed and with a major
international airport, Thailand is best known for being a hub for drug
and wildlife trafficking, including elephant ivory from Africa.
But it also supplies documents to illegal immigrants moving within or passing through the region.
The route of the two unknown MH370 passengers — from
Kuala Lumpur via Beijing then on to Europe — was “a typical path’’ for
illegal immigrants, one diplomatic source said, adding that a large
proportion of passports stolen from tourists in Thailand were then used
for illegal immigration.
“They (the passports) are genuine, so
they find someone who looks like the owner, or they falsify the first
page,’’ the source said.
The ease with which police officials can be paid off also helped the industry to thrive.
“The police can turn a blind eye if you have the money,’’ he added.
 |
New scope ... Mr Rahman briefs the media with the latest.
Source: Getty Images
|
SEARCH PROVES FRUITLESS
The search effort for the
missing plane, involving at least 34 aircraft and 40 ships from several
countries, has been widened to a 100-nautical mile (185-kilometre)
radius from the point the plane vanished from radar screens between
Malaysia and Vietnam early Saturday with no distress signal.
READ MORE: THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Despite their best efforts, search teams have so far failed to find any trace of actual debris.
Laboratory
analysis of oil samples from slicks spotted in the days after the
disappearance showed they were not from the Malaysia Airlines jet but
were a type of fuel used by ships, the Maritime Enforcement Agency said
in Kuala Lumpur.
The area became a focus for frantic international search
efforts for the Boeing 777 after large tongues of oil were found in the
water on Saturday, hours after the plane dropped off the radar.
In
a day of conflicting information which deepened relatives’ anguish,
initial reports of debris off southern Vietnam were ruled out, before an
aircraft spotted another object which appeared to be a life raft.
Malaysia
said it was sending ships to investigate the raft sighting, but a
Vietnamese vessel that got there first found only flotsam in the busy
shipping lane.
 |
Vigil ... people in Kuala Lumpur are praying for a miracle.
Source: AFP
|
“When we reached the site we recovered only a mouldy cable reel cover,’’ Vietnamese army deputy chief of staff Vo Vo Tuan said.
“I
think there was only one suspect floating object there,’’ he said,
conceding the amount of rubbish floating in the sea made it hard to be
“100 per cent sure’’ the ship had reached the location of the reported
raft.
Boeing has joined an official US team investigating the
disappearance, saying it would act as technical adviser to the US
National Transportation Safety Board team already in South-East Asia to
offer assistance.
A satellite imaging company from the US has even
asked for public help in analysing high-resolution images for any sign of the missing airliner.
 |
Passport fears ... a passenger checks in at a Malaysia Airlines counter in Beijing.
Source: AP
|
‘BERMUDA TRIANGLE STUFF’
Central Queensland
University aviation expert Ron Bishop said the continuing lack of debris
from the jet pointed towards the aircraft hitting the water intact.
He
said that if the aircraft broke up at a cruising altitude, he would
expect evidence of items from the plane floating over a 15-20km expanse
of ocean.
“If it exploded midair, all the seat cushions would
float, paper, magazines, anything made out of paper or wood would
float,” he said.
“If it impacted the water in one piece, it
possibly impacted at a high speed that drove everything into the water
and meant that nothing floated out. And if it did, it would just be
small stuff.”
“It could be like the Titanic and drill right into the water.”
He
said this might have trapped any remaining oil within the aircraft.
However, if it did leak out, it could easily be carried away on the
current, leaving little trace of the aircraft.
“It’s pretty spooky
when this happens and is particularly upsetting for the families who
just want to know what occurred,” he said.
“It becomes like Bermuda Triangle stuff.”
While suggesting it was very unlikely the Boeing 777 crashed on land, Mr Bishop said it was possible.
— with wires
