Not really, no. Immediately after that statement it says "When contacted, Malaysia Airlines declined to confirm or deny the reports", and nor has it been confirmed in the six hours of updates to that story since.
For this to be true, the incident would need to happen immediately after they signed off from air traffic control Kuala Lumpur.
It's possible, but it is just another in the line of coincidences that would need to happen for it to be something other than deliberate act by someone.
The same happened with the reports of the radar capturing it drastically off-course. First it looked like a sure thing, and then it was eventually completely denied. Perhaps that's just a symptom of such an intensely-analyzed ongoing news story, though.
I do feel a bit sorry for the Malaysian government. They don't get to control what the media prints, but are expected to immediately confirm/deny everything (difficult with the volume of reports they are likely dealing with!), and to some extent get chastised when the media prints stuff that later gets busted.
AP is already walking back the headline, now reads "Malaysian official says missing plane hijacked"
"It is not conclusive. I'm heading the investigation and nobody is saying that. It's not true. We are looking at the possibility, we're looking at all possibilities. We're doing every profile of the passengers and crew but there is no firm evidence or leads so far," he told the Telegraph.
"Malaysia Airlines confirmed that the missing aircraft had been involved in a collision with another plane in 2012 at the Shanghai airport that resulted in damage to the Malaysian aircraft’s wingtip. But the airline said the wing was repaired by Boeing and declared safe to fly."
Let's rephrase that as, this is the story as relayed by one of the passengers to RNZ. If non-speculative info is what you're after, perhaps it's better to wait for the official report.
IIRC it was controversial as it implies that the 777 was in controlled flight for several hours after it lost contact, making it a deliberate act rather than accident. Radar data released by the Malaysian military showed clearly that the plane turned west then south.
>In 2016, a leaked American document stated that a route on the pilot's home flight simulator, which closely matched the projected flight over the Indian Ocean, was found during the FBI analysis of the flight simulator's computer hard drive.[256] This was later confirmed by the [Australian Transportation Safety Bureau], although the agency stressed that this did not prove the pilot's involvement.[257] The find was similarly confirmed by the Malaysian government.[258]
This is the third major airplane incident this year involving airlines from Malaysia. The first two from Malaysia Airlines and now AirAsia which is also based in Malaysia. I frequently fly with south east asian airlines but I think I will avoid malaysian ones in the near future.
My thoughts go out to the families of the missing passangers. They have a very hard time right now. I hope Singapores military can location the plane quickly.
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