Malaysia plane: Most presumed dead are Chinese, hijack angle dismissed

, March 12: The missing

that went missing over the Strait of Malacca mostly had Chinese passengers. Out of the 227 passengers and the 12 crew members, 38 were Malaysians, 7 Indonesians, 6 Australians, 5 Indians, 4 French and 3 Americans. Rest were Chinese.

According to the People's Liberation Army Daily, China deployed 10 satellites using high resolution earth imaging capabilities, visible light imaging and other technologies to support and assist in the search and rescue operations of the missing airplane.

The Boeing 777 has the best safety records among all the commercial airliners in service. The last accident that it had met was when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck its seawall on landing in San Francisco, killing 3 people.

Stolen Passports

While the terror angle can still not be completely dismissed, new evidences in the fake passport case force investigators to reconsider the hijack theory.

It is to be noted that Southeast Asia is a known hub for false documents that are used by smugglers, asylum seekers and illegal migrants. In fact, one of the fake passport holders onboard has been identified as a 19-year old Iranian who was trying to migrate to Germany.

His mother, who was waiting at Frankfurt has contacted the Malaysian authorities.

"We believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group, and we believe he was trying to migrate to Germany," said chief of police Khalid. Asked if he was ruling out the hijack angle, he said,"(We are giving) same weightage to all (possibilities) until we complete our investigations."

Both the men entered Malaysia on February 28. One entered from Phuket in Thailand, just 8 days before the flight. The Malaysian immigration chief Aloyah Mamat further added that both held onward reservation to Western Europe.

POlice in Thailand too confirmed that the two men may not be linked to the incident.

"We haven't ruled it out, but the weight of evidence we're getting swings against the idea that these men are or were involved in terrorism," Supachai Puikaewcome, chief of police in the Thai resort city of Pattaya said.

OneIndia News