Missing MH 370 vs 9/11 attack: Behaviour of passengers under scanner

New York, March 18: With the news of possibility of another 9/11 type terror attack, investigating officials have been probing strange behaviour of the passengers aboard Malaysian flight MH 370 which has been missing since past one week.

Comparing behaviourro of the flight passengers during 9/11 terror attack and this time, officials claimed that passengers and the flight crew did not try to contact their family members and airline officials. On the contrary, when hijackers took control of four airplanes on Sept 11, 2001, and sent them hurtling low across the countryside toward New York and Washington, frantic passengers and flight attendants turned on their cellphones and began making calls to loved ones, airline managers and the authorities.

Officials confirmed that no phone calls, Twitter or Weibo postings, Instagram photos or any other communication from anyone aboard the aircraft since it took U-turn changing from its original route.

Some experts, however, claimed that the plane was flying too high for personal electronic devices to be used. According to military radar, the aircraft was flying extremely high shortly after its turn - as much as 45,000 feet, above the certified maximum altitude of 43,100 feet for the Boeing 777-200. It then descended as it crossed Peninsular Malaysia, flying as low as 23,000 feet before moving up to 29,500 feet and cruising there.

Contradicting to this, the hijacked planes on Sept 11, 2001 were flying very low toward urban targets when passengers and flight attendants made calls from those aircraft.

All these comparisons between missing MH 370 and 9/11 terror attack began with one report on possible terror attack on one Indian city. Former US Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott from his Twitter account tweeted, "Direction, fuel load and range now lead some to suspect hijackers planned a 9/11-type attack on an Indian city."

However, Indian Air Force (IAF) officials overruled such reports saying India has multi-layered and seamless radar coverage over the areas suggested as the possible route for the aircraft in the theories in this regard and the aircraft would have been detected.

Ruling out such a possibility, a senior IAF officer said in the US attacks, the planes were going from one city to another and deviated shortly before their designated landing places to carry out attacks.

OneIndia News