- Call was made to Captain Shah just hours before he took off in MH370
- Pay-as-you-go phone which made the call was bought with fake ID
- Fake ID was used to get around security measures put in place after 9/11
- Increases fears Captain Shah may have links to terrorism
- Investigators will soon question the captain's estranged wife in detail
The captain of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 received a two-minute call shortly before take-off from a mystery woman using a mobile phone number obtained under a false identity.
It was one of the last calls made to or from the mobile of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah in the hours before his Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur 16 days ago.
Investigators are treating it as potentially significant because anyone buying a pay-as-you-go SIM card in Malaysia has to fill out a form giving their identity card or passport number
Family man: Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah with his wife Faizah Khan and two of their three children
Introduced as an anti-terrorism measure following 9/11, this ensures that every number is registered to a traceable person.
But in this case police traced the number to a shop selling SIM cards in Kuala Lumpur.
They found that it had been bought ‘very recently’ by
someone who gave a woman’s name – but was using a false identity.
The
discovery raises fears of a possible link between Captain Zaharie, 53,
and terror groups whose members routinely use untraceable SIM cards.
Everyone else who spoke to the pilot on his phone in the hours before the flight took off has already been interviewed.
Hunt: The mystery object in a Chinese satellite image, inset, some 80 miles from the previous search zone
Today, planes and ships were scrambled to find a pallet and other debris in a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean as the search resumed for the missing jet.
The pallet was spotted by a search plane yesterday, but has not been closely examined. Wooden pallets are commonly used in shipping, but can also be used in cargo containers carried on planes.
It
was the latest in a series of clues experts and searchers are trying to
pin down to solve the mystery of what happened to Flight 370 when it
disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board.
In
a separate development, The Mail on Sunday has learned that
investigators are now poised to question Captain Shah’s estranged wife
in detail.
They have waited two weeks out of respect, but will now begin formally interviewing Faizah Khan following pressure from FBI agents assisting the inquiry.
Searching: Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss (right) and Dan Gillis, senior search and rescue officer involved in the search, look at monitors at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's centre in Canberra
Although the couple – who have three children – were separated, they had been living under the same roof.
A source said: ‘Faizah has been spoken to gently by officers but she has not been questioned in detail to establish her husband’s behaviour and state of mind in the days leading to the incident.
DESERT ISLAND PLANE CRASH COMPUTER GAME IS SHELVED
The latest release of a war-themed computer game – centred on a passenger plane that crashes on to a desert island in the South China Sea – has been delayed as the search for missing flight MH370 continues.
Battlefield 4 Naval Strike, an update for the Battlefield 4 game which has sold millions of copies worldwide, was due for release last week – but has now been put back until Tuesday.
‘This is partly for cultural reasons. It is not considered appropriate in Malaysia to subject people in situations of terrible bereavement to the stress of intensive questioning.’
The softly-softly approach has been challenged by the team of FBI agents working with Malaysian police. They have pointed out that she may hold ‘vital clues and information’ to Zaharie’s mental state.
‘The whole world is looking for this missing plane and the person who arguably knows most about the state of mind of the man who captained the plane is being left alone,’ said a source close to the FBI team.
The source added: ‘If we want to eliminate the chief pilot from the inquiry, we must interview her in detail to find out what his state of mind was.’
The mystery caller emerged when Malaysian investigators examined the phone records of both Zaharie and his co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid.
Investigators were keen to trace the caller and interview them, although they have stressed that the fact the SIM card was registered to a non-existent ID card does not necessarily indicate a criminal or terrorist connection.
Political activists in Malaysia sometimes use SIM cards bought with bogus identity cards if they fear that their phones may be bugged by the country’s authoritarian ruling party.
Up and away: A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion takes off at RAAF Pearce Base to join the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in Perth, Australia
Looking: Crew on board a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion, searching for the missing flight in the southern Indian Ocean
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that Zaharie is an avid supporter of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, a distant relative, and may have attended a controversial court hearing where Anwar was jailed for five years. It took place only a few hours before the flight.
'The whole world is looking for this missing plane and the person who arguably knows most about the state of mind of the man who captained the plane is being left alone'
Source close to FBI team
The timing of the call has intensified scrutiny on Zaharie as investigators struggle to establish whether the cockpit crew, a catastrophic accident or hijackers are to blame for Flight MH370’s disappearance.
Meanwhile FBI experts in the US are continuing to examine the hard drive of a flight simulator seized from Zaharie’s home after it emerged that programs he used on it had been deleted.
Zaharie used the home flight simulator to practise extreme landings, including on remote Indian Ocean islands such as the US air base in Diego Garcia, investigators have revealed.
Good luck: Ground crew members wave to a Japanese Maritime Defense Force P3C patrol plane as it leaves the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Subang heading for Australia to join the search and rescue operation
Looking: This graphic shows the approximate position of the objects seen floating in a Chinese satellite image in the southern Indian Ocean on which the AMSA is concentrating its search
The hard drive was flown to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, at the end of last week after Malaysian investigators failed to retrieve the deleted files, which they suspect may have been ‘buried’ in an elaborate process to cover the user’s tracks.
The delay in handing the computer hard drive to the FBI has proved to be a source of friction between the Malaysian and US investigators, the source close to the FBI said, adding: ‘We have the technology to do this work quickly and effectively and they simply don’t.’
Malaysia’s acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein yesterday said investigators are coming under increasing pressure as they are aware that time is running out – the black box voice and data recorder only transmits an electronic signal for about 30 days before its battery runs out.
But he claimed a thorough investigation of the plane’s cargo manifest had not shown ‘any link to anything that may have contribution to the plane’s disappearance’.
'Wreckage’ spotted...80 miles from previous site of debris
A mystery object has been spotted in the Indian Ocean search zone – 80 miles from an earlier sighting of debris.
Measuring 74ft by 42ft, the object appears in a new image taken by a Chinese satellite.
Ships have been sent to investigate but a ferocious cyclone was yesterday hampering efforts to locate the possible wreckage.
The news came two days after debris was detected 1,550 miles south-west of Perth in Australia.
An Australian Orion aircraft was sent to scour area where satellite imagery pinpointed possible debris
The satellite picture of the possible debris was handed over by China and given a new focal point for search
Since the announcement, Australian search teams scouring the remote area reported seeing a number of small objects including a wooden pallet.
Malaysia¿s acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein revealed the image at a press conference
A Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion plane with specialist electro-optic observation equipment was diverted to the location, arriving after the first aircraft left, but reported sighting only clumps of seaweed.
The Chinese satellite discovery was revealed yesterday by Malaysia’s acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein at a press conference.
He made the announcement after being handed a handwritten note.
He said: ‘The Chinese ambassador has received satellite images of floating objects in the southern corridor and they will be sending ships to investigate.’
China is one of 26 nations involved in the search for flight MH370. Most of those on board the aircraft were Chinese nationals.
The Xinhua state news agency said the latest image was taken by China’s Gaofen-1 satellite at about 4am GMT on March 18 and showed objects some 80 miles ‘south by west’ from the first site.
The announcement came after the first Australian Orion aircraft to make a sortie over the target zone returned without success.
Flying Officer Peter Moore, the Orion’s captain, said a combination of ‘less than ideal’ weather and sea conditions had closed in on the flight.
He said they covered their entire search area but had not seen any evidence of wreckage.
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