Telepon Kopilot MH370 Terlacak di Ketinggian 7 Ribu Kaki?
Call Traced to MH370 Copilot Phone? It Possible to be Connected at an Altitude of 7,000 Feet
Editor : Ismail Gani
Translator : Novita Cahyadi
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Kuala Lumpur (B2B) - Para penyidik yang menyelidiki hilangnya pesawat Malaysia Airlines MH370 menduga ko-pilot pesawat jet tersebut mencoba membuat panggilan dengan telepon genggamnya setelah pesawat itu melenceng dari rute yang seharusnya, menurut laporan New Straits Times Malaysia mengutip sumber-sumber, Sabtu.
Surat kabar itu mengutip sumber yang tidak disebutkan namanya yang mengatakan upaya panggilan telepon dari telepon ko-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid ditangkap oleh sebuah menara telepon genggam saat pesawat itu berada sekitar 200 mil laut sebelah barat laut dari negara pantai barat Penang.
Hal itu terjadi bersamaan dengan radar militer mencatat penampakan terakhir dari jet yang hilang pada 2.15 pagi waktu setempat itu pada 8 Maret.
"Menara Telco (perusahaan telekomunikasi) menangkap upaya panggilan yang coba dilakukan itu. Tentang mengapa panggilan terputus, tampaknya karena pesawat itu dengan cepat bergerak menjauh dari menara dan tidak berada di bawah cakupan menara yang berikutnya," kata New Straits Times mengutip sumbernya.
Pejabat pemerintah tidak bisa segera dihubungi untuk mengomentari laporan tersebut. New Straits Times mengutip pejabat Menteri Transportasi Hishammuddin Hussein yang mengatakan bahwa laporan tersebut perlu diverifikasi.
Tapi dia tampaknya meragukan laporan tersebut dengan mengatakan, "Jika hal ini terjadi, kita akan telah mengetahui tentang hal itu sebelumnya."
The New Straits Times mengutip sumber berbeda yang mengatakan bahwa ada sinyal yang dicatat dari telepon genggam Fariq, tapi itu bisa saja akibat perangkat itu diaktifkan bukannya digunakan untuk membuat panggilan.
Malaysia memfokuskan penyelidikan kriminalnya pada kru kabin dan pilot pesawat itu - kapten Zaharie Ahmad Shah yang berusia 53 tahun dan Fariq yang berusia 27 tahun - setelah membersihkan semua 227 penumpang dari dugaan keterlibatan apa pun, kata polisi.
Para penyelidik percaya bahwa seseorang dengan pengetahuan rinci tentang pesawat Boeing 777 - 200ER dan navigasi penerbangan komersial telah mematikan sistem komunikasi pesawat itu sebelum mengalihkan pesawat itu ribuan mil dari rute yang dijadwalkan.
Pencarian untuk pesawat jet yang hilang itu di Samudera Hindia selatan dilanjutkan pada Sabtu , di tengah kekhawatiran bahwa sinyal baterai dari kotak hitam di pesawat itu mungkin telah mati.
Kuala Lumpur - A Crew member of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 made a desperate call from his mobile phone as the plane was flying low near Penang, the morning it went missing.
The latest breakthrough in the ongoing criminal investigation traced the source of the call to co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid's phone.
The New Straits Times has learnt that investigators are poring over this discovery as they try to piece together what had happened moments before the Boeing 777-22ER twinjet went off the radar, some 200 nautical miles (320km) northwest of Penang on March 8.
It is understood that the aircraft with 239 people on board was flying at an altitude low enough for the nearest telecommunications tower to pick up his phone's signal.
His call, however, ended abruptly, but not before contact was established with a telecommunications sub-station in the state.
However, the NST is unable to ascertain who Fariq was trying to call as sources chose not to divulge details of the investigation. The links that police are trying to establish are also unclear.
"The telco's (telecommunications company's) tower established the call that he was trying to make. On why the call was cut off, it was likely because the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one," the sources said.
It was also established that Fariq's last communication through the WhatsApp Messenger application was about 11.30pm on March 7, just before he boarded the aircraft for his six-hour flight to Beijing.
The NST was also told that checks on Fariq's phone history showed that the last person he spoke to was "one of his regular contacts (a number that frequently appears on his outgoing phone logs)".
This call was made no more than two hours before the flight took off at 12.41am from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
A different set of sources close to the investigations told the NST that checks on Fariq's phone showed that connection to the phone had been "detached" before the plane took off.
"This is usually the result of the phone being switched off. At one point, however, when the airplane was airborne, between waypoint Igari and the spot near Penang (just before it went missing from radar), the line was 'reattached'.
"A 'reattachment' does not necessarily mean that a call was made. It can also be the result of the phone being switched on again," the sources said.
The flight, with a crew of 12, was supposed to take off at 12.35am.
The jetliner disappeared from commercial radar about an hour later, while it was flying over the South China Sea. It was supposed to have landed in Beijing at 6.30am the same day.
Experts said it was possible for a mobile phone to be connected to a telecommunications tower at an altitude of 7,000 feet.
An NST exclusive on March 16, quoted investigators as saying that the jetliner had dropped to as low as 5,000 feet after it made the turnback at waypoint Igari in the South China Sea before it crossed Peninsular Malaysia headed towards Penang.
