馬空軍司令：馬航客機或曾空中折返

據美聯社3月9日報道，軍事雷達記錄顯示失聯的波音777號客機消失前或曾折返。

馬來西亞空軍司令羅德扎利·達烏德表示，雷達記錄顯示馬航失聯客機在失蹤前有折返跡象，這讓MH370航班客機失蹤前幾分鐘的情況更加撲朔迷離。

該客機上共有來自14個國家的227名乘客和12名機組人員，其中包括150餘名中國乘客。其於北京時間3月8日00：42從吉隆坡飛往北京，01：20在越南胡志明市管制區與空管部門失去聯繫，同時飛機雷達信號消失。飛機消失時天氣狀況良好，飛機處於巡航階段，並沒有發出任何異常信號。

馬來西亞航空公司首席執行官稱，飛機如果需要折返，飛行員應當與航空公司和空中管制中心取得聯繫。他說：“但飛機沒有發出任何呼救信號或遇險信號，這讓我們非常困惑。”

目前大規模海上搜救尚未找到飛機殘骸，越南空軍在距土珠島150公里海域發現了兩處長達數十公里的痕跡，像是油漬，但並不清楚是否與失聯客機有關，附近也未發現任何飛機殘骸。

馬來西亞航空也告知失蹤人員家屬，飛機失聯已經過去30個小時，希望家屬們“做好最壞的心理準備”。

另外，馬來西亞官方正在調查失聯客機上的4位乘客的身份，包括此前曝出的使用被盜護照登記的2位奧地利和意大利乘客。奧地利和意大利外交部目前均已確認，該兩人名字與在泰國報失的兩本護照名字一致。

悉尼新南威爾士州航空學院院長傑森·米德爾頓認爲此次失事可能是由於恐怖主義或其他違規行爲。但澳大利亞麥格理大學反恐怖主義專家、前軍事情報局官員克萊夫·威廉姆斯對此持懷疑態度，他稱最新國際刑警數據顯示，截止到2013年12月13日，全球共有3900萬被盜護照。“亞洲這種規模的航班上，總會有那麼幾個人持有假護照。想想全球有多少護照被偷或丟失，你就會明白，這可能與恐怖襲擊有關，但也很可能沒有關係。”

Military radar indicates that the missing Boeing 777 jet may have turned back before vanishing, Malaysia's air force chief said Sunday as authorities were investigating up to four passengers with suspicious identifications.

The revelations add to the uncertainties surrounding the final minutes of flight MH370, which was carrying 239 people when it lost contact with ground controllers somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam after leaving Kuala Lumpur early Saturday morning for Beijing.

A massive international sea search has so far turned up no trace of the plane, which lost contact with the ground when the weather was fine, the plane was already cruising and the pilots didn't send a distress signal - unusual circumstance for a modern jetliner operated by a professional airline to crash.

Vietnamese air force jets spotted two large oil slicks Saturday, but it was unclear if they were linked to the missing plane, and no debris was found nearby.

Air force chief Rodzali Daud didn't say which direction the plane might have taken or how long for when it apparently went off route.

"We are trying to make sense of this," he told a media conference. "The military radar indicated that the aircraft may have made a turn back and in some parts, this was corroborated by civilian radar."

Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said pilots were supposed to inform the airline and traffic control authorities if the plane does a U-turn. "From what we have, there was no such distress signal or distress call per se, so we are equally puzzled," he said.

Authorities were checking on the suspect identities of at least two passengers who appear to have boarded with stolen passports. On Saturday, the foreign ministries in Italy and Austria said the names of two citizens listed on the flight's manifest matched the names on two passports reported stolen in Thailand.

This, and the sudden disappearance of the plane that experts say is consistent with a possible onboard explosion, strengthened existing concerns about terrorism as a possible cause for the disappearance. Al-Qaida militants have used similar tactics to try and disguise their identities.

Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that authorities were looking at two more possible cases of suspicious identities. He said Malaysian intelligence agencies were in contact with their international counterparts, including the FBI. He gave no more details.

"All the four names are with me and have been given to our intelligence agencies," he said. "We are looking at all possibilities."

A total of 22 aircraft and 40 ships have been deployed to the area by Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, China and the United States, not counting Vietnam's fleet.

Two-thirds of the jet's passengers were Chinese. The rest were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

After more than 30 hours without contact with the aircraft, Malaysia Airlines told family members they should "prepare themselves for the worst," Hugh Dunleavy, the commercial director for the airline told reporters.

Finding traces of an aircraft that disappears over sea can take days or longer, even with a sustained search effort. Depending on the circumstances of the crash, wreckage can be scattered over many square kilometers (miles). If the plane enters the water before breaking up, there can be relatively little debris.

A team of American experts was en route to Asia to be ready to assist in the investigation into the crash. The team includes accident investigators from National Transportation Safety Board, as well as technical experts from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing, the safety board said in a statement.

Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, as does the 777, which had not had a fatal crash in its 19-year history until an Asiana Airlines plane crashed last July in San Francisco, killing three passengers, all Chinese teenagers.

Investigators will need access to the flight data recorders to determine what happened.

Some aviation and terrorism experts said revelations about stolen passports would strengthen speculation of foul play even as they also acknowledged other scenarios: a catastrophic failure of the engines or structure of the plane, extreme turbulence or pilot error or even suicide were all possible.

Jason Middleton, the head of the Sydney-based University of New South Wales' School of Aviation, said terrorism or some other form of foul play seemed a likely explanation.

"You're looking at some highly unexpected thing, and the only ones people can think of are basically foul play, being either a bomb or some immediate incapacitating of the pilots by someone doing the wrong thing and that might lead to an airplane going straight into the ocean," Middleton said. "With two stolen passports (on board), you'd have to suspect that that's one of the likely options."

But Clive Williams, a counter-terrorism expert at Australia's Macquarie University and a former military intelligence officer, said he doubted the two stolen passports aboard the flight were related to the disaster. He said latest Interpol data showed there were 39 million lost or stolen passports reported as of Dec. 13, 2013.

"Any flight of that size in Asia would be carrying a couple of people with false passports," he said. "When you think about the number of passports that have been stolen or gone missing around the world ... it could be related, but it's probably not."

Just 9 percent of fatal accidents happen when a plane is at cruising altitude, according to a statistical summary of commercial jet accidents done by Boeing. Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said Saturday there was no indication the pilots had sent a distress signal.

The plane was last inspected 10 days ago and found to be "in proper condition," Ignatius Ong, CEO of Malaysia Airlines subsidiary Firefly airlines, said at a news conference.