Why are phones of missing Malaysian Airlines 370 passengers still ringing?
Relatives’ suffering increases as hunt zone now changes to totally new area and the traced Iranian man on missing passport ‘isn’t a terrorist.’
* According to reports, almost 20 missing passengers’ families have claimed that their smartphones are still buzzing
* Airline says they have rung flight MH370 crew’s phones
* Frustration among relatives is growing due to lack of information
* One of two men traveling on two stolen European passports, according to Malaysian police reports, was a 19 years old Iranian asylum seeker identified as Pouiria Nur Mohammad Mehrdad who was enroute Germany to meet his mother and ‘not terrorist.’ The identity of the older man remains unknown.
* Fate of Malaysian Airlines’ Boeing 777 still remains a puzzle and search is being done on a different sea which is around 200 miles from the place of last recording
The ‘unparalleled mystery’ behind the vanishing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 intensified on Monday when as many as 19 relatives declared they could call their missing dear ones on cellphones and even see them being active online via QQ- a Chinese social networking portal- according to the Washington Post. It has begun an entirely new hysteria for relatives who depleted the last three-days housed in a Beijing hotel. But annoyingly for those who have been waiting badly for any new information on the incident, messages and calls are going unanswered.
The doomed Malaysian Airlines flight had 239 passengers onboard and took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. The Boeing 777 vanished off radar screens early Saturday morning, setting off an enormous international search attempt.
Possible reasons for it?
A mid-air blast: The absence of wreckage could be because of it falling into Malaysian forest
Terrorist attack: CIA Director cited terrorism could be a reason
Power breakdown: An intentional cutting of power possibly with other communication instruments
Electronic warfare: Around 20 passengers on the flight were skilled in this technology
Skyjack: According to radar data available, it specifies a possible U-turn of the plane
Manual error: Experts tell there is a chance of mistake in almost every air mystery
Structural malfunction: Maybe relating to the damage sustained by a mishap in 2012
Pilot suicide: In two separate incidence of large jets crashing in late 1990s, this can’t be ruled out
Aeronautical black hole: Plane could be several hundred miles from present search area
Singapore’s Strait Times tells that a Malaysian Airlines official named Hugh Dunleavy has verified to families that the airlines company had also tried to call the crew members’ cellphones but they too were going unanswered and the Chinese authorities have also been given those phone numbers.
The worried loved ones are now asking for a complete investigation and some are even complaining that Malaysian Airlines is keeping them in dark by not revealing everything clearly.
The International Business Times showed on live television- a Chinese passenger’s sister named Bian Liangwei- ringing his phone.
Liangwei told IBT ‘at around 11:40 this morning, I got the ringing tone after calling up my older brother’s number twice and then called up again at 2pm, to hear the ringing tone.’
She continues ‘if I could call him, police could also possibly locate its position, and there could be a chance of my brother being alive still.’
But Malaysian Airlines spokesman Ignatius Ong said at one press conference in Beijing that one of the numbers given to airline’s Kuala Lumpur based head office was called up five times but failed to connect and got no ringing tone.
The authorities searching for the lost Malaysia Airlines plane have stretched their hunt on land as well as sea on Tuesday- clearly showing the intricacies involved in locating the plane traces even after three days of its first report of getting missing.
Malaysia Airlines said in a statement the western coast of the country, near the Straits of Malacca, was ‘now the focus’ of the hunt. That is on the other side of peninsular Malaysia from where flight 370 was reported missing.
But this report didn’t mean that authorities believed that the jet was somewhere off western coast. ‘The exploration is going on in both the sides,’ Chief of Civil aviation, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said.
Authorities started their search from the point where the plane was last seen- a place in the seas flanked by Malaysia and Vietnam. Since no debris was found, now they have started expanding the hunt to take in even those areas where the flight could have landed, given the amount of fuel it contained.
‘Unfortunately no objects from the aircraft were found, let alone the aircraft. A hijacking attempt can’t be ruled out while examiners search all theories.’ Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said.
WHY ARE PASSENGERS’ PHONES STILL BUZZING?
After four days, wouldn’t the batteries of phone be dead by this time?
Not essentially. Smartphones are well-known for their less battery life but older phones’ batteries can last much longer- say of Nokia 100 phone having a standby time of amazing 35 days.
If the batteries are dead by now, wouldn’t the voicemail be reached directly?
Yes. But this process of diverting a call to voicemail can vary from one service provider to another.
For instance, most phones go directly to voicemail, or else the callers get a no service message, in case voicemail isn’t set up- even in the absence of a cell signal or phone being underwater.
Yet, some service providers cut off or give a ring few times before passing it on to the voicemail. This may clarify why the phones rang before appearing to hang up.
How is it possible that the phones are ringing and ringing, as some reports say?
Alan Spencer, a telecoms expert, informs Mail Online- if a phone is actually ringing, it definitely cannot be under sea. It can only be if the phone ‘battery is charged, is not in water, is switched on, and is around a mobile cell tower.’ This means that the plane should be on land and not in sea or a mobile tower less area, as being reported.
Why are network operators unable to locate phones?
Many family members are asking the service providers about not being able to trace the phone location of the missing passengers.
For this, a Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering- Professor William Webb- told Mail Online that ‘the phones won’t be working certainly; they’ll be out of coverage area, underwater, and perhaps out of battery. So, there is no chance if using them for triangulation.
‘As regards to why phones are ‘ringing’, it is same like in case of going out of coverage–sometimes it may ring a few times before diverting to the voicemail.’
What is the role of T3212 timer that I read about?
A T3212 is a timer to let a phone send a message from time to time to the network about its location.
Professor Webb told that this is only applicable when a phone is switched on and is still in coverage area, and has a working battery.
What about news on the QQ social network where passengers are said to be show online?
When users sign into social networks portals like Facebook or QQ from a PC, tablet, phone, laptop, etc., they appear online. So, if some of the missing passengers seem to be online, they could probably be logged in from any other device and not their phone. When any of these devices shut down or slips into standby mode after long ‘idle’ period, the social network portal logs them out- which might clarify why some people went from online to offline ever since the incidence took place.
A friend of a passenger traveling on stolen passport told BBC Persia that he had hosted both the travelers with stolen passports in Kuala Lumpur before they began their journey on the doomed flight. The friend also said that both of them bought a one way ticket to Amsterdam along with the illegal passports in Malaysia.
A source told BBC that both of them acquire fake European passports since they wanted to live and settle to have a better life in Europe. They were on passports of a 30 year old Austrian named Christian Kozel and a 37 year old Italian national named Luigi Maraldi.
The angry relatives of the passengers threw water bottles during briefing at Malaysian Airlines officials when they didn’t get any useful information about missing flight MH370. One of them even yelled ‘All Malaysians are liars’, before asking ‘do you know what ‘liar’ means?’, The New York Times reported.
More than 100 anxiously awaiting relatives of the missing passengers have signed a petition to ask for government assistance and answers, The Washington Post informed.
The airline company has sent counseling professionals to help support the families with the incident.
China- where most of the travelers were from- has urged Malaysia to ‘accelerate the efforts’ while also providing ships as well as helicopters in the search operation.
Source: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020
