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Video After The Jump

 

BEIJING (Associated Press) — Relatives shrieked and sobbed uncontrollably. Men and women nearly collapsed, held up by loved ones. Their grief came pouring out after 17 days of waiting for definitive word on the fate of the passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia jetliner.

 

Malaysia's prime minister gave that word late Monday in a televised announcement from Kuala Lumpur, saying there was no longer any doubt that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down in the southern Indian Ocean.

 

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An office building is illuminated with lights displaying "Pray for MH370" in Kuala Lumpur, 

 

Relatives of passengers in Beijing had been called to a hotel near the airport to hear the news, and some 50 of them gathered there. Afterward, they filed out of a conference room in heart-wrenching grief.

 

One woman collapsed and fell on her knees, crying "My son! My son!"

 

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Medical teams arrived at Beijing's Lido hotel with several stretchers and at least one elderly man was carried out of the conference room on one of them, his faced covered by a jacket. Minutes later a middle-aged woman was taken out on another stretcher, her face ashen and her blank expressionless eyes seemingly staring off into a distance.

 

Most of them refused to speak to gathered reporters and some of them lashed out in anger, urging journalists not to film the scene. Security guards restrained a man with close-cropped hair as he kicked a TV cameraman and shouted, "Don't film. I'll beat you to death!"

 

Wang Zhen, whose father and mother, Wang Linshi and Xiong Yunming, were aboard the flight as part of a group of Chinese artists touring Malaysia, heard the announcement on television from another hotel where he has been staying.

 

He said some of the relatives had received a text message in English from the airliner advising of the findings to be announced in a late-night news conference by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Najib said an unprecedented analysis of satellite data concluded that the flight, which disappeared March 8 with 239 people aboard while on a night flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, must have ended in the sea far from any possible landing site.

 

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Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak

 

"My mind is a mess right now. Can we talk later?" he said in a telephone interview.

 

Nan Jinyan, whose brother-in-law Yan Ling was aboard the flight, said she was prepared for the worst when she heard the Malaysian prime minister would hold a news conference.

 

"This is a blow to us, and it is beyond description," Nan said.



 

 

Malaysia says missing flight MH370 crashed in Indian Ocean

 

 

 

 

Awful scene as families react to flight fate

 

 

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Co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid (left) and pilot Zaharie Ahmad (center) are under investigation. Ahmad has ties to jailed Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim (right).

 

Video And Pics After The Jump

 

CANBERRA, Australia (Associated Press) — As police investigate the two pilots of a Malaysian passenger jet that disappeared more than a week ago, a possibility they must consider — however remote and improbable — is that one of them committed suicide.

 

While such incidents have happened before, the topic remains almost taboo, with investigators and officials reluctant to conclude that a pilot purposely crashed a plane in order to commit suicide even when the evidence appears compelling.

 

A dozen years ago, U.S. investigators filed a final report into the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 aboard. They concluded that when co-pilot Gameel El-Batouty found himself alone on the flight deck, he switched off the auto-pilot, pointed the plane downward, and calmly repeated the phrase "I rely on God" over and over, 11 times in total.

 

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Gameel El-Batouty

 

Yet while the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the co-pilot's actions caused the crash, they didn't use the word "suicide" in the main findings of their 160-page report, instead saying the reason for his actions "was not determined." Egyptian officials, meanwhile, rejected the notion of suicide altogether, insisting instead there was some mechanical reason for the crash.

 

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Engine wreckage from EgyptAir Flight 990 is seen at the former Quonset Point Navy Base in Kingstown, Rhode Island

 

There was also disagreement over the cause of the crash of SilkAir Flight 185, which plunged into a river in 1997 during a flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Singapore, killing all 104 passengers and crew. A U.S. investigation found that the Boeing 737 had been deliberately crashed, but an Indonesian investigation was inconclusive.

 

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Parts of recovered wreckage from SilkAir Flight 185

 

Mozambique officials have been investigating a crash that killed 33 people in November. They say preliminary investigations indicate that the pilot of the Mozambican Airline plane bound for Angola intentionally brought it down, and they're continuing to look into his possible motives.

 

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Mozambique plane crash site

 

A 2014 study by the Federal Aviation Administration indicates that in the U.S. at least, flying remains a remarkably safe mode of transport and pilot suicide is a rare occurrence.

 

The study found that during the 10 years ending in 2012, just eight of 2,758 fatal aviation accidents in the U.S. were caused by pilot suicide, a rate of 0.3 percent. The report found that all eight suicides were men, with four of them testing positive for alcohol and two for antidepressants.

 

The cases ranged from a pilot celebrating his 21st birthday who realized a woman didn't want a relationship with him, to a 69-year-old pilot with a history of drinking and threatening suicide by plane. Seven of the cases involved the death of only the pilot; in the eighth case, a passenger also died.

 

"Aircraft-assisted suicides are tragic, intentional events that are hard to predict and difficult to prevent," the FAA's report found, adding that such suicides "are most likely under-reported and under-recognized."

 

In at least one case, a major international airline allowed a pilot who had expressed suicidal thoughts to continue flying. He flew nearly three more years, without incident, before he resigned in 1982 with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression.

 

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported that the Workers Compensation Commission heard that the Qantas pilot struggled several times to resist an overwhelming urge to switch off the plane's engines. Once during a flight to Singapore, the pilot's hand moved "involuntarily" toward the start levers and he was forced to "immobilize his left arm in order not to act on the compulsion."

 

"He left the flight deck and, once he felt calm enough, returned to his seat," the newspaper reported.

 

After telling his colleagues of his urges, the newspaper said, the pilot was examined by several doctors and ultimately declared fit to fly.

 

Malaysia's government said police on Saturday searched the homes of both the pilot and the co-pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. It said police were examining an elaborate flight simulator taken from the home of 53-year-old pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

 

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Police also are investigating engineers who may have had contact with the plane before it took off.

 

Mike Glynn, a committee member of the Australian and International Pilots Association, said a pilot rather than a hijacker is more likely to be able to switch off the communications equipment, adding that he thinks suicide was to blame in the EgyptAir and SilkAir crashes.

 

"The last thing that I, as a pilot, want is suspicion to fall on the crew, but it's happened twice before," Glynn said.

 

Still, there is no explanation why the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane would spirit the jet away to an unknown location and not crash it soon after taking off if he had wanted to commit suicide.

 

Zaharie was a supporter of a Malaysian opposition political party that is locked in a bitter dispute with the government, according to postings on his Facebook page and a friend, Peter Chong, who is a party member.

 

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Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to five years in prison on a sodomy charge — a development that many Malaysians regard as political payback.



 

 

Investigators look for motive in Malaysia plane disappearance

 


 

 

 

The mystery of Malaysia Air 370

 


 

 

 

Malaysia Asks for Data to Help Find Jet

 

 

Photo Sources: New York Daily NewsAssociated PressMurderpedia

 

 

 

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