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Criminal probe under way in Malaysia plane drama

Friends and colleagues of both men have testified to their good character, but questions have been raised over a flight simulator Zaharie had built at home, even though aviation commentators have said this is not uncommon.

Fariq’s record was queried after a woman said he had allowed her and a friend to ride in the cockpit of a separate flight.

The alternative scenario that the cockpit was taken over or the pilots coerced, opens a Pandora’s Box of possibilities as to who might be involved and with what motive.

Two passengers who boarded the plane with stolen EU passports have been identified as Iranians by Interpol, who said they were most likely illegal immigrants who did not fit terrorist profiles.

The fact that most of the passengers on board the Beijing-bound flight were Chinese has raised the possibility of involvement by militants from China’s Muslim ethnic Uighur minority.

– Still early days –

Security experts warned against jumping to conclusions on the basis of partial, flimsy evidence.

“We have to keep in mind that it’s still early in the investigation, even though we’re a week out from the plane taking off,” said Anthony Brickhouse, a member of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators.

“We still really don’t have a lot of evidence to go on. We don’t have any wreckage, we don’t have the plane itself, we don’t have a lot of electronic data from the aircraft.”

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The search is now focused on two flight corridors  a northern one stretching from northern Thailand to Kazakhstan and a southern zone from Indonesia towards the southern Indian Ocean.

The last satellite communication from the plane on March 8 came after it had been in the air almost eight hours around the time the airline has said it would have run out of fuel.

Several analysts favoured a route along the southern corridor over the ocean, saying the northern one would have required the plane to travel undetected through numerous national airspaces in a strategically sensitive region.

“I just can’t think of a scenario where this aircraft is sitting on a runway somewhere,” said Brickhouse.

Hamilton said a crash in the ocean was the likeliest scenario and one that presented a daunting search and recovery challenge.

“Any floating debris will be widely dispersed and the main debris on the sea floor,” he said.

More than a dozen countries have deployed over 100 vessels and aircraft to support the operation.

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