Posted on 03/16/2014 3:43:42 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
A former security chief for El Al believes that the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 points directly to Iran.
Isaac Yeffet, who served as head of global security for Israel’s national carrier in the 1980s and now works as an aviation security consultant in New Jersey, said investigators were correct in honing in on the two fake-passport carrying Iranian passengers on the doomed flight, and they have wasted valuable time by exploring other leads.
“What happened to this aircraft, nobody knows. My guess is based upon the stolen passports, and I believe Iran was involved,” he said. “They hijacked the aircraft and they landed it in a place that nobody can see or find it.”
In the immediate aftermath of the aircraft’s disappearance, which occurred last week during a standard night flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, Malaysian officials and the media were fixated on the story of two Iranians who had made it onto the plane with stolen passports. As the days wore on and the investigation uncovered new and confusing details, with officials admitting that the plane could have traveled for as long as seven hours without radio contact, and that its potential location could be anywhere from northern Kyrgyzstan to the southern Indian ocean, attention has shifted to the pilots and to far-flung conspiracy theories. This is a misstep, said Yeffet, and one that would not have happened in Israel.
“This would never have happened on an Israeli plane,” says Yeffet. “An El Al aircraft was hijacked for the first and last time in 1968. Since then, there has not been a single flight where security did not check every single name.”
However, it would have taken more than just a pair of Iranians with forged documents, Yeffet said, to pull off such an astonishing crime. “I can’t believe for a second that if these people planned to hijack the aircraft, it was just them,” he said. But based upon the tried-and-true Israeli intelligence strategy of profiling, the pilots, he said, are unlikely suspects.
“We are talking about a captain who is 53 years old, who has worked for Malaysia Airlines for 30 years, and suddenly he became a terrorist? He wanted to commit suicide? If he committed suicide, where is the debris?”
Adding that the captain in question, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was known to be happily married and comfortably well-off, Yeffet said the profile simply does not fit. “From the United States to China to Japan, everybody is searching for this aircraft or piece of it. And there is no sign. So in my opinion, the aircraft was hijacked. And it was an excellent plan from the terrorists, to land in a place where they can hide the plane and no one can find it.”
Lt. Col. (Res) Eran Ramot, an IDF fighter pilot and the head of aviation research at Israel’s Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, however, drew other conclusions.
“It would be very complicated [for someone other than the pilot to have flown the plane],” Ramot said, based on the stunning revelations that the flight not only made a total U-turn from its planned route but also dipped in between radar points for hours and had all of its tracking systems manually turned off. “It takes somebody that knows how to operate an airplane like this.”
Like Yeffet, Ramot believes the plane was being intentionally flown to a secret location, and he went as far as to say he is holding out hope that the 239 passengers and crew who were on board are still alive.
“We don’t know any better yet,” he said. “One of my theories is that the airplane landed in Bangladesh. It could reach there, it’s very close to Afghanistan. It could have landed on airstrip there, and everybody on board is still alive. It could be done.”
Asked what would have happened if the plane – which went undetected for hours as it blipped across Malaysian radars – had entered Israeli airspace, Ramot said, “It would not go unnoticed, that’s for sure. Action would have been carried out, the least of which would have been an interception to escort it.”
That doesn’t mean that the Malaysian military wasn’t paying attention, he added. It’s simply that in Israel, the margin for taking chances is significantly reduced.
“It’s a matter of atmosphere,” he said. “Here, every blip on the screen is suspicious because that’s the way we live. That’s our daily program. I can’t imagine they pay as much attention, but if a blip runs wide or runs strange, I would expect them to notice.”
Pini Schiff, one of Israel’s top aviation security experts, said that if there is any comfort that Israelis can take from the story of MH 370, which is proving to be one of the most confounding aviation disasters of all time, it is that it could never happen to a plane flying out of Ben-Gurion International Airport.
“It simply wouldn’t happen at Ben Gurion,” he said. “The level of security at Ben Gurion and on all El Al planes is so high, there is nothing more they could do… Nations are not spending billions of dollars the way the Israeli government is protecting Israeli aviation, because the threat against Israeli aviation is so high. What we are doing in Ben Gurion is an operation that is not being done in any other airport in the world. Not in the United States, not in Britain, not in Germany, not anywhere.”
Like his colleagues, Schiff said that his guess is as good as anyone’s as to the fate of MH 370, but he also believes there’s a good possibility that it has been brought down, intact, on a hidden runway in some far-flung corner of the world.
“It will be found. It may take a month or a year, but eventually, it will be found,” he said. “This aircraft didn’t vanish. It exists somewhere in the world, and it will be found, probably in one piece.”
JMO but two IRANIANS with stolen passports, left from a country with little security because they are all Muzzies. The plane’s captain photoed wearing a political slogan shirt AND his family moved out (where to) from their home... shades of 911. How could there be any state planning involved? My axx.
Living near where Atta the Axx lived, we were told by the super market employees the Muzzies family moved out the week before. DUH!!!!
I’m gonna need a bigger boat, a much bigger boat
Wait, I thought we ruled these two out because their mother said they were good boys and only looking for asylum?
I agree that it is done to be very public and to look like it is terrorists and not state sponsored.
The EMP theories are off. The big EMP coverage is from exoatmospheric (space) events. Inside the atmosphere will only cause localized EMP.
My money is on the plane being at the bottom of the ocean.
“These two fake passport holders would’ve NEVER been allowed to fly El Al.”
Not FAKE, stolen passports. Listed on Interpol as stolen, but the muzzies in malaise-zha did not check.
“Anyone remember WW2?”
I can’t help but think “What if Hussein is having Iran use the 777 to nuke the Hawaii Health Dept, to ‘destroy’ his (pretend) records?”
“.....we were told by the super market employees the Muzzies family moved out the week before.”
Note to self: When muzzies move out, head to the hills for 30 days.
Well .. the pilot might seem unlikely; however, his wife and children moved the day before the flight took off.
That could indicate the family knew the plan for the aircraft .. so why aren’t they looking for the family ..??
I have a good friend who makes his living developing scenarios to represent our real and potential adversaries. He is diabolically smart and refuses to be constrained by the strategic planners and intelligence analysts who regularly poo poo his products.
If he were to conjure up a delivery system for a third world nuke, he would never suggest a ballistic or cruise missile as you might find in Iran, Pakistan or North Korea. This would be the perfect vehicle for those countries. Squawking some false code, it would look like an airliners, appear to be an airliner electronically and the civilized world would have to make a decision on whether to shoot it down or not.
Lot’s of people are very nervous tonight. Of course, we have no idea if this is what is happening, but as a potential capability for our adversaries, it’s a cause for concern. There are ways to mitigate this threat, of course, but they are expensive and will take time to implement.
Iran has a couple of nukes and, at least until now, no way to deliver one.
Bandar-e-Jask
You heard it here first
My father, who is Puerto Rican with very Arab facial features (ancestors came from Southern Spain — the whole Moors vs. Christians thing) had a really hard time with El Al security when he was flying from JFK to Tel Aviv with his wife (my stepmom) to visit her son, who had married an Israeli woman in the mid-1990s and they moved to Tel Aviv to be closer to her family.
Dad was asked what he did for a living. He said “criminal attorney in San Juan”. El Al guy said: “That’s not true”. Dad showed him his business card and other lawyer-related ID. El Al guy said: “These are fake”. They asked him about a million questions, over & over, by himself and with my stepmom, and then they allowed him to board. Questioning lasted about 1 1/2 hours! My stepmom was not asked one single question — only my dad. It was unbelievable! And my Dad loved the experience because he felt safe on that plane ride to Israel.
I put a lot more stock in the opinion of a former ElAl security official than any talking head on TV.
What a freightening scenario.
You worry too much.
Islam is a ROP and all this is perpetrated by Muslims so all will be hummus and tabouleh and the outcome will be 72 virgins for each believer.
You think I’m crazy? If I am, then why are we still importing muzzies like they’re a blessing on this country?
Very interesting!
“This would be the perfect vehicle for those countries. Squawking some false code, it would look like an airliners, appear to be an airliner electronically and the civilized world would have to make a decision on whether to shoot it down or not.”
That’s what I have been say all along.
I’m sure all of the US intel agencies have been putting in lots of overtime trying to get a handle on this.
“My money is on the plane being at the bottom of the ocean.”
With absolutely no evidence of such.
Israel has been studying satellite photographs of Iran for decades. When a new Iranian nuclear site appears, Israel’s first-class intelligence agencies can pick it out as quickly as an expert bird watcher can detect a new species of fowl in its area.
So, if a giant Malaysian aircraft with 239 passengers aboard has landed in Iran, the Israelis would know about it by now. But why should they share their knowledge with the world until they’ve checked the whole thing out for themselves? In the meantime, Israeli airline experts like the ones quoted in this article can deliver wonderful ads for the safety and superiority of El Al.
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