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.”
Don’t forget the babaganoush!
Why Bandar-e-Jask
HAHAHA! Great story....
“If anyone wanted to steal a plane then why not steal a FedEx or UPS cargo plane? They are probably a lot easier to steal than a commercial airliner and no passengers to deal with.”
I actually thought about this. It is much easier to steal a passport and get on a commercial plane in some low-security airport than it is to infiltrate UPS or FedEx wait around as a sleeper until needed. Plus, you might get multiple hijackers on a commercial plane, and if you have an attractive woman among them and a Captain who likes to bring pretty girls to the cockpit . . .
As for the passengers, if you are going to use the plane for a mass casualty terrorist attack anyway, what are 240 more corpses to you. If you have a plan to do away with them, then they would be as inert to your heartless, islamofascist soul as a bunch of FedEx packages.
The most interesting discussion I have seen so far is whether you could kill the passengers by depressurizing at 45,000 feet without doing yourself in as well. I would think the sudden pressure change might be fatal even if you had oxygen. Also, is the oxygen generator for the passengers something that could be turned off?
It is a puzzle . . .
And THAT is why Israel’s security is the best in the world..NOTHING tops it..NOTHING..they try to fly this plane into Israel without them knowing the security code, their asses get shot down, that simple
That doesn't make sense to me either.
An Iranian plan would have a hard time taking off undetected from an Iranian airfield. I doubt that 370 would be successful at delivering anything any distance, but Tel Aviv is not so far away. The Israelis would likely see it coming but maybe not in Iranian estimation.
ELTs are activated either manually or by sudden deceleration with a g-switch. Plus, the life rafts aboard have ELTs in them which are activated when the raft is deployed.
So if it did a belly landing, unlike AF flight 447, at least one would have been activated. With a belly landing that might give the crew to deploy the life raft thus activating the second one.
There was not a distress beacon on AF flight 447 but there was debris found plus signs of oil or jet fuel on the water surface, aircraft seats, an orange buoy, dead bodies, a passenger’s briefcase, and other things.
We haven’t seen any distress beacons nor crash debris.
Your theory is too complicated to be pulled off without dedicated operatives and government support.
It is most likely a case of Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
Iran would have a much harder time getting an Iranian plane into the US with a nuke than an American plane..I bet you that this Malaysian 777 is being equip with all the nukes necessary to destroy a few city blocks right now..it wouldnt have any issue entering the US..Israel, forget about it, its not gonna happen..but entering the US, yeah I can see that happening..or hitting another Target that would affect America greatly
Just by reading this and I would not be surprised that Iran is behind it. This reminds me of the movie Raid on Entebbe or The Entebbe Rescue Operation.
“On June 27, 1976, four terrorists forced an Air France Airbus to land in Uganda, in the heart of distant Africa. They quickly demanded that Israel release 53 convicted terrorists. The hijackers freed the French crew and nonJewish passengers, while retaining 105 Jewish and Israeli hostages. A 48hour deadline was set before executions would begin.”
Just that this one was more thought out and prepared and thanks to technology they can easily plan. Just my thought. =)
I can't imagine an unidentified plane entering US airspace. Then again, I couldn't believe they didn't have anti-aircraft weapons on top of the Pentagon.
They can slap a logo on it saying “American Airlines” put a flight number on it for a plane that is supposed to be coming to a certain location, and there you go..by the time US aviation towers realize they have been duped it will be too late
I was on duty, US Navy Security Group, when the Achille Lauro was highjacked. Talk about illogical!
The Muslims aren’t using logic. For them, symbolism is everything. Death means more than life.
That is a simple question to answer: they’re Muslim. They know something awful is going to happen, and soon.
They do not want to be blamed. They also do not want to be a target after the “awful thing” happens, either by the target country or by the perps.
Why else do you think President Karzai is telling the US to leave Afghanistan IMMEDIATELY!!
Do you realize what would happen to anyone who even looks like a Muzzie if a nuke was detonated in the US?
Iran has a national airlines so why would they need to steal a plane?
What I am going to say will sound racist, but if you stop and think about everything that has happened since 9-11, it won’t.
It doesn’t make sense to Westerners because folks from the Middle East don’t think like us. It is that simple.
In that case, the pilot would know that and nosedive to get the plane under water before the ELT(s) could activate.
We haven’t seen any distress beacons nor crash debris.
I would think nosediving in the southern Indian Ocean or northern Antarctic Ocean would explain that.
Also this could be the first step of a "False Flag" attack scenario.
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