The Malaysian passenger plane missing since Saturday had a potential structural flaw that might have led to rapid decompression and the suffocation of everyone on board before it plummeted into the ocean, according to a report early Wednesday.
A Federal Aviation Administration warning from last November highlighted a fault in Boeing 777s that could be catastrophic, according to The Telegraph.
“We received a report of cracking and corrosion in the fuselage skin,” the FAA warned. “If not corrected, [it] could lead to rapid decompression and loss of structural integrity,” which might suck the air out of the cabin.
A decompression incident such as that took place in 1999, when pro golfer Payne Stewart was a passenger in a Learjet flying from Orlando to Dallas.
It lost pressure shortly after takeoff and, essentially carrying six corpses, flew off course for nearly four hours on autopilot before crashing in South Dakota.
Meanwhile, officials remained confounded by the status of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, releasing contradictory and conflicting statements about the search throughout the day.
Malaysian air force Gen. Rodzali Daud initially said Tuesday that the plane veered off course and flew at a low altitude for more than an hour after disappearing from civilian radar screens.
Daud told the local Berita Harian newspaper that radar data from a military base then tracked the 777 as it turned westward and cruised hundreds of miles across the Malaysian peninsula before vanishing without a trace.
He claimed the last radar signal put it near the northern approach to the Malacca Strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping channels.
Also on Tuesday, Malaysia Airlines said the massive search for the plane, in fact, had been extended to the Malacca Strait.
At one point in the day, the airline said the western coast of Malaysia — along the strait — was “now the focus” of the search operation, but it later retracted that statement.
Then Daud also bizarrely backtracked Wednesday, saying that he had been misquoted.
Adding to the confusion, Malaysia’s civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said he could not confirm or deny statements about the plane’s tracking and told ABC News that he was refusing to release the radar data.
When asked why, he responded, “No comment.”
Rahman, though, said search efforts would continue “on both sides” of the country.
Vietnam, meanwhile, scaled back the search in the waters off its coast after a Hanoi official said Malaysia did not provide the Vietnamese with adequate information.
Pham Quy Tieu, who heads the Vietnamese search, said his nation had asked Malaysian authorities about reports that the plane had switched course, but did not receive a response.
In all, 10 countries are involved in the recovery effort.
China said Tuesday it had moved 10 high-resolution satellites over the search area, while the United States has volunteered MH60 Seahawk helicopters, capable of night searches with infrared cameras.
Crews aboard dozens of ships are also listening for signals from the plane’s black boxes, which are designed to continue working for 30 days after a crash.
Although Interpol and Thai police said the two Iranian passengers who boarded the plane with stolen passports didn’t appear to be terrorists, CIA Director John Brennan said he hadn’t ruled out terrorism as the cause of the plane’s disappearance.
Brennan noted that there’s “a lot of speculation right now — some claims of responsibility that have not been, you know, confirmed or corroborated at all.”
“We’re looking at it very carefully,” he added.