More confusion emerged Monday in the hunt for the missing Malaysian Airlines jetliner as authorities provided a revised version of the co-pilot’s last words – making them far less ominous than previously thought.
“Good night, Malaysian three seven zero,” co-pliot Fariq Abdul Hamid said before the plane vanished without a trace on a March 8 flight to China with 239 passengers and crew aboard.
The words are a routine sign-off officials said.
Earlier, they had said his last words were, “Alright, good night,” fueling speculation that the co-pilot or pilot was responsible for the plan’s disappearance.
“The last words are particularly significant because it lessens the probability that either the pilot or co-pilot were involved in the ‘deliberate act’ of steering the plane in the westerly direction [away from its planned route],” said James Chaua, a reporter for the Chinese news outlet CCTV.
The disclosure was the latest embarrassing contradiction to emerge during the frustrating search, and prompted critics to blast the ongoing probe.
“This investigation is an example of what not to do,” James Hall, an ex-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told NBC News. “Everything they do, they change.”
Meanwhile, a cluster of orange objects spotted by a search plane was just fishing equipment and not related to the missing jet, officials said Monday, another disappointment in the three-week hunt that Australia’s prime minister said will continue indefinitely.