Letter to the Editor - Ref: Malaysian Airline Flight 370 |21 March 2014

While in London two days ago, I received several enquiries as to whether I have heard any news concerning the missing Malaysian plane having crashed in the Indian Ocean while making way for Diego Garcia.

I, of course, immediately dismissed the suggestion as being speculative and very far-fetched. I am therefore not surprised that there has been no mention in your paper or in other locally-published newspapers on this possibility. However, this morning I received an e-mail entitled "MH370 News Updates" issued by Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG) of Bristol, CT06011-1142, USA, which carries the following items concerning the Malaysian missing plane:-
1. Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: plea to US to release Pine Gap data – Information 'being withheld' – 19 Mar 2014. Malaysia believes data from US spy satellites monitored in Australia could help find missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 but the information is being withheld. The country's Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has specifically asked the US to share information obtained from the Pine Gap base near Alice Springs, according to the government [as opposed to corporate] – controlled New Straits Times newspaper.

The New Straits Times newspaper on Wednesday led its coverage of the missing plane with a story referring to Pine Gap as a "super-secret" installation in the barren Australian heartland that could solve the puzzle of the mystery disappearance. The newspaper quoted Mr Hishammuddin as saying Malaysia would "appreciate" if the US could provide investigators with data from its facilities in Australia. [Pine Gap: 'Partly run by the US Central Intelligence Agency and the US National Security Agency, the station is a key contributor to the global surveillance network ECHELON.']

2. Malaysian plane: 20 passengers worked for ELECTRONIC WARFARE and MILITARY RADAR firm – 18 Mar 2014. A US technology company which had 20 senior staff on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had just launched a new electronic warfare gadget for military radar systems in the days before the Boeing 777 went missing. Freescale Semiconductor, which makes powerful microchips for industries including defence, released the powerful new products to the American market on March 3. Five days later, Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board including 20 working for Freescale. Freescale's shareholders include the Carlyle Group [!] whose past advisers have included ex-US president George Bush Sr and former British Prime Minister John Major. Carlyle's previous heavyweight clients include the Saudi Binladin Group, the construction firm owned by the family of Osama bin Laden.

3. Missing MH370: Impossible to hide plane with electronic warfare tech, says expert – 19 May 2014. It is "impossible" for the MH370 aircraft to be hidden from radar using electronic warfare technology, said an electromagnetics expert. University of Toronto researcher Dr George Eleftheriades, an expert in cloaking technology, explained that the technology was still in its infancy and thus not easily available. "This invisibility technology is still in the laboratory stage and not readily available. Moreover, it would seem impossible to fit the airplane with such a cloak while in flight." Speculations have been rife, especially on various news portals, about the possibility that the missing aircraft could have been "hidden" using cutting-edge electronic warfare technology that can hide a plane from the radar. Fuelling further speculation was the fact that there were 20 experts from US-based company Freescale Semiconductor, which manufactures hi-tech weapons systems and aircraft navigation, on the plane.

4. Island of Diego Garcia Factors into Mysterious Malaysia Flight Theories – 18 Mar 2014. Theories about what happened to missing Malaysia Flight MH370 now span a 2 million-plus square mile area of open ocean and southeast Asian land, including one mysterious island in the Indian Ocean known as Diego Garcia.
Many theories have included Diego Garcia as a notable landing strip. The island atoll is a British territory in the central Indian Ocean and is home to a United States Navy support facility – not exactly a US base, but a home for 1,700 military personnel, 1,500 civilian contractors, and various Naval equipment.

5. Missing MH370: Diego Garcia 'Remote Airstrip' on Pilot's Flight Simulator - Report – 'No evidence' that plane crashed – 18 Mar 2014 [This story will be updated.]

6. Malaysian Flight 370 Hijacked by US Navy to protect 'Suspicious Cargo' – Russia 15 Mar 2014 A new report circulating in the Kremlin prepared by the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) states that Aerospace Defence Forces (VKO) experts remain "puzzled" as to why the United States Navy "captured and then diverted" a Malaysia Airlines civilian aircraft from its intended flight-path to their vast and highly-secretive Indian Ocean base located on the Diego Garcia atoll... Interesting to note, this report says, was that Flight 370 was already under GRU "surveillance" after it received a "highly suspicious" cargo load that had been traced to the Indian Ocean nation Republic of Seychelles, and where it had previously been aboard the US-flagged container ship MV Maersk Alabama. What first aroused GRU suspicions regarding the MV Maersk Alabama, this report continues, was that within 24-hours of off-loading this "highly suspicious" cargo load bound for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the two highly-trained US Navy SEALS assigned to protect it, Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, were found dead under "suspicious circumstances."

It is hoped that now that the Australian Authorities may have found the place where the plane could have gone down, this will put a stop to the varied speculations and assumptions which have been making headline news over recent days. Nonetheless, I believe that your readers will be profoundly interested to read about some of these speculations and assumptions. These will of course justify two or three paragraphs about the missing MH370 flight in my new book, "SEYCHELLES – The saga of a small Nation navigating through the cross-currents of a big world."

 James R. Mancham