MH370’s last official transcript

Former Defence Chief Angus Houston says the search and rescue operation of MH370 is the most challenging he has ever seen.

Deliberate action ... CMalaysia Airlines' pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and daughter Aishah Zaharie. Source: Facebook. Source: Facebook

MALAYSIAN officials have released the official transcript of the last conversation between the cockpit of flight MH370 and air traffic controllers before it vanished.

And they have reiterated the investigation team's belief that what happened to the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was done deliberately by someone on board.

The air traffic control transcript shows that in the moments before the plane reporting systems were turned off and it did a turn and disappeared from civilian radar everything appeared to be absolutely normal in the cockpit.

But soon after the pilot or co-pilot said the words "Good night, Malaysian three seven zero" at 1.19am on March 8, MH370 disappeared.

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CCTV footage captures Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, pilot of the Boeing 777 flight MH370, being frisked while walking through security at Kuala Lumpar International Airport. Source: YouTube

Malaysia's Defence and acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, who released the transcript tonight, said there was no indication of anything abnormal in the transcript.

But, in a statement Mr Hussein reiterated the investigator's belief that what happened to the plane was a deliberate action.

"The international investigations team and the Malaysian authorities remain of the opinion that, up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, MH370's movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," Mr Hussein said.

Australian and International Pilots Association president Nathan Safe agreed tonight the transcript appeared "completely benign".

"There is absolutely nothing in the transcript that even hints at being unusual to me," he said.

"It all looks normally to me. The whole 'goodnight' part is totally innocuous. I've said it a hundred times myself.

"Not even 1 per cent of its contents would raise suspicion for me."

Not giving up hope ... Chinese relatives of passengers from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 pray before a meeting at the Metro Park Lido Hotel in Beijing. Source: AFP

The air traffic control transcript begins at 12.25 and 23 seconds on the morning of Saturday March 8, when the plane was still on the ground, readying for take off and the pilot or co-pilot says Good morning to air traffic control.

"Delivery MAS 370 Good Morning," the cockpit says.

At 12.26 and 21 seconds, the cockpit says: "MAS 370 we are ready requesting flight level three five zero to Beijing.

At 12.27 and 27 seconds, the cockpit says: "Ground MAS370 Good morning Charlie One Requesting push and start."

At 12.40 and 38 seconds the tower tells MH370 they are cleared for take off and MH370 replies: "32 Right Cleared for take-off MAS370. Thank you Bye."

At 12.42 and five seconds MH370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur and says "Departure Malaysian Three Seven Zero."

The conversation is then normal as the plane continues to climb between 12.42am and 1.19am and reports its altitude.

At 1.19 and 24 seconds, the tower says: "Malaysian Three Seven Zero contact Ho Chi Minh 120 decimal 9 Good Night."

Five seconds later, MH370 says: "Good night, Malaysia three seven zero".

Search could take weeks more ... A shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion aircraft in low cloud searching for the missing plane over the Indian Ocean. Source: AFP

Mr Hussein said the air traffic control transcript had been released to the families of passengers on board the plane and had initially been held as part of the police investigation.

Malaysia Airlines had previously said the good night sign off was believed to have been said by the co-pilot however this is yet to be confirmed and police forensics officers are still working on the voice recording.

The three-week hunt for Flight MH370 has turned up no sign of the Boeing 777 plane, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

The search zone area has shifted as experts analysed the plane's limited radar and satellite data, moving from the seas off Vietnam to the waters west of Malaysia and Indonesia, and then to several areas west of Australia. The current search zone is a remote 254,000 square kilometres that is a roughly two-hour flight from Perth.

Today, Australia said it had deployed an airborne traffic controller over the Indian Ocean to prevent a mid-air collision among the many aircraft searching for the jetliner.

An Australian air force E-7A Wedgetail equipped with advanced radar "is on its first operational'' task in the search area in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a tweet. Earlier, Angus Houston, who heads the joint agency coordinating the multinational search effort, said the modified Boeing 737 will monitor the increasingly crowded skies over the remote search zone.

Today, 11 planes and nine ships were focusing on less than half of the search zone, some 120,000 square kilometres of ocean west of Perth, with poor weather and low visibility forecast, according to the new Joint Agency Coordination Centre. A map from the centre showed that the search area was about 2,000 kilometres west of Perth.

Some of the aircraft have been dropping as low as 60 metres above the water — and occasionally dipping even lower for brief periods — raising concerns of collisions with ships that are crisscrossing the zone.

Under normal circumstances, ground-based air traffic controllers use radar and other equipment to keep track of all aircraft in their area of reach, and act as traffic policemen to keep planes at different altitudes and distances from each other. This enforced separation — vertical and horizontal — prevents mid-air collision. But the planes searching for Flight 370 are operating over a remote patch of ocean that is hundreds of kilometres from any air traffic controller.

The arrival of the E-7A "will assist us with de-conflicting the airspace in the search area,'' Houston told reporters in Perth. The plane can maintain surveillance over a surface area of 400,000 square kilometres at any given time, according to the air force's website.

Tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur officials will hold a closed-door briefing for families of the passengers on board the plane and will include briefings by technical experts from Malaysia, China and Australia.

Search goes on ... A small boat sits in front of HMAS Success while they search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean. Source: Getty Images

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