Focus on the investigation into the fate of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet remained on the pilots Sunday, as speculation arose over whether one of the men flying the plane could have hijacked it in an anti-government protest.
Meanwhile, authorities said Sunday that the final words from the pilots came after the Boeing 777's data recorder and transponder had been disabled on March 8, adding to suspicions one or both of the pilots were involved in the plane's disappearance.
Britain's Daily Mail on Sunday, citing police sources, reported that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, was an "obsessive" supporter of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was sentenced to five years in prison on a charge of sodomy just hours before the Malaysia Airlines plane took off. The Mail reported that Malaysian authorities fear that Zaharie, who was at Ibrahim's trial, may have been upset enough by Ibrahim's imprisonment to hijack his own aircraft as a form of political protest.
The Mail reported that investigators had already examined two laptops from Zaharie's home, one of which is believed to contain data from a sophisticated flight simulator. Khalid Abu Bakar, the inspector general, said police had reassembled the simulator in their offices to examine it.
Britain's Sunday Telegraph added that investigators were examining whether the jet's disappearance was tied to a 9/11-style plot masterminded by Al Qaeda's Khalid Sheik Mohammad. Such a plot was mentioned by a British-born Saajid Badat earlier this week at the New York trial of Usama bin Laden's son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith.
Badat said that a Malaysia-based Al Qaeda cell of four or five people had planned to take control of a plane, using a shoe bomb to gain access to the cockpit. He added that he had met the jihadists, one of whom claimed he was a pilot, at a terror camp in Afghanistan and given them a shoe bomb for use. The Sunday Telegraph reported that one target of the attack may have been the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, formerly the tallest buildings in the world.
The Sunday Telegraph also reported that Badat, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his part in a conspiracy to blow up a transatlantic flight with shoe bomber Richard Reid, first made claims that the plot existed in 2012. However, British security experts called Badat's evidence "credible," with one telling the paper "These spectaculars take a long time in the planning."
Also on Sunday, authorities said the final words from the jet to air traffic controllers -- "All right. Good night." -- were heard around 1:30 a.m. local time, nearly a half hour after the data recorder was turned off and 10 minutes after the transponder was deactivated. The revelation comes one day after Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak said someone appeared to have deliberately diverted the plane from its flight path, but kept it in the air for a number of hours after it vanished.
Malaysia's government on Sunday asked for help from nearly a dozen Asian countries that the missing jetliner may have flown over, saying that finding the plane would be very difficult without additional data on its final movements.
Bakar told reporters that he had requested countries with citizens on board the plane to investigate their background. He said that the intelligence agencies of some countries had already done this and found nothing suspicious, but that he was waiting for others to respond.
"The search was already a highly complex, multinational effort. It has now become even more difficult," Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said at a news conference Sunday.
"It is our hope with the new information, parties that can come forward and narrow the search to an area that is more feasible," he said, adding that the search effort now includes 25 countries.
Given that the northern route the plane may have taken would take it over countries with busy airspace, most experts say the person in control of the aircraft would more likely have chosen the southern route. The southern Indian Ocean is the world's third-deepest and one of the most remote stretches of water in the world, with little radar coverage. The wreckage might take months -- or longer -- to find, or might never be located.
Najib confirmed that Malaysian air force defense radar picked up traces of the plane turning back westward, crossing over Peninsular Malaysia into the northern stretches of the Strait of Malacca. Authorities previously had said this radar data could not be verified.
The air force has yet to explain why it didn't spot and respond to the plane flying over the country. Satellite data suggested the plane flew for at least 7 1/2 hours -- more than six hours after the last radio contact.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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