In a series of tweets following the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch expressed his own wildly unfounded theories surrounding the missing plane, which he says “confirms jihadists [are] turning to make trouble for China”, and that the “US and China should be working more closely on Muslim extremist threat”.
On March 9, the day after the Beijing-bound Malaysian airliner lost contact with the ground, Murdoch posted to his Twitter account:
This morning, the media tycoon took to the platform again to revise one aspect of his previous post, saying that maybe plane hadn’t crashed but was hijacked and “hidden” in Northern Pakistan:
The second set of tweets came hours before a press conference held by Malaysian PM Najib Razak this afternoon, in which he stated that actions on the missing Flight 370 were “deliberate”. Razak also said there is a “high degree of certainty” that the data reporting system of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was disabled before the plane reached the east coast of Malaysia.
“These movements are consistent with the deliberate action by someone on the plane,” Razak said.
He added that Malaysian authorities have refocused on the passengers and crew aboard the aircraft.
Although the PM did not confirm reports that surfaced earlier quoting an unnamed Malaysian official who said that the hijacking of MH370 was “conclusive”, Razak said “we are still investigating all possibilities”.
The last known communication with the satellite was at 8:11 a.m. MSIA time on Saturday, March 8 Razak said. Authorities believe the plane “was in one of two possible corridors”: between the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Thailand or Indonesia to the S. Indian Ocean.
“Clearly the search for MH370 has entered a new phase,” Razak said.