MH370: Transport Ministry and DCA deny co-pilot made phone call

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said that if a call was made by co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid using his mobile phone during the flight, the authorities would have known about it earlier, as was reported by the New Straits Times (NST),

Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) Director-General Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told The Star that MH370 Fariq did not make any phone calls during the flight.

The two were commenting on reports yesterday claiming that the flight's co-pilot had made a made a 'desperate' call to someone while the plane was flying over Penang, but it was ended abruptly.

"The telco's (telecommunications company's) tower established the call that he was trying to make. On why the call was cut off, it was likely because the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one," said the NST's source.

Fariq's mobile phone records also showed that his last communication was a Whatsapp message he had sent at 11:30pm on 7 March, right before he boarded his flight to Beijing, and one of his last calls was to a number that appeared frequently on his phone history.