Malaysian Airline System Flight 653 (MH653) was a scheduled domestic flight from
Penang
Penang ( ms, Pulau Pinang, is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Malacca Strait. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay ...
to
Kuala Lumpur
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in Malaysia, operated by
Malaysian Airline System
Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB; ms, Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad), formerly known as Malaysian Airline System (MAS; ), and branded as Malaysia Airlines, is the flag carrier airline of Malaysia and a member of the Oneworld airline alliance. (The ...
(MAS). On the evening of 4 December 1977, the
Boeing 737-200
The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Boeing Renton Factory, Renton Factory in Washington (state), Washington.
Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the Boeing 707, 7 ...
aircraft flying the service crashed at
Tanjung Kupang Tanjung Kupang is a mukim in Iskandar Puteri, Johor Bahru District, Johor, Malaysia.
Geography
The mukim has an area of 283 km2 with a population of 10,702 people.http://apps.water.gov.my/jpskomuniti/dokumen/Johor%20Bahru%20Profil%20(Rev1).pd ...
, Johor, Malaysia, while purportedly being diverted by hijackers to Singapore.
It was the first fatal air crash for
Malaysia Airlines
Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB; ms, Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad), formerly known as Malaysian Airline System (MAS; ), and branded as Malaysia Airlines, is the flag carrier airline of Malaysia and a member of the Oneworld airline alliance. (The ...
(as the airline is now known), with all 93 passengers and 7 crew killed.
It is also the deadliest aviation disaster to occur on Malaysian soil.
The flight was apparently
hijacked
Hijacking may refer to:
Common usage
Computing and technology
* Bluejacking, the unsolicited transmission of data via Bluetooth
* Brandjacking, the unauthorized use of a company's brand
* Browser hijacking
* Clickjacking (including ''like ...
as soon as it reached cruise altitude. The circumstances in which the hijacking and subsequent crash occurred remain unsolved.
Aircraft
The aircraft involved was a Boeing 737-2H6
registered as It had been delivered new to MAS in September 1972 with registration
Sequence of events
Flight 653 departed from Runway 22 at Penang International Airport at exactly 19:21 for
Kuala Lumpur
, anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera''
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's Subang Airport (now known as
Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport
Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport ( ms, Lapangan Terbang Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah), (formerly Subang International Airport/Kuala Lumpur International Airport), often called Subang Airport or Subang Skypark, is an airport located in Subang, Petalin ...
).
Captain GK Ganjoor and First Officer Karamuzaman Jali were making landing preparations at 19:54, while at an altitude of over
Batu Arang
Batu Arang is a town in Gombak District, Selangor, Malaysia, that is located about from the capital Kuala Lumpur. Coal was first discovered in the region in 1908, when British authorities found large deposits of coal reserves that could be com ...
and descending toward Runway 33 at Subang Airport, when the crew reported to Subang Tower that an "unidentified hijacker" was on board, after someone knocked on the cockpit doors. Subsequently, the pilots were forced to cut off all communications by a group of hijackers who suddenly barged into the cockpit. The tower immediately notified the authorities, who made emergency preparations at the airport.
A few minutes later, the crew radioed: "We're now proceeding to Singapore. Good night."
In the last few minutes of the tapes from the
cockpit voice recorder
A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has b ...
, investigators heard conversation between the pilots and the hijackers about how the aircraft would run out of fuel before it could make it to Singapore, followed by a series of gunshots. They concluded that both the pilot and co-pilot were fatally shot by the hijacker, which left the plane "professionally uncontrolled".
At 20:15, all communication with the aircraft was lost. At 20:36, the residents of Kampong Ladang,
Tanjung Kupang Tanjung Kupang is a mukim in Iskandar Puteri, Johor Bahru District, Johor, Malaysia.
Geography
The mukim has an area of 283 km2 with a population of 10,702 people.http://apps.water.gov.my/jpskomuniti/dokumen/Johor%20Bahru%20Profil%20(Rev1).pd ...
in Johor reported hearing explosions and seeing burning wreckage in a swamp. The wreckage was later identified as the aircraft; it had hit the ground at a near-vertical angle at a very high speed. There were no survivors.
Investigation and aftermath
![Tanjung Kupang Memorial Park](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Tanjung_Kupang_Memorial_Park.jpg)
The full circumstances of the hijacking and crash were never solved. However, airport officials at Kuala Lumpur said pilots had radioed that members of the
Japanese Red Army
The was a militant communist organization active from 1971 to 2001. It was designated a terrorist organization by Japan and the United States. The JRA was founded by Fusako Shigenobu and Tsuyoshi Okudaira in February 1971 and was most active i ...
had hijacked the plane.
In 1996, while reporting about the hijacking and crash of
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 was a scheduled flight serving the route Addis Ababa–Nairobi–Brazzaville–Lagos–Abidjan. On 23 November 1996, the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 767-200ER, was hijacked en route from Addis Ababa to Nai ...
, CNN reporters wrote that the hijackers were in fact identified as Red Army members,
but this has not been confirmed. All recovered remains were
x-ray
An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
ed in an attempt to discover evidence of a projectile or weapon, but no such evidence was ever found. The remains of the victims were interred in a mass burial.
After the incident, the Aviation Security Unit of the Airport Standard Division of the
Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia was established.
Passengers and crew
Passengers included the Malaysian Agricultural Minister,
Dato' Ali Haji Ahmad; Public Works Department Head, Dato' Mahfuz Khalid; and Cuban Ambassador to Japan,
Mario García Incháustegui
Mario García Incháustegui (c. September 1924 – 4 December 1977) was a Cuban Ambassador to Japan from 1974 until his death in 1977.
Life
Mario García Incháustegui was born to a wealthy Spanish housewares importer. He was married to Gladys ...
.
Among the flight's cabin crew perished in the crash is Onn Jaafar, nephew of then Malaysian Prime Minister,
Hussein Onn
Tun Hussein bin Dato' Onn ( ms, حسين بن عون, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset; 12 February 1922 – 29 May 1990) was a Malaysian lawyer and politician who served as the 3rd Prime Minister of Malaysia from the death of his predece ...
.
See also
Air Vietnam Flight 706
Air Vietnam Flight 706 was a Boeing 727 that crashed on September 15, 1974, near Phan Rang Air Base in South Vietnam.
Hijack
Le Duc Tan, a ranger in the South Vietnamese army who had recently been demoted from captain to lieutenant for the thef ...
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 was a scheduled flight along the West Coast of the United States, from Los Angeles, California, to San Francisco. On December 7, 1987, the British Aerospace 146-200A, registration N350PS, crashed in San Lu ...
Pacific Air Lines Flight 773
Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 was a Fairchild F27A Friendship airliner that crashed on May 7, 1964, near Danville, California, a suburb east of Oakland. The Thursday morning crash was most likely the first instance in the United States of an airl ...
Notes
References
{{Communism in Malaysia
1977 in Malaysia
Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 737 Original
Aircraft hijackings
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by hijacking
Aviation accidents and incidents in 1977
Aviation accidents and incidents in Malaysia
653
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Year 653 ( DCLIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 653 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...
Mass murder in 1977
Terrorist incidents in Malaysia
December 1977 events in Asia
Terrorist incidents by unknown perpetrators
Terrorist incidents in Malaysia in 1977
1977 crimes in Malaysia