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 M ...

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

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 Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...

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).p ...

, 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 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'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

'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, Petali ...

). 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 ...

, 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,

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

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 Na ...

, 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 The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (Abbreviation: CAAM, Malay: ''Pihak Berkuasa Penerbangan Awam Malaysia''), previously known as the Department of Civil Aviation (Abbreviation: DCA, Malay: ''Jabatan Penerbangan Awam''), is a government ...

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. 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 ...

Notes

References