Malaysian Airline System Flight 653 (MH653/MAS653) was a scheduled domestic flight from

Penang Penang is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia along the Strait of Malacca. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay Peninsula. Th ...

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, operated by Malaysian Airline System (MAS). On the evening of 4 December 1977, the

Boeing 737-200 The Boeing 737 is an American 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 retained the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating ...

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. Air crash Tanjung Kupang was the crash site of Malaysian Airline System Fligh ...

, Johor, Malaysia, while purportedly being diverted by hijackers to Singapore. It was the first fatal air crash for

Malaysia Airlines Malaysia Airlines ( Malay: ''Penerbangan Malaysia'') is the flag carrier of Malaysia, headquartered at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The airline flies to destinations across Europe, Oceania and Asia from its main hub at Kuala Lumpur Int ...

(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 Registered may refer to: * Registered mail, letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and in need of a chain of custody * Registered trademark symbol, symbol ® that provides notice that the preceding is a trademark or service ...

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 19:21 for

's Subang Airport (now known as

Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport also known as Subang SkyPark, — formerly Subang International Airport/Kuala Lumpur International Airport, often called Subang Airport — is an airport located in Subang, Selangor, Subang, Petaling District, Se ...

). 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 comm ...

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 one or more 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 colloquially as a "black box", an outdated nam ...

, 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. An analysis by Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation of evidence from the investigation concludes that: * The aircraft was "hijacked by person or persons unknown", who were determined not to land at Kuala Lumpur * The crew "carried out their hijack procedures properly and correctly... throughout the flight." * The hijackers incapacitated the crew as the aircraft descended in its approach to Singapore * There was no explosion, fire, or structural failure prior to impact * Unusual pitching – up and down – movements occurred in the aircraft's final moments in the air. These manoeuvres were the result of the actions of person or persons unknown and developed until the aircraft's trajectory became unrecoverable, resulting in its impact with the ground All recovered remains were

x-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

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 (CAAM, Malay: ''Pihak Berkuasa Penerbangan Awam Malaysia''; Jawi: ), previously known as the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA, Malay: ''Jabatan Penerbangan Awam''), is a Malaysian government agency ...

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 ...

. The numbers and nationalities of the passengers and crew appear in the table below:

Notes

References

{{Communism in Malaysia 1977 in Malaysia Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 737 Original Aircraft hijackings in Asia Airliner accidents and incidents caused by hijacking Aviation accidents and incidents in 1977 Aviation accidents and incidents in Malaysia

653 __NOTOC__ Year 653 ( DCLIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 653 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe ...