Malaysia Airlines wants website blocked for spoof piece on plane’s ‘emergency landing’

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 17 ― Malaysia Airlines (MAS) urged authorities today to block a parody website for publishing a satirical article purporting that one of the flag carrier’s planes made an emergency landing after flying over an Icelandic volcano.

The national carrier, which suffered two plane crashes this year, derided the article on www.worldnewsdailyreport.com titled “Malaysia Airline flight forced into emergency landing after flying over Icelandic volcano” published Monday as “irresponsible”.

“Given recent tragedies, and despite the suffering of all, we believe that such stories only serve one purpose, that is to fuel conjecture, misunderstanding and instill fear amongst the traveling public,” MAS said in a statement today.

The airline pointed out that it did not fly to New York or any US destinations from Europe, as the World News Daily Report article claimed that Flight MH131 was flying from Paris to New York.

World News Daily Report is a political satire web publication. On its website, it states that all its news articles are “fiction” and “presumably fake news”.

The website carries satirical articles like “Scotland: Nessie sighting brings surge of enthusiasm in favor of Scottish independence”, “Giant man-eating catfish finally caught in Mekong river” and “Husband tricks mother-in-law into pool full of piranhas”. 

MAS today also criticized a book written by New Zealanders Geoff Taylor and Ewan Wilson that claims the pilot of the missing Flight MH370 had switched off the oxygen supply in the cabin and let the plane sink into the Indian Ocean.

The unproven claims in the book titled “Goodnight Malaysian 370” were reported by UK tabloid Daily Mail.

“There is no evidence to support any of the claims made in the book which is a product of pure conjecture for the purposes of profit by the authors and publishers,” said MAS.

“It must be noted that the duo are not involved in the investigation of MH370, yet they stray into the fields of science and medicine as self-described 'experts' offering an analysis beyond their knowledge and abilities,” the airline added.

MAS described Wilson as a “disgraced” former chief executive of the defunct Kiwi Travel International Airlines and a convicted “criminal fraudster”. Taylor is a journalist.

Flight MH370 has yet to be found since its disappearance in March and the MAS plane is presumed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean off west Australia.

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