Wuhan passenger flight landed in Hangzhou despite lockdown, pilot fears: Novel Coronavirus could have been brought from Hangzhou to Hong Kong
It seems that the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV, also known as Wuhan coronavirus) from Wuhan fails to be checked. In order to curb the spread of the virus, on 23 January Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang finally announced a lockdown of the city with immediate effect. All public transport, including high-speed railways and airport, have ceased operation. Except for evacuation flights, ordinary passenger flights should no longer be allowed at Wuhan Airport. On 28 January, there were two passenger flights departing from Wuhan Airport despite the lockdown. All these raise doubts whether the lockdown is a genuine one.
Two passenger flights left Wuhan Airport and oddly with destination concealed
According to Flightradar24 data, on 28 January, two flights had landed at and took off from Wuhan Airport. One was a China Southern Airlines flight (flight number: CZ5241) flying from Guangzhou to Wuhan. The other was a Loong Air flight (GJ8798) with real time display indicating it was flying from Shijiazhuang to Hangzhou. However, when the take-off coordinates, nearby cities and flight distance were checked, it was found that the flight actually took off from Wuhan, not Shijiazhuang.
Legislator and former pilot Jeremy Tam Man-ho, after looking at the screenshots, drew attention to a few suspicious points. According to the data, the latitude and longitude at the time of takeoff were 30.789 and 114.213, which is in Wuhan. At that time, the aircraft was about 1,300 feet up in the air. According to the altitude chart, the plane was ascending soon after taking off. In addition, the whole flight time was about an hour. However, the distance between Shijiazhuang and Hangzhou is about 1,100 km and the flight time at its shortest should be close to 2 hours. While, Wuhan is 800 km from Hangzhou and flight time is about 1 hour which matches the flight time shown in the data. "From the screenshots, this flight looks like it really was flying from Wuhan, instead of Shijiazhuang, to Hangzhou," said Tam.
A few days later, when revisiting the information of the same flight, the departure airport strangely was changed to Wuhan and information on the landing airport was concealed. Could it be for the sake of “social stability” lest triggering panics in Hangzhou? No one knows.
A passenger flight carrying cargo or a flight for fleeing privileged?
Tam studied that the flight from Wuhan to Hangzhou on that day was an A320 with registration number B-8897, which is obviously a passenger plane. According to the online information, Loong Air has a fleet of 46 planes, 3 of which are 737-300F cargo planes. "Logically, if they wanted to ship only cargo and wanted to carry more cargo, naturally they should have used a 737-300F,” He continued: "given the current epidemic, should the flight direction be reversed? That is transporting cargo into Wuhan and not the other way round from Wuhan.”
He admitted that he was most worried about whether the passenger plane has carried passengers: "Could it be that it was sending medical workers away after they have completed their work in Wuhan? Or could it be those on board were all second and third generation of the rich and powerful political families?” Once they managed to leave Wuhan, they can then fly to Hong Kong. Due to no complete border closure, the Immigration Department cannot bar them from entering Hong Kong. "They might have spread the virus to Hangzhou, Hong Kong and other parts of the world. The impact is never ending," said Tam.
If lockdown of Wuhan is forged, Hong Kong really should close its border
If the lockdown of Wuhan is forged, Wuhan residents can still flee to other areas in China for a springboard.
Tam believes that there are major loopholes in Wuhan and Hong Kong provides a large gap (for exodus): "Flights from Hong Kong can still fly to Australia, while mainland flights have been banned." He expressed loathing for the Hong Kong SAR government: "Domestically, limited border closure means limited import of virus. In terms of external affairs, we should be concerned about how the international community would look at One Country Two Systems. If this goes unresolved, Hong Kong will be treated as any other city on the mainland. By then, people will “respect” the One Country."
He bluntly stated that the Carrie Lam would follow only Beijing directives. “If there is no instruction from the Chinese Communist Party, she dares not do anything.” He pointed out that Carrie Lam is afraid of offending the Chinese Communist Party, as well as upsetting the sentiments of the motherland and hurting the feelings of comrade Chinese. As such she is very hesitant and thus procrastinates in closing the border. Whenever the subject of border closure is raised, she equates that to discrimination (against mainland Chinese). Tam remarked such argument as nonsense: “If the outbreak happens in Japan, Japan’s border should be closed. If this occurs in Singapore, then Singapore’s border. As simple as that.”
Source: Next Magazine, 5 February 2020