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Purported transcript: Plane’s final minutes of communication normal

Posted at 6:29 PM, Mar 21, 2014
and last updated 2014-03-21 18:29:07-04

(CNN) — No struggle. No panic. No clues.

A purported transcript of the final 54 minutes of communication with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 reveals nothing to suggest a problem — either mechanical or man-made.

Britain’s The Telegraph obtained what it reported to be the transcript of exchanges between copilot Fariq Abdul Hamid and air traffic controllers from before the flight took off until the final transmission of “alright, good night.”

CNN was unable to immediately verify the authenticity of the transcript. The Telegraph reported that the Malaysian government declined to release it.

According to the report, nothing in the purported transcript suggests that anything unusual or untoward occurred before communications with the Boeing 777 ended.

It said Hamid signed in at 12:36 a.m. local time on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. CNN has reported the last transmission from the plane occurred at 1:19 a.m.

At 1:07 a.m. local time, Hamid says the plane was flying at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, which repeated information provided six minutes earlier, The Telegraph reported.

A former British Airways pilot who flew the same kind of aircraft found nothing suspicious about that exchange.

“It could be as simple as the pilot forgetting or not being sure that he had told air traffic controllers he had reached the altitude,” the former pilot, Steve Landells, told The Telegraph. “He might be reconfirming he was at 350 (35,000 feet). It is not unusual. I wouldn’t read anything into it.”

Nothing unusual appears in the purported transcript around the plane’s final transmission, which came two minutes before its transponder stopped working, The Telegraph reported.