The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, shared this opinion based on past incidents involving airlines.
They said that airlines had sustained huge losses owing to disgruntled staff who vented their frustration over management disputes by "fixing" aircraft.
"This has led to fuel disruption, engine failures, electrical and electronic blackouts, jamming of flight controls and fires that either led to near-disasters or crashes in the past," they said.
Some of the examples they gave included incidents of jetliners having to make emergency landings after electrical wires or parts were tampered with.
"Poor maintenance and incompetency are other factors that could lead to such incidents. Engine fires occur easily when there are leaks in the fuel tanks. The highly volatile fuel catches fire when it comes in contact with the hot engine surface," they said when met at Defence Services Asia 2012 at the Putra World Trade Centre here.
Early on Tuesday, a Boeing 747-400, which took off from the Kuala Lumpur International airport, was forced to make an emergency landing in Sepang 90 minutes later, after one of its engines caught fire.
It was reported that an onboard alarm system went off, indicating a fire in engine No.1 soon after take off. The pilot circled the airport to dump excess fuel before landing at KLIA without incident about 2am.
There were 351 passengers with 21 crew members on board. Most of the passengers continued their journey to London on another aircraft some 11 hours later.
The investigating team, comprising officials from MAS, aircraft manufacturers and the Department of Civil Aviation, has now roped in the engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney to assist.
Boeing has also sought the assistance of other parts manufacturers and suppliers to help the forensic investigators.
MAS operates nine B747-400s, which have 12 first class, 41 business class and 306 economy class seats, with each aircraft being powered by four Pratt & Whitney PW4056 engines.
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