Kuala Lumpur: Investigators believe someone aboard a missing Malaysian airliner deliberately shut off its communications and tracking systems, turned the plane around and flew for nearly seven hours after it vanished, Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Saturday.
As the unprecedented search for Flight MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew entered its second week, Najib told a news conference that the hunt for wreckage around the scheduled flight path to the east of Malaysia was being called off.
"Despite media reports the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear, we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate," Najib said.
The fate the of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 has been shrouded in mystery since it disappeared off Malaysia's east coast less than an hour into a March 8 scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
But investigators have increasing focused on the possibility that it was flown off-course by the one of the pilots or someone else on board with detailed knowledge of how to fly and navigate a large commercial aircraft.
Najib said new data showed the last communication between the missing plane and satellites at 8:11 a.m. Malaysian time.
That is almost seven hours after it dropped off civilian air traffic control screens at 1:22 a.m. last Saturday, less than an hour after take-off. It was flying across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand on the eastern side of Malaysia towards Vietnam.
Najib said satellite data confirmed that an unidentified aircraft that later appeared on military radar off Malaysia's west coast before going out of range at 2:15 a.m. was flight MH370.
"Up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," he said.
15/03/14 Anshuman Daga & Siva Govindasamy/Reuters
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As the unprecedented search for Flight MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew entered its second week, Najib told a news conference that the hunt for wreckage around the scheduled flight path to the east of Malaysia was being called off.
"Despite media reports the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear, we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate," Najib said.
The fate the of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 has been shrouded in mystery since it disappeared off Malaysia's east coast less than an hour into a March 8 scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
But investigators have increasing focused on the possibility that it was flown off-course by the one of the pilots or someone else on board with detailed knowledge of how to fly and navigate a large commercial aircraft.
Najib said new data showed the last communication between the missing plane and satellites at 8:11 a.m. Malaysian time.
That is almost seven hours after it dropped off civilian air traffic control screens at 1:22 a.m. last Saturday, less than an hour after take-off. It was flying across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand on the eastern side of Malaysia towards Vietnam.
Najib said satellite data confirmed that an unidentified aircraft that later appeared on military radar off Malaysia's west coast before going out of range at 2:15 a.m. was flight MH370.
"Up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," he said.
15/03/14 Anshuman Daga & Siva Govindasamy/Reuters
