Officials Now Searching INDIAN OCEAN, India, China, Australia for Missing Flight #MH370
The new search map includes Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Singapore and Australia.
U.S. officials believe the missing plane could have come down in the Indian Ocean (left), rather than the South China Sea (right), while speculation that the plane could have kept flying for four hours after losing contact were described as ‘inaccurate’. (Daily Mail)
Business Insider reported:
Two U.S. officials believe the shutdown of two separate communications systems from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 happened at different times, indicating the disappearance was less likely the result of a catastrophic failure and more the result of a “deliberate act,” according to a new report from ABC News.
Sources speaking with ABC believe the data reporting system was shut down at 1:07 a.m., while the transponder — sending out location and altitude data — was shut down at 1:21 a.m.
Further, investigators suspect the missing flight stayed in the air for about four hours after it reached its last confirmed location, according to Andy Pasztor of The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal originally reported that they obtained data from the aircraft’s engines, but then issued a correction saying that U.S. investigators based their position on “an analysis of signals sent through the plane’s satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of some onboard systems.”
Satellites picked up ‘electronic pings’ from the flight after it lost contact, Reuters reports.
Malaysian authorities immediately rebutted the initial report, but have not provided any new information about the fate of the flight. Today, the country’s minister of defense and acting minister of transport said the plane simply “vanished.“