Malaysian authorities have stated that flight MH370 was flying without problem when it lost radar contact and that they are investigating all possibilities surrounding its disappearance.

MALAYSIA Airlines Flight MH370 was deliberately flown across Malaysia towards the Andaman Islands, military radar-tracking reportedly suggests.

Two sources told Reuters that an unidentified aircraft that is believed to be Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints — indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training — when it was last plotted on military radar off Malaysia’s northwest coast.

The military radar’s tracking system last plotted the unidentified plane heading towards India’s Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

Waypoints are geographic locations, found by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.

A third source familiar with the investigation told Reuters inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight, with 239 people on board, hundreds of kilometres off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

“What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards,” said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.

All three sources declined to be identified because they were not authorised to speak to the media and due to the sensitivity of the investigation.

As a result of the new evidence, the sources said, multinational search efforts were being stepped up in the Andaman Sea and also the Indian Ocean.

News_Module: Andaman islands

US investigators are convinced the communication systems on flight MH370 were shut down by someone on board and have satellite data showing the missing plane flew on for up to five hours after it disappeared.

Intermittent data “pings” from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet reportedly gave its location, speed and altitude for an extended period after it vanished from civilian radar screens, with the last transmission putting the plane over water at a “normal” cruising altitude.

MALAYSIA CONFIRMS JET SEARCH AREA EXPANDED

Malaysia has confirmed that the search for MH370 has been expanded into the Indian Ocean, but has declined to comment on US reports that the jet had flown for hours after going missing.

“The aircraft is still missing, and the search area is expanding,’’ Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said.

“Together with our international partners, we are pushing further east into the South China Sea and further into the Indian Ocean,’’ he added.

He confirmed the extended zone included the Andaman Sea.

Vietnam has downgraded its search from “emergency to regular” as the hunt shifts to the Indian Ocean and away from the South China Sea.

Stressing that he could offer no new information on what happened to Flight MH370, Hishammuddin refused to address US media reports, citing unidentified US officials, that the Boeing 777 had flown for an additional four or five hours after vanishing from civilian radar.

“We do not want to be drawn into specific remarks that unnamed officials have reportedly made in the media,’’ he said.

The US reports were based on information that the plane’s communication system continued to “ping” a satellite for up to four hours after it disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

A US Navy official said the destroyer USS Kidd was being sent to the Indian Ocean - on the opposite side of the Malaysian peninsula from where contact was lost - to investigate.

But Hishammuddin insisted that the main reason for widening the search field was the failure to locate the plane in the areas searched so far.

“A normal investigation becomes narrower with time,’’ he said.

“But this is not a normal investigation. In this case, the information we have forces us to look further and further afield.’’

Mr Hussein said that authorities are not 100 per cent on the military’s claim that the plane turned around. He said he cannot rule out hijacking.

In response to the report the plane’s transponder was turned off deliberately, he said there are four to five possibilities being explored.

The Transport Minister said authorities were looking at all possibilities, including the possible involvement of crew or pilots.

In another new development Chinese researchers detected a “sea floor event” near the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam, about an hour and 30 minutes after flight MH370 was last detected by civilian radar on Saturday, Xinhua News reported late this afternoon.

The area, 116km northeast from where the last contact with the Boeing plane was recorded, used to be a non-seismic region, according to a University of Science and Technology of China research group on seismology and physics, and could have been caused by the plane plunging into the ocean.

PLANE SEARCH SHAMAN DENIED BY MALAYSIA

Malaysia has denied it has hired a prominent Muslim shaman to stage bizarre rituals seeking divine guidance in the hunt for flight MH370.

An official religious watchdog in the Muslim-majority country also said it was sending personnel to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to prevent further occurrences.

The rituals, captured in photos and videos that went viral and sparked ridicule for adding a farcical element to the grave situation, were staged this week by self-described faith healer Ibrahim Mat Zin.

On Wednesday, Ibrahim, 80, directed three assistants wearing business suits to sit on a tapestry as they lifted objects including large green coconuts over their heads.

“Regarding the presence of a ‘bomoh’ or shaman at KLIA, we would like to categorically state that neither the government, nor any of its agencies, had any role or involvement in the shaman’s presence at the airport,” a government statement said.

Occult activities are banned by religious authorities in Malaysia as “un-Islamic’’ but many people still consult bomohs or shamans to seek supernatural help in personal matters and health issues.

In another incident on Monday, Ibrahim’s assistants held a traditional wooden fish trap in the air while he looked at it through two bamboo poles in a rite intended to seek clues to the plane’s whereabouts.

Ibrahim initially claimed “high-ranking government officials” invited him to perform the rituals, media reports said. He later retracted that, saying he acted on his own.

A spokeswoman for an official watchdog in charge of policing Islamic practices confirmed to AFP its personnel were now patrolling the airport to prevent more such rituals.

SEARCH DOGGED BY CONFUSION

The increasing number of claims and contradictory counterclaims emerge as the seven-day search continues to be dogged by confusion and chaos.

READ MORE: A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE WITH NO ENDING

READ MORE: LOST PLANE — ‘THIS IS NOT CONFUSION’

Sources have told America’s ABC News that two communications systems on the Malaysia Airlines jet were shut down separately, more than 10 minutes apart.

The data reporting system was turned off at 1.07am, while the transponder — which continuously transmits key flight information — was shut down at 1.21am.

This would indicate the flight did not suffer some kind of immediate catastrophic failure or accident.

Despite authorities in Malaysia denying that the Boeing 777 flew on for an extended period after it was last tracked on radar en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, unnamed US officials have said the plane did send signals to a satellite for four or five hours after it went missing.

This indicates it was still flying and may have even reached the Indian Ocean — hundreds of kilometres away to the west from its intended course.

“We have an indication the plane went down in the Indian Ocean,” a senior official told ABC News.

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The US Navy has diverted a ship from the Gulf of Thailand to the area to join the ever-widening search and sent a P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane.

Commander William Marks, of the US 7th Fleet, told CNN that the search remained coordinated with the Malaysian authorities, insisting the navy was “not out here freelancing’’.

READ MORE: DEBUNKING THE MH370 MYTHS

As misinformation continued to swirl around, Malaysia authorities yesterday rejected reports that police had searched the home of MH370’s chief pilot and attempted to debunk the theory that the plane had flown on for several hours.

They also revealed that Chinese satellite imagery, purporting to show what looked like debris in the South China Sea, was released without permission and was not connected to the search.

News_Image_File: Change of course ... the USS Kidd has been diverted to the Malacca Strait.

WHERE DID THE PLANE GO?

Many investigators now believe the plane definitely turned back from its intended route to Beijing and flew across Malaysia and the Malacca Strait, close to the top of Indonesia.

READ MORE: POLICE RAID HOUSE OF CHIEF PILOT

US officials told CNN that several “pings” which, had they connected, would have carried GPS and weather data from the airliner to satellites in the hours after it lost contact, and known radar information suggests the plane may have gone as far as the Indian Ocean.

A separate official told the AP news agency that the Boeing jet wasn’t transmitting data to the satellite but sending out a signal to establish contact. Boeing offers a satellite service that can receive a stream of data during flight on how the aircraft is functioning.

News_Image_File: Message of hope ... words of support for MH370 at Kuala Lumpur airport.

The unnamed official said Malaysia Airlines didn’t subscribe to that service, but the system was automatically “pinging” the satellite anyway.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the transmissions didn’t include data about any of the plane’s critical systems but did include information on the flight’s location, speed and bearing.

READ MORE: WHO’S IN CHARGE? CONFUSION REIGNS

They said the final ping was sent from over water at a “normal” cruising altitude.

It remains unclear why the transmissions stopped.

Malaysia Airlines said it hadn’t received any such data and Boeing has so far declined to comment.

But if all the information is correct it would mean the plane was likely still flying for up to five hours — or more than 1,600km — in the opposite direction to where it had last made contact with air traffic controllers.

News_Rich_Media: Why is the transponder so significant? WSJ's Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said “some new information that’s not necessarily conclusive” could lead to “reallocating some assets” toward the Indian Ocean.

“We are looking at information, pursuing possible leads, working within the investigation being led by the Malaysian government, and it is my understanding that one possible piece of information or collection of pieces of information has led to the possibility that a new search area may be opened,” he said.

Even NASA has now offered its support and expertise, saying it will open up images taken using its satellites and cameras on board the International Space Station, which could identify objects larger than 30 metres.

WHO TURNED THE TRANSPONDER OFF?

A source has told ABC News that US investigators are “convinced that there was manual intervention” in shutting down two communication systems on Flight MH370.

READ MORE: SAFETY RECORD OF THE 777 REVEALED

READ MORE: FINAL WORDS FROM THE COCKPIT

News_Image_File: Searching ... a Vietnamese officer uses binoculars during an aerial mission.

The development raises the frightening spectre of some kind of hostile action on board MH370 and it is understood investigators are now deepening their inquiries into the backgrounds of all passengers and crew.

One report in local Malaysian newspaper Harian Metro says that one of the passengers was a 35-year-old Uigher, a Muslim group in the Xinjiang region of China, who had been working at a Turkish University and who reportedly has some knowledge of aircraft.

Muslim separatists from the group are suspected to have been behind a March 1 attack at a railway station which left 29 people dead and 143 wounded.

Investigators are now also considering whether the jet may have landed at any point during the four or five hour period under scrutiny.

News_Image_File: Flying beasts ... Malaysia Airlines planes on the tarmac in Kuala Lumpur.

AN UNPRECEDENTED SITUATION

Malaysian authorities yesterday moved to reject many of the theories being put forward about the plane’s mysterious disappearance.

They said the continued failure to find MH370 or any wreckage was a “crisis situation”, promising to spare nothing in their effort to discover what has happened.

“This situation is unprecedented. MH370 went completely silent whilst over the open ocean ... this is a crisis situation. It is a very complex operation and it has not always been easy,” Mr Hussein said.

READ MORE: WHAT ISN’T MALAYSIA TELLING US?

At a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said their best guess is that the plane turned back and someone turned off the plane’s responder around the same time.

News_Image_File: Eye in the sky ... a Malaysian helicopter prepares to help the search effort.

“There is no real precedent for a situation like this. The plane vanished. We have extended the search area because it is our duty to follow every lead and we owe it to the families,” he said.

“Trust me, we will spare nothing in our efforts to find MH370.”

Mr Hussein and Malaysian Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya both denied reports that the plane flew on for four hours after it was last detected on radar. Some experts had earlier suggested that the plane’s Rolls Royce engines continued to emit data for four hours, before the emergence of information about the satellite signals.

READ MORE: ‘I SAW MH370 BURST INTO FLAMES’

“These reports are inaccurate. The last transmission form the aircraft at 1:07am which indicated everything was normal,” Mr Hussein said.

Mr Yahya reiterated: “Based on our records the last AKS transmission was done at 1:07 local time. It did not run beyond that ... Rolls Royce and Boeing did not receive any further transmissions beyond the last transmission that was done at 1:07.”

News_Image_File: Well wishes ... posters and drawings in the viewing gallery at Kuala Lumpur airport.

Mr Hussein also revealed that Malaysia was sharing sensitive military radar data with other countries, including China and the US, in a bid to track the plane’s last movements.

He told reporters MH370 was fully serviced and fit to fly by maintenance records. The last routine maintenance was conducted on February 23.

Asked about reports the mobile phones of passengers were still ringing after MH370 was lost, he answered: “We are still doing some investigations on this.”

EVER-EXPANDING SEARCH ZONE

More planes and ships from Indonesia and Singapore have already been called in to join the search on the western coast of Malaysia and to the north.

READ MORE: MYSTERY OF THE MISSING HOUR

India has also established a search zone in the Andaman Sea. The new area covers 35,000 square kilometres off the northern tip of Sumatra, Indonesia’s largest island, also on the opposite side of Malaysia from the plane’s intended path.

Despite this, Mr Hussein said the main search and rescue efforts were still concentrated in the South China Sea, closer to the plane’s original flight path.

“Our main effort has always been in the South China Sea,” he told a packed house of media.

News_Image_File: Say a prayer ... Students in the Philippines light candles for Flight MH370.

The huge search effort has so far failed to find any evidence of the plane’s fate despite scouring land and sea for six days. It has been repeatedly dogged by false leads and conflicting information, drawing mounting accusations that Malaysia is bungling the response.

MH370 was last tracked on civilian radar at 1.30am (4:30am AEDT) in the South China Sea, shortly before entering Vietnamese air space.

It then disappeared from radar and a plane, believed to be the missing Boeing 777, was tracked on military radar at 2.15am in the Malacca Strait, 322 kilometres northwest of Penang.

READ MORE: HOW DID MH370 VANISH? THE THEORIES

Police have taken statements from more than six groups of locals in the areas of Kelantan and Terengganu, on the eastern peninsula of Malaysia, who saw an aircraft flying overhead at low altitude between 1.30am and 1.45am in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Several were fishermen in boats out at sea who are familiar with aircraft flight paths and patterns.

News_Module: Plane crash theories

GLIMMER OF HOPE SNUFFED OUT

It emerged yesterday that a Chinese satellite had spotted three blips of varying sizes, the largest of which is 24m by 22m, in waters close to the jet’s intended flight path. The missing Boeing 777-200ER jet had a wingspan of 60.9 metres and a length of 63.7 metres.

But the glimmer of hope of finding the aircraft was quickly snuffed out when Vietnamese authorities said the area had already been “searched thoroughly” by forces from other countries over the past few days.

News_Rich_Media: Here are the top five theories as to what has happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

Mr Hussein said China had told Malaysia that the satellite photos released on the website of a state oceanic agency were released “by mistake and did not show any debris”.

Two Australian RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft continue to support the Malaysian coordinated search mission.

The aircraft are operating from Royal Malaysian air force Base Butterworth, near Penang. The current Australian area of operations is to the west of Malaysia.

News_Module: Malaysian airspace activity