Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Thailand detected missing jet minutes after it changed course

Updated

Thailand's military detected the missing Malaysia Airlines jet flying off course just minutes after it changed direction, but did not share the information with Malaysia.

Ships and planes searched the South China Sea for a week after flight MH370 went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people, including six Australians, on board.

Now it has emerged that Thai radar identified the plane changing course and heading south-west just minutes after it happened on March 8.

Thailand says it did not pass on the information to Malaysia at the time because it was not asked for it.

If the information had been passed on it could have saved days of wasted effort in the wrong search area.

Dozens of planes and ships searched the South China Sea to Malaysia's east before the country's prime minister announced that investigators concluded that the plane had in fact been flown west over Peninsular Malaysia.

The information emerged during checks of radar logs on Monday after a request from the Malaysian government, according to Thailand's Air Marshal Monthon Suchookorn.

An "unknown aircraft was detected at 12:28am (1:28am Malaysian time), six minutes after MH370 vanished" in the South China Sea moving south-west back towards its origin in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur and the Strait of Malacca, he told AFP.

That timing corresponds with the last transmission from the aircraft's transponder at 1:21am Malaysian time, which relayed information about the plane's altitude and location.

Although the signal was sporadic, the aircraft was later again picked up by Thai radar swinging north and disappearing over the Andaman Sea, Air Marshal Monthon added.

"It's not confirmed that the aircraft is MH370," he said, without giving the exact times of the later sightings.

The Thai air force did not check its records because the aircraft was not in "Thai airspace and it was not a threat to Thailand", Air Marshal Monthon said, denying it had been "withholding information".

International cooperation under scrutiny as hunt continues

The investigation into the fate of the Boeing 777-200ER has focused on the possibility that it was deliberately diverted from its flight path to Beijing, probably by someone in the cockpit with advanced aviation skills.

But the drip-feed of often conflicting information from Malaysia has sparked fury among desperate relatives and condemnation from Chinese authorities. Two-thirds of those on board are from China.

Twenty-six countries are now involved in the hunt, which covers a vast area of land and sea in a northern corridor over south and central Asia, and a southern corridor stretching deep into the southern Indian Ocean towards Australia.

The search now encompasses an area stretching 7.7 million square kilometres, larger than the entire land mass of Australia.

Australia is leading the search in an area 3,000 kilometres south-west of Perth.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) says the search zone covers 600,000 square kilometres of ocean and has been plotted using data based on the last satellite relay signals sent by the plane.

Ships and aircraft from Australia, New Zealand and the United States are taking part in the search, which represents a narrowing down of the previous Indian Ocean search area.

The same information has provided a mirror image of an area the same distance from the equator in the northern hemisphere .

Maldives residents report 'low-flying' plane

Malaysian authorities have dismissed reports that the plane may have been sighted over the Maldives.

Police in the Maldives have been probing reports that islanders in the tourism paradise saw a "low-flying jumbo jet" on the day the missing Malaysia Airlines plane vanished.

Malaysia's transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein says the reports are incorrect.

"I can confirm that the Malaysian chief of the defence force has contacted his counterpart in the Maldives, who has confirmed that these reports are not true," he said.

A number of people on the island of Kudahuvadhoo had earlier told a local newspaper that they saw a plane around 6:15am (local time) on March 8.

They describe it as a white aircraft with red stripes across it - which is what Malaysia Airlines planes typically look like.

Eyewitnesses said the plane was travelling north to south-east, towards the southern tip of the Maldives.

They also noted the incredibly loud noise that the flight made when it flew over the island.

Managing editor of the Maldives newspaper Haveeru, Ismail Naseer, says about 12 people reported that they saw the plane flying at 3,000 feet.

He said the reports came in after the newspaper ran a story on the missing plane.

"Normally, that route is used for a seaplane, that is a very small plane, but the people told us that they saw a very big plane, like an Airbus," he said.

The newspaper checked the reports with authorities, who said there was no evidence of any planes.

The Maldives is not among the countries that Malaysian authorities have sought help from.

ABC/wires

Topics: air-and-space, accidents, disasters-and-accidents, air-transport, malaysia

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