He said police are also looking into the possibility that a bomb was smuggled into the cargo hold of the plane, which was en-route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it vanished in the early hours of last Saturday morning. Major General Datuk Affendi Buang briefs the media over latest updates on the missing plane. Credit:Getty Images "We are looking one by one into every area," he said. Investigators suspect a catastrophic mid-air explosion caused by a bomb in the cargo hold or a highly unusual technical fault is likely to have led to the sudden disappearance of flight MH370, but have not ruled out a number of other possibilities. Inspector Kalid said police have been in contact with Mr Pouria’s mother, who was expecting him to arrive in Fankfurt on flights booked by a Thailand-based people smuggling ring through Beijing and Amsterdam.

“When he didn’t arrive she knew something had happened,” he said. A US Navy Seahawk helicopter takes off from the USS Pinckney in the Gulf of Thailand to assist in the search. Credit:Reuters Inspector Kalid said police have checked Mr Pouria’s profile with agencies worldwide. “We believe that it is not likely he was a member of any terrorist organisation,” he said. Clouds hover outside the window of a Vietnam Air Force search and rescue aircraft. Credit:Reuters

In Thailand, police said the passports used by Mr Pouria and another unidentified passenger were stolen by a criminal syndicate that smuggles people to other countries. Revealing details of the investigation into the plane’s disappearance for the fist time, Inspector Kalid said all passengers who booked on the flight actually boarded, refuting earlier information released by officials in Kuala Lumpur that five passengers checked into the flight but did not show up at the departure gate and their luggage had been off-loaded before departure. The clarification indicates confusion among officials in Kuala Lumpur who are trying to cope with one of the world’s worst aviation disasters. Officials have also backed away from earlier statements the passengers using the stolen passports were “Asian looking” and dampened speculation that they may have been Muslim Uighur separatists from China. Inspector Kalid said it was necessary to check the backgrounds of all those on board.

For example, Inspector Kalid said a passenger could have taken out a huge insurance cover that would be paid to his or her family. Inspector Kalid defended Malaysian authorities who failed to detect the use of stolen passports by Mr Pouria and the other passenger. The passports had been stolen last year on the Thai resort island of Phuket. Authorities have now doubled the search area to a radius of 155 kilometres, including parts of mainland Malaysia. China has also deployed 10 satellites to help. “We don’t want to leave anything to guesswork”, said Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the head of Malaysia’s Civil Aviation department, who is in charge of the search. The plane's pilots made no distress call, adding weight to the sudden explosion theory.

The People’s Liberation Daily said the 10 Chinese satellites would use high-resolution imaging capabilities, visible light imaging and other technologies to ‘‘support and assist in the search and rescue operations for the Malaysia Airlines aircraft’’. Malaysian authorities admit they are no closer to locating the plane than they were when it abruptly disappeared from radar on Saturday. For the past four days they have been directing 34 aircraft and 46 ships from 10 countries to chase what turned out to be false leads. They included logs tied together being mistaken for a life raft. Two RAAF search aircraft are among the planes criss-crossing the South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand and Malacca Strait for signs of the plane. Loading The United States has reviewed spy satellite imagery for evidence of a mid-air explosion but found none, deepening the mystery.

The aircraft was equipped with a maintenance computer capable of talking to the ground automatically through a short message system known as ACARS. But the system recorded no signals from the time the aircraft disappeared from radar.