Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 deliberately flown off course, systems switched off: PM

Updated

Someone on board the missing Malaysia Airlines plane deliberately shut off its communications and tracking systems and flew it off course for nearly seven hours after it vanished, Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak said on Saturday.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Najib confirmed the plane's systems were gradually switched off and the plane was flown far to the west of its flight path before disappearing.

Shortly after the prime minister finished speaking police arrived at the home of the missing aircraft's pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, to search for evidence, a senior police official told Reuters.

Mr Najib said data from the plane's last known satellite contact meant it could have headed along flight corridors stretching as far north as Kazakhstan or as far south as the southern Indian Ocean.

"These movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," he said.

The Boeing 777-200ER disappeared a week ago with 239 people onboard, including six Australians, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Mr Najib said satellite data showed "with a high degree of certainty" that the communication and reporting system on MH370, known as the ACARS, was turned off before the plane reached the Malaysian peninsula.

While the prime minister stopped short of saying the flight was hijacked ... it's hard to see what else talk of deliberate tampering of the communications equipment could be leading towards. ABC correspondent Stephen McDonell in Kuala Lumpur

A short time later the aircraft's transponder was also switched off.

"It then flew in a westerly direction back over Peninsular Malaysia before turning north-west," the PM said.

"Up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane."

But Mr Najib said: "Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear, we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path."

Earlier on Saturday an unnamed Malaysian official told Associated Press that hijacking was no longer just a theory, but "conclusive".

The official said no motive had been established and it was not known where the plane had been taken.

Huge search corridors extend to Kazakhstan

Mr Najib said authorities had not been able to pinpoint the plane's last satellite contact due to the type of satellite data, but the plane could have ended up in a wide search area as far north as Kazakhstan.

"Based on this new data the aviation authorities of Malaysia and their international counterparts have determined that the plane's last communication with the satellite was in one of two possible corridors," he said.

"The northern corridor, stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to southern Thailand, or the southern corridor, stretching across from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

They say they’re now sure that this flight made a major diversion either to the north of Thailand towards Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan or south into the Indian ocean somewhere to the west of Australia. ABC correspondent Stephen McDonell in Kuala Lumpur

"The investigation team is working to further refine the information."

He said new data showed the last communication between the missing plane and satellites at 8:11am Malaysian time.

That is almost seven hours after it dropped off civilian air traffic control screens at 1:22 am last Saturday, less than an hour after take-off.

The search for the plane originally centred on the South China Sea, but authorities have now called off the search there and shifted their focus to the Indian Ocean.

"We are ending our operations in South China Sea and reassessing the redeployment of our assets," Mr Najib said.

He said 14 countries, 43 ships and 58 aircraft were now involved in the search.

"It is widely understood that this has been a situation without precedent," he said.

The maximum range of the Boeing 777-200ER is 7,725 nautical miles (14,305km). It is not clear how much fuel the aircraft was carrying though, it would have been enough to reach its scheduled destination, Beijing, a flight of five hours and 50 minutes, plus some reserve.

ABC/Reuters

Topics: air-and-space, accidents, disasters-and-accidents, malaysia, asia, nsw, qld, australia

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