The extraordinary story of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 missing for more than a week took a new twist as attention turned to the two pilots of the aircraft.
Twenty five countries are now involved in the search after confirmation at the weekend that aircraft’s signalling systems had been deliberately turned off, reviving speculation that the Boeing had been hijacked in a terrorist operation.
Crew, passengers and ground staff are being investigated after it was confirmed the 777 was commandeered.
Malaysian officials say the aircraft was intentionally diverted and could have flown on either a northern or southern arc from its last known position.
Police searched the homes of Captain Zaharie Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid on Saturday.
Investigators are also looking at passengers, engineers and other ground staff who may have had contact with the aircraft before take-off.
This came after Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak revealed that the 777’s crucial air communications system and transponder were deliberately switched off by someone on board.
Flight MH370 with 239 people on board left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at 12.40am local time on March 8, but disappeared off air traffic controllers’ screens at about 1:20am.
The search area – from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean – takes in large tracts of land and sea.
Najib said the aircraft turned back from its intended flight path and flew northwest, movements that are “consistent” with deliberate action.
An aircraft transponder gives details identifying the aircraft, its speed, altitude and heading. The hijackers of the 9/11 aircraft deliberately and systematically shut down the communications systems of the four aircraft they seized.
The aircraft’s likely location, based on its last communication with a satellite, was in one of two possible “corridors”, one stretching from Kazakhstan to northern Thailand and another stretching from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, the prime minister said.
However, 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.”
Australian premier Tony Abbott told parliament today that his Malaysian counterpart asked Australia to “take responsibility for the search on the southern vector, which the Malaysian authorities now think was one possible flight path for this ill-fated aircraft”.