Diversion of MH370 airliner was a 'deliberate act', says Malaysian PM

That’s going to be all for a while on Flight MH370, but please check back later for further developments. In the meantime, here’s a summary of major developments on Saturday:

• Malaysia’s prime minister confirmed that communications on board the plane had been deliberately disabled
• The missing jet flew for another six hours after losing contact with air traffic control
• Police raided the home of MH370’s pilot, fuelling speculation someone on board may have been involved in a hijack
  
• Missing aircraft could be as far north as Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan or as far south as the Indian Ocean

Speculation over the fate of Flight MH370 continues to make UK front pages. Here’s a few via the BBC’s Nick Sutton.

Here’s our latest news story on MH370 wrapping up the latest developments, the main one being that Malaysia’s prime minister has confirmed that communications on board were deliberately disabled and that the jet had flew off course for more than six hours after losing contact with air traffic control.

Here’s a useful round up of what is known and what is still speculation about the disappearance of flight MH370. The Observer’s Jamie Doward looks at some of the key questions still surrounding the mystery.

WNYC Data Team have produced a map of the all the airstrips that Flight Mh370 could have landed at.

Data from X-Plane provides coordinates for runways around the world. A Boeing 777 pilot is quoted in Slate as estimating a runway length requirement of 5,000 feet. A recent Wall Street Journal article quoted sources stating the flight could have continued for 2,200 nautical miles from its last known position.The WNYC Data News team found 634 runways that meet these criteria, spread across 26 different countries. including such far-flung places as:Gan Airport (Maldives), Dalanzadgad Airport (Mongolia), Yap Airport (Micronesia), Miyazaki Airport (Japan)

• Last signal from MH370 was five hours later than previously thought.
  
• Diversion of MH370 was a deliberate act
• The hopes of families of passengers are raised by possibility the aircraft has landed somewhere.
• The missing aircraft could be as far north as Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan or as far south as the Indian Ocean.
  

The India navy supported by long-range surveillance planes and helicopters scoured Andaman Sea islands for a third day on Saturday without any success in finding evidence of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.

Nearly a dozen ships, patrol vessels, surveillance aircraft and helicopters have been deployed, but “we have got nothing so far,” V.S.R. Murthy, an Indian coast guard official told the Associated Press.

The Indian navy’s coordinated search has so far covered more than 250,000 square kilometers (100,579 square miles) in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal “without any sighting or detection,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The search has been expanded to the central and eastern sides of the Bay of Bengal, the ministry said. India intensified the search on Saturday by deploying two recently acquired P8i long-range maritime patrol and one C 130J Hercules aircraft to the region. Short-range maritime reconnaissance Dornier aircraft have also been deployed.

Bangladesh has joined the search effort in the Bay of Bengal with two patrol aircraft and two frigates, said Mahbubul Haque Shakil, an aide of Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

On Friday, India used heat sensors on flights over hundreds of uninhabited Andaman Sea islands that stretch south of Myanmar, covering an area 720 kilometers (447 miles) long and 52 kilometers (32 miles) wide. Only 37 of 572 are inhabited, with the rest covered in dense forests. The island chain has four airstrips, but only the main airport in Port Blair can handle a large commercial jet.

Tania Branigan reports that China’s state news agency Xinhua has made its harshest attack yet on Malaysia’s handling of the investigation, taking a swipe at the US in the process.

While it says the latest information should help the search for the missing aircraft, it adds: “Due to the absence -- or at least lack -- of timely authoritative information, massive efforts have been squandered, and numerous rumors have been spawned, repeatedly racking the nerves of the awaiting families. Given today’s technology, the delay smacks of either dereliction of duty or reluctance to share information in a full and timely manner. That would be intolerable.”

The New York Times, quoting American officials and others familiar with the investigation, said radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appear to show the airliner climbing to 45,000 feet (about 13,700 meters), higher than a Boeing 777’s approved limit, soon after it disappeared from civilian radar, and making a sharp turn to the west.

The radar track then shows the plane descending unevenly to an altitude of 23,000 feet (7,000 meters), below normal cruising levels, before rising again and flying northwest over the Strait of Malacca toward the Indian Ocean, the Times reported.

Tania Branigan has been speaking to a man in Beijing whose sister was on Flight MH370.

I don’t think I can get anything done. This long wait is taking its toll on everyone. I don’t really want to think about it too much; every time I think of it, it’s hard to think through everything.

It’s hard to plan for the future. It’s one week and I don’t know what to expect. I am just afraid. I don’t know if it will be a week, or two, or a month.

The Washington Post has a great schematic which illustrates how far MH370 could have travelled.

Mark Townsend of the Observer has sent me this timeline which helps clarify what remains a very confusing story.

SATURDAY MARCH 8

12.40am Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 leaves Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for Beijing, China, with 239 people on board.

1.20am Plane’s communications with civilian air controllers disabled before aircraft reaches east coast of Malaysia.

8.11am Last confirmed signal between the plane and a satellite.

Vietnamese planes spot two large oil slicks near the plane’s last known location, but proves a false alarm.

SUNDAY, MARCH 9

Malaysia says it is investigating potential terror link to the jet’s disappearance.

It also reveals for the first time that the aircraft may have veered dramatically off course, turning west back towards Kuala Lumpur for no apparent reason

Meanwhile, Interpol confirms that at least two passports recorded as lost or stolen in its database were used by passengers, adding that it is “examining additional suspect passports”.

Investigators narrow focus on disastrous scenario that the plane disintegrated mid-flight.

MONDAY, MARCH 10

China admonishes Malaysia, saying it should accelerate its investigation.

The United States review of American spy satellite imagery detects no evidence of mid-air explosion.

Malaysia despatches ships to investigate possible sighting of a possible life raft, but only flotsam is found.

Speculation mounts over whether a bomb or hijacking could have brought down the airliner.

TUESDAY, MARCH 11

Authorities identify the two men with stolen passports as young Iranians who are believed to be illegal immigrants, rather than terrorists. Interpol says that the more information they obtain the less likely it appears that a terrorist incident has occurred.

Search area widens to include areas significantly removed from the flight’s scheduled route, including territory on the Malaysian peninsula and the waters off its west coast.

A US company asks internet users to scour satellite images of more than 1,200 square miles of open seas for any signs of wreckage.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12

It emerges that US regulators warned months ago of a problem with “cracking and corrosion” of the fuselage skin on Boeing 777s that could cause a mid-air break-up.

The search is expanded again, this time to an area stretching from China to India.

Malaysia’s air force chief reveals that an unidentified object was detected on military radar north of the Malacca Strait early on Saturday March 8 but is stilll being examined.

THURSDAY MARCH 13

Malaysia deny US reports that cite investigators saying that they suspect the plane flew for four hours after its last known contact.

Authorities in Kuala Lumpur also dismiss Chinese satellite images of possible debris in the South China Sea as yet another false alarm.

FRIDAY MARCH 14

Malaysia refuses to comment on fresh reports quoting US officials saying the plane’s communication system continued to contact a satellite hours after it disappeared, suggesting it may have actually travelled a massive distance.

White House also refers to “new information” that the jet may have continued flying after losing contact.

SATURDAY MARCH 15

Prime Minister Najib Razak reveals at a press conference that the aircraft’s communications systems were deliberately disabled and that its last signal came more than six hours after takeoff. Police search home of plane’s pilot.

The plane could have landed in Kyrgyzstan or China, according to Malaysian officials.

China urges Malaysia to continue providing information about Mh370.

This is the map issued by the Malaysian authorities. The red lines are the two possible corridors where MH370 was detected by a satellite over the Indian Ocean. The authorities would not say who operated the satellite.

The New York Times says the northern corridor described by the Malaysian PM is heavily militarised while the southern corridor is mostly open sea.

The northern arc described by Mr. Najib passes through or close to some of the world’s most volatile countries that are home to insurgent groups, but also over highly militarized areas with robust air defense networks, some run by the U.S. military. The arc passes close to northern Iran, through Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, and through northern India and the Himalayan mountains and Myanmar. An aircraft flying on that arc would have to pass through air defense networks in India and Pakistan, whose mutual border is heavily militarized, as well as through Afghanistan, where the United States and other NATO countries have operated air bases for more than a decade.

Air bases near that arc include Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, where the U.S. Air Force’s 455th Air Expeditionary Wing is based, and a large Indian air base, Hindon Air Force Station.

The southern arc, from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean, travels over open water with few islands stretching all the way to Antarctica. If the aircraft took that path, it may have passed near Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands. These remote islands, with a population of fewer than 1,000 people, have a small airport. To the east of that route is Western Australia.

Tania Branigan, the Guardian correspondent in Beijing asks whether other countries picked up the flight on their military radar systems and if so whether they attempted to contact it. Intriguingly, an Indian Express report today suggests the radars for the Andaman Islands “are not always switched on”.

CNN have spoken to the editor of Flying magazine who describes in detail how only a professional pilot could have flown MH370 on the course it is believed to have taken.

Police have finished their search of the pilot’s home but now the Malaysian authorities have cancelled a press conference, according to NBC’s Keir Simmons.

Reuters report that police are now searching the home of the pilot 53-year-old Zaharie Ahmad Shah. A senior Malaysian police official told Reuters they had gone to take evidence that could help with the investigation.

Investigators now know that the missing Malaysian airliner’s communications were deliberately disabled and that it turned back from its flight to Beijing and flew across Malaysia.

The Malaysian prime minister says a newly extended, multinational search stretching all the way from Kazakhstan to the southern Indian Ocean is now under way on Saturday after satellite data indicated missing flight MH370 last made contact six hours after previously believed.

Speaking for the first time about the Boeing 777 with 239 people on board one week after it vanished from civilian radar, Najib Razak, said authorities believed the plane’s diversion from its original flightpath towards Beijing to be the “deliberate action by someone on the plane”.

More details on this development can be found in the Guardian’s early morning summary here.

The full text of the Malaysian PM’s statement is here

Previously it was thought the plane disappeared at around 1am local time (20 minutes after it took off). But according to the raw satellite data, the aircraft last made contact at 8.11am local time on 8 March, nearly seven hours after it lost contact with air traffic control.