Rumor of US Sinking Chinese Sub: The Shootdown of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370

 

 

 

The Shootdown of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370   THE SHOOTDOWN OF MALAYSIAN AIRLINES FLIGHT MH370 — By Michael Shrimpton — At 0130 hours local time last Saturday, March 8th (this is being written on the 15th) a Chinese SSK, believed to be a 636 Kiloclass, shot down a Malaysian airliner, Boeing 777-2H6ER, 9M-MRO, Captain Zaharie Shah in command, off the coast of South Vietnam.  The Chinese murdered a total of 239 people, all the souls on board. The Kilo surfaced but stayed hull-down, i.e. presented a low radar signature.  She fired a Chinese-made copy of the excellent Hughes Aircraft AIM-54A Phoenix missile, supplied to Iran in the 1970s.  The Chinese version appears to be multi-mode, with infra-red, terminal radar and semi-active homing guidance.  It appears as though semi-active mode was selected.  The Kilo was to the starboard of the 777’s track, possibly having sortied from the Hainan Submarine Base.      Interception range appears to have been fairly short, perhaps 25 miles, well within the capabilities of the Phoenix, which famously could engage targets over 100 nautical miles from their F-14 mother-ships.     Captain Shah appears to have seen the incoming.  Its exhaust trail would have been clearly visible at night.  If the missile was in semi-active homing mode and he did not deactivate his radar then it would have locked on, following him as he turned back toward the Malaysian coast.   The Chinese sub jammed his HF and VHF frequencies, as did the Iranian Kilo in the Air France AF447 shootdown in 2009, preventing a Mayday call. As the unlawful seizure of my book and working papers in 2012 pushed back publication of Spyhunter by at least nine months airline pilots are unaware of my recommendation, following Air France, that the primary mode of communicating a Mayday message in the event of missile attack should be ACARS, or Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.  Being satellite-based and digital it is much more difficult to jam.  The Bad Guys of course are aware of Spyhunter, which was after all seized and thoroughly analyzed, reportedly sending Dachau and Peking into shock, given its high level of accuracy and the devastating revelations it contains (if all y’all will excuse the ad the publishers, June Press, in Totnes, Devonshire, are now accepting advance orders – publication is scheduled for next month, price £25, ISBN 978-0-9927501-0-7). The latest reporting, that the airplane’s ACARS was disabled shortly after MH370 crossed the Malaysian coast, has the ring of truth about it.  ACARS can be disabled, although it is not as easy as jamming radios.  Good pilots – and Captain Shah was a good pilot – follow their training in emergencies.  That training, sadly, is inadequate to deal with missile attack. All airline pilots on transoceanic crossings should be trained to treat ACARS disablement as an immediate, life-threatening emergency.  In my as ever humble opinion (and all y’all know how humble I am!) they should: (1)   Secure the cabin for radical evasive maneuvers. (2)   If they are within 30 minutes of land, turn immediately towards it, going to TOGA power as they do so.  If not, power should be reduced immediately to flight idle and an emergency descent initiated to no higher than FL100, with immediate cabin depressurization, squawking 7700. (3)   The APU, if online, should be shut down immediately (that was probably how KAL007 was acquired). (4)   The pilot not in command should immediately deactivate all onboard radar systems, including the radar altimeters, declare an emergency online, if they still have connectivity, and by radio, if they still have a carrier wave.  If the radios are jammed the pilots should assume that their aircraft has been acquired by hostile fire control radar and is about to come under medium range surface to air missile attack. Passengers should be advised to brace for high-speed missile impact and don, but not inflate, their life jackets.  Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the pilot in command attempt to outclimb or outrun the missile.  He or she should assume a missile speed of Mach 3.5 plus in an ascending attack and up to Mach 5 for a long-range descending attack on semi-ballistic trajectory. (5)  All crew including cabin crew should be alerted to watch for incoming. (6)  The pilot in command should assume terminal radar guidance and delay evasive maneuvers for as long as possible, and not before visual confirmation of the incoming.  Evasive maneuvers should be radical and the airplane should be taken to her airframe g-limits.  The trick to evading a guided missile in an unarmed aircraft not equipped with countermeasures is to leave your maneuver until the last possible moment and make it as radical as you safely can, in order to break the missile’s lock on you, and (7)  If successful the pilot in command should assume a reload capability within 15 minutes, go to TOGA power and escape the target area at the fastest possible speed, disregarding all airframe speed limits and the 250 knot limit below FL100.  He or she should assume that the airframe may have been overstressed, maintain 7700 emergency squawk and order the pilot not in command to broadcast a Mayday message via any viable communication system.  As the airplane heads away from Dodge radio jamming should cease.        THE US NAVY HITS BACK Happily the US Navy, a.k.a. the Good Guys, fought back.  It looks like the USS Pinckney (DDG-91), God Bless her, whacked the Chinese Kilo, hence the diesel slick on the surface of the ocean, in an area where no surface vessel was reported.  Aviation fuel is light and disperses.   Diesel fuel in an area of suspected hostile SSK activity + no diesel-powered surface vessel in the area + powerful surface combatant with stand-off anti-submarine capability within range usually = subsmash. Way to go the Pinckney!  So far as I know (Gordon?) she could be the first US Navy surface vessel ever to have engaged the PLA Navy in combat.  My respectful congratulations to Commander Frank Okata and her crew, especially the dedicated team in the Combat Information Center.  Her job done, on behalf of humanity and Western Civilization, she has now docked at Changi.  I am not hearing that there were cheering crowds, or even a brass band to play Anchors Aweigh, which is disgraceful.  If you live in her home port, which I think is still San Diego, please make sure that you give her a big welcome when she gets home.  She deserves a battle star.  Someone should paint the silhouette of a Chinese submarine in an appropriate place.  It could always be covered up for visiting weanies from Washington. I gather there were some frantic messages from Peking after the realization hit home that there had been a subsmash in the South China Sea.  I also gather that the White House were pretty frantic too, indeed there was probably an outbreak of mini-hysteria, although I didn’t ring the Situation Room to enquire (yes I have that number, but it’s only for emergencies, not for collecting scuttlebutt for this week’s column!!).    They are now sending US warships on wild goose chases in the Indian Ocean.  It’ll be the Great Southern Ocean next, indeed we are now hearing that the search has been extended to Kazakhstan.  Any moment now I am expecting Thames Valley Police to join the search, making house to house enquiries in Berkshire to see if anybody has seen a lost Malaysian Boeing 777, possibly on Slough High Street.  The search will be conducted anywhere but where the plane was shot down and the Kilo followed her to the bottom. Pinckney should get a Presidential Unit Citation.  If she were a Royal Navy vessel there would be an extra rum ration, or at least there would be if Royal Navy men-of-war still carried rum!  Sadly we wimped out on the rum ration some years ago – something about the First Sea Lord not wanting sailors tanked up on rum running loose around guided weapons systems.  Idiot! At this time a former Secretary of the Navy of my acquaintance is not denying a word of this.  I hope that airmen and women everywhere will spare a thought and a prayer for poor Captain Shah and his dedicated crew. MOTIVE It seems there was someone of interest on the plane.  There is a bitter internal power struggle going on in China right now.  It seems like a powerful faction, backed by the DVD, was behind the attack.  The other faction are Chinese nationalists, rather than ideological communists, closer to those nice people the Kuomintang than any communist party member has a right to be.  It’s interesting that most of the outrage seems to be coming from nationalist outlets in China. THE AIRLINE Malaysian Airlines grew out of Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, which in turn grew out of the original Malaya Airways, which started out in 1946 with a single Airspeed Consul.  The Consul was very much a mini-airliner!  Older readers, especially those who served in South East Asia, may well recall the MSA Boeing 707s, with their attractive yellow livery. They are a good airline.  I’ve only flown with them twice, each time in first class, from Melbourne to KL and KL to London.  Service was excellent, and there were showers in the first class lounge at KL.  Their aircraft are well-maintained and their crews well-trained.  I see no conceivable basis for criticising Captain Shah, a dedicated and vastly experienced airman, his crew, nor the airline. THE PLANE The Boeing 777 has an excellent safety record.  There have only been two 777 crashes of any note, and one of those (BA Flight 38 at Heathrow) was down to Chicom/DVD sabotage of the FADEC software controlling the engines.  The engines – Rolls-Royce Trents – have an equally good record.  There is no reason at all to suspect a catastrophic failure of the airframe, or engine failure.  The aircraft could have maintained her altitude of FL350 (35,000 ft) on one engine only. WEATHER Flying conditions that night were good.  You can forget weather. IED You can also forget terrorism.  Had the airplane been destroyed in mid-air we would be seeing a wide distribution of wreckage.  Hijacking is also out, not least as the hijack squawk code was not activated. COUNTERMEASURES All countries should now follow the sensible Israeli example and fit countermeasures to civilian airliners carrying out ocean crossings.  They need ECM as well as flares, to defeat terminal radar guidance and fire control radar.  They also need missile lock-on warning systems.  Special arrangements should be made as regards hull and passenger insurance.  Sensibly this could be picked up by the state of registry, with recovery in due course from the attacking state, either by seizure of assets, or reparations after military defeat. NSA and ONI were on the ball, so it looks like naval retaliation is well in hand.  Losing their Kilo will make the Chicoms think twice.  I suspect the NSA got some nice overheads – missile exhaust at night is very visible, and the Phoenix is a Big Mama of an air-to-air missile.  ONI didn’t need much persuading of my analysis after AF447 that the Phoenix could be modified for Surface to Air launch, as the US Navy sensibly considered a 12-cell Phoenix as a successor to Sea Sparrow.  The boys at Hughes put together a serious proposal on that one. Well done the NSA!  Another big intelligence success.  (As Gordon knows my policy is one of ‘all the way with the NSA’!).  If Obama whinges – and we know what a whinger he is – the boys at Meade could always drop a copy of that DNA report around to Congress, acting on an FOI Act request.  That would mean Joe Biden as President.  If Joe’s boys want a briefing they know where to reach me. THE UKRAINE (NO MOVIE THIS WEEK) This is coming along nicely.  Bad Guys are getting c….p on big time.  The Good Guys should win the vote in Crimea tomorrow (Sunday).  The Russians and Byelorussians are reported to be moving motorized rifle and armored divisions up to the Ukrainian frontier and the Russian Air Force is bringing its master target plot for the Ukraine up to date.  If the balloon goes up the Ukrainians will be rolled over big time. TONY BENN I have already expressed my condolences to the Labour Party and I extend them to Tony’s family.  We hardly agreed about anything after the 1980s but we always got on well, I liked and respected him and I was very sorry indeed to learn of his passing yesterday.  He was a true patriot.  A love of our country and our people informed his entire political career.  No one could say that he was not a conviction politician and I admired him for that.  We were hardly close, but we never had a cross word. 710 KNUS Apologies to listeners in the Denver area to 710 KNUS.  I was due to be interviewed at 0700 Mountain Time yesterday, on the Peter Boyles Show.  I do occasionally make the odd cock-up (this is my natural humility showing through again!) and of course I forgot that your clocks went forward last Sunday!  Aaarrghh!  I am so accustomed to Mountain Time being 7 hours behind that I just diaried it for 1400 Zulu without thinking.  The boys at KNUS have been kind enough to say they will reschedule. March 15th 2014 Did doomed jet fly on auto-pilot for five hours until it ran out of fuel? Straight line from last contact to 'debris' site suggests 'on-board emergency knocked out crew' Ten-hour search in Indian Ocean called off in adverse weather conditions Two objects seen by satellite 1,500 miles southwest of Perth, Australia Remote site supports theory it may not have been hijacked, says pilot If MH370, we can definitely rule out technical malfunction, says expert Investigators 'probing phone call made by captain while in the cockpit' Four Australian aircraft have been dispatched to the new search area Malaysia 'held crucial satellite data for four days due to internal rows' Malaysia Airlines 'did not buy £6 app that found 2009 Air France crash' Aviation experts were today trying to unravel the enduring mystery of flight MH370 after debris thought to belong to the missing plane was spotted in the Indian Ocean some 1,500miles south-west of Australia. Air search teams called off the hunt after a ten-hour operation in treacherous weather conditions spanning an area the size of the English Channel failed to locate any wreckage. Commercial pilot Robert Mark, who is editor of Aviation International News Safety magazine, said the direct line from the plane's last-known location to the new search area off the coast of Perth reduced the likelihood it was hijacked. If the debris does turn out to be from the Malaysia Airlines flight, it adds strength to the theory that an on-board emergency may have knocked out the crew, leaving it to fly on auto-pilot until running out of fuel, he said. What lends further weight to this theory is the fact the new search is being conducted in one of the remotest parts of the planet which offers few, if any, terror targets or landing areas. Scroll down for video +13 +13 Vast: This Google Earth map shows just how remote the search area is in the southern Indian Ocean +13 Robert Mark, editor of Aviation International News Safety magazine, says the location of the debris would add strength to the theory that an emergency may have knocked out the crew, leaving it to fly on auto-pilot Mr Mark told MailOnline: 'What I think is interesting is that if you look at where the plane was last seen on radar and where the debris has been found, it is almost a straight line. 'I would say it means that once the aircraft turned, it didn't change course. A mechanical fault or emergency seems more plausible to me.' He said the plane could conceivably have flown on auto-pilot for another five to six hours, possibly a maximum of seven, from its last known location off the west coast of Malaysia before running out of fuel. He said speculation that the plane had been taken for a suicide mission was also now more unlikely. 'If you've taken a plane to commit suicide, why fly for seven hours?' he added. However, he said he was unable to fully discount any theory and said the idea it may have been hijacked was still on the cards despite the absence of any obvious targets in the Indian Ocean. +13 Two pieces of wreckage that are possibly from the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 - one estimated to be 78ft in size - have been found to the west of Australia, it was announced today. Pictured: Satellite pictures released by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority of the object thought to be related to the search for MH370 +13 The debris was spotted on satellite imagery and a total of four aircraft have been sent to investigate the sighting, some 1553 miles off the coast of Perth Two potential bits of missing flight MH370 wreckage found The search area covers an ocean ridge known as Naturalist Plateau, a large sea shelf about 3,500 metres (9,800 feet) deep. The plateau is about 250 km (150 miles) wide by 400 km (250 miles) long, and the area around it is close to 5,000 metres (16,400 feet) deep. Mr Mark said: 'It may have on some other mission to one that was being hijacked for use some time later. 'We may find that whoever has taken the plane may be breaking new ground we have never experienced. 'We thought the Air France crash (in 2009) was a game-changer. 'It is going to be another one for the (history) books - we have never seen anything like this before.' The search began today after the Australian government released pictures taken by satellite on March 16 of possible plane debris seen around 2,500km (1,500miles) southwest of Perth. However, Neil Fergus, who was Director of Intelligence for Sydney’s 2000 Olympics, told Australia's Channel 9 that a catastrophic malfunction on MH370 would mean the plane couldn’t have flown all the way to where the debris has been spotted. +13 New leads: Australian security expert Neil Fergus says if objects spotted by satellite off the coast of Perth are confirmed as belonging to MH370 then its location would rule out any possibility of a technical error WHAT THEORIES ARE NOW MORE LIKELY... AND WHICH LESS SO MAJOR MALFUNCTION - the plane is unlikely to have flown that far into the Indian Ocean HIJACKING - less likely given that there is nowhere to land anywhere nearby COMMANDEERED - again unlikely as there is nowhere in the Indian Ocean of strategic value PILOT SUICIDE - a possibility if they chose to nosedive into the ocean EMERGENCY - a fire or loss of cabin pressure may have forced crew to turn back. If it caused them fall unconscious, the plane could have flown for several hours on auto-pilot The Bangkok-based specialist said it could only have occurred with human involvement – either by passengers, crew or pilots Capt Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid. ‘If this debris does turn out to be the missing MH370 then, given its location, we can definitely rule out technical malfunction,’ he said. ‘There is no way with (some) sort of technical calamity or fire that it could have travelled to where it appears to be. It would in the first instance confirm human intervention.’ His comments come as investigators were reportedly trying to identify a mysterious phone call made by pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah while he was in the cockpit. It is not known who he rang or what was said, but officials believe the call, made minutes before the plane took off, could solve the mystery of the flight's disappearance, The Sun reported. +13 The aircraft is to join the Australian Maritime Safety Authority-led search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean after two objects are found in the Indian Ocean Another aviation expert believes the plane may have crashed as a result of foul play and a technical fault. Peter Marosszeky, from the University of New South Wales School of Aviation, told the Sydney Morning Herald: 'It looks there was foul play and whoever was the in cockpit couldn't get the plane to work the way they wanted it to.' He believes all electronic signals and lights would have been disabled at the time communication was cut off. A top air-crash investigator said the fate of MH370 may forever remain a mystery unless a human cause can be found for its disappearance. Thomas Anthony, a former security chief with the Federal Aviation Administration, told Sky News: 'If the aircraft breaks, the technical investigation will likely disclose the causes. 'If the human breaks, the technical investigation may actually provide no answers to what caused the accident, incident or crash.' The actions of the pilots have come under fresh scrutiny in recent days after the Malaysian Prime Minister said the plane had changed course as a result of 'deliberate action' on the plane. +13 Royal Australian Air Force pilot Flight Lieutenant Russell Adams from 10 Squadron, flying his AP-3C Orion over the Southern Indian Ocean during the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 It was reported that Capt Shah had programmed a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean with a runway long enough to land a Boeing 777 into his home flight simulator. A U.S. official said the Malaysian government is seeking the FBI's help in analysing any electronic files deleted last month from the pilot's simulator. The official, speaking anonymously, said the FBI has been provided electronic data to analyse. CNN also reported investigators at Quantico, a Marine Corps base and home to FBI labs, were examining 'hard drives belonging to two pilots'. Malaysia's defense minister said investigators were trying to restore files deleted from the simulator last month to see if they shed any light on the disappearance. Files containing records of simulations carried out on the program were deleted February 3. +13 Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott during his speech stated that Australia will take control over the 'southern vector' carrying its duty in the search and rescue operations (SAR) for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 The new satellite images were taken four days ago, but have only recently been analysed. Reminded that the satellite image of the debris was four days old, Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein denied there had been a reluctance by countries to hand over details. 'I can tell you there has been no reluctance to hand over information,' he said. Mr Hishammuddin's strongest comment was a repetition of what Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had told his parliament: that the satellite image was 'credible.' He gave little more new information and the feeling was that he was now awaiting further results of the search for the debris. Four aircraft have now been dispatched to an area within the southern search zone for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane, Mr Abbott announced. +13 +13 Security expert Neil Fergus said the plane could only have flown to the new search area with human involvement – either by passengers, crew or pilots Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah (left) and Fariq Hamid (right) Enlarge +13 Mystery: Australian security expert Neil Fergus says if objects spotted by satellite off the coast of Perth are confirmed as belonging to MH370 then its location would rule out any possibility of a technical error. One of the objects is estimated to be 78ft (24m) in size and the sighting of the objects was said by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to be 'credible and potentially important'. Mr Fergus said the Australian government would now focus on finding the plane’s black box, which would finally reveal what fate befell the Malaysian Airways flight. ‘The Orion will do a low-vis check that will be much clearer of course than the resolution from the satellite,’ he said. ‘And then they will drop sonar buoys, which have a particular relevance because black box recorders have a battery life of around 30 days… and it should pick up an emission coming from there. ‘It will confirm the location of the black box which is the key to unravelling this horrible mystery.’ Michael Daniel, a retired United States Federal Aviation Administration official told The Straits Times that it could take up to 48 hours for Australian search teams to confirm if the debris belongs to MH370. It emerged last night that four days were wasted searching the wrong area because of delays by Malaysian officials in releasing crucial satellite data that changed the entire course of the investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal. On March 11, a British satellite operator released data analysis and other documents that showed how the plane could have taken one of two corridors - north and south - stretching some 3,000 miles from the plane's last known location. It was handed to a partner company then passed to the Malaysian government the following day. Satellite operator Inmarsat also handed the information to British security and air-safety officials at the same time. +13 Anxious wait: Chinese relatives of the passengers onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 wait for the latest information at Lido Hotel in Beijing, China. Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott said that authorities have spotted two objects in the Indian Ocean that may be related to flight MH370 Two people familiar with the investigation said the information may not have been made available to the search teams until March 13. But disputes about cross-checking the data and how much of it to release meant the decision to shift resources from the South China Sea did not happen until March 15 - the day Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak admitted the flight was diverted as a result of 'deliberate action' on the plane. Reports overnight also suggested that Malaysia Airlines did not buy a basic app that helped locate the Air France plane that crashed in 2009. The software, which costs just £6 a flight, would have continued sending crucial data such as direction, speed and altitude even after the transponder and ACARS systems were switched off, the Washington Post reported. It proved pivotal to finding the Air France flight which crashed into the Atlantic ocean by enabling search teams to triangulate the search area to around 64 kilometres. They found the debris in just five days. But the app, called Swift, was reportedly not being used on MH370. THE BAFFLING SEARCH FOR MH370: HOW EVENTS HAVE UNFOLDED March 8 - Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am local time bound for Beijing carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew. Someone, apparently the co-pilot, makes the final voice communication from the cockpit at 01.19am, saying 'All right, good night' to air traffic controllers. The plane is last seen on military radar at 02.14am heading west over the Strait of Malacca. Half an hour later the airline reveals to the public it has lost contact with the plane. The plane was due to land around 6.30am. Officials reveal two passports used to board the flight were stolen, raising the first suspicions of terrorist involvement. March 9 - Malaysia's air force chief says that military radar indicated the missing Boeing 777 jet may have turned back. March 10 - Vietnamese aircraft search for a plane door spotted in their waters but find nothing. March 11 - The hunt is widened to cover a 115-nautical mile radius involving 34 aircraft and 40 ships from several countries. The Malaysian military claims it has radar evidence showing that the missing plane changed course and made it to the Malacca Strait which is hundreds of miles away from the last location reported by civilian authorities. The aircraft was believed to be flying low. The two male passengers travelling with stolen passports were Iranians who had bought tickets to Europe and were probably not terrorists, Malaysian police said. March 12 - Satellite images on a Chinese government website shows suspected debris from the missing plane floating off the southern tip of Vietnam, China's Xinhua News Agency says. The report includes co-ordinates of a location in the sea off the southern tip of Vietnam and east of Malaysia, near the plane's original flight path. March 13 - Malaysian authorities expand their search for the missing jet into the Andaman Sea and beyond after acknowledging it could have flown for several more hours after its last contact with the ground. Nothing was found when planes were sent to search an area off southern Vietnam identified by Chinese satellite images. The Chinese Embassy notifies the Malaysian government that the images were released by mistake and did not show any debris from the missing flight. March 15 - Prime Minister Najib Razak's says the missing airliner was deliberately diverted and continued flying for more than six hours after losing contact with the ground. The plane could have gone as far north west as Kazakhstan or into the Indian Ocean's southern reaches. Malaysian police have already said they are looking at the psychological state, family life and connections of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. Both have been described as respectable, community-minded men. March 16 - The search area now includes 11 countries the plane might have flown over. The number of countries involved in the operation had increased from 14 to 25. Malaysian defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he had asked governments to hand over sensitive radar and satellite data to try to help get a better idea of the plane's final movements. March 17 - Officials release a new timeline suggesting the final voice transmission from the cockpit of the missing Malaysian plane may have occurred before any of its communications systems were disabled. Investigators have not ruled out hijacking, sabotage, or pilot suicide, and they are checking the backgrounds of the 227 passengers and 12 crew members, as well as the ground crew, to see if links to terrorists, personal problems or psychological issues could be factors. March 18 - Ten days after a Malaysian jetliner disappeared, Thailand's military said it saw radar blips that might have been from the missing plane but did not report it 'because we did not pay attention to it'. March 19 - Distressed relatives of the missing passengers threaten to go on hunger strike over the lack of information about the investigation. March 20 - Two objects which could be connected to the missing jet are detected in the southern India Ocean, the Australian prime minister Tony Abbott said. The missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 dropped to as low as 12,000ft in what could have been a cabin emergency before it disappeared from the radar, it has emerged. As the exhaustive search continues in the Indian Ocean for the missing Boeing 777-200, an official revealed the doomed passenger jet made a sharp turn over the South China Sea which ‘seemed to be intentional’. The plane's last confirmed position, picked up by Malaysian military radar, was at 2.15am Malaysia time (1815 GMT March 7) about 200 nautical miles north-west of Malaysia's Penang island, roughly an hour after it diverted from its scheduled route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Scroll down for video +12 Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, right, talks with John Rice, left, senior search and rescue officer and mission coordinator for the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines aircraft +12 Radar specialists are pictured aboard a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion aircraft searching for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean +12 A Chinese Antarctic exploration team member aboard Chinese icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) searches for debris of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean +12 Ten aircraft including two from Japan and two from China have bolstered the ongoing search effort in the Indian Ocean, where possible debris from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was spotted Radar tracking shows the aircraft changed altitude after making the ‘intentional’ sharp left turn as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca, a source close to the investigation said. The anonymous official, who is not authorised to speak to the media, told CNN that flying at 12,000 feet in the heavily trafficked air corridor would’ve kept the missing jet out of sight of other aircraft. Mary Schiavo, an aviation analyst and former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, told the international broadcaster the new information was ‘highly significant’. She said: ‘It explains so many pieces that didn't fit together before. ‘Now, if we have a scenario where something happened, the plane made a dramatic turn and dropped from 35,000 feet to 12,000 feet, this scenario would fit what a pilot would do in the event of a catastrophic on-board event, such as a rapid decompression, a fire, an explosion. ‘That's what you would have to do, descend, get down and turn around and try to get back to an airport that could accommodate an ailing plane.’ It raises questions over what might have happened in the plane’s cockpit to cause such a drop in altitude. However, it is not yet clear how long it took the plane to descend to 12,000 feet, which officials will now be desperate to uncover. Chinese TV reports "suspicious objects" in hunt for Malaysian jet +12 Mike Barton, rescue coordination chief, left, looks over the maps of the Indian Ocean with Alan Lloyd, manager of search and rescue operations at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's rescue coordination centre in Canberra +12 A relative of Chinese passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines, MH370, expresses her frustration at the lack of information, to journalists in Beijing +12 Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss says the search operation is 'clutching' at new information after it was revealed new French satellite images were taken 850km from the current target zone The new information comes after France said it was investigating a possible sighting of debris in the south Indian Ocean. Officials are hoping the new data will help them solve the disappearance of the plane, which went missing with 239 people on board on March 8, and has quickly become one of the world's great aviation mysteries. France's Foreign Ministry said yesterday that a satellite image taken 850 kilometres from the current search site in the Indian Ocean indicated floating debris in the water. Satellite images previously issued by Australia and China have proved futile in the search so far with Chinese officials withdrawing their data last week after admitting to ‘mistakenly’ releasing it. And search planes have so far failed to locate two objects that Australia said it had identified in the Indian Ocean, about 1,500 miles south east of Perth. However, the new information from France has promoted authorities to widen the search area in the hunt for the doomed airliner. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority's rescue coordination centre said the search area was expanded from 59,000 to 68,500 square kilometres (22,800-26,400 square miles) to include the new separate area uncovered by the French data. +12 A photo released by Chinese broadcaster CCTV shows a satellite image of a large floating object in the Indian Ocean that could be related to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 +12 Commanding Officer of HMAS Success, Captain Allison Norris of the Royal Australia Navy (RAN), scans the ocean from the ship's bridge during the search for the missing Malaysia Airline flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean It comes amid concerns of rain hampering the search, which has been buoyed by the addition of two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 planes, increasing the number of aircraft involved from eight to 10. There are also concerns about Tropical Cyclone Gillian bearing down on the Australian northwest coast which Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said ‘could stir up less favourable weather’. The search could deteriorate rapidly this morning, with rain forecast in in the search area, about 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth. Officials will be worried about bad weather hindering the search, especially after Minister Truss described Sunday as a ‘fruitless day’ which delivered ‘nothing of note’. He said: 'It is a very difficult task. 'The weather yesterday wasn't too bad, although there was early morning fog. 'Today we expect the weather to deteriorate and of course the forecasts ahead are not all that good. 'So it's going to be a challenge but we'll stick at it.' He also described the search operation as 'clutching' at information, as flight and sea crews prepared to embark on their fifth day of sweeps in the target zone some 2,500km off the coast of Perth. +12 Acting Prime Minister of Australia Warren Truss speaks to the media at the RAAF Pearce Base, where he said the search for MH370 would continue 'while there's still hope' and until officials were certain it was 'futile' +12 Mr Truss walks with RAAF Wing Commander James Parton and RAAF Group Captain Craig Heap: Mr Truss dismissed a suggestion the Australian Government had waited too long to act after revealing the satellite photos +12 A Royal Australia Air Force AP3C Orion leaves RAAF Pearce Air Base in search of MH370. The flight went missing more than two weeks ago carrying 239 passengers and crew on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing 'The French sighting is a piece of new material because that is in a completely different location. That is about 850 kilometres north of our current search area,' Mr Truss told ABC Radio. 'That's not in the area that had been identified as the most likely place where the aircraft may have entered the sea. But having said all that we've got to check out all the options. 'We're just, I guess, clutching at whatever little piece of information comes along to try and find a place where we might be able to concentrate the efforts.' Today's search, bolstered by 10 aircraft, including three civil planes, two Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft from China and two P3 Orions from Japan, has been split into two areas within the same proximity of the southern Indian Ocean covering 22,800sq miles. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the aircraft will also search for possible objects in an area about 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth. Malaysian authorities have not ruled out any possible explanation for what happened to the jet, but have said the evidence so far suggests it was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next. Police are considering the possibilities of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or anyone else on board.                   THE SOUTHERN OCEAN ‘OBJECTS’. Sometime during the night of the 19th and 20th somebody appears to have dumped some wreckage over a very deep part of the Southern Ocean.  It looks a bit like it came off an old 747-200 in a boneyard.  Since the White House have been frantically leaning on the Pentagon to join in the cover up of this Chinese atrocity I would not be at all surprised to learn these bits had been offloaded out the back of a C-5 or C-17 out of Diego Garcia. The choice of the Southern Ocean may even have been a nod in our direction, since Veterans Today is the only media organisation in the world to report this story with intellectual rigor and a regard for the truth.  We suggested last week, in jest, that the next search area would be the Southern Ocean! The ‘objects’ have sunk, or if they have not sunk they have made themselves scarce.  They have not been positively ID’d as coming off a 777, unlike the over-wing hatch in the target area, i.e where the plane was shot down.   You can bet your bottom dollar the boys at Boeing were asked if they could recognise that bit of wreckage and I gather they said ‘yes, with a bit of computer enhancement’.  All the bits on a 777 are tooled off a computer and you can do amazing things with images of wreckage. The silence out of Chicago and Seattle on that all-important piece of wreckage is deafening.  My understanding is that it is off a 777, but that Boeing cannot say it is definitely off a Dash 200.  They don’t need to.  We don’t have any missing Dash 100s or 300s off South Vietnam.  There is no problem with minimal wreckage on the surface by the way – so far as I know the plane went in hull intact, i.e. she did not break up in mid-air.  That will give us a pretty tight wreckage field on the seafloor.  She went in fast and steep, and we would not expect to find a large amount of wreckage on the surface.  The Phoenix has a proximity fuze and we would expect warhead detonation before impact, as with Air France. Could somebody please tell me what in the cotton-pickin’ hell would a highly experienced professional pilot be doing with a Boeing 777 over the Southern Ocean, flying towards Antarctica, way past the Point of No Return, with a better chance of finding an open Macdonalds than an open runway able to take his plane?  For the avoidance of doubt the boys at Boeing, innovative company that they are, have not yet taken to offering ski-equipped versions of the 777. THE EYE-WITNESSES Oh yes.  We have three live eye-witnesses to the shoot-down now and they all say pretty much the same thing – blazing airliner falling out of the sky.  I think the better view is that the fire they saw was either missile exhaust, the warhead explosion, or the Rolls-Royce Trents flaming out as the plane nosed over into her terminal dive. ACARS Like any networked system ACARS can be disabled remotely.  The idea that you need a Bad Guy turning up on your doorstep and physically accessing your computer before he can insert a virus only needs to be stated for its absurdity to be apparent.  The transponder was probably turned off by inserted lines of software code, more of a Chinese specialty than Peking Duck. THE MALDIVES We are now being treated to eye-witness accounts of a ‘red and white jumbo jet’ flying low over the Maldives on the day in question.  If the plane was cruising as low as reported then she would not have made the Maldives.  The range charts accompanying this feeble-minded nonsense are for an airplane at altitude.  Range decreases dramatically below FL300 (30,000’).  The expression ‘Jumbo Jet’ is normally taken as referring to a 747 and this somewhat dubious sighting does not appear to be of a 777 at all.  Sounds more like an Air India 74 to me. I stand by my story.  If those who have applied pressure to me this week to change it (this does not include Gordon Duff or anyone at Veterans Today, who have backed me to the hilt – thanks guys) want me to change my opinion then please present me with facts, or credible arguments.  Pressure won’t work.  Rational arguments backed by solid evidence will. Relatives of passengers and crew have been informed of the 'heartbreaking' news that Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean, the Malaysian Prime Minister has announced. Najib Razak told a press conference new analysis by the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch and tracking firm Inmarsat indicated the flight ended in the southern Indian Ocean. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after take-off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8. No confirmed sighting of the plane has been made since, but much debris has been found in remote waters off Australia which might be part of the missing plane. According to Sky News, the families of the passengers on the missing plane are now due to be booked on to flights to take them to Australia. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS +46 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak today said a new analysis of satellite data shows that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane plunged into the southern Indian Ocean +46 Relatives of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been informed the plane ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean +46 The families of the passengers on the missing plane are due to be booked on to flights to take them to Australia +46 The announcement was made as an Australian navy ship was on its way today to retrieve two new objects spotted by military aircraft and marked by flares in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet Dressed in a black suit, Najib announced the news in a brief statement to reporters today, saying the information was based on an unprecedented analysis of satellite data from Inmarsat. He said the data indicated the plane flew 'to a remote location, far from any possible landing sites'. He said: 'It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.' Mr Razak said that British firm Inmarsat had employed 'a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort'. The new data revealed that MH370 flew along the southern corridor where investigators had said the plane could have travelled along, based on pings sent several hours after it disappeared on March 8. Investigators had drawn up two huge search areas in two large arcs - a northern corridor stretching from Malaysia to Central Asia and a southern corridor extending down towards Antartica. Inmarsat was not immediately available for comment, while the AAIB referred any inquiries to the Malaysian authorities, who they referred to as the 'lead investigators'. The announcement was made as an Australian navy ship was on its way today to retrieve two new objects spotted by military aircraft in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. HMAS Success was expected to reach the two objects by tomorrow morning at the latest, Malaysia's government said, as a mounting number of sightings of floating objects raised hopes wreckage of the plane may soon be found. So far, ships in the international search effort have been unable to locate several 'suspicious' objects spotted by satellites in grainy images or by fast-flying aircraft over a vast search area in the remote southern Indian Ocean. Planes leave India to join search for possible MH370 debris +46 So far, ships in the international search effort have been unable to locate several 'suspicious' objects spotted by satellites in grainy images or by fast-flying aircraft over a vast search area in the remote southern Indian Ocean 'HMAS Success is on scene and is attempting to locate and recover these objects,' Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who called his Malaysia counterpart Najib Razak to inform him of the sighting, said in a statement to parliament. The objects, described as a 'grey or green circular object' and an 'orange rectangular object', were spotted about 2,500 km west of Perth on Monday afternoon, said Abbott, adding that three planes were also en route to the area. Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing with 239 people on board on March 8. No confirmed sighting of the plane has been made since and there is no clue what went wrong. Attention and resources in the search for the Boeing 777 have shifted from an initial focus north of the Equator to an increasingly narrowed stretch of rough sea in the southern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from the original flight path. Earlier on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency said a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft spotted two 'relatively big' floating objects and several smaller white ones dispersed over several kilometres. +46 View from a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion from RAAF base Pearce on assignment to the southern Indian Ocean to search for possible debris from the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 +46 Crew on an Australian military aircraft have spotted two new objects in the southern Indian Ocean. Pictured is Flt Lieutenant Adam Francki and Warrant Officer Brenton Bell in the cockpit of a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion Beijing responded cautiously to the find. 'At present, we cannot yet confirm that the floating objects are connected with the missing plane,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a news briefing in Beijing. Australia said that a U.S. Navy plane searching the area on Monday had been unable to locate the objects. China has diverted its icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, toward the location where the debris was spotted. A flotilla of other Chinese ships are also steadily making their way south. The ships will start to arrive in the area on Tuesday. Over 150 of the passengers on board the missing plane were Chinese. +46 Aircrew look out of a window of a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion from RAAF base Pearce on an assignment to the southern Indian Ocean to search for possible debris from the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 +46 Flt Lieutenant Gavin Oakley on board a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion searching for the missing plane The latest sighting followed reports by an Australian crew over the weekend of a floating wooden pallet and strapping belts in an area of the icy southern Indian Ocean that was identified after satellites recorded images of potential debris. In a further sign the search may be bearing fruit, the U.S. Navy is flying in its high-tech black box detector to the area. The so-called black boxes - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - record what happens on board planes in flight. At crash sites, finding the black boxes soon is crucial because the locator beacons they carry fade out after 30 days. 'If debris is found we will be able to respond as quickly as possible since the battery life of the black box's pinger is limited,' Commander Chris Budde, U.S. Seventh Fleet Operations Officer, said in an emailed statement. Budde stressed that bringing in the black box detector, which is towed behind a vessel at slow speeds and can pick up 'pings' from a black box to a maximum depth of 20,000 feet, was a precautionary measure. The Chinese aircraft that spotted the objects was one of two IL-76s searching on Monday. Another eight aircraft, from Australia, the United States and Japan, were scheduled to make flights throughout the day to the search site, some 1,550 miles southwest of Perth. +46 A view of the southern Indian Ocean from a Chinese IL-76 plane in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 +46 New sighting: A Chinese military plane dispatched to join the search for MH370 has reportedly spotted 'suspicious objects' in the Indian Ocean target zone +46 Xinhua news agency says the search plane reported spotting 'floating white objects on the surface of the water in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean some 2,500km off the coast of Perth +46 A member of the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force Disaster Relief Team at Pearce Airbase in Perth, where two Orions were joining the multi-national search for MH370 +46 The flight commander of one of Japan's Orion craft confirmed he had shared information with Chinese search teams. 'We will do our best,' he said, according to Japanese media on the tarmac 'The flight has been successful in terms of what we were looking for today. We were looking for debris in the water and we sighted a number of objects on the surface and beneath the surface visually as we flew over the top if it,' said Flight Lieutenant Josh Williams, on board a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion. 'The first object was rectangular in shape and slightly below the ocean. The second object was circular, also slightly below the ocean. We came across a long cylindrical object that was possibly two meters long, 20 cm across. 'Everyone is quite hyped.' Australia was also analysing French radar images showing potential floating debris that were taken some 850 km (530 miles) north of the current search area. Australia has used a U.S. satellite image of two floating objects to frame its search area. A Chinese satellite has also spotted an object floating in the ocean there, estimated at 22 metres long (74ft) and 13 metres (43ft) wide. It could not be determined easily from the blurred images whether the objects were the same as those detected by the Australian and Chinese search planes, but the Chinese photograph could depict a cluster of smaller objects, said a military officer from one of the 26 nations involved in the search. +46 Searching: Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss (right) and Dan Gillis, senior search and rescue officer involved in the search, look at monitors at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's centre in Canberra +46 Flying Officer Peter Moore, the aircraft's captain, said a combination of 'less than ideal' weather and sea conditions had closed in on the flight +46 Two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76s aircraft sit on the tarmac at RAAF Pearce base ready to join the search missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean +46 Acting Prime Minister of Australia Warren Truss speaks to the media at the RAAF Pearce Base, where he said the search for MH370 would continue 'while there's still hope' and until officials were certain it was 'futile' The wing of a Boeing 777-200ER is approximately 27 metres long and 14 metres wide at its base, according to estimates derived from publicly available scale drawings. Its fuselage is 63.7 metres long by 6.2 metres wide. NASA said it would use high-resolution cameras aboard satellites and the International Space Station to look for possible crash sites in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. space agency is also examining archived images collected by instruments on its Terra and Aqua environmental satellites. Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had just transitioned to flying Boeing 777s from other commercial planes and the missing flight was his sixth on that type of aircraft. Fariq, who had passed all training requirements to fly without incident, was flying the plane for the first time without a so-called 'check co-pilot' watching. Investigators believe someone on the flight shut off the plane's communications systems. Partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and re-crossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot. That has led them to focus on hijacking or sabotage, but investigators have not ruled out technical problems. Faint electronic 'pings' detected by a commercial satellite suggested it flew for another six hours or so, but could do no better than place its final signal on one of two vast arcs north and south. While the southern arc is now the main focus of the search, Malaysia says efforts will continue in both corridors until confirmed debris is found. +46 Mystery: Solid matter is pictured floating in the southern Indian Ocean, seen from a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion aircraft yesterday, searching for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 +46 A relative of Chinese passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines, MH370, expresses her frustration at the lack of information, to journalists in Beijing The Japanese flight commander of an Orion aircraft confirmed he had 'shared some information with the Chinese' about MH370 debris. But it was unclear whether Commander Hidetsugu Iwamasa had yet had a full briefing on the latest sighting today. Commander Iwamasa said, according to Japanese media on the tarmac at Pearce: 'We shared some information with China, but I cannot go into detail.' 'We will do our best.' The French satellite image was earlier thought to have been much closer to areas of the Indian Ocean where Australia and China provided satellite photographs of objects that could be debris from MH370. That it is some 530 miles away has prompted Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss to describe the search operation as 'clutching' at information, as flight and sea crews embarked on their fifth day of sweeps in the target zone. +46 Working: Leading Seaman Luke Horsburgh stands watch during his duty as Quartermaster on the bridge of the Australian Navy ship HMAS Success after it arrived in the search area for missing MH370 +46 Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss says the search operation is 'clutching' at new information after it was revealed new French satellite images were taken 850km from the current target zone 'The French sighting is a piece of new material because that is in a completely different location. That is about 850 kilometres north of our current search area,' Mr Truss told ABC Radio. 'That's not in the area that had been identified as the most likely place where the aircraft may have entered the sea. But having said all that we've got to check out all the options. 'We're just, I guess, clutching at whatever little piece of information comes along to try and find a place where we might be able to concentrate the efforts.' Mr Truss added authorities still didn't 'know for certain' if any of the objects spotted by satellite thus far were related to MH370, which mysteriously disappeared on March 8. He said weather conditions were also complicated Monday by Tropical Cyclone Gillian, a powerful storm to the north of the search zone that is likely to hamper a full day's search efforts. 'It is a very difficult task,' he added. +46 Day five of the search reveals numerous planned search areas for doomed flight MH370 in the southern search corridor off the coast of Perth. French authorities reported a satellite sighting of objects in the Indian Ocean +46 Ten aircraft including two from Japan and two from China have bolstered the ongoing search effort in the Indian Ocean, where possible debris from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was spotted +46 Ramped up search: Chinese relatives (centre) of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 leave after a meeting with airline officials at the Metro Park Lido Hotel in Beijing +46 A Chinese Antarctic exploration team member aboard Chinese icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) searches for debris of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean 'The weather yesterday wasn't too bad, although there was early morning fog. Today we expect the weather to deteriorate and of course the forecasts ahead are not all that good. So it's going to be a challenge but we'll stick at it.' AMSA confirmed weather conditions were difficult Monday, as search teams re-commenced targeted sweeps of the Indian Ocean. 'The weather forecast in the search area is expected to deteriorate with rain likely,' AMSA said. 'Today's search is split into two areas within the same proximity covering a cumulative 68,500 square kilometres. 'HMAS Success remains in the search area. A number of Chinese ships are en route to the search area to assist in the location of objects possibly related to the search.' Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas told the MailOnline The US military KC-10 extender tanker - an aerial refuelling aircraft - would be joining the search fleet, in particular to assist the US Navy P8 Poseidon aircraft, which is out on mission today. +46 Mr Truss walks with RAAF Wing Commander James Parton and RAAF Group Captain Craig Heap: Mr Truss dismissed a suggestion the Australian Government had waited too long to act after revealing the satellite photos +46 Difficult time: Relatives of passengers of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are seen coming out of a conference room wearing t-shirts reading 'Pray for MH370 Come Back Home Safely', at a hotel in Beijing +46 A RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft from 92 Wing on the flight line at dusk at RAAF base Pearce in Perth, Western Australia, yesterday, after completing a search sortie for Flight MH370 +46 A Royal Australia Air Force AP3C Orion leaves RAAF Pearce Air Base in search of MH370. The flight went missing more than two weeks ago carrying 239 passengers and crew on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing 'The United States is going to send a KC-10 tanker, which means the Poseidon will be able to stay out there virtually forever, instead of these two hour limits for actual search time,' he said. The two Russian made Ilyuchin IL-76 aircraft deployed by the Chinese government flew from Pearce airbase to Perth airport and off to the target area early Monday. Mr Thomas said the Ilyuchins, which were used by Australian forces in Afghanistan to deliver supplies and ordnance, needed the longer Perth international runway for take-off once they were fully loaded with fuel for maximum flight capacity. 'The IL-76s will use Perth airport as their take-off point for the length of this search,' he said. The Ilyuchin planes are also designed as airborne refueling craft, and have been used by China as emergency response planes, evacuating Chinese citizens out of Libya in 2011. Meanwhile, it was claimed that police have seized the personal financial records of all 12 crew members of the flight MH370 - including bank statements, mortgage documents and credit card bills. +46 Distress: Chinese relatives of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are pictured during a meeting with airline officials at the Metro Park Lido Hotel in Beijing +46 Anxious wait: A relative of a passenger onboard MH370 answers media questions at the Lido Hotel in Beijing Detectives have also got hold of the mobile and landline phone records of the crew, along with details of their computer use and online habits, reported The Sunday Times. Air and sea searches since last Thursday in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean to determine whether the objects were from the missing jet have been unsuccessful. Malaysia's Ministry of Transport said the images had been sent to Australia, which is coordinating the search about 1,550 miles south-west of Perth. The images could be another clue in the growing mystery over Flight 370, with the search moving from seas off Vietnam when the plane first went missing to areas now not far from the Antarctica. +46 Wingwalker: Aircrew walk on the wing of a Japanese Air Force AP-3C Orion after it landed at RAAF Pearce Base to join the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 +46 Working together: Disaster relief team leader Masahiko Kobayashi (left) greets Japanese air force Commander Hidetsugu Iwanasa after his AP-3C Orion landed at RAAF Pearce Base in Perth to join the search for MH370 +46 A photo released by Chinese broadcaster CCTV shows a satellite image of a large floating object in the Indian Ocean that could be related to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 +46 Diagrams: Mike Barton (right), Rescue Coordination Chief, shows Australian Deputy Prime minister Warren Truss (left), maps of the Indian Ocean search area for the missing Malaysian Airlines aircraft Chinese families Of MH370 passengers criticisize Malaysia There, planes and a ship were scrambling today looking for a pallet and other debris to determine whether the objects were from the missing jet. The pallet was spotted by a search plane yesterday, but has not been closely examined. Wooden pallets are commonly used in shipping, but can also be used in cargo containers carried on planes. Mike Barton, chief of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's rescue coordination centre, told reporters in Canberra that the wooden pallet was spotted by a search aircraft yesterday. He added that it was surrounded by several other objects, including what appeared to be strapping belts of different colours. +46 Squadron leader Brett McKenzie takes notes of other search aircraft on the windshield of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion aircraft searching for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean +46 Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says 'three significant developments' have offered 'increasing hope' of finding MH370, as the search continues in the southern Indian Ocean +46 A new hope: Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein holds up the note on which he was passed the information about the Chinese satellite sighting in the southern Indian Ocean +46 Hand-written: A close up of the note passed to Mr Hussein. It is understood that the '30m' figure is incorrect +46 Radar specialists are pictured aboard a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion aircraft searching for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 over the southern Indian Ocean A New Zealand P3 Orion military plane was then sent to find it but failed, he said. John Young, manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's emergency response division, said today's search was mainly relying on human eyes. ‘Today is really a visual search again, and visual searches take some time. They can be difficult,’ he said. Mr Barton said while the weather was not as good at the start of the day with sea fog and low cloud, it was due to clear up later. China says it has located a large 72ft object in the Indian Ocean +46 A graphic from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), shows the approximate position of the objects seen floating in a Chinese satellite image in the southern Indian Ocean, and the area where a civilian plane reported sighting possible debris +46 Reporting: Journalists wait for Chinese relatives of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 outside the hall, during a meeting with airline officials at the Metro Park Lido Hotel in Beijing Despite the frustrating lack of answers, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was upbeat. ‘Obviously we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope - no more than hope, no more than hope - that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft,’ he told reporters in Papua New Guinea. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said it had refined the search based on the latest clue from the Chinese satellite showing an object that appeared to be 72ft by 43ft. It said the object's position also fell within yesterday's search area but it had not been sighted. Australia says missing plane search to continue +46 Flight Lieutenant Jason Nichols on board a Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion, takes notes as they search for debris from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 earlier today in the southern Indian Ocean +46 RAAF Flight officer Rayan Gharazeddine looks out from an Orion as he scans for signs of debris or wreckage +46 A Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force personnel looks out of their Lockheed P-3C Orion aircrafts before leaving for Australia to help with the search operations for MH370 Today's search has been split into two areas within the same proximity covering 22,800 sq miles. These areas have been determined by drift modelling, the AMSA said. Malaysian Defensee Minister Hishammuddin Hussein put a message on his Twitter account asking those in churches around the country to offer a ‘prayer please’ for the passengers and crew on Fight 370. More than 300 Malaysian cycling enthusiasts rode their bikes to the Kuala Lumpur airport to remember the people onboard the jet. The cyclists decorated the bikes with small Malaysian flags and stickers that read ‘Pray for MH370.’ SEARCH TEAM IN 'HIGH SPIRITS' ABOUT FINDING MISSING AIRCRAFT The captain of an Australian Air Force Orion touched down back in Perth Sunday with no sightings of the MH370 wreckage,  but 'in high spirits still' about finding the missing aircraft. Speaking at RAAF Base Pearce just before 8pm local time, Flight Lieutenant Russ Adams said his crew used the latest satellite imagery and co-ordinates of images in their search. The Orion conducted its search in poor weather conditions which 'deteriorated since our last sortie... cloud down to the surface [and] at times we were enclosed in cloud'. Lt Adams praised his crew for working over the Indian Ocean 'as a team' over ' a long day'. 'I can't be more proud of the girls and boys,’ he said. ‘The pilot and co-pilot performed extremely well. We were down at 300ft. The guys definitely shone.' Lt Adams said there was reason for optimism. 'We might do ten sorties, but when you do that eleventh sortie and you find... islands with people               +29 The last known position of MH370 was pinpointed as it headed east over the Peninsular Malaysia. Rada pings then suggest the plane could have then taken two paths along 'corridors' which are currently being searched. The northern corridor extends from northern Thailand to the Kazakstan-Turkmenistan border, while the south extends from Indonesia into the southern Indian Ocean +29 Entrance: The gates outside the home of co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid which has been searched by police +29 Journalists gathered outside Hamid's home in Shah Alam as police turned their attention to those on board as part of the wide-ranging probe Countries in the plane's potential flightpath have now joined a huge diplomatic effort to locate the missing passengers, but China described the revelation as 'painfully belated'. While Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak refused to confirm that flight MH370 was taken over, he admitted 'deliberate action' on board the plane resulted in it changing course and losing connection with ground crews. The plane's communication system was switched off as it headed west over the Malaysian seaboard and could have flown for another seven hours on its fuel reserves. It is not yet clear where the plane was taken, however Mr Razak said the most recent satellite data suggests the plane could have headed to one of two possible flight corridors. The last radar contact was made along one of the corridors, seven hours and 31 minutes after take off, but the plane could have deviated further from these points. US investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the passengers are being held at an unknown location and suggest that faint 'pings' were being transmitted for several hours after the flight lost contact with the ground. NASA has also joined the international search operation, analysing satellite data and images that have already been gathered. Malaysian authorities and others are urgently investigating the two pilots and 10 crew members, along with the 227 passengers on board. Today, a police van with a large contingent of officers inside passed through a security gate at the entrance to the wealthy compound where father-of-three Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah lives with his wife Faisa. +29 +29 Investigators have now raided the homes of both Capt. Zahari Ahmad Shah (left) and Fariq Abdul Hamid in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur +29 Compound: A view of the entrance to Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah's residence. Police have been stationed outside for the last week +29 Luxury: Shah is said to live at the property with his wife Faisa +29 Officers are said to have spent two hours searching the pilot's home today inside the luxury compound +29 Both pilots live in the upmarket Kuala Lumpur district of Laman Seri, about an hour's drive from the city centre +29 A security guard stands at a main gate of the missing Shah's house in Shah Alam, outside Kuala Lumpur +29 Shah's property would have looked similar to this one and is set in an estate which is said to be popular with high-income earners Four plain-clothed police officers were also, reportedly, seen at the home of the other pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. Both pilots live in the upmarket Kuala Lumpur district of Laman Seri, about an hour's drive from the city centre - and each was visited today by a team of detectives who arrived in a white 'people mover' vehicle. The homes are substantial and are, said one resident, typical of high income earners. It is believed a team of search specialists entered Shah's house and spent two hours searching for signs of foul play, before moving into search the co-pilot's home a short distance away. The New Straits Times reported last night that before police turned up at Hamid's home, his two brothers arrived there in a Mini Cooper, believed to belong to a friend. They hurried into the house and remained there for a short time before hurrying away in the same car, taking with them transparent blue plastic bags containing clothes and toiletries. Malaysian PM reveals MH370 could have been hijacked +29 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (centre) on refused to confirm reports the plane was 'hijacked' +29 Another relative gives a statement to the media following the press conference Hamid's father, Abdul Hamid left with them. An hour later, the plain clothed officers left the house carrying two brown bags. The concentration by police on the homes of the Captain and the co-pilot adds to suspicion that one - or both - of them might have had been responsible for the plight of the aircraft. However, if it was diverted into the Indian Ocean, the task of the search teams becomes more difficult, as there are hundreds of uninhabited islands and the water reaches depths of around 23,000ft. The maximum range of the Boeing 777-200ER is 7,725 nautical miles or 14,305 km. 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. Experts have previously said that whoever disabled the plane's communication systems and then flew the jet must have had a high degree of technical knowledge and flying experience. THE TWO PILOTS UNDER SUSPICION: A 'GOOD MUSLIM BOY' AND AN FATHER DEDICATED TO COMMUNITY SERVICE Suspicions: Jonti Roos (left) claims she and her friend were entertained by Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, who is one of the pilots of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight (right). He is now part of an investigation by police in Kuala Lumpur Following the confirmation that flight MH370 was hijacked, police raided the homes of Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and his co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. Officers in Malaysia have said they have been looking at the psychological background of the pilot from the start. They have also examined their family life and connections as one line of inquiry into the flight's disappearance. It has emerged that Shah was so passionate about flying he has is own flight simulator at home, and that Hamid once invited two women to spend an entire flight in the cockpit with him. According to a local mosque leader, Hamid is a 'good boy, a good Muslim, humble and quiet'. Hamid, the son of a high-ranking civil servant in Selangor state, joined Malaysia Airlines in 2007. With just 2,763 hours of flight experience he had only recently started co-piloting the sophisticated Boeing 777. He had a short brush with fame when he was filmed recently for a CNN programme. Hamid's superior, Shah, joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and has more than 18,000 flight hours. Police have raided the luxury home of Fariq Abdul Hamid in Kuala Lumpur His Facebook profile includes pictures of him flying remote-controlled aircraft, posting pictures of his collection which included a lightweight twin-engine helicopter and an amphibious aircraft. Born in northern Penang state, the bald-headed captain and grandfather is also an enthusiastic handyman and proud home cook. As part of what he called 'community service', he had posted several YouTube videos including how to make air conditioners more efficient to cut electricity bills, how to waterproof window panes and how to repair a refrigerator icemaker. A Malaysian Airline stewardess who had flown with Shah several times said he was 'very nice, very friendly and safety-conscious'. She didn't want to be named because of company policy prohibiting employees from speaking to the media. Neighbours of both men also praised their commitment to the community. Hamid played futsal, a modified form of soccer popular in Southeast Asia, with neighborhood youngsters and paid for their sports shirts. Neighbours said Shah was known for bringing food he cooked himself to community events or making sure his wife and children did when he couldn't attend Shah was known for bringing food he cooked himself to community events or making sure his wife and children did when he couldn't attend. A supporter of Malaysia's main opposition parties, he had volunteered to be a poll monitor in recent elections. Yet both Hamid and Shah have quirks that reveal a more colorful side to their pilot personas. Grabbing attention were pictures Shah posted online of the flight simulator he built for his home using three large computer monitors and other accessories. Asked at a news conference whether it was unusual for pilots to have such equipment at home, Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said 'everyone is free to do his own hobby'. Shah is certified by Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation as a flight simulator examiner, according to Malaysia Airlines. +29 Agony: It has been more than a week since relatives of the missing passengers received any concrete evidence concerning their whereabouts +29 A handout map provided by the Indian Navy shows the revised search area for missing flight MH370 near the Andaman Nicobar islands, India In Shah's house a flight simulator has been set up and is understood to have interested police following up one line of investigation - that he had used the equipment to practice making his real-life Boeing 777 ‘invisible’ by turning off all communications. Despite the investigation, Malaysian officials and friends of the pilots have told MailOnline this week that there are no reasons to suspect either the Captain or co-pilot of having personal problems that would have resulted in them taking control of the aircraft. During his statement Mr Naqib added authorities have not ruled out any possibilities in the international search for the plane, which now involves 14 countries, 43 ships and 58 aircraft. 'Clearly the search has entered a new phase. Over the last seven days, we have followed every lead and looked into every possibility,' Mr Razak said. 'For family and friends (of the passengers), we hope this new information brings us one step closer to finding the plane.' Mr Najib said data showed that the jet went north of the Straits of Malacca which resulted in the search to the north and later to the Andaman Sea. 'Investigation authorities have briefed me on what happened to the flight. Based on new satellite communication, with a high degree of certainty, we can say that the aircraft's communication system was disabled. 'Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysia and Vietnamese air space, the plane's transponder was switched off. 'Malaysia Airforce data showed that an aircraft believed to be MH370 flew in the opposite direction. 'These movements are consistent with deliberate action from someone on the plane.' The Boeing 777's communication with the ground was severed just under one hour into the flight on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It has now been confirmed the plane turned back and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula after setting out on a northeastern path toward the Chinese capital..  +29 Gone: The Malaysian Airways jet (not pictured) vanished on March 8 after communication was severed just one hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing +29 Search effort: Colonel Do Duc Minh (far left) Vietnam Air Force's 370 Division's Chief of Staff, points at a map as he speaks to reporters about search flights aimed at finding the missing Malaysia Airlines plane The disabling of the  Boeing 777's transponder and messaging system occurred around 12 minutes apart. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe and gave authorities the clearest indication to date someone on-board was behind it. The motive of the hijack is still not clear. No demands have been made and no groups have publicly claimed involvement in the disappearance.  Scott Shankland, an American Airlines pilot who spent several years as a co-pilot on Boeing 777s, said a captain would know how to disable radios and the plane's other tracking systems. But a hijacker, even one trained to fly a plane, 'would probably be hunting and pecking quite a while' to find the correct way to switch off the equipment. Some of the plane's data is transmitted automatically from equipment not located in the cockpit, making it even harder to avoid leaving electronic bread crumbs, he said. John Hansman, an aeronautics professor at MIT who is familiar with the Boeing 777, said it would be possible for an intruder to turn off the transponders, but knowing how to shut down other systems in a bid to be stealthy would be more difficult. +29 Isolated: A large-scale search operation was launched in the Anadaman Islands, but Indian Navy vessels have drawn a blank Even if 9/11-style hijackers got that far, he said, they would be challenged to keep flying, make a successful landing, and hide the plane. 'If it was a hijacking, it was probably a hijacking gone bad,' he said. Some experts have said that pilot suicide may be the most likely explanation for the disappearance, as was suspected in a SilkAir crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997 and an EgyptAir flight in 1999. The already global search effort will now be expanded along the two large corridors outlined in his speech. Indian navy ships supported by long-range surveillance planes and helicopters scoured Andaman Sea islands for a third day 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,' said VSR Murthy, an Indian coastguard official. The Indian navy's coordinated search has so far covered more than 100,579 square miles in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal 'without any sighting or detection,' the Defence Ministry said. The search has been expanded to the central and eastern sides of the Bay of Bengal, the ministry said. +29 The USS Kidd arrived in the Strait of Malacca late Friday afternoon and will be searching in the Andaman Sea, and into the Bay of Bengal +29 Expanded search: A Royal Malaysian Air Force Navigator captain Izam Fareq Hassan (right) talks with his team members onboard a Malaysian Air Force CN235 aircraft during a search and rescue (SAR) operation +29 Indian Navy officers during a search operation in the control room of a military aircraft. They were part of the team which scaled the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Islands Bangladesh also 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. Seeing no headway, Malaysian authorities suggested a new search area of 3,474 square miles to India along the Chennai coast in the Bay of Bengal, India's Defence Ministry said. Developments, including the massive change in flightpath and subsequent radar detections, have ruled out the possibility of a huge mechanical failure. It also means that extensive search efforts in the South China Sea have finished, with countries like Vietnam ending their involvement. No wreckage of the missing jet has been found, despite alleged sitings in various locations throughout the week. The USS Kidd arrived in the Strait of Malacca late Friday afternoon. It uses a using a 'creeping-line' search method of following a pattern of equally spaced parallel lines in an effort to completely cover the area. A P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced long range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world, will arrive Saturday. It has a nine-member crew and has advanced surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, the department of defense said in a statement. +29 Expanded search: Indonesian Search And Rescue personnel keep a lookout on a rescue ship heading to the Andaman sea +29 Wanting answers: Relatives of passengers of a missing Malaysia Airlines plane attend a conference with airline representatives at a hotel in Beijing, China on Saturday +29 Exhausted: Relatives of Chinese passengers aboard missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 rests in a room reserved for relatives awaiting news of the search for the plane Malaysia has come under fire for what has been described as a 'pretty chaotic' search, with China saying the overall search effort has consequently been mired in confusion after a series of false alarms, rumors and contradictory statements. Meanwhile, the hijacking news will renew focus on the two pilots at the helm of the missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet. The only known blot on co-pilot Fariq's character appears to be the time 2011 when he invited two South African women into the cockpit when he and another officer flew a jet from Thailand to Malaysia. In the days since the flight went missing, it has emerged that Shah was so passionate about flying he has is own flight simulator at home. As the search continued for the missing Boeing 777, military radar suggested the plane was deliberately flown towards India's Andaman Islands. Two sources familiar with the investigation said an unidentified aircraft - which investigators believe was flight MH370 - was plotted by military radar following a route between navigational waypoints. This indicates that it was either being flown by the pilots or someone with knowledge of those waypoints, the sources said. +29 Support: Thousands of people have written messages of support on a wall at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, for passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines plane +29 Hope: Paper cranes are pasted on a message board for passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur +29 A toy plane with messages of hope sits next to cards dedicated to people involved with the missing flight MH370 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying towards India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said. Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors. India recently began searching hundreds of uninhabited islands in the Andaman Sea, using heat-seeking devices. Two Indian air force reconnaissance planes began flying over the islands as a precaution, after they and two naval ships scoured the seas surrounding the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, according to spokesman Col. Harmit Singh of India's Tri-Services Command on the territory. The archipelago that stretches south of Myanmar contains 572 islands covering an area of 720 by 52 kilometers. Only 37 are inhabited, with the rest covered in dense forests. +29 Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein attended prayers for passengers and crew of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at a mosque near Kuala Lumpur International Airport +29 India today began searching hundreds of uninhabited islands in the Andaman Sea, using heat-seeking devices, officials said The focus of search efforts shifted on Thursday from the South China Sea after the US said 'new information' indicated that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may have gone down to the west in the Indian Ocean. China, which had more than 150 citizens on board the missing plane, today said the confirmation foul play was involved in the flight's disappearance was 'painfully belated'. The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any commercial aircraft in service. Its only previous fatal crash came on July 6 last year when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck a sea wall with its undercarriage on landing in San Francisco. Three people died in the incident. THREE TYPES OF SIGNALS GIVEN OFF BY PLANES, AND HOW THEY RELATE TO MISSING MH370 The missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing, an indication that it was still flying for hundreds of miles or more, according to a U.S. official briefed on the search for the jet. This raises the possibility that the plane may have flown far from the current search areas.  Here is a look at three types of signals planes give off, and how they relate to the missing jetliner: TRANSPONDERS Transponders are electronic devices that automatically identify commercial aircraft within air traffic control radar range and transmit information on the plane's identity, location and altitude to ground radar stations. Beyond radar range, they enable planes to be identified and tracked anywhere in the world by satellite. Transponders can be turned off by pilots. The missing jet's transponder last communicated with Malaysian civilian radar about an hour after takeoff, when the plane was above the Gulf of Thailand between Malaysia and southern Vietnam. ACARS ACARS - or Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System - is a data link system used to transmit short messages such as weather updates and status reports between aircraft and ground stations via radio or satellite. According to the U.S. official, ACARS messages sent by the missing plane continued after its transponder went silent, although he wasn't certain for how long. OPERATING DATA SENT VIA SATELLITE Boeing offers a satellite service that can receive data during a flight on how the aircraft is functioning and relay the information to the plane's home base. The idea is to provide information before the plane lands on whether maintenance work or repairs are needed. Even if an airline does not subscribe to the service, planes still periodically send automated signals - or pings - to the satellite seeking to establish contact. Malaysia Airlines did not subscribe to the satellite service. The U.S. official said automated pings were received from the jetliner for four hours after it went missing, indicating it probably flew for hundreds of miles beyond its last confirmed sighting on radar. While the Wall Street Journal said it isn't clear whether investigators have evidence of terrorism or hijacking - they have not ruled it out. A senior Malaysia Airlines official told Reuters that no such data existed, while a second official said he was unaware of it. A spokeswoman for engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce had no immediate comment. Malaysia Airlines has said previously that the Rolls-Royce Trent engines stopped transmitting monitoring signals when contact with the plane was lost. Indonesian air force search sea for Malaysian plane wreck However, officials are working on the suspicion that the plane's engines were operating for four more hours following its last recorded sighting on radar. This has caused enormous uncertainty over the final destination of the aircraft - in addition to why it flew for so long without operating its transponders. One working theory from counter-terror officials is that the plane was taken over for an as-yet unknown purpose. +14 Uncertainty: Passengers look at a Malaysian Airline planes at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, on 13 March 2014. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 people on board went missing early 08 March 2014 while on its way to Beijing under mysterious circumstances The Wall Street Journal said that this scenario - previously only discussed in the media as one of a number of conspiracy theories - was brought to national security officials and senior personnel from the appropriate US agencies. At one of these briefings, officials were told that terror investigators were actively examining if flight 370 had been commandeered 'to be used later for another purpose'. Of course, the mystery of the whereabouts of the aircraft continues - and it remains unclear if the plane crashed hundreds of miles from its last known location or indeed landed at an alternate destination. As part of maintenance agreements between Rolls Royce and Malaysian Airlines, the engines transmit live data to its global engine health monitoring center in Derby, UK for analysis every 30 minutes. Investigators have used this information to try to establish the activities of flight 370 after its transponders ceased to work en-route to Beijing, half way across the Gulf of Thailand. +14 +14 Fruitless search: A Vietnamese military official uses a binocular to look out the window and another uses a map (right) inside a flying Soviet-made AN-26 of the Vietnam Air Force during search and rescue (SAR) operations for a missing Malaysian Airlines flight, off Vietnam's sea, on 13 March 2014 +14 No trace: Vietnam Air Force aircraft flies during search and rescue (SAR) operations for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, off Vietnam's sea, on 13 March 2014 - the Boeing 777 has not been found or heard from since March 8 when it disappeared from radar Six days on and a massive international air and water search involving 10 nations using 56 surface ships have failed to find a single piece of debris or sign of the Malaysian Airlines aircraft. Hopes of a resolution were briefly raised when a Chinese state agency released satellite images of three pieces of large debris floating near to the jets last recorded position in the South China sea. These were dashed early on Thursday morning when Vietnamese and Malaysian authorities said they found no trace at the co-ordinates. 'There is nothing. We went there, there is nothing,' Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's civil aviation chief said on Thursday morning. Vietnam had already searched the area where Chinese satellites showed objects that could be debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet but a plane was sent to check the area again, Vietnamese military officials said. 'We are aware and we sent planes to cover that area over the past three days,' Deputy Transport Minister Pham Quy Tieu told Reuters. 'Today a military plane will search the area again,' he said. And on Thursday morning Vietnamese authorities said two military jets searching for clues top the missing Malaysia Airlines jet found no wreckage at the location. +14 A visitor writes on a banner carrying messages for the passengers of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport +14 Captain Syukri of the Malaysian Air Forces studies a map during a search and rescue mission flight Aircraft repeatedly circled the area over the South China Sea but were unable to detect any objects, said a Reuters journalist, who flew aboard a Antonov 26 cargo plane for three hours. What at first seemed a potentially crucial development on the fifth day of the search even appeared to corroborate the testimony of a New Zealand oil worker who claimed he witnessed the crash of the missing airplane early on Saturday morning. AIRLINE RETIRES FLIGHT CODE MH370 OUT OF RESPECT TO THOSE ON BOARD Malaysia Airlines has said it has retired the flight code MH370 as a sign of respect to the passengers and crew on board the missing plane. Malaysia Airlines has said the codes MH370 and MH371 will no longer be used after the Boeing 777 went missing early Saturday morning. The code MH370 was the airline's code for the route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, while MH371 was for the return flight. More-so the satellite images were captured in the original search area under the flight’s original path and appeared to discount the theory that the aircraft turned back towards Malaysia and crashed hundreds of miles away on the other side of the Malaysian peninsula. Rig worker Michael Jerome McKay described seeing what he believes to be the plane burning - in one piece for 10-15 seconds - flying at a high altitude slightly off from the standard route of planes that cross the sea shortly after the plane vanished. 'There was no lateral movement, so it was either coming toward our location, stationary, or going away from our location,' he wrote in a letter to his employers about the sighting on Saturday and seen by ABC News. Deputy general director of Vietnam's air traffic management, Doan Huu Gia, confirmed he had been sent an email from McKay, the BBC reported. 'We received an email from a New Zealander who works on one of the oil rigs off Vung Tau. 'He said he spotted a burning [object] at that location, some 300 km southeast of Vung Tau.' +14 False hope for resolution: This image released by Chinese authorities was initially billed as the crash site of what could be Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 - this was later refuted by authorities +14 Debris: The crucial discovery of the debris was made on March 9 - the day after Malaysian Airlines flight 370 went missing - however Malaysian and Vietnamese authorities said they could not locate any trace of the aircraft or debris +14 Third piece of debris: This is the third image released by Chinese authorities that was thought to be a piece of the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 China meanwhile has heaped pressure on Malaysia to improve its coordination over the search for the Boeing 777, which disappeared early on Saturday on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Of the 239 people on board, up to 154 were Chinese. Premier Li Keqiang, speaking at a news conference in Beijing, demanded that the 'relevant party' step up coordination while China's civil aviation chief said he wanted a 'smoother' flow of information from Malaysia, which has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the disaster. Vietnamese and Malaysian planes scanned waters where a Chinese government agency website said a satellite had photographed three 'suspicious floating objects' on Sunday. The location was close to where the plane, Flight MH370, lost contact with air traffic control. The Malaysians are understood to be furious with China for not releasing the images earlier. Mr Azharuddin said that China had still not officially provided the airline with the images. 'I learned about this from the news this morning,' he said. One U.S. official close to the plane investigation said the Chinese satellite report was a 'red herring'. It was the latest in a series of false signals given to the multi-national search team that has been combing 27,000 square nautical miles, an area the size of Hungary, for the Boeing 777-200ER. Tributes to MH370 as search enters its SIXTH day +14 Tuesday: On March 11 a military source claimed the plane was tracked over the Strait of Malacca - before the release of the Chinese satellite imagery. Pictured are staff members at the rescue command office for the missing flight On Wednesday, Malaysia's air force chief said military radar had traced what could have been the jetliner to an area south of the Thai holiday island of Phuket, hundreds of miles to the west of its last known position. His statement followed a series of conflicting accounts of the flight path of the plane, which left authorities uncertain even which sea to search in for Flight MH370. The last definitive sighting on civilian radar screens came shortly before 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, less than an hour after the plane took off from Kuala Lumpur, as it flew northeast across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand. WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED? A mid-air explosion: The lack of debris could be explained by it falling into Malaysian jungle. A terrorist attack: Director of CIA has said terrorism could not be ruled out Power failure: Possibly caused by deliberate cutting of power to communication instruments Electronic warfare: 20 passengers on board were experts in this technology. Hijacking: Radar data indicates the plane might have made a U-turn. A pilot error: There is a chance of them in all air mysteries, claim experts Structural failure: Possibly involving damage sustained by an accident in 2012 Pilot suicide: There were two large jet crashes in the late 1990s caused by this Aeronautical black hole: Plane is stranded hundreds of miles from current search area What happened next remains one of the most baffling puzzles in modern aviation history and the differing accounts put out by various Malaysian officials have drawn criticism of their handling of the crisis. 'The Malaysians deserve to be criticized - their handling of this has been atrocious,' said Ernest Bower, a Southeast Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Rodzali Daud, the Malaysian air force chief, told a news conference on Wednesday that an aircraft was plotted on military radar at 2:15 a.m., 200 miles northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia's west coast at the northern tip of the Strait of Malacca. But there has been no confirmation that the unidentified plane was Flight MH370, Rodzali said, and Malaysia was sharing the data with international civilian and military authorities, including those from the United States. 'We are corroborating this,' he added. 'We are still working with the experts.' +14 Searching in the wrong place? A handout photo released by the Indonesian Airforce on 12 March 2014 shows an airforce personnel during a search mission for a Malaysian Airlines aircraft on board of a military surveillance airplane over the Malacca straits According to the data cited by Rodzali, if the radar had spotted the missing plane, the aircraft would have flown for 45 minutes and dropped only about 5,000 feet in altitude since its sighting on civilian radar in the Gulf of Thailand. There was no word on which direction it was then headed, but if this sighting was correct, the plane would have turned sharply west from its original course, travelling hundreds of miles over the Malay Peninsula from the Gulf of Thailand to the Andaman Sea. This would put it about 200 miles northwest of Penang, in the northern part of the Strait of Malacca, roughly south of Phuket and east of the tip of Indonesia's Aceh province and India's Nicobar island chain. Indonesia and Thailand have said their militaries detected no sign of any unusual aircraft in their airspace. Malaysia has asked India for help in tracing the aircraft and New Delhi's coastguard planes have joined the search. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement that its experts in air traffic control and radar who travelled to Kuala Lumpur over the weekend were giving the Malaysians technical help in the search. A U.S. official in Washington said the experts were shown two sets of radar records, military and civilian, and they both appeared to show the plane turning to the west and across the Malay peninsula. +14 A U.S. Navy SH-60R Seahawk helicopter takes off from the destroyer USS Pinckney in the Gulf of Thailand, to assist in the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 But the official stressed the records were raw data returns that were not definitive. A dozen countries are taking part in the search, with 42 ships and 39 aircraft involved. Authorities have not ruled out any possible cause for the plane's disappearance. Malaysian police have said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that might shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or mechanical failure. Two men on board were discovered by investigators to have false passports, but they were apparently seeking to emigrate illegally to the West. The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any commercial aircraft in service. Its only previous fatal crash came on July 6 last year when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck a seawall with its undercarriage on landing in San Francisco, killing three people. Boeing Co, the U.S. aircraft company that makes the 777, has declined to comment beyond a brief statement saying it was monitoring the situation.