clint308
Well-Known Member
Multiple US media reports, citing American officials, said the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777's communication system continued to "ping" a satellite for a number of hours after it disappeared off radar with 239 people aboard, on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
"It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Meanwhile, Chinese researchers have announced that a "seafloor event" took place in an area between Vietnam and Malaysia, an hour and a half after the plane disappeared.
The researchers said the slight seismic activity could be the missing plane hitting the ocean.
"It was a non-seismic zone, therefore judging from the time and location of the event, it might be related to the missing MH370 flight," a statement read.
March 09, 2014: Video recorded from an online flight tracker shows the chilling moment Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 vanishes from the live display.
Two different communications systems aboard the missing MH370 flight were shut down separately, according to reports, suggesting they were deliberately turned off.
CBS News reports the two systems were switched off sequentially, just before the Malaysia Airlines plane is believed to have changed course and turned west.
But the systems could have turned off in a domino-fashion rather than all at once during a catastrophic electrical failure, but that is considered unlikely.
A US Navy official told AFP the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd was "transiting the Strait of Malacca en route to the Indian Ocean". It was initially deployed to the Gulf of Thailand on the other side of Malaysia's coast. The development is the latest in a series of tantalising leads that have pulled the search for flight MH370 in multiple directions and deepened one of the biggest mysteries in modern aviation history.
Delhi-based aviation analyst Kapil Kak, a former Indian air marshal, called the situation "inexplicable, unprecedented and shocking".
Map of the flight path of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.
However, Gerry Soejatman, an independent aviation analyst based in Jakarta, was sceptical that the plane could have flown undetected to the Indian Ocean given the number of military radars operated in the region by Malaysia, India, Thailand and Indonesia.
"How could it get past all of that?" Soejatman said. "And if it did, how many people in the military are going to lose their jobs?"
The new lead opens an additional search front of daunting magnitude. The Indian Ocean is the world's third largest, and has an average depth of nearly 3900 metres.
It is like going "from a chessboard to a football field", Commander William Marks of the US 7th Fleet told CNN.
Marks insisted the search remained co-ordinated with the Malaysian authorities and the US Navy was not "freelancing".
Malaysia has not responded directly to the latest US information.
March 08, 2014: Flight MH370 carrying 239 people to Beijing has lost contact after departing Kuala Lumpur International at 12:40am local time, Saturday.
"The investigation team is following all leads that may help locate the missing aircraft," a government statement said on Friday afternoon.
It said Malaysia continued "to work closely" with US officials sent to Kuala Lumpur to help in the investigation. Malaysian officials were expected to hold a news conference later on Friday.
The lack of results from the investigation and search so far has created a volatile mix of grief, anger, frustration and speculation that the Malaysian authorities have struggled to control.
ABC news said US investigators believed the aircraft's data reporting system and its transponder - which reports its position in flight to ground-based radar - shut down separately.
The 14-minute interval suggests they might have been deliberately disabled, or at any rate did not fail as a result of a catastrophic airframe incident, the US network said.
"It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Meanwhile, Chinese researchers have announced that a "seafloor event" took place in an area between Vietnam and Malaysia, an hour and a half after the plane disappeared.
The researchers said the slight seismic activity could be the missing plane hitting the ocean.
"It was a non-seismic zone, therefore judging from the time and location of the event, it might be related to the missing MH370 flight," a statement read.
March 09, 2014: Video recorded from an online flight tracker shows the chilling moment Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 vanishes from the live display.
Two different communications systems aboard the missing MH370 flight were shut down separately, according to reports, suggesting they were deliberately turned off.
CBS News reports the two systems were switched off sequentially, just before the Malaysia Airlines plane is believed to have changed course and turned west.
But the systems could have turned off in a domino-fashion rather than all at once during a catastrophic electrical failure, but that is considered unlikely.
A US Navy official told AFP the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd was "transiting the Strait of Malacca en route to the Indian Ocean". It was initially deployed to the Gulf of Thailand on the other side of Malaysia's coast. The development is the latest in a series of tantalising leads that have pulled the search for flight MH370 in multiple directions and deepened one of the biggest mysteries in modern aviation history.
Delhi-based aviation analyst Kapil Kak, a former Indian air marshal, called the situation "inexplicable, unprecedented and shocking".
However, Gerry Soejatman, an independent aviation analyst based in Jakarta, was sceptical that the plane could have flown undetected to the Indian Ocean given the number of military radars operated in the region by Malaysia, India, Thailand and Indonesia.
"How could it get past all of that?" Soejatman said. "And if it did, how many people in the military are going to lose their jobs?"
The new lead opens an additional search front of daunting magnitude. The Indian Ocean is the world's third largest, and has an average depth of nearly 3900 metres.
It is like going "from a chessboard to a football field", Commander William Marks of the US 7th Fleet told CNN.
Marks insisted the search remained co-ordinated with the Malaysian authorities and the US Navy was not "freelancing".
Malaysia has not responded directly to the latest US information.
March 08, 2014: Flight MH370 carrying 239 people to Beijing has lost contact after departing Kuala Lumpur International at 12:40am local time, Saturday.
"The investigation team is following all leads that may help locate the missing aircraft," a government statement said on Friday afternoon.
It said Malaysia continued "to work closely" with US officials sent to Kuala Lumpur to help in the investigation. Malaysian officials were expected to hold a news conference later on Friday.
The lack of results from the investigation and search so far has created a volatile mix of grief, anger, frustration and speculation that the Malaysian authorities have struggled to control.
ABC news said US investigators believed the aircraft's data reporting system and its transponder - which reports its position in flight to ground-based radar - shut down separately.
The 14-minute interval suggests they might have been deliberately disabled, or at any rate did not fail as a result of a catastrophic airframe incident, the US network said.
