Malaysia's military believes the missing Boeing 777 turned and flew hundreds of miles to the west after it last made contact with civilian air traffic control, a senior military officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
Authorities have previously said the Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.
'It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude,' the senior military officer, who has been briefed on the investigation, told Reuters. 'It made it into the Malacca Strait.' The report could not immediately be verified by NBC News.
The source's claim would appear to rule out sudden catastrophic mechanical failure, as it would mean the plane flew around 350 miles at least after its last contact with air traffic control, although its transponder and other tracking systems were off.
A non-military source familiar with the investigations told Reuters the report was one of several theories and was being checked.
At the time it lost contact with civilian air traffic control, the plane was roughly midway between Malaysia's east coast town of Kota Bharu and the southern tip of Vietnam, flying at 35,000 ft.
The Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping channels, runs along Malaysia's west coast.
A huge search operation for the plane has been mostly focused on the shallow waters of the Gulf of Thailand off Malaysia's east coast, although the Strait of Malacca has been included since Sunday.
- Reuters
First published March 11 2014, 6:29 AM
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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