12.55 Relatives of Chinese passengers on board flight MH370 have declined to accept money from the airline.
Malaysia Airlines said it had offered 'financial assistance' of 31,000 yuan (£3,000) to the family of each missing traveller But a relative of one of the passengers, from east China's Shandong province, said: 'We're not really interested in the money.'
'It is all about the people - the people on the plane. We just want them back.'
It is now three days since their loved ones went missing, and authorities are no clearer as to how and where the plane disappeared.
12.22 So the mystery of the two passports seems to have been mostly solved, with authorities confident there is no terror link. The two Iranians travelling on stolen passports were thought to be asylum seekers heading for Europe.
12.07 Malaysia's Berita Harian newspaper quoted air force chief Rodzali Daud as saying the missing plane was last detected by military radar at 2:40 a.m. on Saturday, near the island of Pulau Perak at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca.
The time given by Rodzali was an hour and 10 minutes after the plane vanished from air traffic control screens over Igari waypoint, midway between Malaysia and Vietnam.
11.07 'It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait,' the military official, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.
The plane left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early on Saturday morning, vanishing from civilian radar screens about an hour after take-off over the sea separating eastern Malaysia from the southern tip of Vietnam.
10.57 Our correspondent in Beijing, Malcolm Moore, sheds some light on the news the military tracked the plane hundreds of miles away:
That is speculation, but what we do know is that if they are now focusing attention on the Malacca Strait, they must give some credence to the early report that a military radar had seen the plane turn around, or change course.
10.30 A military source has told Reuters news agency that it believes it tracked the missing plane of the radar to the Strait of Malacca. What this suggests is that the plane tried to turn back, which is why they have now widened their search.
10.28 Ronald Noble, Interpol's secretary general, is giving a press conference now. He says the two Iranians flew from Doha to Kuala Lumpar, where they were flying on to Beijing. They used Iranian passports to enter Malaysia on February 28, but used stolen passports to fly onwards.
He said the name of the second passenger on the stolen passport was Delavar Syed Mohammad Reza, 30, also Iranian.
Neither Iranian is on the Interpol database.
10.17 A picture of the two suspects who boarded the missing plane with stolen passports. They are wearing the same clothes, which suggests it was taken earlier in the day:
09.30 Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Malaysian civil aviation chief, said earlier that the widened search includes northern parts of the Malacca Strait, on the opposite side of the Malay Peninsula and far west of the plane's last known location. Mr Azharuddin would not explain why crews were searching there, saying rather cryptically, 'There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't.'
To watch the press conference:
09.20 Malaysia's ministry of transportation has said 'no ill feelings' were meant by a transport official's reference to black Italian footballer Mario Balotelli when discussing two suspicious passengers on a missing jet.
'No ill feelings were meant to the personality concerned. We hope this clarifies the issue,' the ministry said a statement.
Civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman had been asked yesterday to confirm another official's assertion that the two men who used stolen European passports to board missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 looked 'Asian'.
09.10 Police chief Khalid said the other man traveling with the Iranian had arrived in Malaysia on the same day, and had yet to be identified.
He said investigators had not ruled out any possibility, including hijacking, sabotage or a personal motive to down the plane by either the crew or passengers. He also said that the police ' had no prior information or intelligence about any involvement of terrorists.'
08.53 Families and friends are still waiting for answers:
08.11 It seems we're no clearer to understanding what happened and why then we were when the plane first went missing.
Another nail in the coffin of the terrorist theory: why would Iranians attack a Malaysian plane with Chinese on board?
- malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 11, 2014
08.06 Malaysia's national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said police were still considering all possibilities in terms of criminal involvement in the plane's disappearance, when asked whether police thought the revelation made them consider terrorism less likely in the case.
'At this moment, I would not say less likely. Same weightage to all until we finish our investigations,' Khalid said.
07.36 Our correspondent in Beijing, Malcolm Moore, has been following the press conference:
'We have been checking his background, we have also checked with other police organisation on his profile and we believe that he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group. We believe he is trying to migrate to Germany. How do I know? We are in contact with his mother. His mother is expecting him to arrive in Frankfurt, when he didn't arrive she contacted us here and that's how we knew he was the one.'
2. 'We are looking into four areas: hijacking, sabotage, psychological problems of the passengers and crew, personal problems among passengers and crew,' he said.
'We have been going through all the passenger manifest, we have communicated with our counterparts in at least 14 countries and also from other parts of the world and we have been exchanging information and intelligence.
'This afternoon a team of officers from China PSB visited me in the office and we have a discussion with them and the PSB supplied us with the photographs of all 153 Chinese passengers plus their profiles and we are going through all the passengers and missing crew. We are also going through all the video footage the whole day from the 7 to the 8 at KLIA and we are checking with all our officers from other depts on the background of all the passengers.'
#Malaysia Immigration DG holds up a handout of the 19-year-old Iranian man who boarded #MH370 using a stolen passport http://ift.tt/1fn8o5r
- Sri Jegarajah (@cnbcSri) March 11, 2014
07.28 Malaysian police inspector general also says it is not true five people checked in and didn't board. BBC Persia andthe Telegraph had reported overnightthat a school friend had said the man had bought the fake passports because he wanted to migrate to Europe.
07.23 Malaysian officials have said this morning that one of the two men who boarded the plane with a stolen passport was a 19-year-old Iranian, who they believe was trying to emirate to Germany.
The man, Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehread, is not believed to have any terrorist connections.
Our correspondent in China, Malcolm Moore, says
19-year-old Iranian was travelling on Christian Kozel's passport MH370
- malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 11, 2014
07.20 Welcome to The Telegraph's live coverage of the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
So here is a brief recap of what we know:
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was last heard from at 1.20am local time on Saturday morning, roughly 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on route to Beijing.
The skies were clear and the plane has 239 passengers on board.
Of those, 150 were Chinese - but in total 14 countries had citizens on board.
The plane sent no distress signal. And no wreckage has yet been found.
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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