MH370: Search for missing plane now focusing on two possible corridors

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak confirmed that the yet to be found flight MH370 made a turn back over Peninsular Malaysia in a westerly direction before making a north west turn over the Straits of Malacca.

This is based on local and international experts – Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Transportation Safety Board (NSTB), the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) and the Malaysian authorities - concurring that new raw satellite data information corroborated with the Royal Malaysian Air Force primary radar that showed the air craft, now confirmed to be MH370, was in a consistent flight movement.

‘‘Up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," he said.

He also confirmed that the plane’s transponder and communications were deliberately shut off.

‘Based on new satellite info, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Aircraft Communications Addressing & Reporting System (ACARS) was disabled just before the aircraft reached the East coast of peninsular Malaysia,’ he said at press conference at 2.18pm, Saturday.

Najib added that shortly afterwards, the air craft’s transponder was switched off near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control.

The last confirmed communication between the plane and the satellite was at 8.11am, March 8 which disputed previous fears of the plane crashing into the South China Sea.

Najib has called off the search operations in the South China Sea and is reassessing the deployment of assets based on this latest development.

The investigating teams now determined that based on the plane’s last communication with the satellite, it is likely to be in one of two possible corridors.

"A northern corridor stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan no northern Thailand, or a southern corridor stretching approximately from Indonesia to the Southern Indian Ocean," he said.