March 24 – As search for the Missing Malaysian airplane was intensified on Monday after a Chinese plane spotted mysterious objects in the Indian Ocean, authorities released new details that paint a different picture of what may have happened in the plane’s cockpit.
According to CNN, military radar tracking shows that Flight MH370 changed altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca on the fateful day.
A source close to the investigation into the missing flight told CNN that the plane flew as low as 12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from radar.
The sharp turn seemed to be intentional, the source said, because executing it would have taken the Boeing 777 two minutes — a time period during which the pilot or co-pilot could have sent an emergency signal if there had been a fire or other emergency onboard.
The official, who is not authorised to speak to the media, told CNN that the area the plane flew in after the turn is a heavily trafficked air corridor and that flying at 12,000 feet would have kept the jet well out of the way of that traffic.
The new details, the report said, give more insight about what happened on the plane, but don’t explain why the plane went missing or where it could be.
While analysts are divided about what the latest information could mean, the CNN said the new revelation could be a game-changer.
Meanwhile, Malaysian officials, in a written update on Sunday, cast doubt on the theory that someone, perhaps a pilot, had reprogrammed the aircraft to make an unexpected left turn during the flight.
“The last ACARS transmission, sent at 1:07 a.m., showed nothing unusual. The 1:07 a.m. transmission showed a normal routing all the way to Beijing,” it read.
The Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System measures thousands of data points and sends the information via satellite to the airline, the engine manufacturer and other authorised parties. Had the plane been reprogrammed to change course, the ACARS system should have reported it during its last communication at 1:07. The ACARS is supposed to report new information every 30 minutes, but it was silent at 1:37.
