Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian authorities have concluded that a passenger jet missing since last week was hijacked and deliberately steered off course, a government official involved in the investigation told The Associated Press.
“It’s conclusive,” the official told The AP.
The search for the missing Malaysian jetliner expanded after U.S. officials said it emitted signals to satellites for hours after its last contact with air traffic control nearly a week ago.
According to the report, investigators have determined that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was diverted from its intended destination of Beijing by one or more people with significant flying experience.
In previous days U.S. officials noted that the plane’s main communications systems were switched off separately, an indicator of a manual attempt to evade contact.
Even with a determination of hijacking, many questions remain about the fate of the plane and the nature of the takeover in the cockpit. Searchers have failed to find any evidence of the plane, which disappeared from civilian radar last week less than an hour after takeoff. Malaysian officials had said earlier that they were investigating all crew members, as well as the plane’s 227 passengers.
Suspicions of a hijacking hinged on the erratic behavior of the plane after it stopped sending radar signals and an indisputable fact: Despite an exhaustive search of the waters that straddle Malaysia and farther into the Indian Ocean, no trace of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 has been found.
Read News in full 15/03/14 Chico Harlan, Ashley Halsey III and Annie Gowen/AP/Washington Post
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