Photograph by Charaka Ranasinghe
Data from military radar suggests that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 changed course and headed West, veering off its planned route to Beijing, shortly before disappearing, according to the BBC.
This information comes as recovery teams have widened their search for the wreckage of the Boeing 777-200 aircraft, which disappeared from radar screens at 02:40 local time (18:40 GMT) on Friday at 065515 North (longitude) and 1033443 East (latitude), near Vietnam’s Cà Mau Peninsula.
Officials still do not know what went wrong to cause the plane to disappear without sending a distress signal, but the aircraft’s movements could imply that the pilot was attempting to turn the plane around and head back to Kuala Lumpur.
Earlier suspicions that the incident may have been linked to terrorism have subsided after the identities of the two men carrying stolen passports emerged as Iranians with no apparent links to extremist groups, with one of the men looking to start a new life in Germany.
