The plane was last detected by radar at a military base at 2:40 a.m. local time near Pulau Perak, and after that Subang air traffic control lost contact with the plane. The station did not receive any distress signal or radio communication regarding any change of course. The plane’s last identified location was 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bhar. Malaysian officials are of an opinion that the missing plane is expected to have changed its direction and possibly did a U-turn. If it did retrace its path, it could have crashed into the sea on the other side (the western coast) of Malaysia. However, this theory failed to explain that why the plane stopped showing any signals on radar while flying back toward Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia’s air force released a statement on March 11 that the Boeing 777 jetliner is likely to have changed course over the sea, but it rejected reports that the missing plane had reached Malacca Strait, which is located hundreds of kilometers from the last recorded position. The search operations for the missing plane are being carried out on a high scale. 40 ships and 34 aircraft are currently being involved as well as teams from the U.S., China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines are contributing in finding the missing plane. Authorities are not ruling out the possibility of terrorist angle behind the incident. Officials confirmed on March 8 that two people were travelling on the plane on passports which were reported stolen in Thailand. Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad and Seyed Mohammed Reza Delavar have been identified as prime suspects.
