Malaysia PM: MH370 Search Entering New Phase
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The Malaysian prime minister said on Saturday that new information tells with a "high degree of certainty" that communications of the plane that went missing a week ago were disabled just before the aircraft reached the east coast of Malaysia.
Prime Minister Najib Razak said in the news conference that the movements of the aicraft were "consistent with deliberate actions" by someone on the plane.
In only his second public statement since the jet went missing on March 8, Razak said investigators were looking into all possible scenarios of the plane's disappearance and that he hoped the latest information would lead to a breakthrough, Al Jazeera reported.
Razak said: "We have put our national security second to the search for the plane. This has been a situation without precedent. At every stage we have acted on the basis of verified information and we followed every credible lead.
"There has been intense speculation. On behalf of those watching we have a responsibility to the investigation to only release information that has been corroborated."
Flight MH370 had 239 people on board and more than 150 of the missing passengers are Chinese. There has been no sighting of the Boeing 777 since it disappeared from the radars and no debris has been found. The search operation includes 57 ships and 48 aircraft and covers the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea.
Razak said: "Shortly afterwards near the border between Malaysia and Vietnam the aircraft transponder was switched off."
The search area would no longer include the South China Sea, he said, and the focus of the investigation team would return to the crew and passengers.