Jet diverted on purpose: Malaysian PM

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Saturday that communications aboard the missing flight MH370 were switched off and its course deliberately changed by someone on board before the aircraft disappeared a week ago, but stopped short of saying it had been hijacked.

Minutes after Razak outlined investigators’ latest findings about the missing flight, police began searching the house of the aircraft’s 53-year-old captain for any evidence that he could have been involved in foul play.

Final satellite communication with the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, came more than six-and-a-half hours after it vanished from civilian radar at 1:30 am on March 8 with 239 crew and passengers aboard, Razak told a nationally televised press conference.

The movement of the plane in the interim period, during which it changed direction and passed back over the Malaysian peninsula towards the Indian Ocean, was “consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane”, said Najib.

“Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear: We are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path,” he added. Najib said his annou­ncement was based on new information from satellite contact with the plane and military radar data.