A Malaysian official said that missing Flight MH370 was “thrown around like a fighter jet” as it quickly rose and descended while trying to dodge radar after it lost contact with controllers, according to a report.
The plane — which vanished on March 8 — flew as high as 45,000 feet and plummeted to 5,000 feet, the Daily Mail reported.
Meanwhile, the hunt for the missing jet has gone quiet, signaling that the batteries in the plane’s black boxes may finally have died.
Despite having no new transmissions from the black boxes’ locator beacons to go on, air and sea crews were continuing their search in the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday for debris and any sounds that may still be emanating.
They are desperately trying to pinpoint where the Boeing 777 could be in an enormous patch of deep ocean.
No new electronic pings have been detected since Tuesday by an Australian ship dragging a US Navy device that listens for flight-recorder signals. Once officials are confident that no more sounds will be heard, a robotic submersible will be sent down to slowly scour for wreckage.
“We’re now into Day 37 of this tragedy,” aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas said. “The battery life on the beacons is supposed to last 30 days. We’re hoping it might last 40 days.”