The Malaysian jet that mysteriously went missing on Saturday may have flown for four hours after it reached its last confirmed location, a report said.
US investigators said that data from the Boeing 777 showed that the plane continued to fly after it vanished off the radar during a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The discovery raised the possibility that a pilot or some rogue passenger could have turned off the jet’s transponders so it could not be detected by radar before being diverted to an unknown location, the paper said.
US counterterrorism officials said they have no specific evidence that points to a hijacking or terror-related incident, but they have not ruled it out.
One astounding scenario discussed at a recent briefing was that a person commandeered the aircraft and landed it at an ¬unknown location “with the intention of using it later for another purpose,” the Journal said.
Malaysia’s defense minister denied the Journal’s report and said it was wrong, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, suspected debris spotted by a Chinese satellite Wednesday raised the possibility that the jet had crashed and wreckage had been found in the ocean.
But early Thursday, Malaysia’s civil-aviation chief said a search of the site turned up no debris.
“There is nothing. We went there, there is nothing,” Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
Although the fate of the jet has devolved into one of the world’s great mysteries, authorities said that everything appeared to be normal on board Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 minutes before it went missing over the South China sea early Saturday.
“All right, roger that,” a pilot replied to a radio message from Malaysian air control.
The jet’s last communication was revealed by Malaysian officials at a news conference held in Beijing for relatives of the 154 Chinese citizens among the missing passengers.
The updates came as an oil-rig worker claimed he saw a jet go down off the southeast coast of Vietnam.
In an e-mail sent to his employer, the worker describes seeing what he believes to be the missing Boeing 777 burning in one piece at high altitude, flying perpendicular to the standard jet routes that cross over the area.
“I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines plane come down,” the man writes, according to an ¬e-mail obtained and tweeted by ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff.
According to Woodruff, Vietnamese officials confirmed they received the e-mail but found nothing in the water.