The co-pilot of missing Flight 370 made a cellphone call shortly before the airplane vanished, a Malaysian newspaper claims.
Fariq Abdul Hamid tried to get in touch with someone as the Boeing 777 soared at a low altitude, near the island of Penang, The New Straits Times reported.
A telecommunications tower traced the cellphone signal — but the call quickly dropped, according to the paper, which cited an “investigator.”
“It was likely because the plane was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one,” the source told the paper.
Malaysian government officials shot down the report.
“If this did happen, we would have known about it earlier,” acting Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told the paper.
If true, the call would be the first proof that someone was alive while the 239-passenger Beijing-bound plane flew over the west coast of Malaysia more than a month ago.
On Saturday, officials said they’re preparing to send an unmanned, miniature submarine into the ocean on Tuesday in hopes that its sonar mapping equipment can detect a debris field.