Sepang (Malaysia): The missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 had changed altitudes several times after it last contacted the ground control, a report in the New York Times said.
Airlines Flight MH370 experienced significant changes in altitude after it lost contact with ground control, and altered its course more than once as if still under the command of a pilot, American officials and others familiar with the investigation said on Friday.
According to the report, radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appeared to show that the missing airliner climbed to 45,000 feet, above the approved altitude limit for a Boeing 777-200, soon after it disappeared from civilian radar and turned sharply to the west, according to a preliminary assessment by a person familiar with the data.
The radar track, which the Malaysian government has not released but says it has provided to the United States and China, showed that the plane then descended unevenly to 23,000 feet, below normal cruising levels, as it approached the densely populated island of Penang.
There, officials believe, the plane turned from a southwest bound course, climbed to a higher altitude and flew northwest over the Strait of Malacca toward the Indian Ocean. Investigators have also examined data transmitted from the plane’s Rolls Royce engines that showed it descended 40,000 feet in the span of a minute, according to a senior American official briefed on the investigation. But investigators do not believe the readings are accurate because the aircraft would most likely have taken longer to fall such a distance.
“A lot of stock cannot be put in the altitude data” sent from the engines, one official said. “A lot of this doesn’t make sense.”
The data, while incomplete and difficult to interpret, could still provide critical new clues as investigators try to determine what happened on Flight 370.
Hopes still alive for passengers
Chennai: The news that the satellite and radar data have clearly indicated the plane's automated communications had been disabled and that the plane then turned away from its intended flight path and flown on for hours, gives some ‘ray of hope’ to the families of the passengers on board the missing plane including Chennai’s Chandrika Sharma, two from Kerala and one from Maharashtra.
