ALL LIVES ARE LOST

Jet crashed in ocean, families told

Flight 370 passenger's relative: 'All lives are lost'

(CNN) -- Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday, citing a new analysis of satellite data by a British satellite company and accident investigators, and apparently ending hopes that anyone survived.

A relative of a missing passenger briefed by the airline in Beijing said, "They have told us all lives are lost."

The Prime Minister based his announcement on what he described as unprecedented analysis of satellite data sent by the plane by British satellite provider Inmarsat and the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch. He didn't describe the nature of the analysis.

But he said it made it clear that the plane's last position was in the middle of the remote southern Indian Ocean, "far from any possible landing sites."

He begged reporters to respect the privacy of relatives.

"For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking," he said. "I know this news must be harder still."

The Prime Minister's statement came after the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it "deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived."

Reporters could hear wailing from a briefing for relatives of missing passengers in Beijing. Some relatives were wheeled from the conference room on stretchers, and one group of relatives smashed the lens of a reporter's camera. A woman walked out of a briefing for relatives near Kuala Lumpur crying.

A Facebook page dedicated to the only American aboard the flight, Philip Wood, said of relatives that "our collective hearts are hurting now."

"Please lift all the loved ones of MH370 with your good thoughts and prayers," a post on the page said.

Sarah Bajc, Wood's partner, canceled all media interviews after the announcement.

"I need closure to be certain, but cannot keep on with public efforts against all odds," she wrote. "I still feel his presence, so perhaps it was his soul all along."

Debris spotted in Indian Ocean

The announcement came the same day as Australian officials said they had spotted two objects in the southern Indian Ocean that could be related to the flight, which has been missing since March 8 with 239 people aboard.

One object is "a grey or green circular object," and the other is "an orange rectangular object," the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.

The objects are the latest in a series of sightings, including "suspicious objects" reported earlier Monday by a Chinese military plane that was involved in search efforts in the same region, authorities said.

So far, nothing has been definitively linked to Flight 370.

Earlier, Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia's acting transportation minister, said only that "at the moment, there are new leads but nothing conclusive."

A reporter on board the Chinese plane for China's official Xinhua news agency said the search team saw "two relatively big floating objects with many white smaller ones scattered within a radius of several kilometers," the agency reported Monday.

The Chinese plane was flying at 33,000 feet on its way back to Australia's west coast when it made the sighting, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.

But a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft, one of the military's most sophisticated reconnaissance planes, that was tasked to investigate the objects was unable to find them, the authority said.

With the search in its third week, authorities have so far been unable to establish where exactly the missing plane is or why it flew off course from its planned journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

China has a particularly large stake in the search: Its citizens made up about two-thirds of the 227 passengers on the missing Boeing 777. Beijing has repeatedly called on Malaysian authorities, who are in charge of the overall search, to step up efforts to find the plane.

Malaysian and Australian authorities appeared to be more interested Monday in the two objects spotted by a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft.

The Australian's navy's HMAS Success "is on scene and is attempting to locate the objects," the Australian maritime authority said.

Hishammuddin said Australian authorities had said the objects could be retrieved "within the next few hours, or by tomorrow morning at the latest."

Get up to speed

Satellites focus search

Recent information from satellites identifying objects in the water that could be related to the plane has focused search efforts on an area roughly 1,500 miles southwest of the Australian city of Perth.

A total of 10 aircraft -- from Australia, China the United States and Japan -- were tasked with combing the search area Monday.

The aerial searches have been trained on the isolated part of ocean since last week, when Australia first announced that satellite imagery had detected possible objects that could be connected to the search.

Since then, China and France have said they also have satellite information pointing to floating debris in a similar area. The Chinese information came from images, and the French data came from satellite radar.

But Australian officials have repeatedly warned that the objects detected in satellite images may not turn out to be from the missing plane -- they could be containers that have fallen off cargo ships, for example.

On Saturday, searchers found a wooden pallet as well as strapping belts, Australian authorities said. The use of wooden pallets is common in the airline industry, but also in the shipping industry.

Hishammuddin said Monday that Flight 370 was carrying wooden pallets, but that there was so far no evidence they are related to the ones sighted in the search area.

The investigation into the passenger jet's disappearance has already produced a wealth of false leads and speculative theories. Previously, when the hunt was focused on the South China Sea near where the plane dropped off civilian radar, a number of sightings of debris proved to be unrelated to the search.

Plane said to have flown low

The sighting of the objects of interest by the Chinese plane came after a weekend during which other nuggets of information emerged about the movements of the errant jetliner on the night it vanished.

Military radar tracking shows that after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea, the plane changed altitude as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca, an official close to the investigation into the missing flight told CNN.

The plane flew as low as 12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from radar, according to the official. It had reportedly been flying at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet when contact was lost with air traffic control.

The sharp turn seemed to be intentional, the official said, because executing it would have taken the Boeing 777 two minutes -- a time period during which the pilot or co-pilot could have sent an emergency signal if there had been a fire or other emergency on board.

Authorities say the plane didn't send any emergency signals, though some analysts say it's still unclear whether the pilots tried but weren't able to communicate because of a catastrophic failure of the aircraft's systems.

The official, who is not authorized to speak to the media, told CNN that the area the plane flew in after the turn is a heavily trafficked air corridor and that flying at 12,000 feet would have kept the jet well out of the way of that traffic.

Malaysia disputes reprogramming

Also over the weekend, Malaysian authorities said the last transmission from the missing aircraft's reporting system showed it heading to Beijing -- a revelation that appears to undercut the theory that someone reprogrammed the plane's flight path before the co-pilot signed off with air traffic controllers for the last time.

That reduces, but doesn't rule out, suspicions about foul play in the cockpit.

Last week, CNN and other news organizations, citing unnamed sources, reported that authorities believed someone had reprogrammed the aircraft's flight computer before the sign-off.

CNN cited sources who believed the plane's flight computer must have been reprogrammed because it flew directly over navigational way points. A plane controlled by a human probably would not have been so precise, the sources said.

Malaysian authorities never confirmed that account, saying last week that the plane's "documented flight path" had not been altered.

On Sunday, they clarified that statement further, saying the plane's automated data reporting system included no route changes in its last burst, sent at 1:07 a.m. -- 12 minutes before the last voice communication with flight controllers.

Analysts are divided about what the latest information could mean. Some argue it's a sign that mechanical failure sent the plane suddenly off course. Others say there are still too many unknowns to eliminate any possibilities.

CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien called the fresh details about the flight a "game changer."

"Now we have no evidence the crew did anything wrong," he said. "And in fact, now, we should be operating with the primary assumption being that something bad happened to that plane shortly after they said good night."

If a crisis on board caused the plane to lose pressure, he said, pilots could have chosen to deliberately fly lower to save passengers.

"You want to get down to 10,000 feet, because that is when you don't have to worry about pressurization. You have enough air in the atmosphere naturally to keep everybody alive," he said. "So part of the procedure for a rapid decompression ... it's called a high dive, and you go as quickly as you can down that to that altitude."

Authorities have said pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah was highly experienced. On Monday, Malaysian authorities said Flight 370 was co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid's sixth flight in a Boeing 777, and the first time when he was not traveling with an instructor pilot shadowing him.

"We do not see any problem with him," said Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.

NEW LEADS EMERGE

Source: Flight 370's altitude dropped after sharp turn

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- As a growing number of airplanes scoured the southern Indian Ocean in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, authorities released new details that paint a different picture of what may have happened in the plane's cockpit.

Military radar tracking shows that the aircraft changed altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca, a source close to the investigation into the missing flight told CNN. The plane flew as low as 12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from radar, according to the source.

The sharp turn seemed to be intentional, the source said.

Earlier Sunday, Malaysian authorities said the last transmission from the missing aircraft's reporting system showed it heading to Beijing -- a revelation that appears to undercut the theory that someone reprogrammed the plane's flight path before the co-pilot signed off with air-traffic controllers for the last time.

That reduces, but doesn't rule out, suspicions about foul play in the cockpit.

The new details give more insight about what happened on the plane, but don't explain why the plane went missing or where it could be.

CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien called the fresh details about the flight a "game changer."

If a crisis on board caused the plane to lose pressure, he said, pilots could have chosen to deliberately fly lower to save passengers onboard.

Military radar tracked the flight between 1:19 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. the day it went missing, the source told CNN, but it's not clear how long it took the plane to descend to 12,000 feet.

The new details about altitude are "highly significant," said Mary Schiavo, a CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

"It explains so many pieces that didn't fit together before," she said. "Now, if we have a scenario where something happened, the plane made a dramatic turn and dropped from 35,000 feet to 12,000 feet, this scenario would fit what a pilot would do in the event of a catastrophic onboard event, such as a rapid decompression, a fire, an explosion. That's what you would have to do, descend, get down and turn around and try to get back to an airport that could accommodate an ailing plane."

If the latest information is accurate, the theory of pilots trying to save the plane fits, said Mark Weiss, a former American Airlines pilot and CNN aviation analyst.

But that's a big if, he said.

"We've had so much information come out and so much contradictory information come out, that I caution against jumping to any types of conclusions at this point," he said.

Challenging search

As speculation over what led to the flight's disappearance showed no signs of slowing, investigators appeared to be beefing up their efforts to comb the southern Indian Ocean.

Buoyed by a third set of satellite data that indicated possible debris from the plane in the water, the international team led by Australia fought bad weather as it looked for signs of the Boeing 777 and the 239 people who were aboard when the plane went missing on March 8.

The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane resumed Monday morning, with additional aircraft joining the operation, Australian authorities said. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said 10 aircraft will search for possible objects in an area about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth.

That includes two jets from China and two from Japan, which were on the way to join the search area on Monday, authorities said.

France's Foreign Ministry said Sunday that radar data from a satellite pointed to floating debris in the Indian Ocean 2,300 kilometers (1,430 miles) from Perth, Australia. The data were immediately passed along to Malaysian authorities, and French satellite resources will home in more on the area, the ministry said.

Satellite images previously issued by Australian and Chinese authorities have also captured possible large floating objects, stoking hopes searchers may find debris from the missing plane.

But so far, searchers have turned up empty-handed after more than two weeks of scouring land and sea.

On Saturday, searchers found a wooden pallet as well as strapping belts, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's John Young said. The use of wooden pallets is common in the airline industry.

"It's a possible lead ... but pallets are used in the shipping industry as well," he said Sunday. Authorities have said random debris is often found in the ocean.

The flying distance to and from the search area presents a big challenge for search aircraft.

"They're operating at the limits of their endurance," said Mike Barton, the authority's rescue coordination chief.

If search crews do turn up anything, they'll soon have more technology to help them.

The U.S. Navy is sending a super-sensitive hydrophone listening device to Australia to be on standby if debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is found and a search for the plane's voice and data recorders can be done, a U.S. military official said Sunday. The device is pulled behind a ship at slow speeds and is used by the Navy to locate downed aircraft to a depth of 20,000 feet.

Was turn reprogrammed?

Malaysian officials, in a written update Sunday on the search, cast doubt on the theory that someone, perhaps a pilot, had reprogrammed the aircraft to make an unexpected left turn during the flight.

"The last ACARS transmission, sent at 1:07 a.m., showed nothing unusual. The 1:07 a.m. transmission showed a normal routing all the way to Beijing," it read.

The Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System measures thousands of data points and sends the information via satellite to the airline, the engine manufacturer and other authorized parties, according to CNN aviation and airline correspondent Richard Quest.

Had the plane been reprogrammed to change course, the ACARS system should have reported it during its last communication at 1:07. The ACARS is supposed to report new information every 30 minutes, but it was silent at 1:37.

"It is important because it is more consistent (with an emergency). In other words, if the pilots had put in this waypoint that they were going to turn to and that they knew in advance of their last communication that they were going to turn, then everyone was (saying) that this had to be a premeditated act," Schiavo said. "Now if this information is correct, and it was not premeditated, then it does fit very closely with the scenario that, whatever happened, happened suddenly and they turned perhaps to go back to an emergency airport."

Hope, only hope

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott voiced hope that investigators could be closing in on an answer to questions that have dogged authorities for days: What happened to the plane, and where is it?

"We have now had a number of very credible leads, and there is increasing hope -- no more than hope, no more than hope -- that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft," Abbott said at a news conference.

In one of the great aviation mysteries in history, the airliner carrying 239 people disappeared March 8 after it took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on a flight to Beijing. An exhaustive search covering 2.97 million square miles -- nearly the size of the continental United States -- has yielded some clues but no evidence of where the Boeing 777 is or what happened to it.

Countries from central Asia to Australia are also engaged in the search along an arc drawn by authorities based on satellite pings received from the plane hours after it vanished.

One arc tracks the southern Indian Ocean zone that's the focus of current attention. The other arc tracks over parts of Cambodia, Laos, China and into Kazakhstan.

China has images of floating object

China has new images showing object in southern Indian Ocean

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- China announced that it has satellite images of a large object floating in the search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, but Australian-led search teams found no sign of it Saturday.

Another day of intense searches by air and sea concluded for the night with no new clues to give families answers about the fate of the passengers and crew.

The object the Chinese photographed is 22.5 meters long and 13 meters wide (74 feet by 43 feet), officials said.

China said the satellite images showing the "suspected floating object" were captured four days ago, on March 18.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the spot of the sighting was within Saturday's search area, but that the object was not found. Searchers will take the Chinese information into consideration as they design their search for Sunday, AMSA said.

The floating object was about 77 miles from where earlier satellite images spotted floating debris.

At least six search flights were involved Saturday, including two private jets.

Though the two civilian jets did not have radar, their role was crucial, authorities said.

"It is more likely that a pair of eyes are going to identify something floating in the ocean," Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said.

Indeed, during Saturday's search it was a civil aircraft that reported sighting some small objects floating with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, AMSA said. These objects were within a radius of 5 kilometers (3 miles).

A Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion was dispatched to the area, but only reported seeing clumps of seaweed, AMSA said.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard destined for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

The stated goal of the Malaysian authorities is to narrow the search area, a task that is proving difficult.

Intensified, expanded search

The search area expanded by 50% on Saturday.

"Operations continue, and today they plan to search an area of approximately 10,500 square nautical miles," Hishammuddin said Saturday.

In addition to two Chinese planes that arrived in Australia, Beijing is sending two more ships to join five already in the southern corridor.

"Two Indian aircraft, a P-8 Poseidon and a C-130 Hercules, arrived in Malaysia last night to assist with the search," he said.

Seven countries -- China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Laos, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan -- informed investigators that based on preliminary information, their nations had no radar sightings of missing jetliner.

Clues, but no proof

An exhaustive search covering 2.97 million square miles -- nearly the size of the continental United States -- has yielded some clues, but no proof of where the Boeing 777 is or what happened to it.

One of the most notable leads revolved around two large objects detected by satellite a week ago floating on waters over 1,400 miles off Australia's west coast.

"The fact that it's six days ago that this imagery was captured does mean that clearly what objects were there, are likely to have moved a significant different distance as a result of currents and winds," Truss said.

"It's also possible that they've just drifted to the bottom of the ocean bed, and the ocean in this area is between 3 and 5 kilometers deep. So it's a very, very deep part of the ocean, very remote. And all that makes it particularly difficult."

Debris is a common sight in the waters in that part of the ocean, he said, and includes containers that fall off ships.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Friday defended the decision to announce the find, saying Australia owes it to families of those missing "to give them information as soon as it's to hand."

But he didn't make any promises.

"It could just be a container that has fallen off a ship," Abbott said during a visit to Papua New Guinea. "We just don't know."

Malaysia's interim transportation minister tried to reset expectations for a quick resolution to the mystery after the satellite discovery.

"This is going to be a long haul," Hishammuddin Hussein said.

Search intensifies

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the Navy and policy experts to look at the availability and usefulness of U.S. military undersea technology to try to find the plane's wreckage and its data recorders, a U.S. military official said.

The United States, which has had a P-8 aircraft working out of Perth, Australia, and Navy ships involved in the search, has spent $2.5 million so far on the entire effort, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steven Warren said Friday.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said Friday that the U.S. space agency will mine its existing satellite data and try to capture fresh images that might aid in the search. Its satellites can detect objects as small as 30 feet (98 meters).

First lady Michelle Obama, while on a trip to Beijing, said the United States is keeping the families of the missing passengers in its thoughts.

"As my husband has said, (the) United States (is) offering as many resources as possible to assist in the search," she said.

Global search

Countries from central Asia to Australia are also engaged in the search along an arc drawn by authorities based on satellite pings received from the plane hours after it vanished. One arc tracks the southern Indian Ocean zone that's the focus of current attention.

"We intend to continue the search until we are absolutely satisfied that further searching would be futile, and that day is not in sight," the deputy prime minister said. "We will continue the effort, we'll continue to liaise with our international allies in this search."

The other tracks over parts of Cambodia, Laos, China and into Kazakhstan.

Malaysian authorities were awaiting permission from Kazakhstan's government to use the country as a staging area for the northern corridor search, Hishammuddin said.

Details emerge

Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told reporters Saturday that a transcript obtained by The Telegraph newspaper is "inaccurate," but did not provide additional details.

The Telegraph reported Friday it had a transcript documenting 54 minutes of back-and-forth between the cockpit and ground control from taxiing in Kuala Lumpur to the final message of "All right, good night."

Unexplained element

The alleged transcript reported by the Telegraph contains seemingly routine conversations about which runway to use and what altitude to fly at.

One unexplained element, according to the British newspaper, is a call, in which someone in the cockpit stated that the aircraft was at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet -- something that had been done just six minutes earlier. Twelve minutes after that comes the "good night" message, at around the time Flight 370 was being transferred to Vietnam's control.

Another wrinkle: Malaysia Airlines chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the plane was carrying a cargo of lithium-ion batteries, although he didn't specify the volume of the shipment.

Lithium-ion batteries are commonly used in laptops and cell phones, and have been known to explode, although that occurs rarely.

They were implicated in the fatal crash of a UPS cargo plane in Dubai in 2010, and lithium-ion batteries used to power components on Boeing 787s were blamed for fires in those planes.

There's no evidence the batteries played a role in the plane's disappearance, and Ahmad said they are routine cargo aboard aircraft.

"They are not declared dangerous goods" he said, adding that they were "some small batteries, not big batteries."

Malaysian authorities say they believe the missing plane was deliberately flown off course on its scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

IS THIS IT?

Objects could be Malaysia Airlines debris; weather hampers search

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- Two objects spotted by satellite in the southern Indian Ocean may be debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Australian authorities said Thursday, fueling cautious hopes of a breakthrough in an international search of unprecedented scale.

A Royal Australian Air Force search plane dispatched to the remote spot was unable to find either object amid rain, clouds and limited visibility Thursday afternoon, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said on Twitter.

Three more planes, a merchant ship and an Australian naval ship were on their way to the scene, officials said.

Authorities cautioned the objects could be something else -- shipping containers that fell off a vessel, for instance. But they said they represent the best lead so far in the search for the missing airliner, which vanished 13 days ago with 239 passengers and crew aboard.

"At least there is a credible lead," Malaysia's interim Transportation Secretary Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters. "That gives us hope. As long as there's hope, we will continue."

Australian officials first announced the news to the world in a briefing closely watched by relatives of some of the missing at the Lido hotel in Beijing. They gathered around a large-screen television to watch the Australian news conference, leaning forward in their chairs, hanging on every word. Some sighed loudly.

While Hishammuddin said efforts are intensifying around the site of the Australian discovery, he said the search will continue across the massive search zone until authorities can give the families answers.

"For the families around the world, the one piece of information that they want most is the information we just don't have: the location of MH370," he said.

The objects

Satellites captured images of the objects about 14 miles (23 kilometers) from each other and about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) southwest of Australia's west coast. The area is a remote, rarely traveled expanse of ocean far from commercial shipping lanes.

They are indistinct but of "reasonable size," with the largest about 24 meters (79 feet) across, said John Young, general manager of emergency response for the Australian maritime agency.

They appear to be "awash with water and bobbing up and down," Young said.

The objects could be from the plane, but they could be also something else -- like a shipping container -- caught in swirling currents known for creating garbage patches in the open ocean, he said.

"It is probably the best lead we have right now," Young said. "But we need to get there, find them, see them, assess them to know whether it's really meaningful or not."

The size of the objects concerned David Gallo, one of the leaders of the search for Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.

"It's a big piece of aircraft to have survived something like this," he said, adding that if it is from the aircraft, it could be part of the tail.

The tail height of a Boeing 777, the model of the missing Malaysian plane, is 60 feet.

Mary Schiavo, a CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said she believes Australian officials would not have announced the find if they weren't fairly sure of what they had discovered.

"There have been so many false leads and so many starts and changes and then backtracking in the investigation," she said. "He wouldn't have come forward and said if they weren't fairly certain."

Although the overall search area spans a huge expanse of 3 million square miles, U.S. officials have been insistent in recent days that the aircraft is likely to be found somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.

Wide search continues

Until searchers make a confirmed find of debris from the aircraft, the search and rescue operation will continue throughout the search zone, Hishammuddin said.

Even as the focus shifted to the remote southern Indian Ocean, Hishammuddin said Malaysia was sending two aircraft to search Kazakhstan in central Asia. That's one of the locations along a northern corridor described as a possible location for the aircraft based on satellite pings sent by the plane after air traffic controllers lost contact with it in the early hours of March 8.

Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and China were searching their territories, Hishammuddin said. Meanwhile, 18 ships, 29 aircraft and six helicopters were taking part in the search in the southern corridor, where search efforts were intensifying in the area around the Australian satellite find.

In addition to the Australian surveillance plane that flew over the area Thursday afternoon, three other planes were being dispatched to the region, including a New Zealand Air Force Orion and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon.

An Australian C-130 Hercules plane has been tasked by Australian authorities to drop marker buoys in the area, Young said.

"The first thing they need to do is put eyes on the debris from one of the aircraft," said aviation expert Bill Waddock. The buoys will mark the place and transmit location data.

A merchant ship helping Australian authorities in the search was also expected to arrive in the area Thursday. The Australian naval vessel HMAS Success was also steaming to the site, but was "some days away," Hishammuddin said.

The Malaysian navy has six ships with three helicopters heading to the southern Indian Ocean to take part in the search, a Malaysian government source said.

"Verification might take some time. It is very far and it will take some time to locate and verify the objects," the source said.

Angry families want answers

The lack of progress has angered and frustrated families, who have accused Malaysian officials of withholding information.

Some family members staged a protest Wednesday at the Kuala Lumpur hotel where members of the media covering the search are staying. Their efforts were cut short by security guards who removed them through a crush of reporters, dragging one as she screamed.

"I don't care what your government does," one woman shouted, referring to the Malaysians. "I just want my son back."

The agony of the wait is also felt by families in Beijing, the scheduled destination for Flight 370. They gather daily for a briefing with officials.

Ye Lun, whose brother-in-law is on the missing plane, says every day is the same. He and his group leave the hotel in the morning for a daily briefing, and that's it. They go back to the hotel to watch the news on television.

NEW DIFFICULTIES IN HUNT FOR PLANE

Search for Malaysia Airline plane widens, becomes more difficult

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- Nine days in, things have gotten a whole lot more difficult in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

"This is a significant recalibration of the search," Malaysia's acting Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Sunday. "The number of countries involved in the search and rescue operation has increased from 14 to 25, which brings new challenges of coordination and diplomacy to the search effort."

The new developments come as U.S. intelligence officials are leaning toward the theory that "those in the cockpit" -- the captain and co-pilot of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 -- were responsible for the mysterious disappearance of the commercial jetliner, a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the latest thinking told CNN.

The official emphasized no final conclusions have been drawn and all the internal intelligence discussions are based on preliminary assessments of what is known to date.

Other scenarios could still emerge. The notion of a hijacking has not been ruled out, the official said Saturday.

The Boeing 777-200 ER disappeared on March 8, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The airline's CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said Sunday the missing passenger jet took off with its normal amount of fuel needed for the route, and did not have extra fuel on board that could have extended its range.

A study of the flight's cargo manifest showed there were no dangerous materials on board that concerned investigators, he told reporters.

Investigators are still looking into the backgrounds of the passengers to see if any of them were trained pilots.

"There are still a few countries who have yet to respond to our request for a background check," said Khalid Abu Bakar, inspector general of the Royal Malaysian Police Force. "But there are a few ... foreign intelligence agencies who have cleared all the(ir) passengers."

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters on Saturday that the plane veered off course due to apparent deliberate action taken by somebody on board.

'Someone acting deliberately'

The first clue that the captain or co-pilot may have been involved stems from when the plane made a sharp, deliberate turn just after it last communicated with Kuala Lumpur air traffic controllers, and before it would have to communicate with Vietnamese controllers, according to the U.S. official with knowledge of the latest intelligence thinking.

"This is the perfect place to start to disappear," the official said.

Adding to the intrigue, ABC News reported that the dramatic left turn was preprogrammed into the plane's navigation computer. It's a task that would have required extensive piloting experience.

Two senior law enforcement officials also told ABC that new information revealed the plane performed "tactical evasion maneuvers" after it disappeared from radar. CNN was unable to confirm these reports.

Military radar showed the jetliner flew in a westerly direction back over the Malaysian peninsula, Najib said. It is then believed to have either turned northwest toward the Bay of Bengal or southwest elsewhere in the Indian Ocean, he said.

"Evidence is consistent with someone acting deliberately from inside the plane," the Prime Minister said, officially confirming the plane's disappearance was not caused by an accident. "Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, we are investigating all major possibilities on what caused MH370 to deviate."

Kazakhstan to Indian Ocean

As the focus of the investigation has shifted, so, too, has the focus of the search.

Information from international and Malaysian officials indicates that the jet may have flown for more than seven hours after the last contact with the pilots.

Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. on March 8. The last satellite communication from the plane occurred at 8:11 a.m., Najib said, well past the scheduled arrival time in Beijing. It is possible this contact could have been made from the ground, as long as the airplane still had electrical power, Malaysia's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said Sunday.

That last communication, Najib said, was in one of two possible traffic corridors shown on a map released to the press. A northern arc stretches from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, and a southern arc spans from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

"Due to the type of satellite data, we are unable to confirm the precise location of the plane when it last made contact with the satellite," Najib said.

Because the northern parts of the traffic corridor include some tightly guarded airspace over India, Pakistan, and even some U.S. installations in Afghanistan, U.S. authorities believe it more likely the aircraft crashed into waters outside of the reach of radar south of India, a U.S. official told CNN. If it had flown farther north, it's likely it would have been detected by radar.

The pilots

On Saturday, Malaysian police searched the home of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53. Shah lives in an upscale gated community in Shah Alam, outside Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The Ministry of Transport said Sunday that police were examining a flight simulator found at the pilot's house a day earlier.

Two vans were loaded with small bags, similar to shopping bags, at the home of the co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Ab Hamid, according to a CNN crew who observed activities at the residence. It was unclear whether the bags were taken from the home, and police made no comment about their activities there.

Najib made clear in a press conference that in light of the latest developments, authorities have refocused their investigation to the crew, ground staff and passengers on board.

Hussein, the transportation minister, told reporters the pilots didn't request to work together.

Peter Chong, a friend of Shah's, said he had been in the pilot's house and tried the simulator.

"It's a reflection of his love for people -- because he wants to share the joy of flying with his friends," Chong said.

He was bothered by speculation about the captain's credibility and questions about possible ties to terrorism.

"I think it is a little bit insensitive and unfair to the family," he said, adding he thought there was no evidence to suggest any ulterior motives on Shah's part.

Undoubtedly, authorities will scour through the flight manifest and look further to see whether any of the passengers on board had flight training or connections to terror groups.

According to The New York Times, one of the passengers was an aviation engineer on his way to Beijing to work for a private-jet company.

A senior U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that investigators are carefully reviewing the information so far collected on the pilots to determine whether there is something to indicate a plan or a motive.

That would seem supported by preliminary U.S. intelligence reports, which the U.S. official said show the jetliner was in some form of controlled flight at a relatively stable altitude and path when it changed

The search

Malaysia's Ministry of Transport said Sunday that both the northern and southern corridors are being treated with equal importance. Malaysian officials are working with 25 countries, many of them along the corridors. They include Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Transport said it has joined the search, but said there is no evidence the plane flew over Afghan soil.

Separately, India has "temporarily halted" its search for the missing plane while Malaysian authorities reassess the situation, according to a top military official.

"We are conserving our assets for now," Rear Adm. Sudhir Pillai, the chief of staff of India's joint Andaman and Nicobar command, said Sunday. "We are on a standby."

He said the Malaysians are reviewing India's deployment.

Meanwhile, according to Najib, new satellite information leads authorities to be fairly certain that someone disabled the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS, just before the aircraft reached the east coast of peninsular Malaysia.

ACARS is the system that routinely transmits information like turbulence and fuel load back to the airline.

"Shortly afterward, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control," Najib said, "the aircraft's transponder was switched off."

A transponder is a system controlled from the cockpit that transmits data about the plane via radio signals to air traffic controllers. It combines with ground radar to provide air traffic controllers with details about the plane, including its identification, speed, position and altitude.

The last voice communication from the cockpit more than a week ago was these words: "All right, good night."

They were uttered at the Vietnam air traffic control border at about the same time the transponder was shut off, Najib said. That suggests the incident on the plane began sooner than initially thought.

But some have questioned the Prime Minister's account, given the dearth of information available.

Malaysia investigation criticized

In the days since the flight disappeared, the Malaysian government has been under intense scrutiny for its handling of the investigation. The government has been criticized by some U.S. officials for not sharing information or accepting more offers of help.

Shortly after Najib delivered his remarks, China demanded Malaysia provide more information on the investigation. Of the 239 people aboard the plane, 154 were Chinese.

"Today is the 8th day of the missing MH370, and the plane is still yet to be found," said a statement from the Foreign Ministry. "Time is life."

The criticism was more pointed in an editorial published by China's state-run news agency Xinhua.

"And due to the absence -- or at least lack -- of timely authoritative information, massive efforts have been squandered, and numerous rumors have been spawned, repeatedly racking the nerves of the awaiting families," the editorial said.

Malaysia Airlines defended its actions, saying there has never been a case where information gleaned from satellite signals alone could potentially be used to find the location of a missing airliner.

"Given the nature of the situation and its extreme sensitivity, it was critical that the raw satellite signals were verified and analyzed by the relevant authorities so that their significance could be properly understood," the airline said in a statement. "This naturally took some time, during which we were unable to publicly confirm their existence."

Families at boiling point

For the families and loved ones of those aboard Flight 370, tensions boiled over Sunday in Beijing at the daily briefing by Malaysia Airlines.

Nine days after the plane went missing, patience is running thin with officials.

Before a packed room, one man told them that the families have already lost faith.

"A liar can lie once, twice or three times, but what's the point (to) keep lying?" he said. "What we ask for is the truth. Don't hide things from us."

A majority of the people in the room stood up when the man asked how many had lost trust in the airline and the Malaysian government.

Another man rushed the front of the room and tried to throw a punch, but was stopped.

The airline has been picking up the tab for families of the 154 Chinese passengers to stay in Beijing during the ordeal.

China is sending technical experts to join the investigation, and two Chinese search vessels headed for the Strait of Malacca, according to Xinhua.

People are across the world have shown their support for those involved.

During his weekly Sunday message following prayers at the Vatican, Pope Francis asked the crowd to pray for the crew members and passengers of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane and their families. "We are close to them in this difficult moment," Pope Francis said.

Chinese satellite images may show plane debris

Satellite looking into missing Malaysia flight detects 'suspected crash area'

3 floating objects appear in images

CNN) -- A Chinese satellite looking into the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 "observed a suspected crash area at sea," a Chinese government agency said -- a potentially pivotal lead into what has been a frustrating search for the Boeing 777.

China's State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense announced the discovery, including images of what it said were "three suspected floating objects and their sizes." The objects aren't small at 13 by 18 meters (43 by 59 feet), 14 by 19 meters and 24 by 22 meters.

The images were captured on March 9 -- which was the day after the plane went missing -- but weren't released until Wednesday.

The Chinese agency gave coordinates of 105.63 east longitude, 6.7 north latitude, which would put it in waters northeast of where it took off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and south of Vietnam.

This isn't the first time authorities have announced they were looking at objects or oil slicks that might be tied to aircraft. Still, it is the latest and comes on the same day that officials, rather than narrowing the search area, more than doubled it from the day earlier to nearly 27,000 square nautical miles (35,000 square miles).

Earlier Wednesday, officials announced they had once again expanded the search area. It now covers nearly 27,000 square nautical miles, more than double the size of the area being searched just a day before.

Such a dramatic expansion at this stage of the investigation is troubling, said CNN aviation expert Richard Quest.

"At this stage in the investigation and search and rescue, I would have expected to see by now a much more defined understanding of what the route was, where the plane was headed and a narrowing of the search consequent upon that," he said on CNN's "New Day."

Indeed, the lack of a clear direction prompted Vietnam to say that it's pulling back on its search efforts until Malaysian authorities come up with better information on where to look for the plane.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished early Saturday with 239 people on board during a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

Phan Quy Tieu, Vietnam's vice minister of transportation, said the information Malaysian officials provided was "insufficient."

"Up until now we only had one meeting with a Malaysian military attache," he said.

For now, Vietnamese teams will stop searching the sea south of Ca Mau province, the southern tip of Vietnam, and shift the focus to areas east of Ca Mau, said Doan Luu, the director of international affairs at the Vietnamese Civil Aviation Authority.

At a news conference Wednesday, Malaysian transportation minister Hishamuddin Bin Hussein defended his government's approach.

"We have been very consistent in the search," he said.

Confusion over flight path

But even figuring out where authorities believe the plane may have gone down has been a difficult and shifting proposition.

In the immediate aftermath of the plane's disappearance, search and rescue efforts were focused on the Gulf of Thailand, along the expected flight path between Malaysia and Vietnam.

Over the weekend, authorities suddenly expanded their search to the other side of the Malay Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca, where search efforts now seem to be concentrated.

That location is hundreds of miles off the plane's expected flight path.

An explanation appeared to come Tuesday when a senior Malaysian Air Force official told CNN that the Air Force had tracked the plane to a spot near the small island of Palau Perak off Malaysia's west coast in the Straits of Malacca.

The plane's identifying transponder had stopped sending signals, too, said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Malaysia's civilian administration appeared to dispute the report, however.

The New York Times quoted a spokesman for the Malaysian prime minister's office as saying Tuesday that military officials had told him there was no evidence the plane had flown back over the Malay Peninsula to the Straits of Malacca.

The Prime Minister's office didn't immediately return calls from CNN seeking comment.

Then, in another shift, Malaysian authorities said at a news conference Wednesday that radar records reviewed in the wake of the plane's disappearance reveal an unidentified aircraft traveling across the Malay Peninsula and some 200 miles into the Straits of Malacca.

However, it wasn't clear whether that radar signal represented Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Gen. Rodzali Daud, head of the Malaysian Air Force, said at the news conference.

Rodzali said that officials are still "examining and analyzing all possibilities" when it comes to the plane's flight path.

Malaysian officials are asking experts from the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority and National Transportation Safety Board to help them analyze the radar data.

The FAA said Wednesday that it "stands ready to provide any necessary additional support."

The agency has already sent two technical experts and another official to Kuala Lumpur as part of a NTSB investigative team.

No trace

The search zones includes huge swaths of ocean on each side of the Malay Peninsula, as well as land.

Forty-two ships and 39 planes from 12 countries have been searching the sea between the northeast coast of Malaysia and southwest Vietnam, the area where the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers.

But they are also looking off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, in the Straits of Malacca, and north into the Andaman Sea.

So far, searchers have found no trace of the plane.

What happened leading to the plane's disappearance also remains a mystery. Leading theories include hijacking, an explosion or a catastrophic mechanical failure.

Suggestions that the plane had veered off course and that its identifying transponder was not working raise obvious concerns about a hijacking, analysts tell CNN. But a catastrophic power failure or other problem could also explain the anomalies, analysts say.

In a sign authorities are looking at all options, Kuala Lumpur police told CNN they are searching the home of the airliner's Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

They were also questioning a man who hosted two Iranians who boarded the flight on stolen passports, the man -- Mohammad Mallaei -- told CNN on Wednesday.

Authorities have previously said they do not believe the men had any connection to terror groups.

Families' frustration

As the vexing search drags on, frustration has grown among friends and family of those who were on board.

"Time is passing by. The priority should be to search for the living," a middle-aged man shouted before breaking into sobs during a meeting with airline officials in Beijing on Tuesday. His son, he said, was one of the passengers aboard the plane.

Other people at the meeting also voiced their frustration at the lack of information.

Most of those on the flight were Chinese, and the Chinese government has urged Malaysia to speed up the pace of its investigation.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Wednesday appealed for patience.

"The families involved have to understand that this is something unexpected," Najib said. "The families must understand more efforts have been made with all our capabilities."

Mystery passengers ID'd

Interpol 'inclined to conclude' Malaysia Airlines disappearance not terror

(CNN) -- The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 does not appear to be related to terrorism, the head of the international police organization Interpol said Tuesday.

"The more information we get, the more we're inclined to conclude that it was not a terrorist incident" Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said at a news conference in Lyon, France.

Among the evidence pointing in that direction, he said: news from Malaysian authorities that one of two people said to be traveling on stolen passports, an Iranian, was trying to travel to his mother in Germany.

Further, there's no evidence to suggest either was connected to any terrorist organizations, according to Malaysian investigators.

The two passengers in question entered Malaysia using valid Iranian passports, Noble said at a news conference. But they used stolen Austrian and Italian passports to board the missing Malaysian plane, he said.

Noble gave their names and ages as Pouria Nour Mohammadi, 18, and Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza, 29.

Malaysian police had earlier identified Mohammadi, using a slightly different name and age, and said they believed he was trying to migrate to Germany.

Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar of the Royal Malaysian Police said it doesn't appear the younger Iranian posed a threat.

"We have been checking his background. We have also checked him with other police organizations of his profile, and we believe that he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group," Khalid said.

After he failed to arrive in Frankfurt, the final destination of his ticket, his mother contacted authorities, Khalid said. According to ticketing records, the ticket to Frankfurt was booked under the stolen Austrian passport.

The bigger piece of the puzzle

The identification of one of the men helps peel away a thin layer of the mystery surrounding the passenger jet, which disappeared about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

But in the bigger puzzle of the missing plane's whereabouts, there were no reports of progress Tuesday.

Every lead that has raised hopes of tracing the commercial jet and the 239 people on board has so far petered out.

"Time is passing by," a middle-aged man shouted at an airline agent in Beijing on Tuesday. His son, he said, was one of the passengers aboard the plane.

Most of those on the flight were Chinese. And for their family members, the wait has been agonizing.

There were also three U.S. citizens on the plane, including Philip Wood.

"As of yet, we know as much as everyone else," Wood's brother, Tom, told CNN's "AC360" Monday. "It seems to be getting more bizarre, the twists in the story, where they can't find anything. So we're just relying on faith."

The challenge facing those involved in the huge, multinational search is daunting; the area of sea they are combing is vast.

And they still don't know if they're looking in the right place.

"As we enter into Day 4, the aircraft is yet to be found," Malaysia Airlines said in a statement released Tuesday.

Four scenarios

Days, weeks or even months

Over the past few days, search teams have been scouring tens of thousands of square miles of sea around the area where the plane was last detected, between the northeast coast of Malaysia and southwest Vietnam.

They have also been searching off the west coast of the Malaysian Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca, and north into the Andaman Sea. The airline said Tuesday that authorities are still investigating the possibility that the plane tried to turn back toward Kuala Lumpur.

The search also encompasses the land in between the two areas of sea.

But it could be days, weeks or even months before the searchers find anything that begins to explain what happened to the plane, which disappeared early Saturday en route to Beijing.

In the case of Air France Flight 447, which disappeared over the Atlantic in 2009, it took five days just to find the first floating wreckage.

And it was nearly two years before investigators found the bulk of the French plane's wreckage, and the majority of the bodies of the 228 people on board, about 12,000 feet below the surface of the ocean.

The Gulf of Thailand, the area where the missing Malaysian plane was last detected, is much shallower, with a maximum depth of only 260 feet and an average depth of about 150 feet.

"If the aircraft is in the water, it should make recovery easier than the long and expensive effort to bring up key parts of the Air France plane," Bill Palmer, an Airbus A330 captain for a major airline, wrote in an opinion article for CNN.

But if Flight 370 went down farther west, it could have ended up in the much deeper waters of the Andaman Sea.

Looking for a needle in a haystack

No possibilities ruled out

Aviation officials say they haven't ruled out any possibilities in the investigation so far. It's hard for them to reach any conclusions until they find the plane, along with its voice and data recorders.

Malaysian police, who are tasked with looking at whether any criminal cause was at play, are focusing on four particular areas, Khalid said Tuesday: hijacking, sabotage, psychological problems of the passengers and crew, and personal problems among the passengers and crew.

He said police were going through the profiles of all the passengers and crew members.

Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told CNN's Jim Clancy that those involved in the search for the plane are determined to carry on.

"We just have to be more resolved and pay more attention to every single detail," he said Tuesday. "It must be there somewhere. We have to find it."

'Crucial time' passing

But if the plane fell into the sea, the more time that goes by, the harder the task becomes as ocean currents move things around.

"Crucial time is passing," David Gallo, with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Monday. "That search area -- that haystack -- is getting bigger and bigger and bigger."

Gallo described what will happen once some debris from the aircraft is found, though he stressed there's still no evidence the plane hit the water.

"Once a piece of the debris is found -- if it did impact on the water -- then you've got to backtrack that debris to try to find the 'X marks the spot' on where the plane actually hit the water, because that would be the center of the haystack.

"And in that haystack you're trying to find bits of that needle -- in fact, in the case of the flight data recorders, you're looking for a tiny little bit of that needle," he said.

Technology put to use

Countries involved in the search have deployed sophisticated technology to help try to track down the plane.

China has adjusted the commands for as many as 10 satellites in orbit so that they can assist with weather monitoring, communications and other aspects of the search, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.

And the United States has put a range of naval technology to use in the search.

That includes a Navy P-3C Orion aircraft, which can cover about 1,000 to 1,500 square miles every hour, according to the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

The Orion, which is focused on the area off the west coast of Malaysia, has sensors that allow the crew to clearly detect small debris in the water, the fleet said.

CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest described the search as "extremely painstaking work," suggesting a grid would have been drawn over the ocean for teams to comb bit by bit.

Quest said that the expanding search area shows how little idea rescue officials have of where the plane might be. But he's still confident they'll find it eventually.

"It's not hopeless by any means. They will find it.," he said. "They have to. They have to know what happened."

IS THIS OIL FROM MISSING PLANE?

Oil Slick Is Sign Malaysia Airlines Jet Crashed Into Sea

HONG KONG — A 12-mile-long streak of oil across the surface waters of the Gulf of Thailand was an early clue to the mysterious disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 aboard that vanished in predawn darkness Saturday morning during a flight from Kuala Lumpur that was supposed to end in Beijing.

A distraught woman at the Kuala Lumpur airport waits for news about the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. Credit Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

But as the sun set over the gulf and the adjacent South China Sea on Saturday, the disappearance of the plane was a reminder that even the most modern planes can suddenly and disconcertingly disappear with few traces. In 2009, an Air France Airbus 330 slipped off radar screens into the deep waters of the Atlantic off Brazil, another case in which the wreckage proved difficult to find.

As of Saturday evening, the Malaysian plane, a Boeing 777-200 on Flight MH370, had not yet been confirmed to have crashed, though the limits of its fuel tanks mean that it came down somewhere instead of reaching Beijing at dawn on Saturday. The Gulf of Thailand, if that is where the plane ended up, has one advantage for rescuers in that it is a shallow arm of the South China Sea, with no comparison to the inky depths of the Atlantic.

Relatives of passengers aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight grieve at Beijing International Airport. Credit Ng Han

Guan/Associated Press

Malaysia’s deputy minister of transport, Aziz bin Kaprawi, said the authorities had not received any distress signals from the aircraft.

In a development that raised fears of foul play, foreign ministry officials in Vienna and Rome confirmed that the names of two citizens, an Italian and an Austrian, listed on the manifest of the missing flight matched the names on two passports reported stolen in Asia, news reports said.

The Italian man, Luigi Maraldi, told the Italian news media that he was currently in Bangkok, and was not the Luigi Maraldi listed on the plane’s manifest. An Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman would not identify the Austrian.

“We are not ruling out anything,” the chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, told reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Saturday night. “As far as we are concerned right now, it’s just a report.”

A senior American intelligence official said law enforcement and intelligence agencies were investigating the matter. But so far, they had no leads.

“At this time, we have not identified this as an act of terrorism,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing inquiry. “While the stolen passports are interesting, they don’t necessarily say to us that this was a terrorism act.”

Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reported that the Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang, held an urgent telephone call with his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, telling him, “The urgent task now is to quickly clarify the situation, and use a range of means to enhance the intensity of search and rescue.”

Malaysia Airlines said the plane had 227 passengers aboard, including two infants, and an all-Malaysian crew of 12. The passengers included 154 citizens from China or Taiwan, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three Americans, as well as two citizens each from Canada, New Zealand and Ukraine and one each from Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia.

The arrival board at Beijing Airport listed the Malaysia Airlines flight that lost contact with air traffic controllers on Saturday. Credit Mark Ralston/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Malaysia, the United States and Vietnam dispatched ships and aircraft to the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand on Saturday to join an intensive search. China said it had sent a vessel to the area at top speed that would arrive there on Sunday afternoon.

Lai Xuan Thanh, the director of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, said a Vietnamese Navy AN26 aircraft had discovered the oil slick toward the Vietnam side of the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand.

Fredrik Lindahl, the chief executive of Flightradar24, an online aircraft tracking service, said the missing plane had been equipped with a transponder that regularly transmitted its position via GPS satellites. The last recorded position of Flight MH370 was 93 miles northeast of Kuala Terengganu, a port on the northeast coast of Peninsular Malaysia, he wrote in an email.

Mr. Ahmad of Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that there had been speculation that the plane landed safely somewhere along the route to Beijing, and said the airline was investigating. But in a telephone interview before reporting the sighting of the slick, Mr. Lai expressed concern about the aircraft’s fate.

“The possibility of an accident is high,” he said.

Relatives of those on the missing flight who were waiting at Beijing Capital International Airport were taken to a hotel and kept waiting in a room for hours, prompting complaints. One woman said no one from Malaysia Airlines had come to the room to talk to relatives.

Liu Meng, 26, who works for a communications company, said he had been waiting for his boss to arrive from Malaysia since 6 a.m. “I was able to contact him up until yesterday afternoon,” Mr. Liu said. “After that, nothing.”

Expecting the worst: Families await news of missing Malaysian airliner

(CNN) -- Nobody knows exactly what happened to a Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared Saturday, but families of the 239 people on board are waiting and expecting the worst.

Air traffic controllers lost track of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 not long after it left Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, on its way to Beijing. More than half the passengers were Chinese nationals.

"We have no idea where this aircraft is right now," Malaysia Airlines Vice President of Operations Control Fuad Sharuji said on CNN's "AC360."

There's even confusion about where the plane might have gone down.

Vietnamese and Chinese state media, both citing Vietnam's military, reported the plane crashed off the southern coast of Vietnam.

But the reports are incorrect, said Malaysia's acting transport minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. "The CA (Civil Aviation Authority) says that is not true, and our foreign office says it is not true," he said.

Later, China's state-run CCTV reported that Vietnam's National Search and Rescue Center said the missing plane might have crashed at the overlapping waters between Malaysia and Vietnam.

A Vietnamese aircraft flying over those waters spotted "rubbish" and a liquid floating on the ocean's surface, a search and rescue official told CNN. It is too early to know whether the finding is related to the missing airliner.

China, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia are conducting search and rescue operations south of Tho Chu island in the South China Sea, reported Xinhua, China's official news agency. Ships, helicopters and airplanes are being utilized.

Officials appeared resigned to the accepting the worst outcome.

"I'd just like to say our thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved families," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said during a news conference.

Grief, especially in China

Relatives of the 154 Chinese nationals on board gathered Saturday at a hotel complex in the Lido district of Beijing as a large crowd of reporters gathered outside.

"My son was only 40 years old," one woman wailed as she was led inside. "My son, my son. What am I going to do?"

Family members were kept in a hotel conference room, where media outlets had no access. Most of the family members have so far refused to talk to reporters.

The Boeing 777-200 departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 12:41 a.m. and was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m., a 2,300-mile (3,700 kilometer) trip. It never arrived.

The plane carried 227 passengers, including five children under five years old, and 12 crew members, the airline said. Air traffic control in Subang, in Malaysia, had last contact with the plane.

At the time of its disappearance, the Malaysia Airlines plane was carrying about 7.5 hours of fuel, an airline official said.

The passengers are of 14 nationalities, the airline said.

Among the passengers there were 154 people from China or Taiwan; 38 Malaysians, and three U.S. citizens.

The airline's website said the flight was piloted by a veteran.

Cap. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a 53-year-old Malaysian, has 18,365 total flying hours and joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981, the website said. The first officer is Fariq Ab.Hamid, 27, a Malaysian with a total of 2,763 flying hours. He joined Malaysia Airlines in 2007.

Aviation experts weren't optimistic.

Pessimistic assessment

"It doesn't sound very good," retired American Airlines Capt. Jim Tilmon told CNN's "AC360." He noted that the route is mostly overland, which means that there would be plenty of antennae, radar and radios to contact the plane.

"I've been trying to come up with every scenario that I could just to explain this away, but I haven't been very successful."

He said the plane is "about as sophisticated as any commercial airplane could possibly be," with an excellent safety record.

"The lack of communications suggests to me that something most unfortunate has happened," said Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, in an interview with CNN International.

"But that, of course, does not mean that there are not many persons that need to be rescued and secured. There's still a very urgent need to find that plane and to render aid," she said.

An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 carrying 291 passengers struck a seawall at San Francisco International Airport in July 2013, killing three people and wounding dozens more. It's unknown if mechanical failure was involved.

Search under way

Several nations launched search and rescue efforts.

The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) has deployed one aircraft and three ships in a search-and-rescue operation following the disappearance of the plane. The Malaysian government says its navy is cooperating with the Vietnamese navy.

China's Xinhua news agency says the Chinese Coast Guard is sending orders to its on-duty vessels nearby to set out to the water where the plane incident likely occurred.

Malaysia Airlines said it was working with the authorities who have activated their search and rescue team to locate the aircraft. The airline said the public can call +603 7884 1234 for further information.

Malaysia Airlines

Malaysia Airlines operates in Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and on the route between Europe and Australasia.

It has 15 of the Boeing 777-200 planes in its fleet, CNN's Richard Quest reported.

Part of the company is in the private sector, but the government owns most of it.

Malayan Airways Limited began flying in 1937 as an air service between Penang and Singapore. A decade later, it began flying commercially as the national airline.

In 1963, when Malaysia was formed, the airline was renamed Malaysian Airlines Limited.

Within 20 years, it had grown from a single aircraft operator into a company with 2,400 employees and a fleet operator.

If this aircraft has crashed with a total loss, it would the deadliest aviation incident since November 2001 when an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens, shortly after takeoff from JFK Airport. Killed were 265 people, including five people on the ground.

Via:CNN