Missing Boeing 777 mystery: Search moves closer to Chennai coast

The move to expand the search to the Indian Ocean came after the US' defence and aviation experts said that there was a significant probability of the plane to be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

“And we are consulting with international partners about the appropriate assets to deploy,” Carney said in Washington without specifying the nature of the new information.  

A P-8 Poseidon aircraft and a guided missile destroyer, the USS Kidd, were due to aid the international hunt for the jet, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said.  

“At Malaysia's request, the USS Kidd is north of the Strait of Malacca in what we're calling the western search area,” Warren told reporters.

USS Kidd - a guided-missile destroyer - which was initially deployed to the Gulf of Thailand is now transiting from the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean, the US Navy said.

A US official briefing on search said that the flight sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing, the Washington Post reported.  

The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Boeing 777-200 was not transmitting data to the satellite, but was instead sending out a signal to establish contact.

“If the two engines on the Boeing 777 functioned for up to four additional hours, that could strengthen concern that a rogue pilot or hijacker took control of the plane early Saturday over the Gulf of Thailand,” the paper said.  

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal said communication satellites received intermittent data “pings” from the missing jet, giving the plane's location, speed and altitude for at least five hours after it disappeared from radar screens.  

The final satellite ping was sent from over water, at what one of these people called a “normal” cruising altitude.  

Noting that it is unclear why the transmissions stopped, the daily reported that one possibility could be that the system sending them had been disabled by someone on board.