CDTraveler

"Them" being Malaysia or the alleged air pirates?

lingua101

He confirmed MH370 did turn back and the transponder was deliberately turned off

Baritone73

"We can confirm" that MH370 turned west and flew over Peninsular Malaysia before turning northwest over the Andaman Sea.

AA4013

The PM is on the podium now. Nothing new is said, just thanking the numerous countries who helped invesigating and that they are "following each available lead and sometimes they lead to nowhere."

Also confirms the plane is flown away from Northern part of Malaysia. ALso said tht based on satellite communication. ACARS disabled before aircraft enters Malaysia. Aircraft transporder switch off in Malaysia/Vietnam border. Aircraft flew in peninsula Malaysia, then continue on Northwestern. Said it's consistent with actions of someone from inside the plane." He confirms that this plane is indeed the missing plane. Last sattelite communication with the plane was 8.11 am Malaysian time last Saturday.

AA4013

PM said we cannot confirm the precise location of the flight at last contact last Saturday morning. Two possible corridors: Northern corridor (towards Europe) extending from Kazakhstan/Turkmenistan to Thailand and Southern corridor (towards Australia) from Indonesia to Southern Indian Ocean.

Baritone73

Last communication between the plane and satellite was at 8:15am (!!) on Saturday Malaysia time.

Malaysia is ending their operations in the South China Sea.

AA4013

All potential possibilites are still investigated despite reports being asked. Announce ending of rescue operation in South China Sea. Also ask numerous countries for help.

RadioGirl

I'm typing as the Press conference starts so anything could happen...

Bloomberg did not say "near Perth", they said "Indian Ocean off Australia" and further detail says "about 1000 km from Perth" which is not really "near". (It is, of course, far south of every other option raised so far.)

My guess is that the mention of Australia and Perth is to help the geographically-challenged understand where the Indian Ocean is.
Australians built the Jindalee system and operate it as a national surveillance tool. So yeah, we have the software capacity to process the data it produces, since that's kinda the point of operating the system in the first place.

As the purpose of national surveillance is to find unexpected things entering your airspace, it would be counter-productive for Australia to wait for the Americans to tell us to look for something before we start "post-processing" data.

(By 'we' I mean my fellow Australians; I know several people who've worked on Jindalee but I'm not directly involved.)

That said, I don't know whether Jindalee covers the area 1000 km west of Perth (and I wouldn't say if I did.)

rhettdb2005

It seems unlikely that a 777 could be in that northern corridor without being picked up by radar, right? Or am I misunderstanding the meaning of "corridor" in this context?

zig2

So, until the end of fuel?

Letitride3c

News Yahoo.HK reported that MH airline official liaision with Chinese families waiting in Beijing (in response to request by the families on any recording of the communications & thus the disclosure) that both civilian and military ATC controllers sat in the same room/facility monitoring traffic - when MH370 was being handed off to Vietnam's ATC. Original full text

Live PC ending - wow ! (And, the sun would be up before 08:15 - so the final hour in daylight)

hansyuwiwb

PER is shorter than PEK. LHR/CDG/FRA/AMS's flight routes are mostly over land and it would have been a lot easier to trace if the plane turned away somewhere on the flight path. This is just speculation at this point.

Kiwi Flyer

0815 Malaysia time would be about when the aircraft runs out of fuel.

dsquared37

Kazakhstan to northern Thailand?!?!?! Whoa, that's a ginormous expanse.

AA4013

The "corridor" was the term the PM used, whichever it means.