An American aviation consultant says he believes the missing Malaysia Airlines plane crashed after a complete electronics failure that made the aircraft unflyable.
Aircraft from Vietnam and other countries have searched the ocean for wreckage. Photo: AFP
No trace has been found of flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing since it disappeared an hour after taking off on Saturday with 239 people on board.
When last heard from, it was off the east coast of Malaysia, heading across the South China Sea towards Vietnam.
Kit Darby, a former Boeing 767 captain with United Airlines who runs an American aviation consultancy, says the information so far is consistent with a complete electrical failure on the plane.
Mr Darby told Radio New Zealand's Morning Report programme he believes the pilots tried to return to Malaysia but went off course in the dark. "I don't believe that they were purposely taking the airplane anywhere than to recover it," he says.
"They had about an hour's reserve of battery power and it looks like the airplane flew about that long. And then at night over the water without instruments, the airplane had become unflyable."
The international search for wreckage has been widened, as none of the debris and oil slicks spotted in the South China Sea or Malacca Strait so far have proved to be linked to the disappearance.
At least 40 ships and 34 aircraft are taking part in the search. Search teams from Australia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, New Zealand and the US are helping in the operation on both sides of the Malay Peninsula.
The Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion that's now part of the search will spend eight hours in the air on Wednesday.
Joint forces commander Kevin Short says it will be using the latest technology.
"They are fitted with sensors that are world-class - probably the most modern P3 Orion that is flying today," he says.
Interpol less inclined to suspect terrorism
The international police agency Interpol says that the more information it gets about the disappearance, the more it is inclined to conclude it was not a terrorist incident.
Secretary-general Ronald Noble is also suggesting that two men who boarded using stolen passports and had aroused suspicion may have been smuggled by traffickers, Reuters reports.
Mr Noble says two Iranian passport holders aged 18 and 29, who started their trip in Doha, had swapped their passports in Kuala Lumpur and used stolen Italian and Austrian passports to board the airliner.
Interpol says the pair have been named by Iranian authorities as Seyed Mohammed Reza Delavar, 29, and Pouria Nourmohammadi, 18.
Mr Noble says that making their names public might compel family and friends to offer tips that could allow authorities to exclude terrorism theories.
"By doing this, eventually, with more and more evidence, we'll able to exclude they were involved in conduct that might have involved the plane to disappear, and focus on eliminating the human trafficking ring that allowed them to travel."
