Family of missing Malaysian plane's passenger hopes for good news

The family and friends of Chandrika Sharma, a 51-year-old woman passenger on the now-missing Malaysia Airlines plane, are hoping for positive news even as new theories crop up every day regarding the mysterious disappearance of the aircraft.

"Every day, a new theory is being proposed about the disappearance of the flight. The latest are the plane has been hijacked and it was deliberately diverted," N. Venugopal of the NGO International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), told IANS.

However, KS Narendran, husband of Chandrika Sharma, said he was waiting for clear information. "I do not want to say anything now. Let there be some clear information," he told IANS.

Heading the ICSF in Chennai, Chandrika Sharma had boarded the flight to participate in a conference in Mongolia.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Saturday that the communications system of the Malaysia Airlines jet that went missing March 8 was disabled just before it reached the east coast of peninsular Malaysia. "Based on new satellite communication, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the aircraft communications, addressing and reporting system were disabled just before the aircraft reached the east coast of peninsular Malaysia," he said at a press conference. "Shortly afterward, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft's transponder was switched off."

He said these movements "are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane". The Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 passengers and crew onboard mysteriously vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur March 8. The 227 passengers included five Indians.