Missing Malaysian jet made several course changes after going off radar

Latest reports have suggested that the ill-fated Malaysian Airline Flight 370 apparently made several course corrections after getting off the civilian radar.

It is said that the radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appeared to show that the plane ascending to 45,000 feet and made a sharp turn to the right after vanishing from the radar.

According to news.com.au, the height of 45,000 feet is above the approved altitude limit for a Boeing 777-200.

The data from the military also revealed that the plane descended to 23,000 feet as it approached the Malaysian island of Penang, but then re-ascended and flew northwest over the Straits of Malacca.

Speculations are rife that the plane might have gone in one of two directions after it passed through the Straits of Malacca, either northwest, towards the Bay of Bengal and the coast of India, or southwest, out into the expanse of the Indian Ocean.

The report said that investigators were looking at all possible conclusions including act of piracy, hijack and pilot suicide.

US investigators have been looking at 'human intervention' in the plane's disappearance as contact with its transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system quit.

Malaysia's Defence Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said that the search zone continued to be in two areas, the South China Sea and the Andaman Sea, because authorities are still no clearer on where the plane disappeared, as 13 countries have joined the effort to find the ill-fated jet carrying 239 people on board.