Saturday, March 15th, made a week since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. The search for the plane enters its 11th day and frustrations are growing because the plane has still not been found. Over the weekend, breaking leads entered the CNN newsroom that caused a new theory to enter the limelight. Last week terrorism was the leading theory as two people used stolen passports on board the plane and were suspected to have something to do with its disappearance. As of right now the search area has expanded according to investigators believe the plane might have either crashed or landed: a northern arc that stretches from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in central Asia to northern Thailand, and a southern arc that spans from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
This past weekend broadcasters and analysts were talking about the last transponder signal the plane sent and now it seems that another system that sends data about the plane, the Aircraft Communications and Addressing System was also turned off. Authorities say the last transmission from that system came early in the flight, at 1:07 a.m.They can say exactly when the system was shut down because the next transmission from 370 wasn’t due until 1:37 a.m. A person inside the cockpit, believed to be the co-pilot, made the plane’s last verbal communication with air traffic controllers at 1:19 a.m., saying, “All right, good night.” The transponder was then switched off at 1:21 a.m., and all civilian radar lost contact with the plane altogether about 1:30 a.m. Military radar last detected the plane at 2:15 a.m. off Malaysia’s west coast, hundreds of miles off course. And at 8:11 a.m., more than seven hours after takeoff, a satellite made the last electronic connection, known as a handshake, with the plane.
Also this weekend, authorities searched the homes of the pilots and found something unusual. A flight simulator was found inside the home of Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah’s home. Capt. Shah has been a pilot since the 1980’s and is an experienced pilot with thousands of hours under his belt as well as being a training pilot, why would he need a simulator in his home? Malaysian Authorities have ruled that the disappearance of the Boeing 777 is of ” deliberate action”. No wreckage has been found and there are no physical signs of the plane.